How to be an online explorer
In this blog series I unpack an approach to digital methodologies using How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith as my map.
These ideas are an accumulation of things that I have learnt from various online accounts, books, workshops, experiments, artists, leaders, teachers, friends and nay sayers over the past 10 years of doing digital research. These ideas are my digital ethnography, biography, phenomenography, hagiography; hermeneutics, theraputics, illustratives, annotatives; analytical, whimsical, statistical geopolitical explorations.
So how do you become an explorer of the online world? For starters, lurking helps. Watching and looking, not just at what people broadcast but the ways they broadcast. What ground are they standing on? What ground are they stepping in to? What ground are you standing in? What ground are you watching? Tread lightly.
Consider everything to be alive. Every word, gif, link, text, white space, link, picture, profile, link, identity, humanity, coporality, link, history, geolocality, link, scream, cry, shout, smile, link, thumb, dance, song, time, link, like, share, link is alive.
Next, everything is interesting if you look closely enough. Link.
Be prepared to change course.
Read widely. Let other people’s words, TED Talks, stories, vlogs, theories, hot takes, books, movies, binges, posts be your rudder. Be prepared to change course.
Observe for a long time.
Notice the stories people share. Notice the stories people share offline about being online. Notice how the stories are told.
Notice patterns. Make connections. Create patterns. Break connections. Scribble. Mark. Plan. Discard. Start again. Notice patterns.
Trace things back to where they came from. There are links you could follow for a thousand years.
Document what you see. Blog, write notes, stick them on a book, on your screen, in a spreadsheet, on your forehead. Etch them in the sand. Cut them up and glue them in backwards. Annotate.
There is no answer, only questions.
Observe movement in and out. Who is always around? Who has an opinion? Who won’t be moved? Who speaks to you in secret?
Talk to your electronic world. Enter into a dialogue. Feel how it feels. Pull back. Fuck off and think about it in absentia. Return. Start again. Breath and leave. Always be looking.
Use all your senses.
This is my digital method. I’m supposed to write a journal article but wrote a blog instead.
We shall not cease from exploration
And in the end of all our exploring
We will arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
TS Eliot
