Category: Admin

• More than words

  For when I need to show rather than tell, I set up a thing.

• Binnsy’s web

  

  I’m exploring options for shifting this website off WordPress. There are a few different reasons for this. The general thoughts and attitudes of the vainglorious leader of this platform have certainly factored into my thinking here. But if I’m being honest, I think it’s more about wanting to move one tiny part of my online life away from a corporatised, platformed internet.

  WordPress has been much more than just a CMS for me and my websites; I’ve hosted with them, bought domains through them, and deployed WP.org as a CMS on some old independently hosted sites. But the more I read about platforms and the future of a heavily algorithmic internet, the less I want my blog/website to be a part of that.

  Anyway, I’ve taken the first step in terms of securing another domain and host. I’m still figuring out the best way to migrate, but I’m in no great rush.

  I’m treating this as a learning opportunity too; to get back into some very basic and fun HTML, or to at least run a lightweight but well-designed little site. I would like my online home to be a bit more transparent to me, in terms of how it’s structured, where it’s hosted, what the backend looks like. This is key, I think, to being a part of a more open, less gate-kept internet. I also want to own my words; enough said.

• Reorientation; tides; houses and rivers; databases and archives; a new moment to sit and think

  

  It’s a real back to the future moment, this. Where I’ve headed off for a year or two on a journey of personal inspiration, seeking new knowledges, grand new themes, new looks, new designs, new vibes, only to come crawling back to the place where it all started. It’s all very Joseph Campbell.

  My very first proper blog ran on a website called Blog-City, and for some insane reason I remember that my first post was on the 15th of July, 2003. This followed many years of experimenting with all sorts of web hosting and design services (all completely free) including GeoCities and Angelfire. I had websites for myself, for my made-up career, for imagined airlines and businesses and all sorts, not to mention links outwards to rudimentary social media services and websites like Neopets. The internet was simpler then; maybe it will be simple again some day, but probably not.

  Once I started working properly on my career, I tried to separate out all the different parts of my life into different web presences. There was social media, of course, and since 2007 I’ve had Facebook, Twitter, and the rest (most of them are private or deactivated now, apart from Mastodon, which I’m enjoying playing around with). I had separate sites for my filmmaking, for my work and profile as an academic, for my photography stuff, as well as a blog archive just kind of floating around. When I registered danielbinns[dot]net back in 2014, I thought ‘right, time to link everything up’, but I never quite got there in a way I liked. Everything was still floating, still nebulous.

  Part of this was the technology, maybe, but primarily it was due to my trying to force things to fit in a particular way. This is personal and psychological as much as it has anything to do with a particular host or platform.

  Several things have happened in the last few years to make me reconsider all of the above. The pandemic was a player, for sure, but it also took me reading stuff and watching videos and learning about different ways of managing my time, my notes and knowledge, my skills and expertise, and just figuring out who on earth I was and accepting that person.

  Long story short, we’re back here on WordPress, under a new domain, The Clockwork Penguin. TCP isn’t a business, necessarily; for now, I still like making stuff under the Deluded Penguin moniker. TCP is more of an ethos, a place to play and experiment, to reflect. To look back over some notes and some things I’ve been thinking about; to post fragments, or more developed work, works in progress, or just some cool links I found. I don’t know if it’s a cozy place or a mysterious place; if it’s a house sitting next to a river, or a garden where I can plant things and watch them grow. But I look forward to finding out.

• New things

  A big couple of months, hence the lack of updates. I’ve taken up a new position as Lecturer in Media at RMIT University. Yes, RMIT in Melbourne. I’m now, once more, a Victorian. The move has been tough, but it’s great to be back down here surrounded by family and friends and much decent coffee.

  The new job is shaping up well, and is sucking most of my hours, particularly in terms of catching up on research. I’m still in the process of editing the PhD for publication, and will have finished another two publications by the time I start teaching proper in early March.

  Things bode well, and I’ll keep this updated as often as possible, particularly with notes on research, more war films, games, and so on.

• New site launched

  In the hopes of keeping things a bit more contained, and drawing in my various websites, presences and so on, I’ve set up this site. For those of you who haven’t encountered me before, I’m Dan, and I’m a writer, producer, and researcher from Sydney. My primary research focus is film studies, and I’m interested in the links between cinema and other media, particularly video games and literature. I’ve published on cinematic representations of D-Day and the changing nature of film narrative.

  This site will be populated with a CV, publications list, filmography, and more, over the coming weeks.