i’m presenting a paper at the creating value: between commerce and commons at the end of this month before taking off to greece. here’s my abstract:

The activity of play, according to Huizinga, ‘proceeds with its own boundaries of time and space’ (ibid p.13). This creates what is commonly known as the magic circle, which, as with any combination of time and space, takes account of other such combinations, or realities, germane to the player’s current context. With the rapid advancement of media and communication technologies in contemporary society, such layering of realities transpires more quickly, evidently, and variously than ever before. Today, the notion of playground appears to resonate closely with mediaspace, ‘a dialectical concept encompassing both the kinds of spaces created by media and the effects that existing spatial arrangements have on media forms as they materialise in everyday life’ (Couldry & McCarthy, 2004, p.2). Therefore, any play activity needs to be perceived as a multifarious phenomenon, and thus requires considerations to techno-social contexts of the player and of the time and space in which the activity takes place. Here, new media technologies function as toys with and through which the inter-relations between micro- and macro-realities are constantly (re)constructed.

This paper presents a unique case of Seoul: one of the most connected, densely populated, and quickly transforming metropolises in the world. More specifically, the paper looks at the realisation of and desire for play of Seoul residents who are neither children nor adults, but are socially placed in between these two realms, and the role new media technologies play as a coordinator in this process: everyday play culture of trans-youths in Seoul and new media technologies as toys.

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international toy research association world congress: toys and culture
wed 25 - fri 27 july 2008
university of the peloponnes
nafplion, greece
http://toyresearch.org/conference_call_for_papers_2008.php
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it’s been one of the busiest times of my life, so blogging has been a desired but difficult thing to do.

quick updates:

1) our conference China | East Asia | Media | New Media went well, with very positive feedback from different participants. we’re currently in the process of changing the website to better reflect our research rather than the conference. i’ve already received quite a few emails regarding the papers and recordings of them; they will eventually be published/available online, so please bear with us. it shall be done.

2) i’m at harvard university at the moment for oxford internet institute summer doctoral programme (w/ berkman center @ harvard). been enjoying it very much. great people - both students and teachers - beautiful surroundings, and endless exchanging of ideas.

3) i will be away till november. i’m going to nyc then to europe for a month, followed by two months of research fieldwork in seoul. if you’re in any of these areas and want to catch up, please let me know :)

anyway, should get back to reading. henry jenkins and a trip to the MIT media lab tomorrow.

Australia’s economy has never been stronger. Despite this, and our Government’s commitment to work with other rich nations to halve global poverty by 2015, Australia’s foreign aid continues to fall short of what is required to meet this target.

Lifting our foreign aid to 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2010 and 0.7% of GNI by 2015 could lead to significant improvements for our neighbours in South-East Asia, including around 60,000 additional children receiving a basic education; 40,000 fewer child deaths each
year; and around 11 million people having access to safe drinking water.

With an election only months away, this makes now the time to ask our leaders to Face Up To Poverty including the delivery of more and better aid. Images are powerful, so encourage the Government to Face Up to Poverty by adding your face to the campaign.
– email excerpt from Oxfam

Please do participate if you can here (http://www.makepovertyhistory.com.au/faceup/addyourface.htm).

congratulations to (soon to be) dr. jean burgess.

“I’m ok at VT” on the Internet social network Facebook has become an online bulletin board for Virginia Tech university students to post their whereabouts and condition after the campus shooting that killed 32 people.Some 236 groups related to Virginia Tech have been set up on Facebook, a sign that Internet social networks are beginning to replace e-mail and cell phones as the preferred method for spreading information quickly among younger generations.

original story here

i’ve been really busy recently so haven’t been able to write much other those with imminent deadlines. i started writing a new post last night but when i got back to continue, i was met with an update about the virginia tech tragedy - that the shooter was a korean-american.

as a korean. i just don’t know what to say. of course i really hope that this doesn’t lead to increased racism, nationalism, or any more uncessary diplomatic conflicts. but for some unexplanable reason i feel more sorry not only as a fellow human being who can think and feel the extent of this catastrophe, but as a korean. i have so much to say but nothing to say at the same time.

and i also read this story:

A car bomb near a central Baghdad market killed 82 people Wednesday, a defence ministry official said, bringing to at least 127 the death toll from a spate of bombings in the capital.

original story here

life right now feels simply tragic.

no sense of comedy. at least for now.

what can i do?

what can we do?

i’m not so ok atm.

great marcus recommended today that i should try to publish in this journal.

yep.

journal of happiness studies by springer.
i simply must have something published in there.
i cannot not.