iPad | MUSEUM FATIGUE

Apptivity™ Seat for iPad® for TouchToddlers™ and iChildren®

December 10, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Remember the round fleshy people stuffed into chairs with sippy cups and video screens hovering just inches from their faces in Pixar’s 2008 film Wall-E? I had always assumed they were intended as critical commentary on an over-mediated consumer society, not as an actual product concept. Evidently the designers over at Fisher-Price either didn’t see the film, or didn’t get the satire. There is no other explanation for the creation of The Newborn-to-Toddler Apptivity™ Seat for iPad® device—the unholy merging of a child […]

Categories: Bodies, Childhood, Consumption, End of Times, iPad • Tags: Aldous Huxley, Apptivity™ Seat, Betas, Brain Plasticity, Brave New World, Fisher-Price, iPad, iPotty, Science Fiction, Wall-E

“Public Walking iPads” as Portable Distinction

November 2, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

The other day while in the check-in line at the Beijing airport a middle aged man in smart business casual dress, with a modest rollaboard suitcase just also happened to be plugged into his iPad watching a Hollywood blockbuster. The bustle of the airport, the crowded checkin line, the juggling of luggage in one hand and the precarious balancing of an expensive, unprotected 4th generation 3G iPad in the other, made me cringe. A single unexpected bump or slip and […]

Categories: China, Consumption, Gear, iPad, Objects of Power • Tags: capital, conspicuous consumption, distinction, iPad, iPads, Pierre Bourdieu, Social Class

An Apple is an Apple, Except When It’s a Sign of Satan

November 12, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

As an anthropology professor who regularly teaches classes dealing with material culture and issues of representation, every semester we discuss the ways that humans ascribe meanings to objects—reading them in the terms of the preexisting cultural categories they bring with them. In the context of museums Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (2000) describes these groups as “interpretive communities.” I like this phrase because it foregrounds the fact that interpretation is never entirely individual—but is informed by sociocultural context. It also emphasizes that there is never […]

Categories: Discipline, Everyday Things, iPad, Mythologies • Tags: Apple Computer, Fundamentalism, Religion, satan, technology

iPad Apps For the Digital Professor

May 23, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

Since getting my first iPad on the day it was released two years ago, I have enjoyed the challenge of experimenting with it in new ways—seeing how I can use it effectively in my daily work and professional life. This has involved trying lots of apps and removing lots of apps to see which ones stick around to become useful. It has also meant experimenting with the iPad in class or to document class work. Along the way I have […]

Categories: How To, iPad, Teaching • Tags: fieldwork, iPad, productivity, teaching, technology

Editing a Homework Film on iMovie for the iPad

March 12, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

This past week in the anthropology senior seminar we looked at narrative documentaries in anthropology and discussed issues of dramatization and aesthetics in John Marshall’s classic, The Hunters, and Robert Gardner’s Dead Birds. Both films were shot without sync sound equipment and feature both the heavy editorial hand of the filmmaker and a strong narrative voice (“Voice of God”) telling the story. In class we spent some time discussing the aspects of social life that cameras are good at capturing—things like movement, color, […]

Categories: How To, iPad, Teaching, Visual Anthropology Class • Tags: Anthropology, imovie, iPad, senior seminar, teaching, The Hunters, visual anthropology

“Visual Notes” with iPhoto for the iPad

March 10, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

Just days after posting a long description of teaching film with the iPad that discussed streaming ethnographic film, taking visual “notes”, and presenting them during class discussions, Apple announced iPhoto for the iPad. I purchased the application the evening it was released and immediately I realized it would improve upon the way I organize and present my “visual notes” during class discussions. As I described in my earlier post, it is really easy to use the iPad to make screen captures of […]

Categories: How To, iPad, Teaching • Tags: classroom experience, film, iPad, iphoto, teaching, teaching film, visual anthropology

Teaching Film: Streaming Films and Taking “Visual Notes” on the iPad

February 29, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

Since the day my first iPad arrived nearly two years ago, I have enjoyed experimenting with it in my research and teaching. From the beginning I was impressed with the possibility that a single device could replace my lecture notes, deliver my Keynote presentations in class, store movie clips, file journal articles, keep ebooks, record field notes and just be fun. Initially I had planned to blog about my experiences, sharing things that I learned. I started out strong with […]

Categories: How To, iPad, Teaching, Visual Anthropology Class • Tags: classroom experience, film, iPad, teaching, visual anthropology