Señor DJ Lamb: Vancouver Virtuoso of Vermin

Image Credit: D'Arcy Norman

Image Credit: D’Arcy Norman

As Scott, Brian, D’Arcy and I headed out of Logan on Friday afternoon we were bantering in the soccer mom minivan when D’Arcy, in his usual wry way, said, “Does anyone else have a rat problem?” We all busted out laughing simultaneously, and it was at that moment that the genius of Brian Lamb’s keynote at the 2007 Open Ed conference shot me like an invisible bullet.

“Does anyone else have a rat problem?”…brilliant! This statement came about mid-way in Brian’s keynote presentation and it is appropriate that I start a post about this epic presentation in medias res. Why the hell was he talking about his “rat problem” during a keynote about open education? Well, it certainly has much to do with impeccable timing and showmanship (not to mention balls of steel) and Brian himself would be the first one to shrug it off as his “song and dance.” However, anyone who was there (and/or anyone who has ever seen a compelling performance) knows that what made this moment so amazing was that it was the means through which Brian disarmed his audience by asking them a question that I now see worked on a number of different levels. The literal “rat problem” which immediately has everyone thinking to themselves “Nope, not me” (vermin in your life, how disgusting embarrassing, etc.).

rats

But, at least for me, the figure of the rat is something far greater in this presentation–he spent four slides on rats and garbage–and I started thinking about why this crazy interlude to talk about his on-going spam problems with the UBC wiki, the current garbage strike in Vancouver, the 2010 Winter Olympics, as well as the rat problem in his garage that is born of this aforementioned strike which reflects on the political collusion that fuels an Olympics. A tirade which calmly transitions into a slide that takes us away from the uncomfortable digression about literal, metaphoric, and political rodents and returns us to questions about institutions letting go of managing expensive, proprietary, and outdated technology. The move between these conceits represents the rabid, unacknowledged population of possibility, like the hated rats, who live within the interstices of larger, complex systems as adept scavengers who not only survive, but prosper and multiply as a result of other people’s wasteful practices. Scavengers of the web who take resources from a wide range of services and cobble and steward them into the most powerful, affordable, and open learning resource known to man or vermin: the internets.

There’s no question I might be spinning this rodent thing far from Brian’s original intentions (sue me!), but it was the slide below (which followed the previous four about Vancouver vermin) that started me thinking about all of this…

Let go

What do small rats loosely joined think about the ordering of ideas here? Is it just a coincidence? I tend to think not, for every detail of this presentation was so precisely crafted, despite what Brian might have you think. Does it make any sense for a community of rats to try and survive and propagate within a system that actively tries to poison them? How do we explain their unbelievable resilience? Do we have a lot to learn from rats? Can we let go of our disgust for the rabble and vermin that constitute some part of any complex network, and exist within a logic that can balance these seemingly antithetical and incommensurate realities? The figure of the rat as Brian framed it in this presentation is at the heart of these questions for he is subtly re-valuing vermin and re-framing for us the reality we all live in, yet pretend not to be a part of. A sharp political statement as much as an outright challenge to consider the ways in which we sanitize the spaces in which the messiest of work must be done: teaching and learning.

As you can tell by now I have gone far afield from Brian’s presentation and given you just an impressionistic sense and hair-brained interpretation of the mad genius that weaved an unbelievable story around the ways that things coming part might not necessarily be understood in terms of loss. The ability for Brian to simultaneously challenge and embrace ideas may be facilely discounted as contradictory or incongruous. But, in fact, it is this faculty that made this talk so deeply inspiring, it wasn’t only unbelievably gripping as performance, it was also deeply evocative as a means to elegantly problematize while affectionately living within some of the basic tenets supporting the infra-structural ideas of educational technology. Brian’s final slide sums it up even more eloquently…

Fitzgerald Quote

I’m not sure I have done the keynote presentation nor Brian any justice in the ramblings above, but I do know for sure that I will never look at rats in the same way again, especially rats from Vancouver. Bravo!

Some scavenged refuse from the talk:

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7 Responses to Señor DJ Lamb: Vancouver Virtuoso of Vermin

  1. Brian says:

    Ha ha! Here’s the kicker. The UBC wikis are spam free… even as I spoke I had wonderful colleagues working their butts off.

    Leave it to you to make an on-stage breakdown seem a brilliant rhetorical strategy. You’ve single-handedly turned me around. I was disappointed with my performance (my recollection makes me wince at a few points), but I never dismiss the judgments of Reverend Jim, so I’m brainwashing myself feel good about this. And make no mistake, I was so very happy you were there.

    And leave it to as perceptive a critic as you to see it — it was all about the rats.

  2. Brian, that was absolutely brilliant. The keynote was a series of moments that pushed us all to think about what was going on. Those that were up to the challenge left the keynote mesmerized by your artistry. And that was (I think) the vast majority of the people who were lucky enough to be there.

    The “rats” segue was brilliant for a couple of reasons. Metaphorically, it used vermin to represent the darker sides of social software. From a presentation-pacing perspective, it was a good pause, allowing folks to catch their breaths while still being bathed in bombastic brilliance. Even a breather is a deep-seated primal scream in a Brian Lamb keynote.

    And your opening live mashup/mix was an immersive, forceful and direct demonstration of the power of open content, remix culture, media literacy, and just why Disco Sucksâ„¢! Everyone I talked with enthusiastically said they wanted that to go on longer, but not at the expense of the presentation. Next year, brace for a 2-hour slot. Or, perhaps a DJ Wiki dance fest on opening night…

  3. Scott Leslie says:

    What, you mean the presentation wasn’t about rats? I thought all that talk about educational technology was just code for different ways to talk about vermin! And here I was, trying to get WebCT installed in my back yard to try and deal with this honking rat out by the compost bin. Sheesh!

  4. jimgroom says:

    @Scott,

    You obviously weren’t listening! If you would just install WordPress in your backyard you troubles will be gone 🙂

  5. Pingback: Despite all my rage… at bavatuesdays

  6. Pingback: 益学会 > OLDaily 中文版 » Blog Archive » 2007å¹´10月3æ—¥

  7. Pingback: Expanded education symposium: who is Brian Lamb? | UOC UNESCO Chair in e-Learning Blog

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