Part 1
Spend the first full seven minutes of the exam playing Guru Meditation. Really play it for seven minutes. (Mute the sound, or use headphones.)
For the next thirty minutes, write (using your iPad) a 300- to 500-word essay about your experience using the Guru Meditation app, making explicit connections with two specific readings we have discussed so far in this class (but NOT Barthes' "From Work to Text" or Baudrillard's "Science Fiction & Simulacra").
Part 2
In the remaining time, choose any other single iPad app -- anything from the most basic factory installed app to the most obscure niche app that you have put on your iPad -- and write about this app EITHER in terms of Barthes's distinction between 'work' and 'text', OR in terms of Baudrillard's delineation of the three orders of simulacra. Make an argument about how this app fits into either Barthes's or Baudrillard's critical framework. Use evidence from either essay, and work through direct quotations as you make your argument.
At the end of class, post your exam essays to the class blog. We will grade your essays on their neatness, imagination, and precision.
