Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Wondering why I've gone all academic on your ass?
So.... some people might be wondering what's changed? Is she back on crack or just off the crack? Neither of these realities is true. I read a book. Amazing I know. But one does resort to reading once in a while... anywaaaay what the book made me consider is the responsible use of technology in terms of our responsibility to maintain humanity through technology. If you're interested, the book is "You are not a gadget" by Jaron Lanier and I highly, highly recommend it to you. It offers some really wonderful insights into why we are human and why a machine is a machine and even though we have to operate within the confines of what machinery offers us, we can still maintain a human element. Lanier posits that we should extract ourselves from the anonymity that the interenet and the digitas enables and become human by identifying ourselves as people and not cutegirl5678 on youtube (this is not my youtube name p.s.). I'm not about to humanise my blog too much but I like what Lanier has to say regarding our responsibility to use the internet wisely, to not engage in a hive mentality but rather offer things that we have truly contemplated and considered before we post things on the internet. This is what I'm trying to do.
I'm still me... though what is 'me' ?... if you don't actually know me, I'm just a blogger who seems slightly unstable and prone to ranting and swearing mixed up with some severely poor taste in music perhaps... I'm not a machine though, that at least, I can guarantee you
x
I'm still me... though what is 'me' ?... if you don't actually know me, I'm just a blogger who seems slightly unstable and prone to ranting and swearing mixed up with some severely poor taste in music perhaps... I'm not a machine though, that at least, I can guarantee you
x
Different Kittler of fish
Because i feel like it, and not because i think I'm spectacular, i've also included the post that i completed on Kittler who discusses extremely exciting and optimistic topics including our personal subservience to technology and how we're all manipulated by the media power structures that surround us. Yes. General happy sh*t.
On KIttler: Resistance is (not) futile
Kittler only adds to the list of scholars who have so kindly dashed any of my naive dreams regarding individualism and finding my own path in life and replaced them within apparatuses (apparitii? I want to say), statistical models and now within the notions of transcendental capitalism and power structures in which Rupert Murdoch-like characters are the norm. Life, in general, is really looking up.
Technology has irreversibly altered our consciousness and the way that we have come to live. Not that this is anything new, technology such as the wheel, around 3,500 B.C changed the way people thought about distance and placed themselves in the world just as the internet and Google has changed the way that we are able to connect with one another and how we consider time and space. While people create technology, this select group is tiny in comparison to the rest of the population who use, or are subservient to, (depending on your perspective) that technology. The people who create technology would appear to be the ultimate power players. And yet, are they really? Without the rest of us to buy into their technology, their technology is rendered useless. Without a capitalist medium through which to offer their technology, their technology cannot be marketed, or accessed by the general public. Even when new technology attempts to break free of the models that it seeks to change and improve, via feedback, the newer technology only becomes absorbed by the power structure of the existing technology. As the technology industry burgeons, it becomes increasingly apparent that all these forms of technology are dependent upon one another (just think how the ipod alone was able to spurn a whole range of 'i-technologies') and because of this are all reliant upon economic models and power structures that support the capitalist aims of a given media.
If one is to consider that writing is a medium through which we unavoidably leave a trace of ourselves, the fact that writing is subsumed to these power structures and economic models means that we, as people, are mere pawns in the capitalist game of technology. Technology is apparently rendering our imagination and hallucinatory capacity useless. We no longer want to dream or think outside of the sphere of possibility because technology can do it for us... Technology can be programmed to produce things that the designers might think we want, and maybe our wants are confined within the capabilities of what a machine can do, however, I think the purpose of dreaming and imagination has to do with a search for satisfaction and a desire for something that cannot be articulated or made tangible. I am yet to find a machine that pre-emptively fulfils any want that I may have (although the fact that I am rather technologically inept may have something to do with this). There are some things that go on in my brain that would be difficult to form in any medium, not only because I would struggle to articulate my hallucinations adequately enough for reproduction but because I don't think my hallucinations are only 'things', that is, they are not necessarily tangible or visible but something else (here, my inability to articulate what I mean is obvious). Technological determinism seems to simplify the hallucinatory capabilities of the individual and pre-emptively assumes that technology can cater to these rather under-rated possibilities of thought and sensation that might not be able to be mechanically reproduced (I'm thinking of smell and taste specifically here).
There will always be rule breakers, those who question and challenge the bounds that technology places upon us, whether in writing or in music or in any medium. I think Lisa Samuels is challenging the standardisation of writing, not only by contemplating the canon but also in the de-constructive work she is doing with 'gap scans'. Scratchers changed the way that Edison's phonograph worked in order to create a new type of music and were able to do so precisely because they were on the periphery of the capitalist model that had been established for music at the time which I think is pretty cool. Banksy contests the boundary between what is art and what is considered the defacement of public property though I think it is interesting how his popularity (and how capitalism has used such popularity) might be contrary to his own ideology regarding being outside the 'establishment'. Resistance will always be managed and re-apsorbed into the system that it threatens, however I wouldn't be so pessimistic to suggest that resistance is futile. The fact that technology continues to develop reflects the ever-changing notions of the authentic and the inauthentic and how people are pushing and changing boundaries, forming new networks or making older ones larger. There is still a human element to technology and it is perhaps the most important aspect to it... Without human input, technology is only idle chips and bits of plastic and copper wire. We are what makes technology.
x
On KIttler: Resistance is (not) futile
Kittler only adds to the list of scholars who have so kindly dashed any of my naive dreams regarding individualism and finding my own path in life and replaced them within apparatuses (apparitii? I want to say), statistical models and now within the notions of transcendental capitalism and power structures in which Rupert Murdoch-like characters are the norm. Life, in general, is really looking up.
Technology has irreversibly altered our consciousness and the way that we have come to live. Not that this is anything new, technology such as the wheel, around 3,500 B.C changed the way people thought about distance and placed themselves in the world just as the internet and Google has changed the way that we are able to connect with one another and how we consider time and space. While people create technology, this select group is tiny in comparison to the rest of the population who use, or are subservient to, (depending on your perspective) that technology. The people who create technology would appear to be the ultimate power players. And yet, are they really? Without the rest of us to buy into their technology, their technology is rendered useless. Without a capitalist medium through which to offer their technology, their technology cannot be marketed, or accessed by the general public. Even when new technology attempts to break free of the models that it seeks to change and improve, via feedback, the newer technology only becomes absorbed by the power structure of the existing technology. As the technology industry burgeons, it becomes increasingly apparent that all these forms of technology are dependent upon one another (just think how the ipod alone was able to spurn a whole range of 'i-technologies') and because of this are all reliant upon economic models and power structures that support the capitalist aims of a given media.
If one is to consider that writing is a medium through which we unavoidably leave a trace of ourselves, the fact that writing is subsumed to these power structures and economic models means that we, as people, are mere pawns in the capitalist game of technology. Technology is apparently rendering our imagination and hallucinatory capacity useless. We no longer want to dream or think outside of the sphere of possibility because technology can do it for us... Technology can be programmed to produce things that the designers might think we want, and maybe our wants are confined within the capabilities of what a machine can do, however, I think the purpose of dreaming and imagination has to do with a search for satisfaction and a desire for something that cannot be articulated or made tangible. I am yet to find a machine that pre-emptively fulfils any want that I may have (although the fact that I am rather technologically inept may have something to do with this). There are some things that go on in my brain that would be difficult to form in any medium, not only because I would struggle to articulate my hallucinations adequately enough for reproduction but because I don't think my hallucinations are only 'things', that is, they are not necessarily tangible or visible but something else (here, my inability to articulate what I mean is obvious). Technological determinism seems to simplify the hallucinatory capabilities of the individual and pre-emptively assumes that technology can cater to these rather under-rated possibilities of thought and sensation that might not be able to be mechanically reproduced (I'm thinking of smell and taste specifically here).
There will always be rule breakers, those who question and challenge the bounds that technology places upon us, whether in writing or in music or in any medium. I think Lisa Samuels is challenging the standardisation of writing, not only by contemplating the canon but also in the de-constructive work she is doing with 'gap scans'. Scratchers changed the way that Edison's phonograph worked in order to create a new type of music and were able to do so precisely because they were on the periphery of the capitalist model that had been established for music at the time which I think is pretty cool. Banksy contests the boundary between what is art and what is considered the defacement of public property though I think it is interesting how his popularity (and how capitalism has used such popularity) might be contrary to his own ideology regarding being outside the 'establishment'. Resistance will always be managed and re-apsorbed into the system that it threatens, however I wouldn't be so pessimistic to suggest that resistance is futile. The fact that technology continues to develop reflects the ever-changing notions of the authentic and the inauthentic and how people are pushing and changing boundaries, forming new networks or making older ones larger. There is still a human element to technology and it is perhaps the most important aspect to it... Without human input, technology is only idle chips and bits of plastic and copper wire. We are what makes technology.
x
Flusser and the everyday radical
If you're interested in the ideas of state apparatus and how we have become victims to or complicit in (depending on your perspective) these paradigms, I've written a wee piece in response to Villem Flusser's essay "The shape of things" ...
The realisation that you are so deeply entrenched within a system of code and feedback mechanisms is disturbing, perhaps primarily because Flusser only confirms what we all secretly (or not so secretly) already knew. I cannot help but find similarities between reading Flusser and finding out that something you hoped was true but secretly knew wasn't (for me, it was Santa- Christmas 1993. Older brother was feeling particularly spiteful). In the case of Flusser, I think that everyone is aware that they are part of a system, that their decisions are pre-programmed and the realities of 'free choice' are lacking. However, the totality to which Flusser makes one recognise and come to grips with the reality of the systematised, categorised, feedback monitoring world is oppressive to say the least.
Rebellion is the mechanism that one attempts to employ in order to fight the system, however Flusser seems to crush any hope of being rebellious... AT ALL, at every turn his totalitarian rhetoric vaporises any small inkling that you might be nursing regarding your ability to topple the powers that be. Everyone likes to be thought of as autonomous and unique, responsible for his or her own decisions. The freedoms that one gains at certain ages are treasured and the actions that can result from such freedom are reflected upon as exciting, risky and almost radical. The realisation that said 'exciting' 'risky' and 'radical' behaviours turn out to be expected and normative can be a rather depressing moment for the one-time-rebellious teen. To think that potentially your entire existence (and not just your seeming rebellious teenage years) could be determined by a series of formulae- probabilities, feedback mechanisms and statistics is beyond depressing... am I playing the game of life or is the game of life playing me?
It scares me to think that at some point this numbers game, the formulaic and pre-programmed nature of the world, will come to shape people, prior to statistics being shaped based upon human action. Will we renege 'choice' all together, hand our lives over to 'the man' (something that paradoxically not a man at all...) and live our lives completely according to how we 'should' (that is, by a formula, how we are predicted to live based on a set of inputs and the decisions that would typically result from such inputs). Like a self-fulfilling prophecy will we begin to behave according to the parameters that the programmers set for us- have we already started?
It's extremely worrisome either way, thinking just in terms of how pervasive programming (or the politics of choice), even seeming positive or worthwhile programming, can be. I can think of things that I've been told in my life that probably should have held true but haven't. Based on my ethnicity, demographic background, age etc. there are certain statistics (or, perhaps, phenomena) that I could have been a part of but am not. I'm a bit of a statistical anomaly and it's concerning that statistical anomalies could be erased if we become resigned to the paradigms and apparatuses that we are told we are a part of. What allows us to escape these paradigms and apparatuses is our ability to imagine something outside of the bounds that we are told we must adhere to. Like in the playground of our childhood(s), we should climb the trees that we are told we can't and play bull-rush in spite of what OSH and ACC might have recommended. If we are resigned to our fate based on formulae and live according only to what might be expected of us, I think we lose that which makes us human and not simply machines.
I like the idea of the statistical anomaly- the outlier, the annoying point on the graph that gets excluded from the general trend in order to save face, making sure the variance works out so that the data can be considered legitimate. Writing and the Arts certainly offers the statistical anomaly some 'freedom' to move, allowing for imagination and experimentation without a desire for things to be quantified as 'valuable' or 'economically viable'. Writing and the Arts allows for flux and non-linearity in a world that increasingly tries to process people as mere statistics and fit us to models of what is deemed appropriate. Stasis and conformity is so Cold War, jump on the everyday radical bandwagon and make us shape the stats not have the stats shape us...
x
The realisation that you are so deeply entrenched within a system of code and feedback mechanisms is disturbing, perhaps primarily because Flusser only confirms what we all secretly (or not so secretly) already knew. I cannot help but find similarities between reading Flusser and finding out that something you hoped was true but secretly knew wasn't (for me, it was Santa- Christmas 1993. Older brother was feeling particularly spiteful). In the case of Flusser, I think that everyone is aware that they are part of a system, that their decisions are pre-programmed and the realities of 'free choice' are lacking. However, the totality to which Flusser makes one recognise and come to grips with the reality of the systematised, categorised, feedback monitoring world is oppressive to say the least.
Rebellion is the mechanism that one attempts to employ in order to fight the system, however Flusser seems to crush any hope of being rebellious... AT ALL, at every turn his totalitarian rhetoric vaporises any small inkling that you might be nursing regarding your ability to topple the powers that be. Everyone likes to be thought of as autonomous and unique, responsible for his or her own decisions. The freedoms that one gains at certain ages are treasured and the actions that can result from such freedom are reflected upon as exciting, risky and almost radical. The realisation that said 'exciting' 'risky' and 'radical' behaviours turn out to be expected and normative can be a rather depressing moment for the one-time-rebellious teen. To think that potentially your entire existence (and not just your seeming rebellious teenage years) could be determined by a series of formulae- probabilities, feedback mechanisms and statistics is beyond depressing... am I playing the game of life or is the game of life playing me?
It scares me to think that at some point this numbers game, the formulaic and pre-programmed nature of the world, will come to shape people, prior to statistics being shaped based upon human action. Will we renege 'choice' all together, hand our lives over to 'the man' (something that paradoxically not a man at all...) and live our lives completely according to how we 'should' (that is, by a formula, how we are predicted to live based on a set of inputs and the decisions that would typically result from such inputs). Like a self-fulfilling prophecy will we begin to behave according to the parameters that the programmers set for us- have we already started?
It's extremely worrisome either way, thinking just in terms of how pervasive programming (or the politics of choice), even seeming positive or worthwhile programming, can be. I can think of things that I've been told in my life that probably should have held true but haven't. Based on my ethnicity, demographic background, age etc. there are certain statistics (or, perhaps, phenomena) that I could have been a part of but am not. I'm a bit of a statistical anomaly and it's concerning that statistical anomalies could be erased if we become resigned to the paradigms and apparatuses that we are told we are a part of. What allows us to escape these paradigms and apparatuses is our ability to imagine something outside of the bounds that we are told we must adhere to. Like in the playground of our childhood(s), we should climb the trees that we are told we can't and play bull-rush in spite of what OSH and ACC might have recommended. If we are resigned to our fate based on formulae and live according only to what might be expected of us, I think we lose that which makes us human and not simply machines.
I like the idea of the statistical anomaly- the outlier, the annoying point on the graph that gets excluded from the general trend in order to save face, making sure the variance works out so that the data can be considered legitimate. Writing and the Arts certainly offers the statistical anomaly some 'freedom' to move, allowing for imagination and experimentation without a desire for things to be quantified as 'valuable' or 'economically viable'. Writing and the Arts allows for flux and non-linearity in a world that increasingly tries to process people as mere statistics and fit us to models of what is deemed appropriate. Stasis and conformity is so Cold War, jump on the everyday radical bandwagon and make us shape the stats not have the stats shape us...
x
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Being povo is not really working out
Just realised how intensely poor I will be come late December this year. Gah
There is so much in my life that I am looking forward to attending... and unless I become this uber good breaker innerer my dreams of January and February festivals are gonna be extreme fails.
Public enemy I want you. Can't find ticks anywurr. WANT TO CRY.
x
There is so much in my life that I am looking forward to attending... and unless I become this uber good breaker innerer my dreams of January and February festivals are gonna be extreme fails.
Public enemy I want you. Can't find ticks anywurr. WANT TO CRY.
x
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Who stopped this
Who the hell advocated letting girl bands that dressed the same and pulled together some great and overtly NON sexual moves fall into cultural oblivion? This is some timeless performance right here. I'm entranced... the outfits are gold (both literally and figuratively) and the dance moves are SPECTACULAR
I want to get in training for this!
BRING BACK THE NOLANS
x
I want to get in training for this!
BRING BACK THE NOLANS
x
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