#publicsandpublishing

[yoommyarts2090-blog]

The Internet of Things

I catch myself questioning the level of ubiquitous computing in my world quite often. And to be honest, it scares me sometimes just how naturalized it's all become. As I trace back my daily steps moving to and from several locations, there's no doubt that I'm continuously moving WITH my "online world". If I ever mistakenly leave my iPhone at home, I can always recall thinking (and most of the time telling whoever the hell will listen) how it feels like I've walked out of the house with a missing arm or leg. That reference to my mobile device becoming so attached to my body that it's considered as a limb, is testimony to just how immersed I am within this world that my physical being does not occupy. It is this idea that sharing my sensory experience of my world is imperative because it is possible. But that's not to say that I'm exploiting my privacy nor do I have a complete disregard for personal space where one must be immersed within their immediate, private world to maintain sanity and some sort of zen, but it's the ability to pick and choose what fits my life that is so... enabling. 

This free-flowing data via a multi-platform network has, understandably, blurred the lines between the 'real' world and the 'online' world. A great example of this being Woody Allen's 'Purple Rose of Cairo' - the film trailer shown in the lecture.

Where once the publisher held authority and dictated the terms of use, now the user/viewer can incorporate the published into their own lives how they see fit. They can also become their own publisher using the same work published by another - actor/audience ambiguity. With such ubiquitous production and consumption of data, it is no wonder that we're now having to engage even more in this world in order to engage less. Take aggregation for instance. A great example being NutshellMail - a service that sifts through your social network notifications and alerts you as often or less often than you wish, Or the way you can change the settings on Facebook to hide certain peoples' status updates and activities. In every online service, these kinds of adjustment options are basic foundations in enabling the user to customize, prioritize and personalize. Precisely what aggregation is all about - a form of expression within itself (Barnett and Flores).

With such an all-encompassing, multidimensional world within worlds, one might assume that it's counter intuitive of an enriching, learning experience. Nicholas Carr (2008) would say so. He argues that reading on the internet actually causes distracted dissonance and that it "dumbens" the user because of it. Wolf and Barzillai on the other hand, mentioned that digital text actually promotes creativity, discovery and encourages deep thought through the richness of online text and challenges of sifting through the various layers of content that it provides. The multi-modal nature of reading online presents the reader with multiple points of entry into the one subject.

From someone who has an iPhone as a limb and doesn't go a day without checking into her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts (not to mention I'm actually registered with a lot more than those crucial 3!), that all sounds ok to me. Sure it scares me sometimes just how naturalized ubiquitous computing is to me these days, but it only lasts a second before I realize I need to share that thought on my status. After all, we're all in this together right??

Visualization Presentation

[yoommyarts2090-blog]

Google Glass's social body

In light of the topic of Visualization, I sit and ponder about the great ol' debate on globalization, security and privacy versus revolution/evolution, shared experience and positive connectivity. 

So, Google Glass. What does its existence mean to the world? Better yet, what does it say about that world? Well, let's look back into history and pull apart some of the varying perspectives on what visualization could mean. 

Classic Marxist philosopher Guy Debord, preferred to look at all kinds of visualizations/signs/images as a hindrance to critical thought because of the lack of authenticity and prevalence of commoditisation. He argued that the "spectacle" i.e. visual/image is merely a representational image of society in which relations between commodities have replaced relations between people. "The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images," (1967). This kind of critique on visualization stems from Plato's theory of "simulacra" - the notion of an imperfect copy of the ideal world. In this way, his theory promoted a mistrust of visual images and the technologies that are involved in producing them. 

And then you have the Renaissance Perspective, where the emergence of new technologies in capturing the world were becoming so common, we were mistaking it as a fixed nature. Yet, it still allowed for a vision of the world we live in where everything is in its right place. By using a mathematical sequence in interpreting the real world, it creates a visualization that depicts people and objects in a fluid, interchanging relationship. Which I guess is closest to Martin Heidegger's theory in "The Age of the World Picture," (1938), where he argues that we gain more and more new perspectives and create new 'socials' using technological innovations in order to view our world. 

Fast forward to today; where forms of content and expression are so advanced and so varied, that our own literacy of visualization has increased ten fold. So what world is it that something like Google Glass creates? Is it merely a technological object that projects the ideal reality in which we live and interact? Is it just a mirror? Or does it create its own reality; a new social body that didn't exist prior to its creation?

I think it most definitely creates a new social body through the way in which it uses data in real-time, modulates, fragments, reassembles and expresses it to the rest of the world. As Andrew Murphy put it, "visualization is just one example of conversion of data from one form into another, which then feeds back into our senses, and shifts individual experience, the social, “publics”." 

[yoommyarts2090-blog]

Who Am I Mr. YouTube?

If 'archive fever' (Derrida, 1997) means thinking about how different ways of publishing constitute institutions, modes of living, our sense of who we are, individually and collectively, so what does my YouTube account say about me, and the world around me?

Well, I guess you can see it in two ways for the purpose of this 'archive' analysis. 1. YouTube's own archive - the video assemlages and 1. My YouTube - my account, my subscriptions, my history, my favourites.

So if what Derrida argues as, the importance of the way archives are constructed in constructing the identity of those it affects, is anything to go by, YouTube, you complete me.

Look at the video I posted up for instance - "Rewind YouTube Style 2012". 4 minutes and 15 seconds of the most culturally defining moments of the web in 2012, played out by several prominent faces of the YouTube community. I say "of the web" loosely. Because what we're looking at here, is essentially the way in which the "web" is no longer a separate, 1 dimentional entity that we look at for a minute of entertainment in our daily lives, but instead, it IS our daily lives. It is us. All the millions of videos uploaded are mirrors to us as individuals (ANYONE records and shares their stuff) and consequently as a society, a world as a whole. As Benedict Anderson's (1983) theory of 'Imagined Community' comes to mind, YouTube, is one of many ways in which publishing presents and forms a specific picture of the world we live in, the people we live with - who we will probably never meet in our lifetime, and forms a community beyond space and time. This video currently has 108,935,753 views. I guess you could say that this is a pretty good example of an archive that shows authority (what and who pleases the masses, hence has power in our society?) as well as what is essentially 'inside' of culture. Even having prominent YouTube stars playing the roles in the clip creates the prerequisite for a universal understanding, a common reference point that is assumed knowledge.

So not only am I connected with the rest of the world, but it's in the WAY YouTube organises and categorises, that brings me closer to my 'imagined community', whilst bringing me closer to myself. Those that I relate to, that I'm familiar with, that I'm interested in and that I'm looking for, are all archived specifically, optimized and monetized, so I never get lost. Again, YouTube, you complete me.

[yoommyarts2090-blog]

Assemblages: So what comes first - the chicken or the egg? Or in this case, the person or the gadget?

Flicking through some of the readings for this topic, I was continuously reminded of Castells' (2005) work we'd been introduced to in arts1090, about the 'network society'. He argues that our society is a network society that is made up of interconnected 'nodes'. Within this network of information-carrying nodes, there is no centre, just nodes. In our current world, surrounded by things that are constantly keeping us a part of the network or 'assemblage', we become a centreless flow of constant information.

"With the advent of nanotechnology and the convergence between microelectronics and biological processes and materials, the boundaries between human life and machine life are blurred, so that networks extend their interaction from or inner self to the whole realm of human activity, transcending barriers of time and space" (Castells, 2005).

So along with Latour's actor-network theory, where the clusters of actors within a material-semiotic network are equally 'things' as they are the people who use those 'things', it is essentially the relationships that are created and maintained within the assemblage of 'things' or 'nodes', that define their existence.

So the augmentation and the extension of our bodies and minds within a network of interaction powered by gagdets/technologies/'things', is what makes our current world, one where the iPhone (for instance) shares the same place in the coherent whole, as you and I. I know that I can't seem to live without my iPhone - Ok, saying that in a literal sense may be a bit much, but what I do know, is that I have previously used the 'leaving the house without a limb' analogy on days I've left my phone at home. It really has become an augmenation and extension of my body and mind and in this way, if you break up the parts that make that single connection - myself: hair, skin, eyes, brain etc. and my phone: metal, wires, plastic etc. (assemblages within assemblages is quite endless really!), what becomes apparent is really just an endless amount of 'things'/'nodes' interconnecting, flowing and forming relationships using information.

So it does pose the question, what really does come first?

[yoommyarts2090-blog]

"When the camera came out, paintings didn't go away.."

I thought I'd start us off with that nice little quote, thanks to the also nice little lady, Jamie Fiocco, (co-owner of FlyLeaf Books in North Carolina) in the video I've posted - "E-Books or Print Books".

So this brings us to the on-going, ever-so-complex debate about e-readers taking over Planet Books like some draconian, apocalyptic scene straight out of Blade Runner, versus e-readers simply being an augmentation of its original predecessor. Think, complimentary side-kick. Think, tomato sauce to your fries. Think, coffee with your cigarette. Better yet, coffee and cigarette with a good book. Boom. 

Which brings me to my point. As Elizabeth Eisenstein (1979) so eloquently put it, the broadcasting of new messages can be seen as a process of amplifying and reinforcing the old ones. "Is it possible that an increase in the output of old texts contributed to the formulation of new theories?" she asks. Yes, I say. Yes, indeed. Just as the bible was 'standardized' and 'reinvented' for the access of a higher number of people, e-readers have done the same with books. You don't see the printed copy of the bible diminishing these days, do you? Maybe you have. But I have yet to see it. Essentially, it seems the digitization of print is indeed a revolution reminiscent of what the printing press meant for Gutenberg's society, and that is, a much more knowledgeable  empowered public. However, instead of replacing approximately 500 years worth of history (that's A LOT of investment in a system to educate mankind - so it must be working, surely?), the e-reader can be seen as merely an extension of books, which really were a way to spread ideas across time and space, in a networked environment. So I love me an e-book, I do. Coz who wouldn't want cake, and to eat it too?