Electronic Rituals, Oracles and Fortune Telling / Spring 2018 Schedule
With a few exceptions, all readings should be accessible via the hyperlinks provided, as long as you are using a computer connected to the NYU network. Alternate methods of obtaining the readings will be discussed in class.
Students will be assigned to topical connection presentation slots separately. I’ll provide this schedule by e-mail.
Turn in meditations and projects here.
Session 01: Introduction
Date: 2018-01-25.
- Introduction and syllabus
- Divination: Concepts and directions
Reading assigned
To be discussed in session 02.
Questions to guide your reading: What is a “third place” and what does it have to do with ritual? Do you agree with the idea that “if people take something as real, it is real in its consequences”? Is the idea of “plabor” applicable outside the realm of digital games? Do you agree with Altglas’ characterizations of spiritual bricolage and exoticism? Can you think of examples that Altglas doesn’t mention? What “rituals” do you perform with your electronic devices? (Or would you categorize the behaviors that Alexander describes as “ritual” in the first place?)
- Burroughs, Benjamin. “Facebook and FarmVille: A Digital Ritual Analysis of Social Gaming.” Games and Culture, vol. 9, no. 3, May 2014, pp. 151–66. SAGE Journals, doi:10.1177/1555412014535663.
- Altglas, Véronique. “Introduction.” From Yoga to Kabbalah: Religious Exoticism and the Logics of Bricolage. : Oxford University Press, 2014-06-02. Oxford Scholarship Online. 2014-06-19. Date Accessed 8 Mar. 2017 http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199997626.001.0001/acprof-9780199997626-chapter-1.
- Alexander, Leigh. “Why We Still Practice Superstitious Rituals With Our Technology.” Motherboard, https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/why-we-still-practice-superstitious-rituals-with-our-technology. Accessed 5 May 2017.
Optional:
- Wallendorf, Melanie, and Eric J. Arnould. “‘We Gather Together’: Consumption Rituals of Thanksgiving Day.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 18, no. 1, 1991, pp. 13–31. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489481.
Session 02: Ritual and society
Date: 2018-02-01.
- Reading discussion
- Ritual and spirituality. Slides here.
Meditation #1 assigned
Due at the beginning of session 03.
Imagine an “electronic” ritual and prototype the necessary systems to perform the ritual. Then perform the ritual and document the process. (This can be a ritual that you perform on your own, or you can involve other people.) Your imagined scenario can be speculative (e.g., a science fiction), critical, mystical, oriented toward self-care, etc. What effect does your ritual have in the world? On its participants?
Session 03: Cleromancy
Date: 2018-02-08.
- Meditation workshop
- Topical connections presentations
- Introduction to cleromancy. Slides here.
Reading assigned
To be discussed in session 04.
- Tedlock, Barbara. “Divination as a Way of Knowing: Embodiment, Visualisation, Narrative, and Interpretation.” Folklore, vol. 112, no. 2, 2001, pp. 189–97. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1260832.
- Semetsky, Inna. “Tarot and Projective Hypothesis.” Re-Symbolization of the Self: Human Development and Tarot Hermeneutic, SensePublishers, 2011, pp. 73–83, doi:10.1007/978-94-6091-421-8_7.
- Semetsky, Inna. “Stories Lives Tell.” Re-Symbolization of the Self: Human Development and Tarot Hermeneutic, SensePublishers, 2011, pp. 85–144, doi:10.1007/978-94-6091-421-8_8. (NOTE: You only need to read the first two or three case studies in this chapter.)
- Greer, Mary. “Origins of Cartomancy (Playing Card Divination).” Mary K. Greer’s Tarot Blog, 1 Apr. 2008, https://marykgreer.com/2008/04/01/origins-of-divination-with-playing-cards/.
Session 04: Fortune telling as collaborative storytelling
Date: 2018-02-15.
- Reading discussion
- Topical connections presentations
- Tarot as storytelling
- In-class exercise: Tarot reading. Notes: Tarot as collaborative storytelling.
Meditation #2 assigned
Due at the beginning of session 05.
Invent your own “oracle deck.” Your deck doesn’t have to be a physical object (though it can be). Keeping in mind the formal characteristics of cleromancy discussed in class, consider how digital media can complicate/diminish/augment the parts and processes of a reading. (Some questions to get you started: Who gets to participate? Can a computer program be a “reader”? A “querent”? What can a “card” be? What can a “deck” be?)
A few examples:
Resources:
- A.E. Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (includes links to high-quality scans, though note potential copyright issues)
- Tarot interpretations in JSON format
Session 05: Prophecy and prediction
Date: 2018-02-22.
- Meditation workshop
- Topical connections presentations
- Omens, augury, phrenology, predictions, interpretations
- In-class exercise: Random birth chart
Reading assigned
To be discussed in session 06.
- A contrastive analysis of astrology and horoscopes (ch. 4, pp.97-124) from Aphek, Edna, and Yishai Tobin. Semiotics of Fortune-Telling. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1990. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=802012.
- Agüera y Arcas, Blaise, et al. “Physiognomy’s New Clothes.” Blaise Aguera y Arcas, 7 May 2017, https://medium.com/@blaisea/physiognomys-new-clothes-f2d4b59fdd6a.
- Hamilton, M. M. “Incorporation of Astrology-Based Personality Information into Long-Term Self-Concept.” Journal of Social Behavior and Personality; Corte Madera, CA, vol. 10, no. 3, Jan. 1995, pp. 707–718. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1292307540/citation/384DA1573D824A42PQ/1.
Optional:
- Carlson, Shawn. “A Double-Blind Test of Astrology.” Nature, vol. 318, no. 6045, Dec. 1985, pp. 419–25. CrossRef, doi:10.1038/318419a0.
- Yip, Paul S. F., et al. “The Influence of the Chinese Zodiac on Fertility in Hong Kong SAR.” Social Science & Medicine, vol. 55, no. 10, Nov. 2002, pp. 1803–12. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(01)00312-4.
- O’Neil, Cathy. “How Algorithms Rule Our Working Lives.” The Guardian, 1 Sept. 2016. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/01/how-algorithms-rule-our-working-lives.
Session 06: Astrology and dream interpretation
Date: 2018-03-01.
- Reading discussion
- Topical connections presentations
- Astrology and dream interpretation
- Dream interpretation deck from class
Meditation #3 assigned
Due at the beginning of session 07.
Invent an “-omancy,” or a form of divination/prophecy based on observing and interpreting natural events. Your reading of “natural” should make some reference to digital/electronic/computational media. (What counts as a “natural event” on the Internet? What’s the electronic equivalent of phrenology, from both a physical computing perspective and a data analysis perspective? Does it count as “interpretation” if it’s being performed by a computer program?) I’m especially interested in responses that take the form of purposefully inaccurate data analysis.
A few examples:
- A rough “personality test” for you to riff off of
- Darius Kazemi on @SortingBot
- David Bowen’s Cloud Tweets
- Nina Katchadourian’s Talking Popcorn
Resources:
- Tea-cup reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves (includes helpful lists of tasseography interpretations)
- Gustav Hindman Miller’s Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted in handy HTML format (perfect for scraping)
- A list of personality traits from Corpora Project
- Conceptnet
- For inspiration: Wikipedia’s list of divination techniques
Session 07: Mediums and messages
Date: 2018-03-08.
- Meditation workshop
- Topical connections presentations
- Telesthesia (clairvoyance, spirit boards, automatic writing)
- Telesthesia deck from class
Reading assigned
- Chapter 2 and chapter 3 from Wooffitt, Robin. The Language of Mediums and Psychics: The Social Organization of Everyday Miracles. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006.
- Romano, Aja. “How Ouija Boards Work. (Hint: It’s Not Ghosts.).” Vox, 29 Oct. 2016, https://www.vox.com/2016/10/29/13301590/how-ouija-boards-work-debunked-ideomotor-effect
- Newton, Casey. “When Her Best Friend Died, She Used Artificial Intelligence to Keep Talking to Him.” TheVerge.Com, 6 Oct. 2016, http://www.theverge.com/a/luka-artificial-intelligence-memorial-roman-mazurenko-bot.
Optional:
- Hartman, Charles O. “The Sinclair ZX-81.” Virtual Muse: Experiments in Computer Poetry, Wesleyan University Press, 1996, pp. 28–37.
- Chapter 4 and chapter 5 from Wooffitt
Session 08: Automatic writing
Date: 2018-03-22.
- Reading discussion
- Topical connections presentations
- In-class exercise and code examples
- Automatic writing deck from class
Meditation #4 assigned
Choose one of the following options:
- Make a prototype of an electronic spirit board or other method for facilitating automatic writing (communication from unconscious/subconscious/collective gesture.) (You can use procedural methods like those discussed in class, or invent your own method.) Questions to consider: How does your spirit board produce “coherence” (if, in fact, it does produce coherence)? Who is participating?
- Create a psychic “experiment” with your interpretation of an electronic equivalent of Zener Cards. Document your methodology and your results. (What is it possible to be “psychic” about in a digital context?)
Resources:
- A simple Markov chain “chat” bot in p5.js (More on Markov chain text generation, more on RiTa.js)
- Example: Using Tracery in p5.js (my Tracery tutorial)
- Museum of Talking Boards
- Conducting an experiment
Session 09: The aesthetics of randomness
Date: 2018-03-29.
- Meditation workshop
- Topical connections presentations
- Introductory notes on randomness (in class)
Code examples and resources:
- A p5.js implementation of 10 PRINT
- Interactive version of the hot hand/small numbers “streak” experiment
Readings assigned
- Montfort, Nick, et al. “Randomness.” 10 PRINT CHR $(205.5+ RND (1));: GOTO 10, MIT Press, 2012, pp. 120–46. (Note: You only need to read the indicated pages, i.e., the chapter called “Randomness”)
- Gilovich, Thomas, et al. “The Hot Hand in Basketball: On the Misperception of Random Sequences.” Cognitive Psychology, vol. 17, no. 3, 1985, pp. 295–314.
- Greenwood, Veronique. “The Shape of Ancient Dice Suggests Shifting Beliefs in Fate and Chance.” The Atlantic, Feb. 2018. The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/dice-dice-baby/553742/.
Optional:
- Miller, Joshua Benjamin, and Adam Sanjurjo. Surprised by the Gambler’s and Hot Hand Fallacies? A Truth in the Law of Small Numbers. SSRN Scholarly Paper, ID 2627354, Social Science Research Network, 15 Nov. 2016. papers.ssrn.com, https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2627354.
- Bar-Hillel, Maya, and Willem A. Wagenaar. “The Perception of Randomness.” Advances in Applied Mathematics, vol. 12, no. 4, 1991, pp. 428–454.
- Malone, Mike. “TIFU by Using Math.Random().” Betable Engineering, 19 Nov. 2015, https://medium.com/@betable/tifu-by-using-math-random-f1c308c4fd9d.
Session 10: Computer-generated randomness
Date: 2018-04-05.
- Reading discussion
- Topical connections presentations
- Final project proposals
- In-class exercise
Meditation #5 assigned
Due at the beginning of session 11. This assignment has two parts.
First, produce your own implementation of digital randomness, without using any
pre-existing implementation (e.g., you can’t use the random()
or noise()
functions in p5.js). Consider mathematical solutions and physical solutions.
Aim for a generator that produces randomness with a uniform distribution.
Second, incorporate an alternative random number generator into one of your existing projects. You can either use the generator you implemented for step one or a generator that produces random numbers with a distribution other than uniform. Be curious and creative!
Resources:
- Duplicate this sketch and implement your own random number generator.
- Allison’s examples from class:
- Demonstration of normal distribution
- Middle square method, n=4
- Middle square method, n=6
- Linear feedback shift register (good explanation here)
- Logistic map (explanation, or watch this wonderful Numberphile video)
- xorshift
- Interpolated (a very, very simplified implementation of Perlin noise)
- Randomness with an entropy source
- Interactive version of the hot hand/small numbers “streak” experiment
- A Million Random Digits
- Jeff Thompson’s White Noise Boutique
- An example of ritual “randomness” in Tarot simulations
Session 11: Hexes, spells, amulets and talismans
Date: 2018-04-12.
- Meditation workshop
- Topical connections presentations
- Final project check-in
- Amulets and talismans
- Deck from class
Session 12: Collaborative work day
Date: 2018-04-13. (Originally scheduled for 2018-04-19.)
- In-class discussion and user-testing
- Other topics TK
Session 13: Final projects
Date: 2018-04-26.
- Final projects, day 1
Session 14: Final projects
Date: 2018-05-03.
- Final projects, day 2