Arts 3091

Matt Edwards Blog

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Week 10: Hauntology

Collaboration is certainly a strange beast, although we are too. Logically it makes perfect sense, as many minds are obviously greater than one thinking about a particular topic. However since the rise of the ‘brainstorm’ in the 1950’s there has been a glutton of research, which counters this logic; leaving us wondering if more really does mean greater. (Cain, 2012)

  Susan Cain’s article ‘The Rise of the Groupthink’ in the New York Times presents some interesting thoughts on the nature of group work, particularly in creative environments, and the result of our societies fascination with it. She presents a substantial amount of data and anecdotal evidence suggesting that the more minds and less privacy a worker has, the lower their happiness and the lower the quality of their output. She illustrates this, citing perhaps one of the greatest innovators of our time, Apple co-founder and home-pc inventor Steve Wozniak. Wozniak who has come to great fame has described himself as a major introvert, preferring to work alone and late at night. On the back of his experience in his autobiography Wozniak powerfully states “Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are just like me…they live in their heads, they’re almost like artists. In fact, they very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone. I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone…not on a committee. Not on a team.”. (Cain, 2012)

  In the New capitalist manifesto Umar Haque, proposes an alternative to the current way of organization and collectivization. He calles it the ‘Meaning Organisation’, not a strategy group, but a meaning group. Haque believes the future organization will “Have to get lethally serious about having an enduring, meaningful, multiplying, positive, proliferating set of impacts.”. (Bauwens, 2011)

Works Cited

Bauwens, M. (2011, 1 14). Umair Haque on the structure of the Meaning Organization. P2P Foundation , p. 1.

Cain, S. (2012, 1 13). The Rise of the New Group Think. The New York Times , p. 3.

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Week 9: Social Organisation

If the readings this week demonstrated anything, it’s that our system of democracy is far from perfect. Sleeplessness, transparency, activism and relevant representation plague our governance, if not derailing it as some seem to suggest, but hindering its process and ability to govern.

  Legal maverick Lawrence Lessig in his article ‘Against Transparency’ raises the concern of pseudo-corruption in regard to political funding in his article in the New Republic. The transparency movement, despite noble intentions, is doomed to fail he supposes. (Lessig, 2009) There are just too many reasons for politicians not to be transparent, insidious and legitimate, and politician’s will inevitable find ways to circumvent the process. Take for example the current process for submitting funding reports; they have to be available to the public, but the complex, difficult to understand forms are submitted on paper. Not digitally as they are prepared. Paper, like printer paper, which someone else has to log into a system for everyone to read. Making the process long, laborious and allowing for politicians to sneak in extra funding that goes unreported. (Lessig, 2009)

  In Australia in recent years a major issue has been made of politicians sleep and how many hours they are getting. Kevin Rudd quite famously operated on as little as three hours of sleep a night, something Bob Ellis sees as a cause of his downfall and our current lackluster political generation. (Ellis, 2010) The 24-hour news cycle, he supposes, means politicians always have to be alert, always on, with crisis just minutes away needing a response. The burnout he says is too much to handle “We’re hemorrhaging our best political talent and it won’t come back, at any price, into a democracy now in serious danger of swallowing itself whole and vanishing”. (Ellis, 2010)

  Some have recognized this and are pushing for alternatives such as the prominent anarchist group the Situationsist International. (Derbyshire, 2011) On the home front, Andrew Macleod writes in ‘Why I Left the ALP’ ‘the truth is we don’t need new leaders of the two main parties. It’s not about changing Abbot or Gillard. What we need are two new parties”. (Macleod, 2013) Leaving us with the provocative question: just how flawed is our democracy, and how much exactly, do we have to change to fix it?

  Works Cited

Derbyshire, J. (2011, 8 18). The Beach Beneath the Street by McKenzie Wark: Review: The life and times of the Situationist International. The Guardian , p. 1.

Ellis, B. (2010, 6 23). Sleepless in Canberra. The Drum Unleashed , p. 1.

Lessig, L. (2009, 10 9). Against Transperancy: The Perils of Openness in government. The New Republic , p. 3.

Macleod, A. (2013, 5 27). Why I Quite the ALP. The Guardian , p. 1.

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Week 8: Transversality

First, how are the issues of music making, enjoyment and distribution, and of  the survival or not of journalism, currently framed? Second, what’s actually happening, and often this will not fit the frame

  Music making and its enjoyment and distribution are framed as a highly contentious issue, generally as a problem. Digital abundance is mentioned, but the most common elements referenced in the discussion are ‘file sharing’ and ‘illegal downloading’, presupposing that these services are damaging or immoral. There are counter arguments to the notion, however they tend to be voiced more quietly.

  “Technology has made music accessible in a really philosophically interesting way, but when everybody has the ability to make magic, it’s like there’s no more magic” (Punk, 2013) Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter recently said in an interview. His sentiment about the over abundance of music has also been expressed in the New York Times “How can you form a relationship with a record when you’re cursed with the knowledge that, just an easy click away, there might be something better”. (Spies, 2012) To some of the older generations abundance seems to mean a loss of romance in discovering music, in love with their restraint and captivity like sufferers of Stockholm syndrome.

  However the discussion does become more balanced in some areas, as a recent Guardian article pointed out, while record sales dropped, the music industry as a whole grew throughout the 2000’s. Additionally a recent report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, showed a positive correlation between file-sharing activity and visits to music stores. This demonstrates the convoluted nature of the public discussion regarding the future of the music business, bringing in to question the controlling interests behind each view and its authenticity. (Lindvall, 2013)

  Works Cited

Lindvall, H. (2013, 4 9). Rise in recorded music revenue is not all it seems. The Guardian , p. 1.

Punk, D. (2013, 5 17). Machine for Life. (R. Dombal, Interviewer) Pitchfork.

Spies, M. (2012, 11 5). Spotify and its Discontents. The New York Times , p. 1.

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Week 7: Data

The world has become a rotating body of data as almost everything we do is logged, tracked, analysed, streamlined and predicted. Data is changing the way we experience and understand everything. From shopping, where supermarkets can predict where and when people will shop, and how they will pay for their items. To their deliveries, where companies are able to increase the efficiency of their delivery services due to advanced mapping and delivery tracking services.  To the personal realm, where dating site OkCupid has calculated the best conditions to take a profile picture, to the common lies people tell when creating their profiles (People generally add 2inches in height and inflate their salary by 20%). (OkCupid)It’s also given rise to an army of self-trackers, utilizing the endless number of things we can track and ways we can do it.

  Self-tracking, data-driven ‘geeks’ live an interesting existence, having an incredibly precise understanding of themselves and what they do, being somewhat out of step with the other people who prefer to do things by feel. But it’s remarkably effective. When Robin Barooah, one of these data fetishists, felt he needed to stop drinking coffee he did so with a chart. He made his usual cup and gradually removed just 20mls a week. Rather than going for the bold but inconsistent cold-turkey method he wore his addiction down and was very successful in doing so. (Wolf, 2010)

  Perhaps with the amount of data potentially available to us data journalism entering the mainstream was just a matter of time. It’s interactive, it’s informative and it gets to the point; it almost sounds like a media manifesto for the digital native generation. (Rogers, 2011) But it also raises the questions how much data do we want and at what cost to our private lives? It’s somewhat concerning to me to think that the more we can track ourselves, the more we can be tracked by others. And really, while data journalism can present information in a visually interesting way; it doesn’t tell you a story in quite the same way as traditional journalism and you don’t get to know the subject at hand – just there numbers. At least to me, it’s just not the same.

  Works Cited

OkCupid. 10 Charts About Sex. New York: OkCupid.

Rogers, S. (2011, 7 28). Data journalism at the Guardian: what is it and how do we do it? The Guardian , p. 1.

Wolf, G. (2010, 4 28). The Data Driven Life. The New York Times , p. 7.

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Week 6: Augmented

Virtual and augmented reality are computer simulated, or enhanced realities, the seeds of which were laid way back in the 1860’s. Back then, the first steps in the process, were 360-degree art and panoramic murals. The real forward however, came in 1962, with the invention of the ‘Sensorama’. (Wikipedia, 2010) The multi-modal cinema featured 3D stereoscopic images, with body tilting apparatus, stereo sound and aromas that were triggered during the film. From these humble beginnings, the field of augmented reality has come a very long way, culminating in medical and consumer breakthroughs such as the much-publicized Google Glass, giving us a revolutionary view of the world.

  One of the most exciting developments was written about in an article in science daily, titled “Monkeys move and feel virtual objects using only their brain”. As the title suggests, researches created a two-way interaction between an avatar and a primate brain, something which has extremely promising implications for quadriplegics. (Anon, 2011)

  The primary social use of augmented realities however, will be the visualization of data all the around us which is usually hidden from view. Although this is an exciting prospect, it is also equally concerning with the negative potential of this technology just as great. On the harmless end of the scale, Mashable cites the concern of the loss of serendipity in every day life, as data drives our decisions, taking happy accidents out of the equation. (Havens, February)

  Additionally apps such as ‘Girls Around me’ raise the question of ethical data presentation. In the app users were able to see, based on foursquare and Facebook check ins, where girls around them were. Although technically public, the access to the data in the form of an optimized map is to an extent quite invasive, almost predator like. Perhaps, the biggest question around augmented reality is not its specific use as such, but how society feels about such easy access to all their data they log every day. As such data may become a bigger and bigger part of privacy laws, as traditional privacy breaches become harder than the digital kind.

  Works Cited

Anon. (2011, October 6). Monkeys ‘Move and Feel’ Virtual Objects Using Only Their Brains. ScienceDaily , 1.

Havens, J. (February, 8 2013). The Impending Social Consequences of Augmented Reality. Retrieved 4 10, 2013, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2013/02/08/augmented-reality-future/

Wikipedia. (2010, 12 1). virtual reality. Retrieved April 10, 2013, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality

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Experience

Descartes supposed that consciousness and every thing the mind performs and enables is too much for a piece of flesh, something both tangible and physical. He believed that the mind was an immaterial object, intangible in the sense of a god, which can impact the physical realm. He increasingly appears to be wrong however, with scientists and philosophers giving credence to the extended mind theory. That our mind utilizes particular tools and systems so often, and with such importance, that the mind is not only physical (our brain), but also extending into the objects around us. A couple system, if you will (Wikipedia, 2013).

  Steigler addresses this extension in Anamnesis and Hypomnesis, particularly in relation to memory. He argues that memory is as much external to our being as it is internal, “We have all had an experience of misplacing a memory bearing object, a slip of paper, book, agenda etc. It was then we discovered that a part of ourselves [memory in this case], is outside of us.” (Steigler)

  This directly impacts the way in which we perceive and recall experiences in our life. The first manifestation of mnemotechniques was two-three million years ago, with the development of lithic tools. Tools may not hold memory as such, but are directly related to recall, using previously gained experience-based knowledge to solve a problem. This extended into mnenotechnologies (Steigler), which took memory; recorded it, codified it, and transmitted it to others. What we began to see with the development of mnemotechnologies; print, telegram, newspapers, radio, television and the Internet was a shared memory. The development of a knowledge economy. (Steigler)

  As our shared memory (‘knowledge’) became too large for any one person we began to delegate it between professions and furthermore onto machines as technology developed. This lead to some problems, primarily, as we began to delegate knowledge to machines, we began to lose knowledge – a state of human obsolescence. (Steigler) For example, the proliferation of the GPS has lead to the loss of the vast knowledge of our road network; we theoretically do not need to know how to get anywhere, as a computer will always show us the way. Furthermore as knowledge was shared an issue became of who owns it? How can it be turned into profit? And what’s a fair use of it? With the battle evolving and becoming more turbulent as technology progresses and the knowledge is shared of how to get around payment systems. (Steigler)

Works Cited

Steigler, B. (n.d.). Anamnesis and Hypomnesis: Plato as the first thinker of the proletarianisation. ARS Industries blog .

Wikipedia. (2013, 3 28). The Extended Mind. Retrieved 3 28, 2013, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Mind

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Metacommunication

Theorist Neil Postman defines media ecology well when he says it is the study of "how media the media communication affect human perception, understanding feeling, feeling and value; and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chance of survival". As the word ecology suggests, it is the study of environments, a deep look into the structures facilitate what we see and hear, give insight into our actions and provide definition and identity to our existence.

 The theory was developed by Marshall McLuhan, based on the linguistic principle developed by his mentor I.A Richards "Words are ambiguous and best studied not in terms of 'content', but in terms of their effects in a given context". McLuhan was intrigued by this theory and felt it was greater than language, also applying to our relationship with human artefacts: the printing press, telegraph, radio.

 Approaching media artefacts as an interrelated ecology, rather than a collection of individual platforms, is important because often ideas are bigger than an individual medium themselves. This is why metacommunication is important, as a codification of media language, to give ourselves direction as to what we can expect and where we should look. An ‘opinion piece’ is expected to carry less factual weight and be more passionately argued than facts presented in a ‘news report’ for example.

 We also tend to make a habit of making ideas bigger than one medium in itself especially in the Internet age of increasingly convergent media, as if the amount of different mediums an idea touches the more weight it carries. Indeed Levinson touches on this notion in his book ‘The Soft Edge’, that media have the power to make or break ideas.

 He uses the historical example of Moses, using the medium of writing/literacy to establish his idea of monotheistic religion more powerfully than any before he. Levinson notes that it took some time for his idea to take hold, arguably due to the speed at which a single medium, which is not ubiquitous, can spread an idea. With modern media trends, aided by the Internet ideas are transmitted in seconds around the world. An idea or superstar can be made or broken in the space of a couple of days is a very modern concept, as oppose to the hundreds of years it took for Mosaic philosophies to entrench themselves.

  Sources

[online] ‘Media Ecology’, Wikipedia

[online] Media Ecology Association ‘What is Media Ecology’

[study kit] Levinson, Paul (1997) ‘The First Digital Medium’ in Soft Edge; a natural history and future of the information revolution London: Routledge:11-20

[online] ‘What is Media Ecology’, www.theodigital.com

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Machinic

Our body is a machinic assemblage of organs, a vessel, given meaning by the things we relate to and interact with. For example when an individual plays a guitar, the body becomes a musician. When smoking a cigarette it becomes a careless or reckless person, an addict, a stressed person, or all of the three. For this reason, the drive of technological determinism, and the rise and rise of assemblages have had a jarring impact on who we are as human beings.

  Marshall McLuhan famously wrote in 1980 “The medium is the message”, or, the device is having a greater impact on our psyche than the content it’s sharing. McLuhan states media and devices are technologies which extend human sense perception; altering it as they ‘change the scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.’ This has certainly changed the way in which we relate to one another. The Victorian era, a peak period in print culture, was a time of secrets; of private meditations on ideas presented to individuals. (Jeffries, 2011)

  Our current culture however, with television, radio and the overwhelming technological determinism of social media, is increasingly obsessed with exposure, creating a sort of cultural discord between generations. Rapper Drake ponders this in his song ‘Lord Knows’ off his 2012 album Take Care “They take the greats from the past and compare us/I wonder if they would survive in this era/In a time when its recreation/To pull all your skeletons out of the closet like Halloween decorations/I know all the things they be poking fun at”.

  Ironically, whilst we are sharing more, Baudrillard notes the new machinic assemblages through which we live, while creating sharing addictions, have made people more distant, more engrossed in screens.

  Works Cited

Jeffries, S. (2011, 12 28). Friedrich Kittler and the rise of the machine. The Guardian , p. 1.