CRDM 701

Week 10 - Christin

Latour writes ?Do this, Do that, Behave this way, Don?t go that way.  Such sentences look very much like a programming language.? (263)  Whether you consider this as a set of instructions given to a human user/worker or a nonhuman groom, as he calls them, it?s an interesting thought.  Machines must engage us as machines in order to understand us, we must program machines with a set of instructions to try and simulate humans.  An interesting dichotomy we seem to have going, and I wonder which goal comes first?  Do we need to think like machines in order to create machines or did we need to create machines to think like humans?

It speaks to the whole idea of technological determinism, which Castells argues is not really an issue.  ?Indeed, the dilemma of technological determinism is probably a false problem, since technology is society, and society cannot be understood or represented without its technological tools.? (Castells 5)  He later stipulates, ?Yet, if society does not determine technology, it can, mainly through the state, suffocate its development.  Or alternatively, again mainly by state intervention, it can embark on an accelerated process of technological modernization?? (7) 

I?m not sure if I agree with Castells that technological determinism is as mute a point as I believe he?s making, but I do wonder with what he says in his next chapter on informational revolution.  I?m curious whether this revolution has occurred directly as a result of the growing number of grooms, as Latour calls them, taking on the role of human labor.  If we no longer need to open doors, then what really is a human worth?  As Castells mentions, we may not be able to replicate human brain and therefore our abilities with said brain are what we must then capitalize on.

This brings me to the Adams pieces for this week.  He states that ?Authorities are people whose communications are endorsed by society (not unanimously, but across a wide range of subject positions) as long as they touch only on certain issues.? (5)  Is it possible, then, for a computer to be an authority?  It must be, since we accept what computers tell us all the time as fact, especially in the sciences?

On a separate note, but one I wanted to mention, in Adams? other work he writes that ?Simulated (virtual) place is most obviously a place without walls, furniture, and bodies that can be touched; it looks like a place but does not feel like a place.? (99)  I don?t remember reading (and someone correct me if I?m wrong) that Adams outwardly states that we?re privileging, then, smell, taste, and touch as so-called ?real? senses.  Sight and sound could be thought of as ?fake? senses since not all that we sense from them is necessarily ?real.?  So my last question for this post ? if someone were able to create a digital environment wherein all your senses were able to perceive it, would it be real or virtual?

Posted at 05:31PM Oct 31, 2007 by caphelps in Week 10  |  Comments[0]

Week 10 - Jon

As I read for this week, I was reminded of the concept of boundaries that I was thinking about last week. How are boundaries perceived and navigated in virtual environments? In the virtual, it also seems individuals are more driven to circumvent boundaries, to find a way around them. Dawn provided a nice example of her playing Super Mario Brothers and hitting an invisible wall. Mario can jump, swim, eat strange mushrooms, get bigger, and even fly, but he will never cross that barrier, regardless of how hard he might try.

There is a mindset of being limitless that comes from the VR context. After our discussions with Dr. Hillis, I tried to think about why it is that virtual spaces seem so, well, large, even infinite. When one puts on a VR helmet, there is almost a promise of a space without constraints, or without the same constraints that we face everyday in the real. In Paul Adams's "Network Topologies and Virtual Place," we learned about how the vary language, terms such as "cyberspace, electronic frontier, information superhighway," used with online environments creates this sense of vastness and freedom (88). The virtual and its many places are presented as an open landscape for frolicking.

In the real, outside of the Web, I am limited in what I can and cannot do. I can't, for example, fly around on my bike, jump off of buildings, drive tanks, etc. The reasons for these limitations are obvious: I face constraints in regards to transportation, sensation, and society. I don't want to feel pain, so I don't jump off the building. My bike can't fly, so I pedal it on the road to class, although, I'm not going to lie, that would be awesome. These barriers constantly act upon us. So, when we put on a VR helmet, we see it as as an opportunity to remove these constraints, and finally to do what it is that we want to do. On the surface, the virtual world is a playground of possibilities. It seems like there are no boundaries, and there should be no boundaries because the experience is so, for lack of a better term, virtual.

We have no choice but to compare the virtual to the real. Most of the constraints of the real must not exist in a world that is purely virtual and visual, right? Wrong. You fly around in the virtual and, eventually, you are going to find the barrier, the edge of the universe. The invisible wall between what you can reach and what you cannot is shattering. We are instantly reminded that the virtual is not real, and it too has barriers, and perhaps, now that we know about them and perhaps use the virtual for an escape, may be even greater than that of the real. Yes, the virtual is a playground: it has a sandbox and swings.

So, regardless of our language, there are constraints in the virtual space, Adams indicates how "Virtual place metaphors are employed when the guidebook to America Online. . .describes its 'people connection' as consisting of a lobby and adjoining rooms" (89). In such a virtual environment, there is a beginning, the lobby, and a set place to go, one of the adjoining rooms, which is just as limited as the real, a pattern that is present throughout the Net. In "The World of the Extensible Self," Adams indicates how "virtual spaces provide cues to the landmarks, paths, edges, and so on that one might find in physical spaces" (18). Indeed, search engines, for example, channel Internet users in very straight, "popular" paths, constructing a limited way of traveling through the muck. We know the paths because they are presented to us as a listing of search results. The further down we move through the results, perceivably, the closer to the edges we become. The very last result, in our mind, represents, metaphorically, the least relevant search result for our topic on the entire Internet, a humorous thought to consider. If an invisible barrier like that of VR and video games were present, one might see the list of links, but click them and find them unclickable. The barrier is not visually apparent, yet it exists and prevents what seems accessible.

Latour's article, which had me laughing quite a bit, provides a simple scenario and the complicated dilemma surrounding how certain human and nonhuman factors contribute to the solution: "Walls are a nice invention, but if there were no holes in them, there would be no way to get in or out; they would be mausoleums or tombs" (258). Doors provide a physical outlet between spaces, one that we take for granted. In their absence, we immediately seek them out. So, it makes sense in the virtual that once presented with a boundary, visible or not, we are immediately searching for a solution. When, really, the only door that we will find is to take off the VR helmet, or turn off the computer game and return to the real. In such a moment, the virtual and its "frontiers" and "super highways" become smaller and constrained.

Posted at 01:58PM Oct 31, 2007 by jtburr in Week 10  |  Comments[1]