the storytellers

j browning

[jericosilvers]

instagram.com/jericosilvers

[fromwhichoftheseoaks]

On Clones and Humanity: Course Post #6

So, I know I’ve talked about “Never Let Me Go” before, but I’m going to talk about it more.  Because I love it.  I would tell you to go watch it, but it’s not on Prime or Netflix, so I don't want you to feel obligated to spend money.  

The bit I want to discuss is the question the movie wrangles with:  do these clones have souls?  The premise is that the characters, Tommy and Kath are in love and trying to get out of the purpose of their existence: donating vital organs until they “complete”.  They try to use their art to prove that they do indeed have souls in order to get out, or postpone, their donations.  

This reminds me of when we talked about the Victimless Leather jacket project being euthanized in Speculative Everything.  Just that word alone, “euthanized” is such a weighty word that has various emotions tied up in it.  It immediately brings forth an emotional reaction, rather than the cold, scientific usage.  Even when we try to distance ourselves from things we know we shouldn’t have an attachment to, we go on and humanize it.  In this article, the Victimless Leather creators talk about the project being more complete with its death, saying that it has presented “the end of our projects in ways that remind people that these works are/were alive and that we have a responsibility towards the living systems that we engage in manipulating.”

In the end, I think we as humans will always be good at caring a little too much about things that we perceive as humans, or human-like.  And in this age of constant communication of the media, someone is always going to be up-in-arms about something, for better or worse.  But that’s a different story. 

[npr]

Quirtina Crittenden was struggling to get a room on Airbnb. She would send a request to a host. Wait. And then get declined.

“The hosts would always come up with excuses like, ‘oh, someone actually just booked it’ or 'oh, some of my regulars are coming in town, and they’re going to stay there,’” Crittenden said. “But I got suspicious when I would check back like days later and see that those dates were still available.”

In many ways Crittenden, 23, is the target audience for AirBnb. She’s young, likes to travel, and has a good paying job as a business consultant in Chicago. So she started to wonder if it had something to do with her race. Crittenden is African American, and on AirBnb, both hosts and guests are required to have their names and photos prominently displayed on their profiles.

Crittenden shared her frustrations on Twitter with the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack. She started hearing from lots of friends who had similar experiences.

#AirbnbWhileBlack: How Hidden Bias Shapes The Sharing Economy

Photo caption: After Quirtina Crittenden changed her photo to a cityscape, she says she stopped having problems finding a room on Airbnb.

Photo credit: Quirtina Crittenden

[generic-art]

[bullshlrt]

[vasilinaorlova]

How does anthropologist acquire the sense of sonic landscape, soundscape around her? According to Vannini, Waskul, and others, one of the methods at least would look like indulging into the after-d…

Should we read sound (and how)?

[fromwhichoftheseoaks]

On TiMER and OkCupid: Course Post #5

The movie TiMER (2009) pushes the idea of algorithmic dating to its extreme.  The premise is essentially a romantic comedy with a little sci-fi thrown in for added flavor.  In it, most people are equipped with a timer in their wrists that counts down to the day they will meet the love of their life.  It zeros out at midnight and will beep when the two people make eye contact based on raised levels of heart rate and hormones.  Things get sticky when the main characters either have a blank timer (Oona, pictured below) or have one set to go off when she’s 43 (Steph).  The movie explores the idea of what love means in an age when one doesn’t have to go on endless dates to find the elusive “one.”  The timer company states that the matches are 98% correct, but in Steph’s case what matters seems to be what we do whilst we wait.  What would be the point in falling in love when you know the other person isn’t your match?  

Brian Tomasik’s opinion on the matter is on the side of science and algorithmic dating.  In his article, he states “in humans, successful relationships can be predicted with moderate success using simple indicators. Humans are ultimately machines that operate in a deterministic world. But the film is right to point out the complexity of love and the skepticism with which one should approach slick marketing about scientific matchmaking.”  

Which brings me to OkCupid and other dating apps.  OkCupid specifically uses algorithmic matchmaking to persuade users of their compatibility.  They run lots of experiments on their users, some detailed in this article, but, in the end, it seems a little hard to want to talk to someone for the first time through technology.  Maybe it would be easier to have a timer and be free to go about one’s daily life without being bogged down by the search for love.  However, that thinking requires the belief in a one true love.  

I think I’ll stick to my wine for now, thanks.  

[pr1nceshawn]

Aliens.

[angryinkeddrunk]

STOP THIS

[fromwhichoftheseoaks]

On “Silent Sounds” and Visual Microphones: Course Post #4

On my way to work the other day, I was listening to an interesting TED talk about an experiment Michael Rubinstein and his team had done.  Basically, they yelled at empty chip bags and recorded the tiny motions of sound waves that came from it.  If you watch the video, you can actually hear them, and it’s pretty spooky.  Their conclusion was basically that even inanimate objects project very small sound waves, and they call this a visual microphone.  They can recover all sorts of sounds from most objects, so does that mean that everything is always listening?  Would we act differently if we knew that everything recorded sound that would later be listened to by other people?  Or are we just worried about how we act when other people are the listeners?

Rubinstein works for Google now, but you can see all of his research here if you’re so inclined.  An interesting note, most people automatically think of what this will do for surveillance purposes, but Rubinstein is more optimistic and looks towards its application in recovering sound from space.  Below is a video from the New York Times about micromovements that Rubinstein worked on while at MIT.  

[quotethat]

I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart. That’s how it is with us. It’s a shame, because we’ve loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can’t stay together forever.

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (via quotethat)

[bowereaves-blog]

4399 Course Post #6: Ontology and Meaning in the Biofuture

With an overview of definitions from varying sources, an organ is generally defined as something living which serves a specific function within an organism. But with our exploration of biotechnology and the biofuture in today’s reading, this definition begins to change as speculative designers and scientists have delved into the processes of culturing synthetic meat and other living tissues.

This development leads me to this question: if the organ in question has been grown in a laboratory, in which it does not support any organism with its function, can it still be called an organ? What if it has the potential to serve a function after implantation? Is it just a potential organ?

With the synthesis of organic matter outside of its origin and context, the way we understand meaning and reality for these products may have to change. Will they be discussed in the same sort of context as prosthetics? Will they be something more? What if they are never used for an organism? And, as Dunne & Raby ask in “Consuming Monsters,” what kind of potential realities could we accept from their production? Where do we draw the ethical line about considering the synthesized organs as either alive or unalive?

Once an organ is considered alive, as Victimless Leather was when it was euthanized by the MoMA curator, the subject raises endless ontological questions. Of course, as Dunne & Raby make it clear, we should avoid the natural tendency to project our own emotions onto products that exhibit certain animal-like behaviors. But what kind of consciousness does such a thing have? Should it be afforded rights? What kind? Do these rights differ from an organ that occurs naturally within a living body? Do the creators of such organs have different responsibilities for the synthesized organ that they don’t have for their own internal organs? Since an organism can be said to be an amalgamation of its organs, is a living, independently created organ actually its own organism? Is the environment that houses the organ its body?

No two people will be able to develop the same answers to these questions. No matter how simple its implementation, the knowledge that the organs are technically alive (or as the Living Culture and Art Project calls Victimless Leather, “Semi-Living”) will always have some effect on the way we perceive them. In the New York Times coverage of Victimless Leather, MoMA curator Paola Antonelli stated that she “felt cruel when she turned it [the incubator] off.” However, SymbioticA, the company that produced the project, seem to feel that the situation has produced all sorts of useful thoughts. “The piece,” Director Oron Catts wrote, “was able to regain some of its irony that was lost” when it was put in “an optimistic design show.” They hoped that the project would remind its audience that it was alive and would make them consider the responsibilities for these creations.

Now that sounds exactly like something a speculative designer would say.

(Oron Catts, next to the Victimless Leather project)

The Living Culture and Art Project’s discussion of Victimless Leather

[fromwhichoftheseoaks]

This reminds me of the novel (and subsequent movie) Never Let Me Go by  Kazuo Ishiguro.  In it, these humans “clones” have been created for the sole purpose of organ donation.  It tracks an alternative history from the 1960s or so up to presentish times.  (It’s been a while since I’ve read it.)  Anyway, the premise is a love story between these “clones” and their fight to not be made donors of since they’re in love.  To us, they look the same as others in society, but the novel questions if they actually have souls.  The story is thoughtful and sad, and I'd recommend either the movie or the book, depending on what you have time for.  

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[fromwhichoftheseoaks]

On Transmedia: Course Post #3

Over the summer, I was lucky to remember to watch Eurovision live and participate in the Twitter live feed.  Now, I’m not a big Twitter user, but it was fun to see my hashtags turn into those below and then quickly disappear into the void of all the electronic voices. 

This transmedia occurred at such an incredible scale.  It was a little astonishing to me.  I had heard about Eurovision on here before, but I didn’t get it.  I mean, I can’t even be bothered to watch American Idol.  Eurovision is different because it’s old countries participating in modern friendly competition without getting their political feelings hurt.  

At over 50 years old, Eurovision has adapted wonderfully over time.  Although it doesn’t tell a story in a way that we typically imagine, the songs still provide a meaningful narrative.  

[fromwhichoftheseoaks]

On Brevity: Course Post #2

It’s interesting to see the different ways that authors, the media, and people in general use Twitter.  Recently, one of my favorite authors, David Mitchell, used Twitter to write a short story that later because the first chapter in his latest novel.  This article has the full story listed out in chronological order.  

Similarly, veryshortstory uses Twitter to tell amazingly in-depth tales in the space of 140 characters.  A lot of them are filled with funny twists while others fall a little flat.  The man behind it, Sean Hill, just published a book filled with these tweets.  Do they lose their charm when they’re in a format that allows for greater depth?  Why would we need to buy a book of tweets when we can read them for free? 

[nimblesnotebook-blog]

1) Risus Monkey Fantasy Language Cypher

This is amazing!!!!!!!!!!

Are you creating a fictional language? Do you need help coming up with words that sound like they fit with what you’ve come up with so far?

Just put your fictional language in the model text, type some words in the translation text, and click “translate”. It’ll “translate” whatever words you put in using patterns from your sample text.

2) Speed Distance Calculator

These calculators aren’t perfect, but they can help you figure out:

How long it will take your characters to get somewhere based on how fast they’re going,

how far your characters moved based on how fast they were going and on how long they were moving,

how fast your characters need to move to reach a certain distance in a specified time

The calculator was meant for cyclists, but you can use it to get estimates for other things too.

3) Fantasy Calendar Generator

Another amazing resource!

This can create a random calendar for you or you can input the year, the number of months, the name of the months, the number of moons, the number of days in a week, the names of each day, and more.

You can even save the data for your calendar so that when you go back to the generator, all you have to do to get to your calendar is paste the data.

4) Inkarnate Map Maker

This is a new resource that’s still in beta, so it’ll probably be updated in the coming months.

This map maker is easy to use and free. You can add different climates, mountains, trees, towns, cities, text, and notes. For an example of these maps, look at the quick map I made for this post’s header.

[neil-gaiman]

I love Amanda so much. This is an animation that uses a voice memo from her phone of a conversation she had with me while I was asleep (I can have conversations while I am asleep, I am told by people who have tried it). 

She found the message she had left for herself on her phone a year or so after she’d left it, and played it to me. I said it sounded like an animated film, and she agreed, and used her Patreon to make it happen…

Only watch it if you want to know what the inside of my head is probably like while I am asleep.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QlDX8mPAcc)

[shiny-shock-deactivated20190217]

gets an adrenaline rush from contributing to class discussion