I am walking with a colleague from the University. James is a Lecturer in Digital Education, and I have learned a lot from him about the relationship between the physical and digital classroom. When I told him about this project, he was interested in visiting a place that might seem to be separated from the technologies, networks and media that are so present in our everyday lives, but that would actually turn out to be entangled with digital experiences in multiple ways. I am looking forward to an encounter with the digital bog.
As we walk, we cannot avoid the elephant in the Moss. Our university is undergoing a period of instability and a close colleague of mine is fighting for her job this week. Our union has called strike action next week and we are all worried about which departments and courses will be closed, and which of us will be made redundant. James and I are active researchers and are kept very busy with full teaching loads, and so we hope that makes us more secure in our jobs, but nobody can be completely relaxed at the moment. We allow ourselves to talk about this for a while, before we turn to the Moss.
Both of us are enjoying a day off work today (although we note that this walk is part of a research project and the fact that we are doing it on a day of leave says something about the way academics tend to blur the boundaries between work and leisure). James has travelled to Lenzie by train, and this is his first visit. A walk round the Moss will be good for both of us – an opportunity to take a break from the marking and the teaching and the stress of industrial action. It has been raining heavily overnight but now the sun shines low through the bare branches, causing the waterlogged woodland to shimmer as the light is dispersed by the trees. This place invites us to slow down, breathe in and be present.
We discuss the assemblages of digital objects that facilitate and determine our encounter with the site. I replaced my phone this week and I am constantly testing the camera; it is much better than my old one and it captures moments of our walk in 48 megapixels (four times the resolution than the old camera). Our phones are always in our pockets, close to hand and ready to search for information. And the organisation of this walk – the email exchanges, the checking of timetables and booking of tickets – took place online. More than that, the way we think about places, the cultural references we bring to our interpretation of the site, the things we think about and care about, are all shaped by digital media. There is a word for this interconnected, intermedial world that we now live in: postdigital. James and I are working on a co-edited book together that will explore the relationship between postdigital thinking, education, and journeys.
As a lecturer in digital education, James does a lot of his teaching online, so his students are always on computers as they learn. In the physical classroom, students usually have laptops open and often use their phones during lectures and discussions. James suggests that attempts to create tech-free learning spaces could actually have the unintended effect of making our phones and computers have an even bigger impact on our learning, as their absence makes them powerful distractions. He says that we often have a ‘matter-of-fact’ approach to digital technologies, as they are now an established part of how we experience and understand the world.
Despite embracing all these digital elements, James nevertheless tells me that he resisted the urge to read up about Lenzie Moss prior to his visit. He knows very little and I therefore offer a bit of context. I tell him about the history of peat extraction at the site: the Royal Charter of 1226 that allowed monks to remove peat; the Kirkintilloch burgesses, or Peat Lords, who increased the scale of the operation; the industrialisation of the site and the commercial peatworks that continued until the 1960s.
James is very interested in the human exploitation (and later, protection) of the Moss. He tells me that he loves places like this, but that they really come to life for him through these details. It is significant that he hears all this directly from me, as we walk around the site, but then I reflect that I first learnt of this history through online research, and have studied the site on Google Maps to see where the peat industry has left its mark. My own understanding of Lenzie Moss is certainly emerging through an entanglement of physical and digital information and experiences. And I am sharing this blog online. Many of the people I have walked with – Steve, Alison, Andy and others – got in touch because they had heard about the project on social media.
As we talk about these digital connections, a woman and her dog walk towards us, following the boardwalk in the other direction. I recognise them. I have, in fact, been looking out for them. I am a member of the Lenziechat Facebook group and have been enjoying the many beautiful photographs of Lenzie and Kirkintilloch that are regularly posted there. I am pleased to meet one of the site’s top contributors! I tell her about my project, and she seems up for joining me for a walk one day. She tells us about her macular degeneration, and we talk about our cameras. Cameras are a way of extending her vision, reaching things that she otherwise couldn’t see. This is an important part of the postdigital conversation. For some, digital tools are enabling – they allow access and facilitate inclusion.
For the final stage of our walk, we head off the main path and make our way across the bog and into the woods. James is intrigued by my earlier mention of the ruined peat processing plant, and we seek it out. We also visit the concrete base near by – the one that Ali and I explored as a potential stage for a performance. James is drawn to a brick, half buried in the mud. We can’t quite make out the writing – something like Seamill (a west coast town that I have often visited) but we search online and can’t find any evidence of a brickworks there. Another brick, exposed at the top of the foundations is much clearer: Rosehall. This was a brickworks connected to the colliery in Coatbridge, so it has not travelled far.
During this walk, I have learnt new things, met new people, shared my knowledge, and enjoyed some quality time with a colleague. All of these things took place on the physical site of Lenzie Moss. We scraped mud of the bricks, saw the light shifting in the trees, inhaled the fresh air. But they have also been made possible through digital platforms, devices and networks. The entanglement of the physical and digital has been revealed today, just as we hoped that it would be. This has been a valuable opportunity to take a postdigital learning journey together. If that’s not work, then I don’t know what is. And we are doing it on our day off. Let’s hope that university recognises this commitment to our research and lets us carry on doing it.
