April 24, 2005
Reading Class:
an Online Game/Blog that Explores Class in America
"Class became foregrounded in my experience as I crossed class boundaries (becoming the first in my family to attend college, etc.) and I noticed that class is mainly an economic condition, but not bounded by that aspect alone. Sexual orientation, race, ideology, region, and taste culture also cut across class strata and skew easy class reading. Taste culture is a matrix of aesthetics, lifestyle choices, mannerisms, and cultural values that reinforce the economic foundations of class. Class represents a kind of cultural diversity that is seldom celebrated or seriously discussed, especially in America, but it is nonetheless important to understand. Taste culture is a powerful yet unidentified force in our daily lives.
ReadingClass is what Joseph Beuys called "social sculpture"- engagement with the intangible elements that shape our lives. ReadingClass uses social software to explore the social question of class. Specifically, ReadingClass is a multimedia game built inside an Internet blog...
[image/google not with above]