Take a Hike RIAA

I guess we could follow Harvard University in telling the RIAA to "Take a Hike."

Do Fonts Matter?

The New York Times has a good article on John McCain's use of Optima as his campaign font.

Just because you asked...

My gif sucks!

A Message for Stephen

Sorry my computer hates this website so it won't download it. so Happy birthday! YEAH!

Santa says: "Keep your nose clean, Stephen."

Wow

Five months from lab prototype to major product release. Just...wow.

1) “You cannot discuss multi-relationships on a single plane, in a single form. That’s why poets of our time have broken all the planes and sequences, forming a cubist prose…Logical or connected discourse is highly visual and has very little to do with human reasoning….when I sit down to moving on several planes, I deliberately move into multi-level prose. This is an art form” (Hot and Cold 293-4) 53-4

2) Of the five rhetorical categories, only pronunciation is immediately related to sensorial elements. Consequently, McLuhan’s conception and analysis of pronunciation are critically founded on a taxonomy and hierarchization of the senses” (12-3)

If you have 20 minutes to kill and aren't easily offended...

Watch this:

http://www.allabout-sp.net/?p=season12/1206


I couldn't help but think of class when I saw it.

Hayles Question

If Hayles’ model of textual interpretation becomes the standard, how does this unmask Bolter’s and Grusin’s Remediation as a fiction? If we can’t just say that a text is words and punctuation, but rather the entire range of physical properties and experiences of the text, how might we usefully talk about things like genre and fiction vs. nonfiction?

Hayles proposes that the transformation of a print document to an electronic text is a form of translation (98). Like other forms of translation, Hayles argues that something is gained and lost from a translation. This varies drastically from Bolter’s and Grusin’s idea of remediation which sees each “translation” as Hayles puts it as one step closer to the ideal, erasing the medium and making the unreal real. Bolter and Grusin seem to be arguing a similar point to the point Walter Benjamin made in his essay, “The Task of the Translator” which Hayles discusses beginning on page 112. Benjamin refers to the Tower of Babel and a point when “media would cease to matter, for language would have escaped from historical specificity, cultural perspective, and material instantiation to become the pure and perfect Word, impervious to the operations of reference and signification” (114). Hayles does not see this as an accurate description of how language really works and how it is instantiated and performed in media (114). Instead, she believes that “the resources of print are different than the resources of electronic textuality, and that each medium interacts with and influences the others” (115). In some ways, each medium’s interaction and influence on others sounds like remediation. However, Hayles notes that the materiality of a text will always be up for interpretation and debate so the differences between readers’ beliefs about medium makes remediation a fiction.

As far as genre goes, it must be decided what conventions genre entails. These conventions seem to vary even for print sources. Some genres like rhetorical analyses are characterized by the information contained in them while other genres like letters are characterized by appearance and layout but not so much in content (in general…specific types of letters like application letters, thank you letters, etc. do have content characteristics). Blogs by there vary nature will be categorized as an online genre while other media like books and newspapers have print and online components. As Hayles notes, these “translations” into electronic media result in losses and gains. For example, newspapers in some ways lose their mobility (although greater access to the internet is disproving this loss) and ability to share sections around the table etc. However, online versions are less cumbersome and in some ways easier to read and handle, they also have more features like comment forums which may influence peoples’ experiences with the news, but do not greatly change the actual content of the articles. I think in order to usefully talk about genre, we need to reconceptualize what genre is not just in terms of content but also form.

My Media Matrix

Going off of the media matrix that I created in class a few weeks ago, I would say that media (if defined as a technology) is an integral part of my life. When creating my matrix, I remember being unsure what exactly what I was supposed to do and what my branches would look like. However, after getting started (and looking around at what everyone else was doing) it was hard to stop making branches. Once I started seeing things like my planner (which is not digital) as a medium, I realized that McLuhan's famous phrase "the medium is the message" could be applied to much more than songs on the radio and commercials on TV. Since then, I have been more conscious of the technologies in my life that make things easier for me as being a type of media. (For example, I now see my car as a medium...)
This way of looking at things has also made me think about how these diverse types of media shape my life. Like Jennie mentioned in her blog post, sometimes I feel like my email account rules my life; I will have to go out of my way to turn off my computer and not check my email for an evening (but only for an evening...my OCD won't let me not check it for longer than that). Now that I have a laptop (that weighs under 15 pounds), the physical act of carrying around the center of everything I do also works to remind me of just how integral technology is in my life.

I am the meduim

My physical relationship with media/my media matrix.

Within my everyday life I physically come in contact with several different types of media and even though many of these media forms are very separate they are all interconnected. In this blog I intend to show how all of my media is connected, hopefully illustrating through the written word what my diagram on the white board presented visually. At the center of everything is always “me,” who I am is a very constant thing and even though I have changed steadily through out the years, just as the media I utilize has, there are something that have remained the same.
My body has always been my primary medium, every since I was a small child, how I presented myself was something I that I put a lot of time and effort into. I have always wanted to have some control over how I was perceived and surprisingly through out the years, I have had the same ideal for myself. With my clothing, piercings, hair color/style, and make-up I try to express how I am feeling about myself and my life at that point. This has been a successful medium for me, and I will continue to use it as a way to express myself.
Building on my appearance, running is also a form of expression for me. In my mind I see the runner as a person who is physically and mentally strong, not to mention graceful. When I run I focus on my strength and how it relates to the rest of my life. Again my body becomes my medium and connects me with another; music. When I am running music is my outlet. It allows me to think and keep pace. In this way I feel as though I am once again connected to the medium, my pace and the beat of the music connect making my MP3 player (which is not an Ipod!) a necessity. My MP3 player connects me to my computer, which in turn connects me to the internet and my education (we all know that we would be lost in graduate school with out our laptops). My education connects me to the world, it is the gateway, the creation of desire.
I guess media is something that accents my life, it doesn't run it. I don't understand people who are consumed with media, because to me that isn't a life. When asked how media has impacted my life, I picture this large computer hitting me like an astroid hitting the earth and this has never really happened. In the end I am the meduim, everything else is just decoration and tools.

Confessions of a recovering (but hopeless) media addict

Okay, I’m gonna be honest. I’m close to feeling that my life /is/ my physical relationship to media. There’s almost always something going to listen to or watch (television, music) at my apartment just to make the place feel alive (though an active tabby cat who likes to watch tv might be another factor). I bring my computer with me wherever I go even if I’m sure I won’t be using it for anything because I feel more comfortable when it’s close. A quick trip to the grocery store can cause my heart to leap and my stomach clench if I suddenly remember that I’ve left my cell phone on my kitchen table. More than just something that somehow enhances or makes my life easier or more fun, without media (tv, music, cell phones, comic books, computer, internet) the stress that would place on my mind and body only serves to indicate that, like an addiction, I am physically dependent on media for my emotion and physical well being.

My physical relationship to technology is one of greater dependence and emotional importance than I’d like. The keyboard feels like an extension of my vocal cords and as I chat with friends my keystrokes become my voice, communicating in a way that pencil and paper never accomplished. I’ve had whole IM conversations with people who were in the same apartment as me. Instead of talking with voices we talked with media.

Granted, it has been a while since I was that involved in online textual production and would be much more likely to actually physically speak with a person if they were physical available, but something of that remains. I would be lost without media (more specifically my computer) both emotionally and physically (as I’ve come to rely on Google Maps to tell me where to go whenever I depart of destinations unknown) and imagine that removing any of my primary media from my life would be similar to removing a non-vial organ. I might not die, but I’d sure feel like I was.

Media Mass

As I sat here writing out my workout schedule for the week, I was simultaneously trying to figure out what I should blog about considering media matrixes. But then it donned on me, media makes you fat.

Media is requiring less and less physical interactivity and time to produce and communicate effectively. As an artist, I used to have to cut wood, and nail it together to build a frame, cut canvas and stretch it across the wooden planks, securing each corner and then attaching the canvas along the edges of the frame, then I would have to coat at least a couple of times with primer, wait for it to dry, and then apply paint. The picture had to be planned somewhat meticulously in pencil, charcoal, and pastel drafts because one mistake could mean hours of reworking at best, or at worst throwing the whole piece out. Conversely, working with Illustrator or Photoshop takes that same process and minimizes it to a few flicks of the wrist, mistakes can be undone instantaneously; there’s virtually no physical interaction at all. And now, my interaction with media necessitates going to the gym to fill in that extra physical activity that the machine has removed, or risk ending up looking like Jabba the Hutt.

And if media continues to evolve the way it has been, there will be even less physical activity. If a mind/computer interface is developed, then we can just think about moving our mouse and it will go; we could in fact never have to move again. We’ll never have to open a book, press play on the remote control, go to the bathroom, well that one may take some creative technological innovation, but we can do it! In the end we can just sit there as massive gelatin blobs, fulfilling our every desire with technological interface.

Yeah! That’s the life for me!

Brandon’s Unhealthy Relationship With Media:

It’s hard to say when exactly it started, but I remember a party that I attended late in high school. Some people were passing around some new “technology” that everyone was talking about. At first I tried to resist but as I starred at the shiny, gleaming LCD readout, I couldn’t resist. I had to hold it and know it. My family and friends judged me harshly. I had trouble maintaining relationships. If I had a dime every time I heard a family member say, “Brandon, for heaven’s sake, put down that technology and come to dinner!” or “If you don’t stop typing while I’m talking to you…” In my increasing isolation, I found some solace in the cyber community that I met through my technology problem. There were entire groups of groups of people who were unashamed of their technology dependence, which invigorated me. It was wonderful, I discovered that there were large portions of the population that I never wanted to meet and equally large portions of the population that I was glad I had the fortune to know only in their online environment. During this time, technology had begun to enter into the media. Reporters would hold technology in their hands while simultaneously condemning those who openly embraced their desires for a techno driven society. The news called us “nerds,” “geeks,” and “the unemployable,” among other things. The fools. They were slaves to the technology they condemned but they were too blind to see it. My counselor said that it was important to recognize my unhealthy relationship with technology if I was going to get better. He told me this all the while recording the session on his sexy, sleek looking recording device. Probably the worst moment of my life was Thanksgiving 2003. I’ll never forget that day. The whole family was there. And everything was going fine. The food was cooked perfect. The atmosphere joyous. No one mentioned the war. But then it came time to carve the turkey and Aunt Sophie said, “Brandon, why don’t you cut the bird?” I stood up and without thinking pulled out my electronic knife. You know the kind: it has a vibrating serrated edge like a mini chainsaw. A sudden hush fell around the table and sealed my shame. “Oh, Brandon, how could you?” I heard someone murmur. I have been shunned ever since that night. Technology for me? It has been my life and my curse.

The Humans are Dead

After our conversations about the Matrix and Cyborg theory, I thought everyone might enjoy this Youtube video entitled "The Humans are Dead" by the Flight of the Concords. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1BdQcJ2ZYY&feature=related

My Physical Relationship to Media

Media is integral to my daily life, but I find myself strategically separating myself from it. Life is so busy that I find myself longing for and plotting for ways that I can have a free day without leaving my apartment or using my car, checking my email or even turning on my computer, and while I always have my cell phone with me, it is usually turned off. While my media is harmless in itself and an essential part of my life, I see it as a connection to the world and an ever present connection to the people in my life. I’m surrounded by people almost every hour of every day. I go to school, and I am in constant contact with my students, officemates, teachers, classmates, random people etc. I go home and have calls and/or emails from students, teachers, classmates, friends, and family members waiting for me. Sometimes the demand of being available 24 hours a day 7 days a week gets to be too much and I decide not to turn on my computer for a day and to keep my cell phone turned off. While it is often liberating to make myself unavailable and being unavailable often helps me focus on work because I know there will be no distractions, I often feel guilty and selfish taking this time and cutting myself off from the world. This process also often makes me feel left out like I’m choosing to undergo a self-imposed exile. These feelings show just how essential my media is to my life even when I choose not to use it.

The most poignant example I can think of, of my reliance on the media was a time when I did not choose to exile myself but found myself exiled anyway. I had just moved to Fargo and knew very few people in town. My Internet hadn’t been hooked up yet, I hadn’t gotten rabbit ears for my TV yet so I didn’t get any reception, and my cell phone quit working. I’ve never felt so isolated in my life because all of my methods for interacting with the outside world were gone. My primary use of my media is to interact with the world. While I don’t frequent chat rooms or sites like Second Life, I use remediated forms of technology like emails or Facebook posts to write to people and phone calls to talk to them when I can’t in person. Essentially, I use my media to interact with people when I cannot or chose not to interact with them in person, and while I often chose to use my media to separate me from the people in my life when I need a break, the situation becomes very different when the media is taken away and not using it is no longer a choice.

Katie's First Conference

Overall, I found the Social Media Conference last Tuesday to be a nice introduction into the world of academic conferences: not too big, not too scary, and a chance to present with other people.
I had the chance to go to the speaker immediately before our class presentation, who talked about Second Life. I had never heard of Second Life before, but after listening to the talk i felt that I was already familiar with the concept of the program. Once I realized that it sounded a lot like the Sims (which I have never played, but have heard enough about to feel like I know something about it) I was a little unimpressed. Personally, the idea of living in an online world (beyond facebook) does not interest me. I was interested in the pedagogical applications of the program, but was disappointed that that angle didn't get discussed more.
I felt that our class roundtable went well. I was a little surprised in the number of people in the audience (but I didn't really know what to expect). I think that I did a good job explaining my project to the group; it was nice to be able to share what I had been working on with others who would appreciate it for its potential. I was kind of disappointed that there weren't any questions (for anyone), but with five people in a short block of time I guess it can be expected.

When I grow up I want to be an LCD projector

In regard to my experiences as a presenter at the social media conference, I thought it would be appropriate to comment on the use of media and the audience’s reaction to it. First off, I don’t think I have to point out the irony of a new media presentation at a social media conference where the audio fails to work, but it seems important to mention considering the audience’s reaction. As is usually the case when there is an LCD present in the room all eyes migrate over to stare vacantly at the screen regardless of the presence of an image or not. I noticed that everyone in the room watched the screen while I presented. This is nothing unusual or unexpected—people have always been irresistibly drawn to the pale blue glow of an LCD projector. What did surprise me, however, was the audience’s reaction to the sound not working in my presentation. Where people were content to stare vacantly at the images of Stephen and my abomination, they were transformed into irritated beasts the second that the sound failed to work. Eyes were rolled, watches where checked, and peopled looked genuinely angry at the lack of sound. I thought the shift from docile cattle to hostile mob interesting because there seemed so little cause for the change. It was almost as if people felt that they were getting cheated out of part of the media they were promised—even though they were content to simply “watch” only moments before. I find it hard to believe that they were discontent because they wanted to hang on every word that Stephen and I spoke during the presentation; rather, I think they were evidencing human nature by intensely desiring something that they could not achieve. It wasn’t that they wanted to hear Stephen and my message. Instead, they were upset at being told that (in a roundabout sort of way) that they could not hear our message and it was the point of being told “no” that upset them so much. After all, what is the point of all new technology other than to prove to someone that the unachievable is within our grasp? For that matter, what is the point of new media and cyborg theory apart from shaking one’s fist at God to say, “see, I can create, too!”? In the end, I think the illusion of created perfection was shattered when the sound failed to work properly during my presentation, which left the audience feeling a tad hollow. I often look back with regret and wistfully wish that Stephen had been there: then we could have acted out our parts in a “live” presentation and gotten into a real fistfight at the end. Oh well.

2nd life? Or the lack there of.

I attended the presentation on second life, and most of what I would say about it would generally be very negative. BUT of the sake of thinking outside the box and trying to get away from my own bias I am going to attempt a paragraph or two of positive things. However, I will be voicing my concerns later in this blog.

Second life seems like a great way for many cultures (provided they have computers) to mingle in a common area and learn from each other. I like how using this program would allow several people from all over the world to share ideas or work on a common project. It eliminates the need for people to be in the same room together to have "live" (i use the term loosely) interactions. It would also provide a sort of amenity, and maybe create an environment where ideas could be shared more openly since it would not be a face to face situation.

Educationally, I think virtual field trips would be a great way for students to learn, especially about the Internet and its capabilities. Children should be provided with a safe place in the Internet where they can interact with each other without the age division that usually happens in schools (i.e. freshman are not cool enough to hang out with upper class men). I see possibilities for kids to explore art, music, culture, design, computer graphics, and much more in a safe school environment where the teacher could provide a watchful eye on what they were doing, not from the computer program but from walking around the room and allowing the students to be in control. I think it would be a great place for interaction between schools in different countries, imagine a USA high school Spanish class taking a virtual field trip with a Spanish high school's English class. Certain trips could be strictly Spanish speaking and others strictly English, children would be allowed to learn from their peers in another country rather than an old woman in the front of the classroom yelling at them the correct way to say "elephant."

HOWEVER, I do believe this technology has some downfalls. I see this technology as a way for people to live in a fantasy world, one where they get to look the way they want, live where and how they want, and basically have no reason to ever want to enter the world outside of computers. I don't see this program/game/ whatever it is bringing out the best in people. Instead I see it creating a large group of people afraid of live social interaction with very few social skills, not to mention very out of shape and unhealthy. Lets face it even though you may workout in the virtual world your really tush is still going to be fat. Humans need interaction, biologically we are a social species and this technology does not support that fundamental need. Ignoring this, will only lead to higher depression rates and more people on prescription drugs, and I am pretty sure that the "virtual sex" the guy mentioned isn't going to cut it. Although maybe that's a way to sell this "2nd life"... "Can't get laid in the real world? Try virtual dating!" But seriously, I think the message this program send is not a good one. I guess during the presentation the country song "I'm SO much cooler online" kept running through my head. In the end I find the "world" a way of escaping the real world in an attempt to be something we are not, and that is not a good reason to create a "2nd life."

Response to the Conference

I attended a presentation right before ours on Second Life. Before I went to the presentation, I knew that Second Life was a virtual world built by the members who essentially created a virtual identity through the program, but I didn’t know much else. Listening to the presentation, I learned that Second Life allows members to attend online conferences, lectures, and plays by means of their avatar, a virtual representation of themselves. They are also able to access media such as the radio and television through streaming. While avatars are at these functions, they are able to communicate with each other through typed language like chat rooms and instant messaging. However, there are applications that allow members to use their voice to speak through their avatar. These applications, like real life spoken communication, require avatars to be close to each other and make voices softer or louder depending on how far apart the avatars are.

Second Life can be used for many purposes like social network, making it like a much more elaborate Facebook or Myspace, as well as for educational purposes. Right now, it can be difficult for educators to use Second Life because there is a Teen Second Life and Adult Second Life and teachers need to get security clearance before they can accompany their students on field trips or other educational experiences in Teen Second Life.

Although, Second Life is a beautiful virtual place, I can not see myself ever taking part in it. While I can see how it could be a useful teaching or social networking tool, I can’t quite get past the fact that it is a virtual place that many people use to substitute for real human interactions. The presenter mentioned that one of Second Life’s assets is that it allows for shared real time experiences like teleporting your avatar to meet friends to watch a movie or attend a party. However, while this is a form of social interaction, I can’t get past the fact that while these interactions can be real and allow humans to interact, each human involved is only able to interact with others through their computer which I feel take away from the shared real time experience the presenter thought was so great.

As far as our presentation, I thought it went well. It was fun to see everyone’s finished products and visit with our audience about the projects. While we all had very different projects and used different methods to create them, it was interesting to see how many of us experienced the same problems such as finding a host for our projects and facing obstacles when the software didn’t want to do what we wanted it to.

Cybernetic Tropies

From the Dwell blog. These critters have infrared sensors and react in biological ways that undermine some of the ideological statements that traditional taxidermy establishes.

Cy-Turtle

Faster, stronger, BETTER.

2001: A Space Odyssey (redux)

I recently rewatched 2001: A Space Odyssey with a friend and I don't understand how this movie could have possibly gotten a G rating. I found the "murder" of the unstable computer HAL to be one of the most disturbing things I've seen in a long time.

When we finished the movie (particularly the ending sequence) my friend Jared asked very eloquently "what the hell did we just watch." I couldn't answer him but I figured the internet could tell us. So I found this site.

It's an interesting way of thinking about remediating a movie and a way distributing information in a very engaging format.

The Wisdom of the Chaperones

http://www.slate.com/id/2184487/?GT1=10935

New Scientist's Take on Automaton Warefare

If you are interested in the latest news on Skynet's development, read away.

WWI Visions of the Machine

From Wilfred Owen's "Soldier's Dream"

I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears;
And caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts;
And buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts;
and rusted every bayonnet with His tears;

And there were no more bombs, or ours or Theirs,
...
But God was vexed, and gave all power to Michael;
And when I woke he'd seen to our repairs.

Interesting Quote For The Cyborgs

"Science now performs miracles like the gods of old, creating life from blood cells, bacteria, or a spark of metal, but they are perfect creatures and in that way they couldn’t be less human. There are certain things machines cannot do: they cannot possess faith; they cannot commune with God; they cannot appreciate beauty; they cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won’t have to destroy us--they will be us."

Sarah Connor

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Cyborg Cars

Notice the discussion of the "drive by wire" technologies (similar to the "fly by wire" technologies in Airbus planes I showed last night). There is also discussion of the fusion of organic and mechanical. Finally, notice how YouTube is one of the delivery platforms of choice for large multinational corporations.

Battery by B&S

This was a Stephen and Brandon project:

Agent Smith noted with disdain once that we, humans, are a cancer to the planet. We move from place to place consuming all the natural resources like locusts, and then move on to the next area to scourge. Although we can’t really argue with Agent Smith’s assertion, we think that he, and many of the machines like him, believes that this is a weakness on the part of humanity. However, we believe that this is one of our greatest characteristics. If it were not for our innate ability to adapt to our surroundings, not only physically but emotionally, we would have perished as surely as the sun’s last rise on earth all those years ago. Further, the machines were simultaneously forced to “move on” and adapt when we blotted out the sun and deprived them of power. Thus the Matrix was created to enslave humans (honestly though, who is serving whom? The machines wait on the humans in the Matrix hand-and-foot.). Agent Smith fails to see the connection—but machines pillage and adapt much like humans…with one notable exception. They consistently remain one step behind humanity. Still, even in this age of “artificial intelligence,” the intelligence remains just that, artificial. The machines, for all their achievements, are still capable of little more than mimicking and learning from human behavior. They can fool a person into thinking that they are human, like the Agent Smiths of the Matrix regularly do, but in the end, they are only capable of fooling a person. This is the action of liars and frauds: to depend on the deception of people. They are still not capable of being human. There is no doubt in my mind that human beings will eventually triumph over the machines—the irony is that we will almost certainly employ/enslave other machines in the process. We will emerge from the ashes again.

I think my battery just died...

Medium is the Message

Computer Brains
by Petra

Lyrics for Computer Brains
performed by Petra
Proverbs 23:7, 1 Peter 1:13, Philippians 4:8, 2 Corinthians 10:5
Words & Music by Bob Hartman

Everything that you do and see, one more event in your memory
Every bit takes another bite without control over wrong or right
You must screen every entry made, the consequences must be weighed
The only way to security is every thought in captivity
Computer Brains, put garbage in
Computer Brains, get garbage out
Computer Brains, programming you
Computer Brains, what can you do Break out
Are you a user or being used; has your memory been abused
Take random samples from your mind and analyze what you may find
You can clear all memory and be transformed when you find the key
Think on the things that will bring you peace, confusing data soon will cease

Bow Before the Machine

Cyborgs are cool; seriously, they are, but is making an academic system of thought based on science fiction really a good idea? Sciencetology did that with L. Ron Hubbard, and everyone thinks they're crazy. But this phenomena of cyborg culture/worship , not only in the terms Hathaway describes it, is really nothing new.

Humanity tends to project its dependence on tools it needs to survive into a kind of socio-symbiotic worship. The Egyptian gods are a good example of this. They are a combination of human and animal relative to the dominion of life each god was said to have. Not much has changed, as humanity becomes more dependent on technology and redefines its meta-narrative with the underpinnings of chance evolution rather than divine creation, its gods have changed shape. A new priestly class has risen trading sacred robes for white lab coats, but essentially filling the same function as their ancient counter parts, giving the people some overarching reason for existence. It’s no wonder that the idea of the cyborg is so attractive today. If humanity has replaced the divine with science and the technology that it spawns, then we as humans, craving divinity, naturally want to see ourselves in mechanical terms. We have reduced our humanity to informational code (DNA), as if all that we are is a preprogrammed mechanical construct, and in that definitive model, why would we not be compatible with our own information-based silicon creations?

Agree or not, Hathaway makes this point really clear in the manifesto when she says, “ Biology and evolutionary theory over the last two centuries have simultaneously produced modern organisms as objects of knowledge . . . within this framework, teaching modern Christian creationism should be fought as a form of child abuse” (517).

And we don’t stop with ourselves. If all that we see is information-based, than that information can be changed to fit our own ideals. As Brenda E Brasher points out:

"Technology's rapid progress in the late twentieth century in this regard is not accidental. Within the economic paradigm of late capitalism, Disney/America, Microsoft, IBM, Eli Lilly, SONY/Columbia, and a host of other techno-capitalists survive and thrive by hastening the cyborging process. To generate profits they offer us sounds better than life. They compose images more beautiful, more awesome than anything we can naturally see. They design and produce drugs that make us more social, thinner, happier, sexier, putatively more ourselves. Even "nature" is not natural anymore (i.e., changing and evolving in response to the biological balance of ecosystem paradigms). It, too, is being cyborged as techno-agriculturalists slowly configure the seed market to privilege hybrid plants that require farmers to purchase patented seeds each year. As a result, we who act and interact in the contemporary world are becoming 'borged.'"

Who knows how far the “borging” will go, but hesitancy and pessimism about the trends we’re seeing aren't bad. The fear representative in films like the Matrix, and all the way back to Frankenstein is not just the result of over-active imaginations, but clear warnings about considering consequences before crossing certain boundaries. Ancient people built idols and then feared those idols would turn their inanimate wrath against them. The pharaohs of old looked on their gods, and said, “hey I’m kind of like that, maybe I’m a god too”, and we would look at their reaction and say, “they were crazy”, but humans today are looking at machines and saying the same thing. How long before that kind of break with reality has dire consequences if it hasn’t already?

Notes: The Cyborg: Technological Socialization and Its Link to the Religious Function of Popular Culture

by Brenda E. Brasher

Brandon and I had such similar reactions to Hathaway; we just combined our posts here.

WE ARE CYBORG

oops... sorry about that last post! Apparently I hit a wrong button. Anyway, on with the blog. Until this assignment I really hadn't given much thought to "cyborgs" or anything related to the idea. I had always thought of it as something that science fiction fans "geeked" out about (specifically my brother). After reading the "A Cyborg Manifesto" I did and internet search and found that what can be considered a "cyborg" goes much further than just an imaginary human that was taken over by the "borgs" and assimilated into thier army (I find it unforuntate that I remember that much from Star trek). In fact, I found a broad definition that basically stated that any organism that has been changed by technology can be considered a "cyborg." That means all of you out there that have had your childhood vaccinations or flu shots could be considered a "cyborg" (or at least genetically engineered). Scary! Prehaps we have already have been assimilated and we are no longer in control of what we thought we were in control of.

Looking at more obvious "Cyborgs" in modern culture, the story of the "Blade Runner," there are simliarities to thier current struggles and those of women in the past, specifically in sports. For those of you who don't know, the "Blade runner" is a South African Man who had both legs removed from the knee down when he was a child. He recently wanted to try out for the olympics, but was told that he had an unfair advantage because of his limbs. SO having no legs is apparently an advantage when running. However, this isn't that all that different from when women first tried to compete in major sporting events; the first woman to ever enter the Boston Marathon was told that it would affect her chances of having children and that she would never get a hudband because who would ever marry a woman who wore sweats? Maybe men are just afraid of being beaten by women and the disabled? In the case of the "Blade runner," I think we should celebrate! Science and technology has managed to reduce the limitations imposed on people with diablilities! Why should they be hindered? I say let the man run! If we are all cyborgs already then there is no excuse to exclude one who has been altered a little more noticeably by technology than the rest of us.

Matrix Manifesto

We have been living in a state of war against the machines ever sense we can remember. Both sides have suffered greatly in this war, and it is time to end it. We propose a tactical strike against the machines utilizing EMP charges to forcibly disengage the matrix. Unfortunately, this will result in the death of all humans plugged into the matrix, but realistically, they would not be able to survive with the limited power and food sources left available on the planet. So, killing them would be the humane thing to do under the circumstances. Our captains have spoken in a joint meeting and this is the conscientious.

Once we disengage the machines, they will die from lack of power. We will disassemble them and use them as parts to improve our world. We could improve our ships, our food, and our way of life. Once we regain enough electrical support we could build heat lamps to support plant life resulting in better air, more oxygen, and even weather. We understand the ethical ramifications of our actions. We do believe however that our act will preserve the greater humanity that exists outside of virtual reality.

So, prepare to fight for our humanity and the end of suffering and the end of the war against the machines. The time has come and we must embrace it rather than waiting silently for a pasty faced Christ figure to save us. It is time to decide—are you with us in ending the war and building a new society or are you for war and suffering and entrusting your future to fate. Our future lies in your hands.

By Kathryn, Katie, Paula, and Jennie

Cyborgs in Japanese Pop Culture

Because Doc opened up this can of worms with his link to the Manga Bible and because I’m something of the resident expert on the subject, I thought I’d pull together some thoughts and images about cyborg representation in Japanese manga and animation. For all intents and purposes it all started with this god man, Osamu Tezuka-sensei and his character of Michi from the manga Metropolis first published in 1949. Though Michi was considered a "humanoid" or a robot in human form, Mitchi originated in a batch of protein cells and had the interesting ability to change gender, something that seems very organic and "cyborg" indeed.

Cyborg 009, a team of humans experimented on and given technological enhancements, in 1963 was the first of the team (or sentai) genre of anime and kaiju (monster) programs that is still popular in Japan to this day.

Cyborg or cyborg-ish imagery is an important element to Japanese pop culture and the importance and power of cyborg themes from manga and anime don't seem to be lost on American film companies. James Cameron is currently in pre-production for a film called Battle Angel based on the widely popular Battle Angel Alita (or Gunnm). Interestingly enough the world that Alita inhabits is a cyborg world where the under city of refuse contains the "have-nots" who are entirely cybernetic save for their brains and the "haves" from the beautiful floating city of Tiphanes whose brains have all been secretly removed and replaced with computer processor chips. Alita's cyborg body is continually sexualized and in fact it is this sexualization that plays no small roll in her continued existence as a "female." It isn't until very far into the story when a copy of Alita's memories (computer chip) in used in a male body that the idea of the gender/sex divided is brought to the fore. Through there seems to be a suggestion that though the body might be male the mind is still heterosexual-female identified.

I could continue on and on for pages on this stuff if you'd like me to and I maybe will if someone gives me good cause to. Needless to say there is not shortage of cyborg imagery in anime and manga. The universe of the popular Full Metal Alchemist contains automail that seems to run a a type of magic and steampunk imagination rather than any sort of technology and Lain, with characters designed by ABe, a techno-thriller about the dystopian world within "The Wired," while not strictly cyborg certain incorporates a fair share of cyborg-ish (and not coincidentally lesbian-ish) imagry.

ABe's more recent work, Texhnolyze, focuses on more direct cyborg imagry and follows through dystopia through to the absolute end, the complete destruction of all humanity. Texhnolyze is also interesting in that it tends to be the male body that is sexualized and fetishized. Somewhat of a break from the female centric model and interesting because the target demographic for this super violent anime was clearly young men.

I could spend as long writing about the cyborgs in Ghost in the Shell as all others combined so I'll try to be brief. The main character is Major Makoto Kusanagi and I can think of very few other "female cyborg" characters that so consciously embody the principles of Haraway's manifesto, the best possible literal representation of Haraway's cyborg metaphor. The self-agency and self-identification she constantly asserts pushes her body up against the very technology that defines and her female-ness. Her human nature comes out in ways that display the creative integration of electronic and physical existences she incorporates into her identity everyday. The world of Ghost in the Shell is conscientiously cyborg, and both Shriow Masamune (original creator) and Mamoru Oishii (movie director) visions clearly incorporate Haraway's work. Batou (a cyborg man) and his beloved Bassett Hound is more then a representation of Oishii's obsession with the dogs, it connects to Haraway's important work on the human/animal connection. Even Haraway herself is represented in the second Ghost in the Shell movie and a cyborg coroner named Dr. Haraway (pictured right).

I was also going to include a bit of analysis on a character from Gundam 00 that I'm currently keeping my eye on, but that might have to be another post at some other time.

Additionally, I thought I'd share this with you guys. You can find all of the movie cut up into bits on youtube if you'd like. It's a Korean movie (not Japanese and therefore not very relevant to this post) called I'm a Cyborg, but that's Okay, and it has some really interesting images and suggestions about what it means to be "cyborg."

The Prevalence of the Cyborg

I would say the most obvious way the cyborg has become prevalent in our daily lives is the way technology has blurred the division between public and private. Donna Haraway explains this division by using Richard Gordon’s term “homework economy” (526). Part of the homework economy is subjecting workers “to time arrangements on and off the paid job that make a mockery of a limited work day” (526).

Traditionally, there have been public or work and private spheres that rarely crossed. People went to their jobs, did them, and came home where they generally didn’t have to worry about work until they got up the next morning to go back. Today, those lines are blurred as technology enables us to send and receive emails, text messages, and phone calls, look things up on the Internet, etc. from virtually anywhere at any time. People are often compelled to work from home resulting in little down time, but they also feel compelled to take care of personal things at work. Both sides create a need for new expectations and etiquette. Another consequence is that our dependence on our tools to get through the day gives us a heightened sense of connection to our tools (533).

Haraway mentions that paraplegics and other severely handicapped people often have the most intense experiences of hybridization with their communication devices which reminds me of a speaker we had in a college class I took called students with special needs where we learned about recognizing students who may have special needs as well as finding accommodations for students with verified special needs. One of our speakers worked with finding technology to help her patients live fairly regular lives with as much independence as possible. She showed us a Gateway tablet pc and thought we would be amazed by the technology and its ability to help those with special needs. She didn’t realize that every person in the class had their own Gateway tablet pc because Mayville State was the first tablet pc campus in the country. We all relied on our computers to do assignments, access class materials, keep in touch with friends and family, entertain ourselves, etc. The notion that only the disabled experience hybridization with communication devices has shifted to reveal that our dependence on communication and technology, which blurs the public and private spheres, has made cyborgs out of everyone as machines become the prosthetic devices of the abled and disabled and become a familiar part of our friendly selves (533).

The simple cyborgs

I had never really heard of a "cyborg" until I read Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto", and evidently neither had my computer, which kept underlining the term as a misspelled word. However, after reading the document I have come to realize that I have been familiar with cyborgs for some time now; I just didn't know there was a specific term for them. 

There are many places in the text (both in the introduction and the actual document) where lines stand out as offering a definition of a cyborg. A cyborg is: 

• "a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction" (516)
  
• "our ontology; it gives us our politics...In the traditions of 'Western' science and politics--the tradition of racist, male-dominated capitalism; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other" (516)
  
• "resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence" (517)
  
• "a kind of disassembled and reassembled, post-modern collective and personal self. This is what the self feminist must code" (524)
  
• "the people who refuse to disappear on cue, no matter how many times a 'Western' commentator remarks on the sad passing of another primitive, another organic group done in by 'Western' technology, by writing" (532)
  

With these diverse clues about the definition of a cyborg as well as the three different types of boundaries transgressed by cyborgs (human/animal; animal-human/machine; physical/non-physical) it quickly became apparent to me that cyborgs are all around us in our culture. One specific example of where I personally have seen them ties into Haraway's discussion of the role of cyborgs in medicine. I found this angle to be especially familiar: while at UTC last semester, I had a professor who (due to recent knee surgery) had become very interested in body rhetorics and what happens to a writer when they are not "whole" or "organic" any longer whether due to a cadaver or a machine. 

While the information about cyborgs available through Haraway suggests that they can suggest that cyborgs be complicated machines built by humans, I found it refreshing to see the simple ways that cyborgs are already in our society. 

Mashup!

Ancient Media.

Old Media.

New Media.

Thanks, Stephen

“What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.”

The machines are getting ready . . .

Here's an interesting invention in anticipation of next week's Matrix viewing:

US and Canadian scientists have developed a new way to harvest energy from human movements. The new innovation is capable of developing a model that can produce energy to power a mobile phone for 30 minutes from just one minute of walking. So that means that you can now charge your mobile phone with just few minutes of walking.

The newly invented device generates power by a process known as generative braking. With the help of series of gears and changes in it, electricity is generated.

The

device weighs 1.6kg and is capable of producing 5 watts of electricity from a slow walk. However scientists have also discovered that the device produces 13 watts energy from walking, which is enough to power a mobile phone for 30 minutes from just a minute’s walk.

However, to generate such an amount of energy the generator has to be constantly switched on, which is quite an effort on the part of the one wearing it.

If such concept models will be made available for the common men, people will surely be able to save more energy and can go greener. And think about it, such walking will make people exercise too!

Techshout.com

Twitterpation

Twittervision's mashup a the twitter application on what looks like Google Earth is totally fascinating.

Interesting Professorial Mix-Off

This Wednesday, our New Media class watched Kansas State Professor Wesch's YouTube hit The Machine is Us/ing Us. Mr. Marino, an English Teacher at the University of Southern California created a quick mashup critique of Professor Wesch's second (and more controversial) video.

You got served.

Populitism: Socialistic Fantasy

It was a shame we had to “skim” Computer Lib/Dream Machines as it was by far the most “fun” of the readings assigned, but my most intriguing theory of the media deals with Nelson and his theories of Xanadu , so I guess I’ll get to talk about it a little anyway. Moulthrop talks a lot about Nelson’s notion of populitism: a combination of ‘populism’ and ‘elite’. He says,

“a ‘populite’ culture might mark the first step toward the realization of . . . ‘a game of perfect information’ where all have equal access to the world of data, and where ‘given equal competence (no longer in the acquisition of knowledge, but in its production), what extra performativity depends on in the final analysis is ‘imagination,’ which allows one either to make a new move or change the rules of the game.” (695)

What’s great about this theory is its accuracy in predicting the selling point of a Xanadu like hypertext web like the world wide web, while simultaneously forgetting that we’re talking about human beings here. There is no possibility for a Xanadu as Nelson envisioned it because power will always be held by a few, and creating the illusion that it’s not just leads to corruption. That’s why none of the communist experiments have worked. They said everything was owned by the all the people, it’s just that certain people held those goods in trust for the others. A socialist internet falls along the same lines.

Nelson’s diatribe on the Computer Priesthood (304) seems oddly archaic as more people know and use computers than ever before, but there is still an elevated status imparted to someone who knows the jargon of a computer and not just how to use it. Corporations are very aware of the power held in the web, and aren’t going to offer control of it to everybody. And while it’s great fun to dream of a utopia where our interconnectivity creates a social rule and unity . . . blah blah blah, the truth is power is held by a few. It always has been, always will be, and no matter how many revolutions we go through, the power is merely exchanged from one priesthood to another, while the populace continues on in blissful disillusionment.

On another note, despite Nelson being a little disillusioned in his utopian dreams, I really enjoyed his predictions of future technology. At least he was trying to move beyond theory into practicality.

I can't think of a witty title...

When looking for a particular media theory to write about for this week, I was struck with Jean Baudrillard's opening line of "Requiem for the Media": 

"There is no theory of the media" (278)

Baudrillard is writing in the context of McLuhan and Enzensberger's ideas about media and theory, which makes this statement somewhat puzzling. Buadrillard perhaps offers evidence for this claim by explaining the relationship between the media and ideology. Maybe Baudrillard meant that the theories of others such as McLuhan are flawed; in the process of trying to prove that theory doesn't exist, I think he ultimately creates his own theory (even if it is a sort of "anti-theory").

 For example, he revises McLuhan's idea that the medium is the message by explaining that "the essential Medium is the Model. What is mediatized is not what comes off the daily press, our of the tube, or on the radio: it is what is reinterpreted by the sign form, articulated into models, and administered by the code" (283). While I think that Baudrillard successfully adapts McLuhan's and Enzensberger's ideas for his own view, I had trouble understanding some of his ideas and actually wrote "...none of this is really making any sense to me..." in my notes.

I found the last article, "The End of Books" by Robert Coover to be the most interesting (probably because it was short). When Coover talks about students using computers to write documents as leading to the end of books, I thought about my personal dependence on my laptop. When I was an undergraduate I had to have a hardcopy of everything I read so that I could write on the document. Electronic texts bothered me because I felt distanced from them. As a graduate student (who has to pay for printing) I quickly adapted to reading articles online and now I prefer it. I like being able to carry only my computer with me and have all my notes for my classes on my jump drive or desktop. I enjoy the quickness of copy-and-paste as opposed to physically organizing hard copies of documents in order to see connections. I think that perhaps Coover meant that through hyperfiction (allowing the reader to get something different out of a text each time they encounter it) paper books will become obsolete, but I took it to mean that people simply won't have any use for physical books (except as a novelty): electronic copies will take their place. 

As a side note...

I also enjoyed what Coover said about writing students being ultra-conservative and his description of how some students freaked out at the idea of not having any structure/guidelines for their writing and attempted to create hyper versions of traditional structures. I am fully aware that I am that type of student, as I am further discovering while contemplating my New Media project...

Marx and media?

I found Jean Baudrillard’s article, “Requiem for the Media,” very interesting. Especially since this blog is suppose to focus on the theory of media and this article begins by stating “There is no theory of the media (278).” Baudrillard’s elaboration on how media is a capitalist enterprise (ah Marx) with an imbalance in the power and a lack of irresponsibility on the side of the receiver was both frightening and true. His description of mass media (TV and radio) as “non-communication” was something that I had never considered before. In reality, our society has become more based on a media power hierarchy and those who control or influence the media are definitely the “haves” and those of us left listening are the “have-not's.” There is no communication left, we are told something and expected to believe (or not believe) in the information, the “have-not's” have no way of entering the conversation. In proper communication there should be a sharing of knowledge, a bouncing around of ideas, not a limited and controlled release of information. But the question arises, “How do we create an equal playing field in new media?” I guess it could be argued that computer technologies and the internet have begun to equalize things, but my blog doesn’t have the same impact as a presidential candidate’s or movie star’s. Even if my blog is better written and more intelligent than Ms. Spear’s rants, hers are still quoted in various other forms of media and mine are left strictly to the pleasure of classmates and friends. Even though I have the means of entering the conversation now, I lack the position to do so.

What does my rant mean? Well, Baudrillard felt that media needed to be interactive, “a press edited, distributed, and worked by its own readers (286),” in order to “unfreeze” our current “blocked” situation. But isn’t his description basically what blogs are today? And unless the Today show starts quoting my blogs the way they quote the crazed celebrities I don’t think that anything has been unblocked. We just have millions of “underground” conversations that lack the power to compete with the information put forth by the “have’s.” How many people today believe what a celebrity tells them strictly because they are famous? An example, Pam Anderson is PETA's spokesperson, what does she know about animals or hunting or farming or any of PETA's issues? Probably nothing, or at most she knows what PETA's big wig (who by the way has diabetes and needs to use insulin, gee I wonder where they get that from) told her, but she has media power so people listen and believe her.

Baudrillard article is very much a warning, just like in the past when is was the people who owned the machines that had the power, now it is the people who control the media. They now have the power to control what we know, how we think, and what we have access too. It almost seems as though media is teaching us not to think, because it will think for us. I think there are sci-fi movies that begin this way.

Enter the Medium

I would be interested to know how much McLuhan influenced Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange (1963). The Ludovico treatment depicted within the book and the Kubrick adaptation (1971) seem to have been directly influenced by McLuhan—not to mention Alex’s horrorshow, devotchka-like manipulation of nadstat.

The Ludovico treatment:

Returning to Mcluhan, several of his theories intrigued me (and were echoed in later readings). McLuhan seems to want to assign morals to inanimate objects, which seemed odd (and disagreeable) because inanimate objects are by nature amoral or completely without moral leanings because they are incapable of deciding how they are used—people have to use them for good or evil.

This seems to be the main problem with cyborg theory in general: it wants to assign moral judgment to inanimate objects. The Terminator movies were fun but we lack the ability to ever create a computer that is self-aware. We could make a computer that might pass the Turing test, which means that a computer has been programmed to emulate human moral judgment, but the machine would be nothing more than a reflection of the moral underpinnings of its programmer. Perhaps the closest we will ever come to creating machines that have moral judgment is in the creation of a cybernetic organism—merging a human being with a machine.

Cypoultry:

Again, however, the machine itself is still an amoral object, but it is directly controlled by its human brain—essentially taking the place of the programmer. Thus the medium is still not the message; rather, it is a very direct carrier of the message.

Dr. Ludovico with Cypoultry:

Media Theory

I found J. David Bolter’s theories in “Seeing and Writing” the most intriguing because of the way he integrates the connections between old and new media we have been discussing in class and reading about in other selections with the idea that new media must be something truly unique. In the introduction to “Seeing and Writing” Nick Montfort wrote that “an understanding of new media can only come when truly novel elements can be divided from those which are imitative, using scrutiny of the sort Bolter applies” (679).

At first, I was confused reading Bolter because Montfort’s introduction led me to believe that new media was something truly unique and most of Bolter’s examples dealt with strong similarities between new media and the media that came before like evolutions in printing and typography. In some cases, technological advances even allowed people to go back and revive once rejected formats in a form of technological nostalgia as Morris did (681). So, what is new about new media? Surly it is not solely that it allows nonprofessionals to use professional tools without developing professional skills, creating the appearance of a literacy crisis of sorts.

Of course, it was not. Bolter’s point is not that new media must be completely new. After all, there must be some link to connect the new and the old so users can adapt and relate to it. As Montfort explained in his introduction, “one might approach new media from adjoining, better-understood territory” (679).

Bolter’s point is that in all its familiarity, new media is completely unique in some way whether it is enlarging a window size, scrolling through a window, or forging links between online documents (684). These small but often revolutionary changes alter the way documents are read, what people expect out of their documents, and even the way people think and learn. All of this seems fairly obvious after reading Bolter’s article, but what I think is really interesting is how easy it is to see the similarities between the new and the old that it is hard to articulate what is really unique about new media other than that it is accessed by a computer, etc. rather than in a book or other print source.

New Media History Lessons...maybe?

I should be hesitant to start with a cliché, but I’ve never had much in the way of shame. History is written by the winners. It’s clear that the dominant media will always reflect the values and impressions of the winning group. That said, this idea is now cliché because it’s essentially become part of our cultural consciousness. We now know that we all know that the winners determine the “facts” of history. Which leaves us no room for any plausible deniability and I think the popularity of books like Lies My Teacher Told Me the Disinformation series simply emphasize this shared anxiety.

I’ll make my point now (and as briefly as possible). This shift in public ideas about the creation of history is not based in some ethical reasoning; the fear that we’re marginalizing in history some horribly oppressed and slaughtered peoples (at least not exclusively). It’s because we’ve become gluts for information, particularly about subjects we’re interested in and in which we style ourselves as experts or those subjects that our shared culture agrees that we should be familiar with. We live with the anxiety that some day we will say something we’ve taken to be for fact for our whole lives have someone else tell us we’re wrong and that they can prove it. The ease with which we can now access information means that most people now have the ability to become “self-styled” experts. Electronic media as a method of recording history has allowed people to become participants in this cultural exchange. Consider that for the average information finder Wikipedia is the first stop for random history needs and how much users are allowed to interact with that information. In our current media we’re no longer satisfied with one perspective and we often seek out that conflict of ideas as somehow being more “real” or at least more in line with our experiences.

History and the Media

Traditionally, history has been recorded by the winners or at least society’s majority. Technology is changing that. While textbooks and scholarly documents may still promote the official view of what happened, the media is allowing individuals to share their perspectives through blogs, YouTube, webpages, etc. This allows everyone to record history not just scholars. It also allows the public to access many different types of history ranging from world, national, city, and personal in ways that were not widely available to the general public until new media gained popularity. People are also able not only to record history but also analyze and contribute to historical events that have already been recorded much like Burroughs suggests doing with text in order to see different themes and meanings in existing work. These changes make history feel much more alive to the average person. Almost like the happenings Kaprow described where audiences are no longer refined to their seats and polite applauses but to interact with the performers and help create the performance. Another consequence is that history recorded in the media reflects a much greater portion of life than the staunch researched version does. This will be immensely helpful to future generations as they learn about the past, unless Paula’s fears come true and some horrible catastrophe destroys our digital world or some device that allows us to access it. With any luck, we can rely on the fact that media and history act reciprocally. The media records history, but history also helps create the media. Wiener mentioned that after WWII, he decided a new type of scientist was required who was engaged with the consequences of scientific work. In his attempt to be the type of scientist he desired, he began working towards cybernetics and helped create the new media we know today which has allowed history to become more interactive than ever before. History and the media are connected. Neither can progress the way we have come to expect it to without the other.

History a "fittness" test?

From the beginning of human existance man has found a way, through technology, to leave his mark on this planet. From the earliest cave paintings to the scrolls that the books of the bible were orginally written on, and one thing has remained constant -- man's view that knowledge should be shared and passed on. The mediums of the past have been something that will survive for an extended period of time (unless something horrible and usually man made happens i.e. the fire of Alexandria). By passing on information in this way, men have left clues not by what they wrote or drew on the medium but through the medium itself, creating and adding to the context of the records. The types of dyes or paints used to create the cavepaintings in Africa left clues to what plants and animals were available to make them colors from, the areas where the paintings were found are clues to early human migration (and therefore animal migration) patterns, and in areas that are now arid (I am thinking of the white lady cave painting in Nambia speicifically) it provides clues to the evolution of the landscape. Through out history similar questions can be answered through the examination of the media from various time frames. But what about today's media, what if (BIG WHAT IF COMING!) all the crazies who say some castrophe is coming that will destroy much of what we know? Most of today's media is digital and I don't think it will survive an meteor hitting the planet. Information on CD, DVD, VHS (remember those?), and stored on our hard drives needs a human to access it with another piece of technology. Unlike the cavepaintings, scrolls, books, and other media of the past which only needed the human eye and possibly some understanding of the language and/or alphabet, today's media needs a device that can interrpret the code that we translated our information into. Years of knowledge could be lost if the understanding of a few peices of technology disappear. Scary.
So What got me thinking about this? Well you can thank Allan Kaprow and his article "Happenings' in the New York Scene." After reading this I started thinking that there is probably no way to acurately record a "Happening" even if you film it there is no way to capture every aspect of the happening since it has so many variables and "artists" involved. If you can't record a "happenings" and study it (here comes the scientists in me brace yourself) is it of any value? The knowledge is there for 1 breif moment in time and cannot be recreated or built upon, so it important? OK now here really comes the scientist.... If we apply the theory of Natural Selection to english (or as some of you may know it as "survivial of the fittest") Then we must look at a text or work and evaluate its "fittness." Fittness in science refers to how many surviving offspring an organism has that also reproduce and pass on genes, and so on. So if an organism's genes survive for 10,000 generation it was a very "fit" organism. Well lets get back to english. Plato, Marx, Artistole, have very "fit" texts and theories we have been learning from them for generations, surviving cavepaintings and scrolls are also "fit" because we are continuing to learn from them. But Happenings? In 50 years will be still be learning from them or will they disappear for our knowledge? If we can't record them and continue to learn from them I would say they have a fairly low "fittness" and therefore are doomed possibly with several other forms of media that we presently use.
*end rant*

History and Media

The types of media that are used to record things from the past cannot help but add to the document and help create some of its context. It is not always possible to know the specific context behind something from the past and by utilizing a certain medium for conservation, attributes of that medium become part of the history it is capturing. For example, ancient texts that were written on papyrus and uncovered by scientists hundreds of years later, even if they do not reference the media directly, say something about the types of media available at the time of its production. 

I think that new media lends itself exceptionally well to this idea of the relationship between history and media, because by its nature new media breathes new life into old art. By utilizing modern methods of communication and expression, historical artifacts (writings, art work, ideas, etc) can not only be available for modern consumption, but also by employing current media, historical objects are brought back into current conversations. New media adds some relevance to whatever it is recording because it is useful today as a medium. 

Doublethink

'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'. (George Orwell 1984)

History is not just a record of the past; it is a means by which a society and individuals in that society define themselves. In an oral society, people define themselves through mnemonic devices that transfer the overarching ideas of a metanarrative, and not so much the details or the specifics of that truth. Whoever controlled the present could simply alter the details of the narrative. When writing became the predominant media, the metanarrative became more substantive. Facts were recorded, and the records were filed and archived. In order to control history, leaders of the present had to either completely eradicate this material and make new documents or edit and omit existing documents from the historical records: think Stalin, Hitler, Mao. It was all a very lengthy and recognizable process that usually accompanied the discrediting and/or killing of the old guardians of this information, but they were never able to destroy it all and the metanarrative continued below the grid.

With postmodernism and New Media, we’ve taken all the work out of changing history and have stopped caring about metanarratives of truth and facts of the past altogether. The overload of information available on the internet has allowed everyone to create their own histories, an activity promoted in academic institutions. To further complicate this issue, new media is impermanent, allowing the “unending series of victories over your own memory” Orwell feared. It may seem that this hyper-availability of information is a freeing experience allowing the individual to control their own destiny, make their own reality, interpret events by their own experiences, etc., but I would argue an opposing viewpoint. By neglecting experiential reality for interpretative reality imposed by virtual information, the individual is at the mercy of a temporal existence more fleeting than life itself, both unaffected and ineffectual in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile, the metanarrative continues on without them, and they are ruled by the people who do think about the big picture and their place in it.

Consider Kaprow’s article “’Happenings’ in the New York Scene”. The artists are living a temporal existence, no longer seeking to pass along hard-learned truths to present and future societies. Instead, they create one time events that attempt to convey an emotion or a response; it doesn’t matter what that response is, as long as it’s a response: something to make the viewers feel some connection to the humanity and the world around them, and all the time perpetuating the problem by not creating something sustainable that the viewer can experience in anyway outside of the interpretation of their own memory because they can't go back and view/experience it again. When we go to a gallery and view a painting, watch an old movie, read some piece of the canon, it’s not just an appreciation of our interpretation that we experience; it’s a connection to the past: to the millennia old metanarrative of mankind: a connection we’re giving up in the name of self-worship while simultaneously becoming increasingly more depressed and self-destructive.

Break out the Soma! Er . . . I mean Prozac!