Category Archives: past-projects

a listing of some projects I’ve been a part of in the last several years:

Skye’s Bennington Thesis

Note: This is an HTML adaptation of the version of the thesis from 2001. Some of the ideas are a bit out of date. The original is avalible as a PDF (137 pages, 9.8mb).

Information transmission in social groups:
communication, networks, and interaction

________________________

Skye Bender de-Moll
May 2001

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

Questions and comments are welcome.

Abstract:

I argue that for information transmission to occur there must be communicative contact between individuals. The patterns of contact then provide a set of outer limits for the extent of information spread. But an examination of a formalized communication process shows that the degree of information or knowledge transmitted may be related to the degree to which the communicants share similar bases of meanings and interpretive schemata. An individual’s cultural properties can be described as a set of schemata, frames, heuristics, historical meanings, and behaviors. Acts of communication among individuals lead to increasing similarity along these cultural dimensions, which may change the likelihood of future interactions, and the effectiveness of existing communicative relations. These longer time scale modifications of social structure often feed back into the process, causing systems to behave in a complex and possibly counter-intuitive manner. Ideally, the analysis of the formal properties and behaviors of such systems might shed some light on some of the observed trends and biases in human communication and the processes involved in the formation of social groups. Analyses of a study of self-report name recognition and communication networks among the incoming class at Bennington College are presented, and some implications discussed.

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A Proto-Blog

Back in the dark ages before CMS, I tried to move the notes from a thesis project into an online form. It didn’t work very well, but I think some of the texts and comments are still interesting.

This site is an experiment. I’m starting research for a thesis on the Transmission of Information in Social Networks and the Environment. I’m hoping that this website will become an integral part of the research by providing a location for discussion, commentary and criticism. Ideally it will augment the verbal discussions I have with people by creating a written record of discussion and the drafting of ideas.

screen shot of skye's proto-blog

Video Tracking Project

Trails in Newman CourtIn May 1999, I took architecture/sculpture course titled “Idiosyncratic Apparatus” (Sue Reese and Donald Sherifkin). I was interested in visualizing the paths traced out by individuals as they moved through spaces. I wanted to make the architectural concept of the “program of circulation” concrete and measurable. I was also curious what might be revealed about the social psychology of individual interaction if there was a methodology for precisely recording the positions and velocities of individuals in relation to each-other and the environment they were moving through.
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