CRDM 701

Week 12--Jayna

I think I?ll start with the last quote I typed in my review of the reading this week.  ?Words mean what people have made them mean, but people mean nothing that words have not taught them to say? (Peters, p. 258).  To me this quote brings the semester?s readings full circle? we communicate in the way that we have created over the millennia.  We express our thoughts, feelings, ideas through speech and writing, photography, music, and (other) digital means. Still, it is what we have dubbed it to be.  As Peters points out, the evolution of communication also limits us?but if it is true that communication has become disembodied (and I think we?d all agree with that to some extent, ie: conference calls with researchers who are only a voice to us and not a body), then perhaps there are no limits to how we can continue to take the evolution of communication.  Maybe I will be able to one day have conversations with my dog that are of the two-way variety, where she shares her feelings, and not just her nonverbal reactions to my tone of voice and body language.

Code, as discussed by Hayles, is much the same?while she argues that it is not its own language (or perhaps that was another theorist she was quoting), it to is limited by the capabilities of its writers, and is undeniably linked to language/writing, as the intent of the code must be translated from the desires of the humans creating it.  So, likening it to the Peters quote, code means what humans say it means, and code?s capabilities are only limited by what the humans can (dream to) develop for machines to carry out.  As Hayles says, ??a computer program has only one meaning: what it does?.Its entire meaning is its function? (p. 48).  As a result, those writing the code must be very clear in their intent, otherwise the code will not function correctly.

Hayles makes a number of connections that I feel relate to my topic of the perception of typography.  Here are two that I made specific note of: ??clearly it matters that print has now become a particular kind of output for digital text?. Print books in general have moved toward the visual and away from straight text?. It is also true that any book, conventional or not, participates in the rich historical contexts and traditions of print that influence how books are designed, produced, disseminated, and received? (p. 32-33).
?[1997-2004] have seen remarkable growth in the visuality of electronic media and the accelerating digitization of all media? (p. 37).

Both quotes speak to the importance of visual communication. It seems that although our communication has become more and more disembodied, we still desire the images to go along with our written messages.  Peters seems to agree: ?Our faces, actions, voices, thoughts, and transactions have all migrated into media that can disseminate the indicia of our personhood without our permission. Communication has become disembodied? (p. 228).  Here, I feel that Peters acknowledges the digital evolution and also gives a nod to digital?s visual representation.

Random thought inserted here? Most of us don?t know code. We use extremely user-friendly web-page creation software or simply type directly into discussion boards.  The code is there, interpreting our intent, allowing the page to look and feel the way we want, helping us to use fonts, colors, text attributes, photos, sound clips, to communicate our message in our way?Hmmm? with that I must run?my apologies for the brevity; too much to do and too much mucus in my head to allow me to do it efficiently.  Now there?s your disembodied visual!

Posted at 05:23PM Nov 14, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[2]

Week 12 - Kathy

Hayles and Gannon argue that digital media have "reinforced and extended the ways in which human intelligence is enfolded together with machine cognition" making compositional practices "fluid transformative processes " influenced by humans and machines (forthcoming, p. 4). Further discussing this enfolding, Hayles and Gannon use the example of the book "House of Leaves", arguing that the novel "suggests that postmodernism has not so much disappeared as been swallowed up ? or better, engulfed ? by the flood of data, associations, information, and cross-references unleashed by the World Wide Web" (p.21). Humans may be at risk of being swept up in the digital since we are, as Haraway notes (1991) "nowhere near so fluid, being both material and opaque" (p. 153).

In order not to be overwhelmed by this information, humans might have to find ways to better deal with an increasingly digital world. Hayles (2005) notes that "strategies can emerge from a deep understanding of code that can be used to resist and subvert hegemonic control by mega corporations, ideological critiques can explore the implications of code for cultural processes...  code is increasingly positioned as language's pervasive partner" (p. 61). This quote in particular made me think about where the enfolding of people and digital technology can be most productive - and (surprise) got me to thinking about hackers again. As the Internet is increasingly moving toward being a tool for mega corporations rather than thriving as a democratic and expressive space, we are going to need help from all kinds of people who have a deep understanding of code -- even hackers.

Because computer hackers have knowledge of systems that seems to range from clever to some kind of communion with code, they can find ways to work around systems of control. For instance, ISPs are beginning to look at packet flow and packet inspection technologies that would classify information in order to identify what customers are doing with the bandwidth. If you use Skype rather than your provider's VoIP service, for instance, the ISP may choose to degrade or block your Skype service. With a true understanding of the way that these systems work, hackers can find ways around such issues - in this instance, the solution involves re-assigning ports (VoIP has a port it generally uses - but since port 80 is HTTP, you can make the info look more like a website than a phone call - clever indeed).

Of course, individuals with this level of understanding are working on all sides ? for themselves, the consumer, the government,  big business -- sometimes no one. It seems to have more to do with a relationship to the technical that Wajcman (1991) points out with a quote from Oppenheimer: "when you see something that is technically sweet you go ahead and you do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had you technical success" (p. 138). I would argue is part of the hacker way of being - the desire to (following Wajcman?s argument) "give birth" to something technological.

In Traumas of Code, Hayles argues that code is a resource that could potentially mediate the human cognitive system, opening up new channels of communication "between conscious, unconscious, and nonconscious human cognitions" (p.6). Thinking about trauma as stored sensorimotor experience rather than language was interesting, particularly as I thought about the final stages of writing my thesis. I remember being stressed out (pretty badly) and often without a lot of time to eat. As a fix for that, I started packing in 4-5 of these wonderful double cocoanut eggs a day to get more fuel. Long story short, when they started showing up again last spring, I bought a few and went home to enjoy. I started to chew, and soon got sick in the stomach and started "freaking out" from stress. Doesn't seem like a big deal when I write it down here, but I assure you, it was not fun to bite into stress.

Peters (1999) writes that "If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom, or if all philosophy is learning how to die, then machines will have difficulty sounding the strength humans call from their imperfections" (p. 236). If computers are not able to "freak out" in the sense that we can, how will they know when they have finally reached an understanding of something? If they can think, do we want them to take credit for our work since they were there the whole time we were working? Think about it - "Future Dissertation" by 00012C4JAX445Z45 and Kathy O (authors listed alphabetically). yikes.

See you all tomorrow!

Posted at 05:15PM Nov 14, 2007 by kfoswald in Week 12  |  Comments[1]

Week 12 - Christin

OK, you all already know that I?m a programmer.  I know C++, I wish I knew Java, and that?s probably why Hayles? discussion on code both intrigued and frustrated me.  First of all, a point that I have to make because it always frustrates me to no end: Hayles writes about HTML as if it is a programming language.  It?s not and many hardcore computer programmers out there will get quite upset if you try to treat it as such.  There is a very big difference between a markup language (which is what HTML is) and a programming language and Hayles actually talks about one aspect that sets the two apart ? compiling.  HTML does not need to be compiled.  It?s part of the reason why, I think, that HTML can be taught so easily and learned so quickly and why it?s no longer considered an ability restricted to computer experts but relegated to any semi-power user of the Internet.  Most individuals nowadays who are online on a fairly regular basis know enough HTML (or could learn it in less than an hour) to build a simple website by themselves.

Enough of my ranting though.  I thought that Hayles? discussion of whether or not a programming language was a language in the sense that it could be compared to English, French, German, etc. was interesting given her approach, and I especially liked her clarifications about where they differed. On page 50, she discusses the important point of code as an executable language (2005).  The byproduct of such a classification is that we must think about code in a different way than written or spoken traditional language.  I seriously struggled learning Italian in high school and college and found learning C++ a whole lot easier. I think this is because we utilize a different part of our brain when we code versus when we write or speak.

We must, in essence, think like a machine when we code ? think mathematically, laying out how we need to program something so that the computer understands what we need to do, and without any ambiguity.  If I were to mistipe a word like I do in this sentence, you still understand what I mean.  If I mistype a single character in a line of code, the computer will not understand what I am meaning to tell it to do.  This black and white line of thinking requires us to approach this language very differently than approaching everyday communication.

What intrigues me, however, is that we can program a computer in this black and white manner, but then the computer can evolve to understand the grey areas.  Computer understanding, their intelligence so to speak, is what the Turing Test is all about.  Both the Peters and Hayles? the Mood Swings readings discuss a Turing Test and so here?s a link for everyone to go look at: http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html  It is for an award, the Loebner Prize for artificial intelligence for a Turing Test, lists the winners and available links back to 1991.  If you?re new to Turing Tests, you should definitely take a look.

We were discussing in the other class the idea of whether computers can trust or not, and although I don?t want to reopen that discussion if no one wants to, I do wonder why so many people are so apprehensive towards even the idea of a computer not being capable of trust (or a variety of other so-called emotions).  Peters brings up some very good points.  ?The key question for twentieth-century communication theory ? a question at once philosophical, moral, and political ? is how wide and deep our empathy for otherness can reach, how ready we are to see ?the human as precisely what is different.? (230)  Later, he writes ?It is human frailty, rather than rationality, that machines have difficulty mimicking.? (237)  I see in society a growing move towards the natural, towards the spiritual and I wonder if part of that isn?t our desire to find that thing, that part of being human that sets us apart and above machines.  If computers will one day be capable of doing everything a human can do, thinking as a human can, acting as a human can (as the Turing Test and cellular automata, which by the way if you want to play with a good example of see http://psoup.math.wisc.edu/Life32.html and Conway?s Game of Life), without the knowledge of inevitable death, where does that leave human beings in the order of things?  It would imply that a machine could be a more perfect human, a meta-human so to speak, which then forces us to seek out and strengthen what sets us apart and what makes us better than a machine that we, ourselves build. 

Posted at 05:08PM Nov 14, 2007 by caphelps in General  |  Comments[1]

Week 12 - Nick

Code, code, code, we are surrounded by code!  Or rather, code is the most recent metaphor for how we conceive of our lives which is, as usual, based in the technology of the times as Hayles points out.  These metaphors are part of the endless feedback loops that lead to socially constructed reality.  Once we collectively have a technological metaphor for the way something in life works, it seems we begin to apply it far and wide and the new technologies that result are created within that system and thus bear its markings.  I am reminded of the 'kid with a hammer' analogy I have heard in relation to new scholars with a favorite theory; all the world becomes a nail.  At what point does such a metaphor become hegemony, I wonder?  Certainly, such a worldview empowers some while disempowering others; when a metaphor is based on a technology then it must inheret the issues and weaknesses involved in that technology.  We have witnessed the technological divide and discussed this problem, but this has been a divide which has existed since there has been technology.  Thus, every technology of communication, from speech to print to code, has caused some kind of divide.  Can those who do not have access to the technology still be affected by the metaphor?

Something I found interesting, regarding metaphor, was when Hayle's pointed out that Derrida could be an underlying theoretical 'code' every bit as restricted to a priestly class of the few who understand it as computer code.  That really resonated with me, as someone who has struggled with Derrida every time I have encountered him.  To 'get' Derrida, I usually require a friendly 'interface' in the form of a mediating article that uses Derrida and explains his work as it relates to something I do understand.  Hayle's second chapter was one such mediating form, but even this was fairly dense and theory laden.  The real 'user friendly interface' that mediated this week's readings for me was her 'Trauma's of Code' piece.  Through that article and her examples of current literary/cinematic works, I came to grasp the concepts she was speaking of all along in a much better way.  And, ironically, I read all of this week's readings by Hayle's on my laptop.  That makes me, what, at least four steps removed in mediation from the 'real' language I was staring at? (Her text to Adobe's software to the alphanumeric coding that composes it all the way to the base binary 1's and 0's that compose that code) 

This work relates to my work on Google bombs in an interesting way.  Google bombers are utilizing and abusing the code of the organizing algorithm.  This is an method of organization that is entirely new and unique to the coded internet environment.  In days of old, the organizing method was in print (Library of Congress, Dewey Decimal system) and in days of ancient it was organized through rhyme and meter in people's heads.  People intrinsically trust the code behind the software to find the most relevant links to information that they request; bombers manipulate that code (again, through interfaces where they don't even see the code) and shove what they want to see up to the top of the heap.  They do this all without truly understanding the code they are manipulating due to their addiction to the interface. (How can they understand it when the designers don't even fully grasp it???)    We have moved into a world where the priests of the guarded language no longer understand the whole of the language but instead only grasp parts of it.  Has code brought us (again?) to a semblance of collective knowledge?

Posted at 04:06PM Nov 14, 2007 by nmtemple in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 12 - Kelly

While reading Hayles? writing this week I continue to draw connections between her ideas and my experiences as I navigate my way through Second Life. Hayles points out that ?underlying code surfaces at those moments when the program makes decision we have not consciously initiated? (forthcoming, p. 2). As a newbie to the Second Life virtual environment it was almost kind of creepy when my avatar would begin to perform tasks that I didn?t really feel like I had any control over and wasn?t expecting. I had almost a voyeuristic experience with my avatar when I would begin typing on my keyboard (to communicate with another avatar) and then I would notice my avatar was air-typing - I didn?t know what it was doing at first. I felt like I was observing an interaction that I wasn?t wholly a part of especially when my avatar would make appropriate facial expressions and filler motions that I had in no way prompted.

Though Hayles later argues that higher level of complexity can emerge from different mechanisms including analog in response to Wolfram and Fredkin, I don?t think this disputes the novelty of Fredkin?s major thesis: ?That the universe is digital all the way down and, moreover can be understood as software running on an unfathomable universal digital computer? (Hayles, 2005, p. 23). If we conceive that the actual universe is digital ?all the way down? then does that imply that the virtual environments like Second Life aren?t really that ?virtual?? Maybe they are more like subsidiary or sister environments. Second Life could just type of ?new kinds of environments in which human and machine cognitions are deeply entwined? (Gannon & Hayles, forthcoming, p. 36). In my research paper I am looking at how the visual culture of Second Life extends outward and possibly influences actual lives ? especially in regards to how the visual communication of avatars reflects Second Life values and changes how we conceive of our none-screen bodies. Gannon & Hayles (forthcoming) take this idea further by illustrating an actual physical extension of the digital into our bodies:

It seems eventually programmers will develop ways of allowing aspects of Second Life (or another casually immersive world) to become part of our actual world where we might not have control, like Whalen?s ?cognisphere?. In Heidi?s presentation last week she mentioned an example where nano particles implanted in a physical body would work on their own to kill cancer cells ? and they would be able to differentiate between good and bad cells because they will have been programmed accordingly. Her paper was discussing how ?the mind? was the last frontier for nanotechnology and I feel like this can also be connected to Second Life. Many people feel that Second Life is all about sex which is weird to think about at first since the physical aspect of sex seems crucial. In Turkle?s (1995) interviews with people who engage in netsex she found that ?They are constantly surprised by how emotionally and physically powerful it can be. They insist that it demonstrates the truth of the adage that ninety percent of sex takes place in the mind (p. 21).

One difference between literature and code that Hayles (2005) reminds us about is that code is not so easily understandable with the passing of time. ?Although they can still produce documents using these versions, they are increasingly marooned on an island in time, unable to send readable files or to read files from anyone else? (p. 51). This seems even more disturbing for those poor avatars who might eventually be left ?marooned? in an inactive world. I thought about this when I was investigating other virtual environments that are becoming less and less popular with the success of Second Life. I wonder if people feel any worse about abandoning an avatar or persona in a social world than they would about abandoning word processing programs?

One (of many) things I would like to discuss during class time is the Weizenbaum example Hayles (forthcoming) illustrates on pp. 27-28. Hayles writes that, ?In brief, it [the computer] possesses the kind of cognitive state that psychoanalysts train for years to achieve? (Hayles, forthcoming, p. 28). I wonder to what extent psychoanalysts really hope to achieve this. I am thinking now about when designers and writers says that when they are looking for critique of their work they try to separate themselves emotionally from their work so that can accept criticism and not take it personally. On the one hand this would help them remain more objective and prevent hurt feelings but would a complete emotionally sever from work have other negative effects as well?

Posted at 01:22PM Nov 14, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[2]

Week 12 - Jon

Something I have been grappling with in my paper is the idea of the "screen" and the space it creates between viewer and artifact. By using the term "screen," I am referring to both physical and imaginary screens. In the context of my paper, I discuss largely physical screens, such as that of a computer monitor or the separation between a museum exhibit viewer and the artifact being viewed. Screens not physically tangible would be those that we use to navigate and make sense of our surroundings.

These readings helped me to think about this topic. For one, I was glad that Peters's "Machines, Animals, and Aliens" reminded me of the Walter Benjamin article from earlier in the semester. Prior to this gentle nudge, I was, for reasons tied up in the roughness of my draft, extremely downgrading the power of, what I might term, the "museum screen." In a comparison to the computer screen, I was greatly privileging the digital, and I now consider this somewhat of a mistake.

What these readings did, primarily, was blur the screens that we use when we think about, broadly, different types of communication. For example, Hayles's description of the movie Avalon merges reality with simulation. Towards the end of her discussion of the film, Hayles describes Ash's place in a world known as "Class Real": "When she emerges, she finds herself not in the war-torn game world but, significantly, back in her own apartment" (p. 19). Thus, the screen through which Ash views the world, the VR helmet, reconstructs and places her into a simulation of reality. The screen thus serves as a mirror. Importantly, this is a mirror that leads us to question everything about reality, the "reality" of reality. Given that Ash remains in "Class Real" at the end of the movie, we are lead to believe that this is a screen that is more than just peered through. I wonder if this is a feature unique to virtual reality. There is no question that individuals become entrenched in MMORPGs, which, seemingly, become their priority, their reality. Where is the line between presence (in reality / virtual reality) and absence (from virtual reality / reality)? Or is there no line at all? In the terms of museum exhibits, I suppose, Ash has crossed the red velvet rope and made her way into the glass, becoming, in some way, part of the slice of virtual reality that is a museum exhibit.

Gannon and Hayles's "Mood Swings" discusses House of Leaves, a unique text that seems to redefine the act of reading. We have a tendency, I think, to read texts in particular ways, such as through different theoretical lenses, our experiences, etc. House of Leaves seems to challenge all traditional ways of thinking about the idea of a book. Specifically, the space that exists between reader and text in the case of House of Leaves and a traditional text seems different. Where a traditional text is interactive in the sense that encourages the reader to visualize the text, House of Leaves appears to engage in a more direct, physical interactivity -the book is as much something to read as it is an artifact to be examined. The great variety of medias present in this one text makes me wonder if our world will ever become so intermediary that there will no longer be a need for separation between different medias. Why should going to a movie and reading a book be two separable activities when they can be combined into one multi-mediated experience? Will all of the screens that we are presented with, such as video game, movie, book, and museum, become one?

As I was reading the Peters chapter, I kept thinking of Miguel Nicolelis's experiments on mind control at Duke University. I think his experiments blur the boundary between machine, animal, and alien communication. For one research project, he attached electrodes to a monkey's brain and taught it to play a video game with a joystick. Over time, the monkey learned that it didn't have to physically move the joystick in order to play the game. From that point forward, the monkey controlled the game with its mind. Thus, the monkey is able to escape the boundaries of its body. Peters mentions the significance of the animal body in regards to how it constraints communication with humans:"If a lion could speak, we couldn't understand him. . .We would need to live in a lion's body and experience the lion's form to understand the lion's speech" (p. 244). The implications of Nicolelis's research suggests that humans and animals may be able to meet out of body and communicate with one language - the language of the brain. However, as Nicolelis demonstrates, the language of the brain is only static at this point, literally and figuratively. Peters indicates that communication with aliens is in a similar situation, a desire to sort through the noise of space: "SETI seeks a true signal amid an infinity of noise; thus by far the most effort has been put into listening rather than sending" (p. 251). Unlocking the codes of these different types of static will continue to blur the boundaries between machines, animals, aliens, and humans.

Posted at 11:29AM Nov 14, 2007 by jtburr in Week 12  |  Comments[0]

Week 12 - Karla

Hi everyone.  I have chosen a few points from the readings to raise in this post, making some connections to my research on text-based e-therapy and how its dependence upon disembodiment has positive implications.  Part of my entry is not completely cohesive with the rest, but as I was reading that part of the assignment I had a personal connection to it (through my 101 class) and wanted to mention it.  So, here goes, and happy last blog entry to everyone!

Toward the beginning of his chapter "Machines, Animals, and Aliens:  Horizons of Incommunicability" Peters writes, "Communication suggests contact without touch.  To talk on a telephone is to identify an acoustic effigy of the person with an embodied presence.  In 'communication' the bodies of the communicants no longer hold the incontrovertible tokens of individuality or personality.  Our faces, actions, voices, thoughts, and transactions have all migrated into media that can disseminate the indicia of our personhood without our permission.  Communication has become disembodied" (228).  I was interested in Peters' reference to "without our permission" and the various possible ways to read that claim.  Do we think of disembodied communication as "without our permission" only because it enables a way to penetrate bodies without physical contact with those bodies?  Or, do we conceive of it in this way because given the increased and increasing use of communication media other than face-to-face, there seems to be little choice whether we participate in disembodied communication?  Is it in part because we realize that nonverbal cues enable us to express ourselves in certain ways that we cannot necessarily replicate without the face-to-face interaction, so that there is some sense of a loss of control over communication when we have to rely predominantly or only on communication lacking those visual cues?  In terms of text-based Internet therapy, a central concern is the lack of nonverbal cues and the implications the absence of such signals has on the development of the counselor-client relationship.  How can the communicants truly communicate in an effectively therapeutic way when they only have written messages to use to express thoughts and feelings?  When discussing Turing later in the chapter, Peters comments, "The presence of the speaker's body is no guarantee that genuine interiority is being tapped" (236).  I think this statement raises an important point about the privileging of face-to-face communication and the belief that physical presence ensures an authentic exchange between the minds/souls.  Embodied communication (including face-to-face therapy) does not automatically equate to such a connection to "genuine interiority."

Referring to Hans Moravec, Hayles mentions in her prologue the idea of the "postbiological" future in which "the expectation that the corporeal emdodiment that has always functioned to define the limits of the human will in the future become optional, as humans find ways to upload their consciousness into computers and leave their bodies behind" (2).  *I can imagine how Dawn responds to this idea.  I wonder about the possibility of the "postbiological" future in terms of how realistic it is to completely separate the consciousness from the body.  Even though chatting online allows disembodied communication and people clearly are willing to accept this, there is still a desire for the body, whether by asking questions about it (age?  sex?  hair color?  etc.) or requesting pictures.  Not having a picture available almost seems a faux pas, as though you are a novice to computer-mediated communication if you lack the resources to provide physical "proof" of your body.  I have never used online dating, but I have friends who have, and they often either passed over the profiles that lacked pictures or else requested those pictures almost immediately after initating contact.  In terms of e-therapy, often patients who have never been face-to-face with a counselor (for various reasons) are willing to try online therapy, and after doing so, sometimes pursue more embodied forms of therapy, including telephone, videoconferencing, and face-to-face, demonstrating both a desire for and greater comfort with physical presence in sessions.

Although not really related to what I have been discussing so far, I liked the point Hayles makes in Chapter 1 regarding how electronic literature is understood.  She discusses the "tendency to apply to electronic literature the same reading strategies one uses for print, while underappreciating or perhaps simply not recognizing the new strategies available to electronic literature:  animation, rollovers, screen design, navigation strategies, and so on.  Whereas Aarseth faces forward and reads print literature through a matrix developed in the context of computer games, McGann faces backward and reads electronic literature through a matrix developed in the context of print literature" (38).  I have not read the McGann piece she refers to, but I have read some of his work, so I am a bit surprised to learn about his "[facing] backward."  Hayles' claim reminds me of the discussion I had with my English 101 students on Monday about analyzing and evaluating online sources, particularly how relying upon established print-based critieria is not adequate or advised.  My students seemed to understand why it is problematic to use print-based strategies, but also a bit uncertain how to proceed, which, I think is reasonable.  I agree that looking backward by placing electronic literature in a print context is problematic, but, particularly with regard to teaching, I wonder if/when we will develop an established way of reviewing electronic literature?  Shifts in the electronic appear to occur at a more rapid rate than those in print, so how do we confront this challenge?

Near the end of her second chapter, Hayles writes, "These dynamics make unmistakably clear that computers are no longer merely tools (if they ever were) but are complex systems that increasingly produce the conditions, ideologies, assumptions, and practices that help to constitute what we call reality" (60).  The idea that computers help shape what we understand as "reality" seems almost strange given discussions of the actual versus virtual, but at the same time, not really strange at all.  We have come to rely on computers for so much of our daily interactions and activities that to view them as just "tools" seems irresponsible.  As we have incorporated computers more and more into our lives to the point that they "help to constitute" our reality, how have we changed our understanding of what is real and what is not? 

In "Traumas of Code" Hayles states, "The modification highlights a principal difference between humans and intelligent machines: humans have conscious self-awareness, and intelligent machines do not. Along with the capacity to feel emotions, self-awareness remains a distinctively biological characteristic. Nevertheless, contemporary computers perform cognitions of immense power, complexity, and sophistication" (5).  Hayles' comments reminded me of the discussion in CRD 702 yesterday about the anthropomorphism of computers and whether or not computers can trust.  I cannot say that I think computers can trust, though the conversation was interesting.  I think the understanding of emotions and self-awareness as "biological characteristic[s]" is important to take note of, particularly in light of the anthropomorphism of computers/machines.  If technological advances were to enable a robot to feel emotions and to demonstrate self-awareness, would we still make the biological distinction?  Understanding that those are biological processes, even if they are attained by something unnatural, would we simply say that the machine is mimicking what it means to have emotions and self-awareness because it has been programmed to have those abilities?  Hayles writes in "Mood Swings," "In particular, humans seek meaning while computers execute commands" (27).  Whereas humans use emotions and self-awareness to help make sense of the world around them, would robots with similar capacities for feelings and self-awareness do or need to do the same, or merely use them to determine what actions to take next?

Posted at 10:13AM Nov 14, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 11--Jayna

?Speech? is not so much possessed as active in community life?[when] advanced forms of communication are created? a more complicated division of labor is created and it becomes appropriate to speak of producers and consumers of knowledge? (Carey, p. 167-68).
??by the end of the fifteenth century?Commercialism of the publisher began to displace the craft of the printer? (Innis, p. 53).
??the goals of ensuring the safety of an auto-mobile population and the efficiency of the automobile system demands that driving subjects become highly normalized and self-disciplined? (Packer, p. 370). 

These three quotes show a clear lineage of the ?technology= power? tendency of our readings.  This week?s review of communication history pointed out that moving from oral societies to literate ones began the clear distinction of class separation, later promoted capitalism at its finest example, and moved us into current trends in communication technology being used as a means of cultural/human protection.  We saw the transition from leaving ?space? behind when transmitting messages, to bringing ?space? back into view as a means of security.

Packer addresses the electronic highway for automobiles and the AHS (automated highway system)? recently (have any of you seen this email?), a woman sued the manufacturer of her newly purchased RV because it wrecked when she set the cruise control and went to the back of the vehicle to relax.  She must have thought she was on/part of the AHS?even more outlandish, she didn?t only sue?she WON the case? that?s probably another blog for a different class.

Does all of the technology Packer speaks of to develop AHS and, as we currently use the GPS and On-Star technologies mean that we are bringing technology back to the confines of geographical space?  In order for Homeland Security to truly secure the highways and other transportation systems, wouldn?t they need to know where every vehicle, train, and plane are at any given moment? Now there?s a frightening use of technology?and in my mind, it seems like a step back.  A great technological advancement in the telegraph was the removal of space from the message, and with AHS and GPS, suddenly the space, or location of the vehicle?and our ability to communicate with it?becomes priority.  I suppose every cell phone in each car is already monitoring location to some extent, as we all have a positioning device in our handset.

Speaking to Packer?s identity of mobility, more and more cities across the world have surveillance cameras on the streets monitoring the comings & goings of individuals as well as the vehicles at intersections (and whether or not they?re stopping at red lights).  Break the law and you conveniently receive your ticket in the mail a couple of weeks later.  Hmmm? did you even remember you?d been at that intersection?  Maybe not, but the ticket clearly shows your car, your tags, your face at the steering wheel.

So this next thought is a bit random, but I?ll include it anyway and close with it? If communication is seen in terms of space and time, does that mean that the Internet negates the concern for space when it comes to preserving history?  Storage of papyrus, clay tablets, and books has always been a necessity and priority, but is space a non-issue now that images can be ?stored? in (Kathy?s Tubes of) the World Wide Web, and essentially remove the need for the space/container?

Posted at 07:03PM Nov 07, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 11 - Christin

America has always touted our belief in freedom ? the freedom of expression, the freedom of thought, the freedom of the press, and so forth.  Does the move to a security society necessarily equate to the abolition of freedom?  I certainly hope not, but it appears to seem that at least somewhat this is holding true.  For a very long time the second amendment was believed to be crucial for the freedom of US citizens.  Yet, in this society where our government is engaging in ?homeland security? more and more, controlling our daily lives more and more, Americans in droves have begun to oppose in some form the second amendment.  Did the events of September 11 trigger such a fear in Americans that many are now willing to give up certain (if not all) freedoms in order to feel safer, regardless of if they are or not?  Almost my entire extended family lives about an hour north of New York City, and almost all of them seem to feel that way.  They?re afraid because the space they inhabit lies so close to the City that they?re at risk ? even though the towns they live in hold less people than even the smallest town in Wake County.

Packer states on page 383 that, ?One element of the model of the control society is the management of access to space.?  Space, for Packer here, literally means geographic physical, ?real-world? space.  But an analogy could be drawn here to another type of space.  Innis discusses how those who have had control over knowledge throughout history have had the power in society.  Knowledge has now begun to be disseminated literally through space (Wi-Fi, Cellular telephones, Satellite TV, etc.).  I wonder how many cars of the future will have wi-fi capabilities that the government can conveniently connect to, giving them more power over the virtual space (both in it?s embodiment as bits of data traveling through the air and the information it contains) as well. 

I haven?t really discussed lately the connections my readings have had to my paper, but this week?s readings kind of made it impossible not to.  Carey writes, ?Innis believed that the unstated presupposition of democratic life was the existence of a public sphere, of an oral tradition, of a tradition of public discourse as a necessary counterweight to printing.? (165)  He later states that ?The strength of the oral tradition in Innis?s view was that it could not easily be monopolized.? (166)  If Innis were alive today, I wonder what he would think of YouTube?s effect on democracy?  I would argue that YouTube is monopolizing a small subset of our oral tradition (and making a nice profit in doing so).  It is changing, slowly, what is needed and what it means to participate in a democratic society.  If you miss a debate on TV, you can watch it online over and over again until you understand exactly what each candidate stands for (or claims to stand for).  No longer must we read what happened in a debate in a newspaper if we missed it. 

Posted at 05:54PM Nov 07, 2007 by caphelps in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 11 - Kathy

About a year ago, I began to notice large grey poles along my normal driving routes, which upon further inspection had cameras attached to them. They must have been put up overnight, since I never saw the people who put them there. Yes, things are different after 9/11. Yes, I want to feel safe. I wonder, though, if a massive deployment of cameras along the roads of a suburban community with virtually no crime is a little excessive. Is this an indication of something more than simply "montoring traffic"? After reading Becoming Bombs: Mobilizing Mobility, it is making more sense - perhaps it is a symptom of the shift from a logic of safety to one of security, in this case, "activated through a particular mode of mobility, the automobile" (Packer, 2006, p. 380).

Talking about the shift to a security society, Packer notes that with the development of communications, command, and control networks (C3) "rather than being treated as one to be protected from an exterior force and one?s self, the citizen is now treated an always potential threat, a becoming bomb" (p.382). What immediately came to mind was the Matrix (1999), and the idea that at any time, an average citizen in the Matrix could become an Agent, posing an insurmountable threat. The Matrix could instantly become a dangerous place for those on the side of the resistance, and so needed to be constantly monitored from the Nebuchadnezzar -- a mobile command unit -- to ensure the safe movement of Morpheus and his crew.

The discussion of mobile command units - the Ford prototype and the Hummer Militia (scary thought) - made me think about Carey's (1989) discussion of the expansion of European Empires via the printing press*. With the printing press, Carey highlights the centralization of authority as well as the decentralization of national administration (p. 158). When any vehicle can be a bomb, it makes sense that any other vehicle should become an extension of the State, like an Agent in the Matrix. The idea of making truck drivers and commuters or an assemblage of electronic devices and software a decentralized extension of the centralized State at first seems like a logical choice - until, that is, we take into account what constitutes "suspicious activity." If, as Packer writes the recognition is dependent on "risk assessment algorithms of mobilities" (p. 392), there is a lot of wiggle room on what could be "suspicious". In a world where C3 networks could also track credit card purchases, phone calls, and library records, a simple run to Target for cleaning supplies and a stop at Lowes for some plywood could be suspicious - maybe more so if said vehicle has also been located at a Green Peace meeting. Maybe you aren't spending the weekend cleaning and doing a little home fix-up - maybe now you are explaining your patterns of automobility to the feds.

I am also interested in another kind of mobility - virtual mobility. What web sites you visit, your virtual mobility, could indicate a future threat. As someone who did research on hacking, I can't help but think that my Internet histories could be seen as having interesting future trajectories - perhaps as a L337 H4X0R? While I would be flattered, I certainly lack the skills. I still wonder sometimes if my patterns of virtual mobility will ever compel someone to ask me politely to change my research topics, or to come to different conclusions.  

Something that I would like to discuss more in class is the move from disciplinarily to control societies, and I am interested in learning more about the idea of control societies in general. Packer (2006) cites Deluze as calling for us to "see into and before the dawning of this control society in order to prepare modes of resistance" (p. 384). Effective resistance to the control society is more than sabotage, but (again, citing Deluze) to "create vacuoles of noncommunication, circuit breakers, so we can elude control" (p. 396). I'm thinking lately about re-visiting my thesis topic (hackers) and feel like this might be an interesting way to pick up where I left off, and perhaps look at hackers as a circuit breaker.

Switching gears real quick: At the point that Innis discusses the format change from papyrus roll to parchment codex and the "system of censorship" involved (1951, p. 48), I was reminded of how changes in format can leave valuable information behind, deliberately or not. In that case, it was a ban on secular learning - these days, what gets lost seems to have a lot to do with profitability. As in, don?t trash those LP's, VHS tapes, and books - not everything makes the cut, and the move to digital means a lot of things might get lost. There are a lot of cool preservation projects out there - check out this one that asks people to send in all kinds of moving images for archiving: http://www.archive.org/details/movies.

See you all tomorrow!


*for you, Dawn.

Posted at 04:45PM Nov 07, 2007 by kfoswald in Week 11  |  Comments[44]

Week 11 - Nick

I am a bomb!  This is most certainly news to me, but it is not surprising.  Why, when I was going to SSCA this past spring, I was surprised by the fact that I had to take my shoes off in the airport.  Also, it was mildly annoying to me as it was early in the morning and I am not terribly coherant early in the morning.  "Wha?  Bomb in muh shoo?  Huh?  But now my feet're cold.  Bastard."  I think that was the extent of what ran through my mind.  Then I had to put my shoes back on and...yeah.  Kelly can attest to how NOT a morning person I am; she was there.

In that instance, until I was processed by the system I was seen as a potential 'bomb'.  Naturally, I define this term loosely as well as literally as Packer likely meant it.  A bomb is a threat to the system.  In a control society, as he stated, you are either the cog that makes the system run more safely and smoothly or the cog that has the potential of sproinging and ruining the whole thing.  (Well, he used different words, but you get the idea.)  Safety or Security.  That's what it comes down to.  Which do we prefer?  Which do we get?  According to Packer, we get both and become schizophrenic for it.  We are told to be good little cogs and cogettes in order to make things flow more smoothly, but at the same time we are told to take our shoes off in airports to make sure we don't have Weapons of Mass Destruction hidden away acquiring a nice foot odor.  And you know what?  I go along with it.  Why?  Because a control society runs on fear - the fear of the unknown, the fear of potential threats to my safety, etc.  I let them cause me a bit of inconvenience and a few cold feet so that if the guy behind me is a crazy SOB that wants to take the plane down with a stinky shoe bomb, they'll catch him and I'll be safe.  (Also, if I don't, they won't let me get on the plane.  And I've got a paper to present!)  I could fight back by avoiding surveillance technologies and practices like Packer says, and in many areas I do.  But at the same time, sometimes you've got to play by the rules of the system to get something accomplished.  It is very hard to fight a control society, which is part of why it works so well.  And you have to ask yourself...should we fight it?  Why?  If it keeps us safe...  Well, good old Ben Franklin has a great answer for that, my friend: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."

The rest of the readings have their roots in the Innis reading.  Once again, we are presented with a comprehensive view of communication through the ages exposing the bias inherent in communication technology.  However, this is by the great granddaddy of them all who started it, Innis.  Carey picks up Innis's work and runs with it, citing him as the pre-eminate communication history scholar.  I find it interesting that the 'thinking with him' theme pops up a lot (well, twice, but still)  Many texts are things to think with, and yet this is a high compliment as many other texts are things that we just read.  That Carey achieved the same compliment that he paid to Innis shows how great both are in their illumination of communication technology history.  Carey pulled out the interesting tension between time and spatial organization and how the US became organized spatially in large part due to its geography.  Also, the Northeast cooridor became the most highly trafficed information highway.  Such primacy defined the US, it seems, and one has to wonder if things would have been different had it gone some other way.  Of course, now with the internet the information cooridor is online and traverses the wired world.  The playing field has been somewhat leveled and 'the world is flat' as Friedman would say.  Now we just have to worry about that pesky technological divide.

I would relate the readings to my topic, but at the moment I am drawing a blank.  I have narrowed my focus a bit to something known as 'Google Bombing' and how this has implications for how people take charge of structuring their knowledge through search engine algorythms, but the only real way that connects is through the fact that I am discussing yet another 'bomb'.  It is a disruptive influence, to be sure, and yet one outside the realm of a control society.  Indeed, it is a deviant act perhaps making a parody of a control system, and as such Google has explicitly shut down a few such bombs already.  The question is, of course, what are the implications of THAT? 

Posted at 02:26PM Nov 07, 2007 by nmtemple in Nick  |  Comments[0]

Week 11 - Jon

Jeremy Packer opens "Becoming Bombs: Mobilizing Mobility in the War of Terror" with an extension of the battlefield proper to the homes and streets of Americans: "In the US?s new war of terror a specific formation of the war machine has been turned upon its own citizenry. Citizens and non-citizens alike are now treated as an always present threat. In this sense all are imagined as combatants and all-terrain the site of battle" (378). Post 9/11, many individuals have willingly accepted restrictions on certain freedoms in exchange for a sense of safety and security. Supporters of giving unrestricted power to Homeland Security must rationalize the presence of an "Empire 'based on a state of permanent exception and police action'" (380). Images of what might happen without such a symbolic entity of security ? film clips and audio from overseas, simulations both realistic and virtual, and media speculation ? all seem to be contributing factors to why one would make sacrifices for a sense of safety.

Despite such fears, there is certainly a fascination with the potentiality of war in the streets. Many video games, for example, provide the imagery of monuments and skyscrapers as the ultimate battleground. For example, a student of mine is writing a paper on an advertisement for a video game, "World in Conflict." The ad, a two page spread, features planes engaged in a hyper-real air battle. The planes are surrounded with explosions, some of which mirror the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb. The setting for the missile exchange is a national monument: the Statue of Liberty. At the top of the page are the words, "America the Battleground." Thus, it seems like many Americans fear a terror attack and look to Homeland Security for protection, but are, at the same time, strangely fascinated with the idea of war in our country. Of course, regardless of who is purchasing these games and simulating a virtual war in the streets, every citizen is seen as a threat: "Citizen?s become bombs, not simply by choice or through cell propaganda and training, but by Homeland Security itself" (381).  It seems the virtual allows our fears to become interactive fantasies. 

I was also interested in how, in a control society, mobility is limited through access to space. For one, obviously, I can only go where the road will take me (unless I'm off-roading in my Civic). So, I am protected from driving off of a cliff or into the ocean in Looney Tunes-esque fashion. However, mobility controls are beyond just the network of roads to which our cars seem to be affixed. Packer describes other restrictions on mobility: "the ability to be mobile, to move from one place to another, can be governed at the level of the individual" (383). These restrictions exist, but, even in the post 9/11 era of increased security, they seem to be lax, which, I assume, is a result of prioritization. There are speed limits posted everywhere, yet few people follow them. Drivers even have an assumed rule with police that 5ish mph over is not considered speeding. And, I am not going to lie, I drove my car with an expired inspection sticker for two months. So, we are constantly trouncing upon mobility restrictions and experiencing no consequences. As technology and its use for control continues to evolve, it seems we will have less and less control over mobility and will move toward what Packer terms "the dystopic vision of a control society future; all individuals fully remotely controllable" (384). The idea of remotely controlled mobility reminds me of a toy I had as a child that was a "remote control" car attached to a wire. So, the car was always grounded to a central authority, never truly mobile beyond an arm's reach. What was termed ?remote? wasn't really remote at all. Moreso in the post 9/11 era, the wire between our means of mobility and bodies of control seems to be tightening.

In "Space, Time, and Communications," James Carey provides an interesting discussion of Innis's groundbreaking interdisciplinary research. The following quote seemed particularly useful in the context of the Packer article discussed above: "Even if society were like an organism, there would be some controlling element, some centralized brain in the body, some region and group that would collect the power necessary to direct the nerves of communication and the arteries of transportation" (152). Thus, the organism, our means of mobility, the remote control car, are always being controlled and manipulated by an outside force. The means of this direction and its purpose are determined by historical and theoretical contexts. Packer and Robertson's introduction to Thinking with James Carey: Essays on Communications, Transportation, History puts the inseparable bond between history, communications, and theory nicely: "Communications theory is never to be ahistorical and communications history is never to be atheoretical" (3). Given the difficult situation surrounding resistance outlined in the conclusion to Packer's essay, how do we resist control society? Do individuals and groups of resistance run the risk of being labeled as terrorists?

Posted at 02:23PM Nov 07, 2007 by jtburr in Week 11  |  Comments[0]

Week 11 - Kelly

A few concepts in the readings this week I think are interesting to discuss in regard to our class and the CRDM program.  Privatization of education through writing and buying into security are both ideas that are thoroughly interwoven in the process of our education, in the intellectual history of communication and what we aspire to research and even teach. Just like it is problematic that when discussing visual communication (other than written text) we use written text, it seems problematic that Innis and Carey spend so much effort articulating their arguments for print and then write, ?speech is the agency of creative thought; printing of dissemination?. And though this quote is referring specifically to ?printing? and not only writing, the issue was that knowledge grows out of speech and dialogue and is active instead of possessed. I agree that during some moments writing is private but I?m not sure if it prevents active information or the formation of democratic groups. We spend a lot of time on the 701 blog trying to come up with creative thoughts and then reading our classmates? ideas. This writing seems active, it supports the discussions later in class but even if we did not meet we could respond to one another?s posts or enter a chat room.

Also, Carey (1989) points out that ?once advanced forms of communication are created ? writing, mathematics, printing, photography ? a more complicated division of labor is created and it becomes appropriate to speak of producers and consumers of knowledge? (p. 168). This issue seems so complicated to me because I feel that the roles of producers and consumers change for each individual depending on the context of a situation. Eventually I think we all hope to be producers of information about communication, rhetoric and digital media but we will still be consumers of information/entertainment about black holes or why honeybees are vanishing. Carey says ?people become consumers of communication as they become consumers of everything else? (p. 169) and that ?the very existence of a commodity such as ?information? and an institution called ?media? make each other necessary? (p. 168). I definitely agree. But I am confused about his reference of ?people? being dependent on the ?journalist, the publisher, and the program director?.  What does he mean by ?people?? Anyone who is not in those positions he listed at the time? It?s possible those consumers could be the program director some day. And just because people are consumers of the information provided by a program director I?m not sure if that automatically makes them dependent. Again, I?m thinking about this in regards to our program and how I?m not so sure by attending a class and waiting to be informed/educated we ?lose the capacity to produce knowledge for ourselves in decentralized communities of understanding? (p. 169). Maybe we feel like we are producing knowledge since our classes do take place in an oral setting (but then again more time is spent with writing outside of the classroom).

So my understanding of the ?public? is that the Chicago School saw the mass media as bringing the public into existence and then later threatening the possibility of rational discourse and enlightened public opinion (p. 145); and Innis saw the existence of the public sphere (dependent on an oral tradition of public discourse) as a necessary counterweight to printing (Carey, p. 165). I thought the mention of Nerone?s concept of moving the debate of the public sphere away from access to representation provided another interesting viewpoint when trying to understand a media that creates and both inhibits a public sphere. Packer & Robertson (2006) explain that Nerone ?argues that ?sad histories? about the decline of participation and the rise of spectacle need to be rethought ?merely? as changes in an ongoing system of representation (p. 8) since the ?public? has always been mediated the people and the public is always represented. I hope we can discuss this idea more in class.

And again, I thought the idea of a resistant strategy against surveillance was another relevant topic in regards to our 701 class. Dawn mentioned in 702 something about the CRD 701 blog popping up with Google searches (I can?t remember exactly what she said but the word ?beware? was involved). The idea of surveillance has come up quite often in our class discussion but it never really seems to concern any of us. We continue to post publicly to the class blog and many in the class not only participate in Facebook, personal blogs, but promote /sell the importance of them. I?ve had students say to me, how can you be a serious communication student and not be very active (not only a member) on Facebook? If we feel like our discipline consistently supports networked systems how can we ?have the capacities to become non-active members? (p.396)? These might not be the technologies Packer was specifically referring to but I think there is a strong connection. Critiquing a network power may not only be seen as threatening from a terror perspective but also as an attack against our own discipline (even though our discipline also spends much time illustrating how these technologies do control us).

Posted at 01:29PM Nov 07, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 11 - Karla

Hi all.  I will try to keep this entry from becoming too lengthy and unwieldy, focusing on just a few of the points/quotes that were particularly significant to me.

In "The Bias of Communication" Innis traces development of communication technology across geography and time.  As he states, "The relative emphasis on time or space will imply a bias of significance to the culture in which it is imbedded? (33).  Innis demonstrates through his research how various cultures throughout history used means of communication to confront issues of either space or time, depending upon factors such as politics or economics to determine which necessitated greater attention.  Are the current methods of communication in the U.S. more focused on space or time?  Obviously, the country is part of a global network community that exchanges information and ideas on a regular basis, and, therefore, bridges the spatial gap (at least to an extent).  However, the quick pace at which everyday life moves requires communication that can link people together despite temporal distances.  Is there a greater balance on the emphasis of time and space now, or can we still see a leaning toward one more so than the other?

Innis later writes, ?We can perhaps assume that the use of a medium of communication over a long period will to some extent determine the character of knowledge to be communicated and suggest that its pervasive influence will eventually create a civilization in which life and flexibility will become exceedingly difficult to maintain and that the advantages of a new medium will become such as to lead to the emergence of a new civilization? (34).  The amount of time required to be considered "a long period" presumably extends beyond a couple/few decades, but assuming that online communication continues/increases far into the future, how may we expect it to affect "the character of knowledge to be communicated"?  What signs do we see now (if we see any) of how online communication is shaping information and what such changes may indicate for the information we later value and the ways in which we value it?

Carey asserts in "Space, Time, and Communications:  A Tribute to Harold Innis," ?Even if society were like an organism, there would be some controlling element, some centralized brain in the body, some region and group that would collect the power necessary to direct the nerves of communication and the arteries of transportation.  There would be no transformation of the great society into the great community by way of disinterested technology but only in terms of the ways in which knowledge and culture were monopolized by particular groups? (152).  We have discussed power dynamics a lot throughout the semester, and I like that Carey inserts "[e]ven if" in his reference to society as an "organism" because the interest in conceiving of society in such a way seems, at least in part, driven by a desire to emphasize the interconnectedness of different groups and how individuals work together.  Nevertheless, as Carey suggests, despite cooperation, there is still some "centralized brain" that directs the other constitutive parts and that, in this way, exerts control over the others, as it may determine the means and access to the means available.

Building on the power implications, Carey later writes, "In granting freedom of the press, the Constitution sacrificed, despite the qualifying clause, the right of people to speak to one another and to inform themselves.  For such rights the Constitution substituted the more abstract right to be spoken to and to be informed by others, especially specialist, professional classes" (163).  Further, "even though literacy can give rise to a form of democracy, it also makes impossible demands.  Literacy produces instability and inconsistency because the written tradition is participated in so unevenly" (164).  Innis believed in an oral culture that enabled a greater sense of democracy, as the oral tradition "could not be easily monopolized" (166).  An oral culture may perhaps be better able to ward off the compulsion of people to "become 'consumers' of communication as they become consumers of everything else" (169).  There would still be the problem of some being better speakers than others, however, whether due to having more knowledge of a specific subject or more eloquence when speaking, and, as a result, perhaps having greater value as communicators than others. 

In their introduction, Packer and Robertson state, "Carey, a Deweyan, writing against the dominance of a transmission model, refuses to detach community from face-to-face interaction; whatever the scale, democracy depends on the foundations of group life" (7-8).  Because so much interaction/communication has shifted to forms other than face-to-face, and the groups of people who interact through those means (such as by online chat or audio) are arguably communities, do we modify our understanding of community as a result of the changes in communication or do we do so to open up the way for those advancements in communication?  Basically, do we grant "community" an elasticity because of a felt need to do so given that much communication occurs through means other than f2f, allowing us to avoid seriously restricting how we conceive of community in a time when some people are only connected by the digital?  Or, do we privilege other reasons for modifying the way we perceive of community?

Referring to Packer's work, the introduction notes, "First, transportation has become increasingly dependent upon communications at the behest of safety and security.  Second, this linkage depends upon a conceptualization of how to use transportation and communications technologies to 'govern at a distance' - that is to ensure the smooth flow of power relations across increasingly vast distances through the exertion of as little direct action as possible" (6).  Packer's "Becoming Bombs:  Mobilizing Mobility in the War on Terror" of course speaks to this subject of "govern[ing] at a distance," as he writes, "Safety as a set of practices and a legitimizing discourse has been both a goal of biopolitics and a means for ensuring discipline and implementing a control society" (379). 

Packer later argues, "When life is not equally invested as a desired ends by state and citizen alike, life is no longer only that which must be groomed and cared for, but rather it becomes a constant and immanent threat which needs diffusing or extinguishing" (381).  The ability of individuals to become bombs and to use their means of mobility to threaten the lives of others contributes to the fear of movement and the effort to use transportation as a method of governance.  As Packer states, "It is not who is a threat, but what vehicular movement can be used to predict a threat" (392).  I think the issue of mobility is particularly interesting in terms of identifying the "other" and establishing an agenda of "us" against "them" in relation to international warfare.  If we look toward the "movement" rather than the "who" to anticipate future threats, how may this impact our creation of the "enemy"?  Packer comments, "The identity of the driver is of no consequence; traditional identity categories come not to matter, only movement" (392).  I am reminded here of comments I hear people sometimes make about suicide bombers and how those statements pertain more so to the use of mobility to harm others than necessarily to the perpetrators of the violence themselves (For example, claims a suicide bomber is cowardly for using a car to blow up others as opposed to walking up to someone and killing him/her with a gun).  There is still a judgment about the person who enacted the violence, but it becomes directly linked to the method used to kill, rather than purely a reflection on how that person is perceived for wanting to destroy another. 

On a not especially connected note to what I have been saying, the reference to the "driverless automobile" (385) is really striking given that there are now vehicles that park themselves, or at least that is how they are marketed.  However, the driver still assumes responsibility to an extent, such as by being responsible for mashing the accelerator or brake.  The push to remove the driver from the vehicle seems particularly interesting in light of discussion about VR attempting to remove the creator from the program, or even negating the necessity of physical embodiment in a virtual world.  The move to extract the physical/human body from the technology opens up much room for research, and with my own paper topic about online therapy I see this to be the case.  Material I have come across argues for or against disembodiment as helpful for therapeutic communication, and, of course, there were past computer programs that users became so attached to (even though the users realized they were speaking to computers) that they continued to communicate with them as though they were "real."  How necessary is physical presence to the technology and/or to communication? 

So, I did not manage to limit the length of this post too effectively . . .

Posted at 12:41PM Nov 07, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 10--Jayna

I'll start of like Nick usually does--with a quote: ?We are entering an era of electronically extended bodies living at the intersection points of the physical and virtual worlds?? (Adams, p. 88). That one quote could perpetuate hours of conversation among us (perhaps it already has!).

And, I must include this ANALOGY?communication system: communicators :: place: inhabitants (Adams, p. 89) (yay!)

Adams ?nodes? and ?links? used to create topologies of communication can be likened to James Grunig?s public relations research on excellent communication. Grunig addresses the one-way, two-way asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical views of communication.  Two-way symmetrical efforts are most effective and beneficial to the parties involved, according to his discoveries. (Grunig, Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management, 1992)  I was surprised that I didn?t see Grunig in the reference list of 1998 Adams piece, and would be curious to see if there are references in the 2005 book.  Symmetrical (using research to manage conflict and improve understanding) and Asymmetrical (using research to persuade) are used ?to describe the purpose of public relations as striving for balanced rather than unbalanced communication and effects? (Grunig, p. 287)  Later, Grunig says that the asymmetrical  should not be perceived as unethical or as an ineffective means to persuasion (p, 310).  However, it may not be the most direct route to persuasion either. 

The File Search, Computer Bulletin Board, and Computer Forum as described by Adams could be both persuasive and informational (except the file search, that would focus on the informational). The notion of designating topographical models (p. 91-93) for each of the social spaces is interesting perspective to me.  The sense of place, especially from a geographer?s perspective, is one that I?d not given any thought to before the last couple of weeks.  Adams puts it pretty directly, ??nodes can, and often do, move from location to location without affecting the topology of the ?virtual place,? and often cyberspace?s ?occupants? interact with no idea of each other?s locations?? (p. 98). To me, the social space diagrams are another variety of communication models, but emphasize the advantages to the interdisciplinary nature of communication. When we can take a look at our field?s natural topics from another perspective we can gain a great deal.

Similar to last week?s discussion, we see in Adams a recognition of priority on the visual sense, and adds an interesting comment, ??in everyday life, nearly all of what is apprehended in one sensory mode is taken to be real without resorting to other modes for verification? (p. 99).  He goes on to emphasize that we are even encouraged to only focus on a single sense at a time?I think of my research topic of typography here.  What we see provides us will all sorts of connotation, feeling, and even judgment. Type becomes part of that in cyberspace, as in many interfaces, type (and the words they create) is the visual we have to build our perceptions.  I also love the notion Adams brings about that in cyberspace we can be many different personalities, if you will, at once?but in physical space we can really only ?be? one at a time (p. 100). I?ve really got to put some more thought into linking the Castells and Latours pieces to Adams?s work that we examine this week. I pulled several quotes that I found to be food for thought, and I will share those merely as quotes in case others note the same ones and we can discuss in class. 

I?ll bring my others tomorrow, but here are a couple:

Latour mentions the necessity of physical place in order to contribute to the cyber-place??As for the computer user input, the cursor might flash forever without the user being there or knowing what to do?? (p. 272). Latour also recognizes the importance of delegation in our lives with nonhuman as will as the need for each other in communication with these two gems? Walls are nice, but the door is the miracle of technology. We delegate the door?s work to the hinge. (p. 258 & 259)
??humans, nonhumans, and even angels are never sufficient in themselves and because there is no one direction going from one type of delegation to the other?..? (p. 269)
Castells stresses the importance of technology?s role in communication as well as the link between technology and power??Economies throughout the world have become globally interdependent?new relationship between economy, state, and society, in a system of variable geometry? (p. 1).  ?Environmental consciousness has permeated down to the institutions of society? won political appeal, at the price of being belied and manipulated in the daily practice of corporations and bureaucracies? (p. 3).  And of course, ??technology expresses the ability of a society to propel itself into technological mastery through the institutions of society, including the state? (p. 13).  I look forward to our discussion and teleconference, and will have a few questions prepared.

Posted at 06:12PM Oct 31, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[0]

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 - Nick

Much of this week's readings seemed to center around agency and identity, although it took Adams's explicit focus on that to drive it home for me.  When he spoke of how networks must exist because of agency because the technology needs the user to function appropriately, I had to sit back and consider the full implications of that.  It is such a simple statement, and it seems as though much of this week's readings toes the line between technovangelism and guarding against exactly that.  It is hard to ignore technology's influence and harder still not to speculate on how it will dramatically improve the way humanity goes about things.  Castells speaks of the Information Revolution, charactherized by the fact that users and doers are one and the same.  Information technologies must by their nature impact the way in which we view the self -- should we choose to use them (which we seem to invariably do).  This is part of Castells's major claim when he says, "Our societies are increasingly structured around a bipolar opposition between the net and the self." (p. 3) 

What does this mean for agency?  I think part of the answer can be found in Adams's piece concerning virtual place relationships.  His exploration of how virtual places are similar to physical places is an interesting one.  When we exert agency on technologies, we typically envision them in light of what we know of previous technologies.  In this case, it seems that when it comes to communication technologies, we envision them in light of previous communication technologies and methods of communication.  Adams calls these similarities 'archetypes' and I believe he hits the nail on the head.  We have certain archetypal modes of communicating that were developed long ago and continue to be relevent today.  What seems to seperate the internet as a communication technology from others such as radio and television is that it is a predominately two way form of communication.  Many to many, so to speak. 

Although his discussion goes much deeper than this, I wanted to reference Latour as I loved this article for the way in which it was written.  Latour demonstrates the agency inherent in our technologies.  They are designed as such to ease life, but even then they prescribe certain relationships upon humans between themselves and the technology and each other.  Some are even discriminated against, although Latour does not hit the technological divide as hard as others.  What I find important here is the process of inscription; agency must be inscribed on technology, which goes back to Adams discussion of the necessity of agency.  We simply cannot escape the fact that technology was made to be used.  By the same token, however, we are made to use technolgy by social forces outside our control.  This of course causes me to wonder if there are limits on agency, as it is hard to point to one person at the top who makes anyone do anything...yet that force is still there.  Hmm.

Posted at 04:10PM Oct 31, 2007 by nmtemple in Nick  |  Comments[1]

Week 10 - Kelly

I?m going to use the blog to discuss thoughts on my research topic because it has changed this week ? I hope some of my thoughts will still be relevant for the rest of the class. Currently, I hope to examine the visual culture of virtual environments (Second Life, There and IMVU) with a focus on the visual nature of the 3D avatars within those environments. I felt like this week?s readings seemed to support why it is important to look separately at the visual elements of virtual environments?largely because people are learning to ?accept as ?real? much that is apprehended through only a single sensory mod? (Adams, 1998, p. 100). In the case of the casually immersive environments this is the sense of vision. Actually, Adams (1998) also points out that it is not only in virtual worlds where sight is the preferred sense. He explains using examples, ?A modern supermarket reveals another realm in which sight has been given priority over the other senses? (p. 100) and, ?modern suburbs are essentially odorless, flavorless, and textureless compared to the residential environments of most human history? (p. 100).

In a sense, avatars are similar to the nonhumans described by Latour. They are representations of a virtual self but they are used for tasks like machines. Latour illustrates through metaphor, ?He/she [the avatars] will fully play the administrative machinery (p. 270) ?Machines are lieutenants; they hold the places of the roles delegated to them? (1995, p. 275). Avatars are symbolic representations and I believe that trends arise in the visual appearance of the avatar. Castells (1996) writes, ?Symbolic communication between humans, and the relationship between humans and nature, on the basis of production (with its complement, consumption), experience, and power, crystallize over history in specific territories, thus generating cultures and collective identities (p. 15).  I think as symbolic representations, avatars contribute to collective identities over time. I think influence from the actual world generates visual aspects of an avatar and I think it is possible an avatar can be ?carried into ?real-world? contexts?. Adams (2005) cites Gerbner (2002) ?Bits of identity picked up in virtual context such as television and video games adhere to the self and are carried into ?real-world? contexts, where people externalize what they have previously internalized?. A really interesting study on the use of avatars found that ?anthropomorphic avatars were perceived to be more attractive and credible, and people were more likely to choose to be represented by them. Participants reported masculine avatars as less attractive than feminine avatars, and most people reported a preference for human avatars that matched their gender? (Nowak & Rauh, 2006, p. 153). The implications from this study that if given a choice people often choose avatars that are similar to their actual appearance. Perhaps this indicates people hope their avatar is more like an extension of their self as opposed to a fantasy?

Adams (1998) also explains that ?the costumes in cyberspace are constructed of words, and therefore are created during, rather than before, the moment of interaction? (p. 101). This would not be the case when using avatars. If someone chooses how he/she is visually represented prior interaction does that tell an audience anything about the person? Even if the avatar is similar to the actual appearance of the person communicating there are certain choices that have been made about the person is represented visually that indicate of how he/she wants to be represented. I think ?costume? is a great word to describe how a person represents him/herself online. In the case of the casual immersive worlds I think the avatar is an important piece of this costume.

The idea that computer networks ?desexualize the body and replace it with a disembodied gaze? (Adams, 1998, p. 101) is an idea presented by both Adams and Hillis (1999). This seems important in regards to the avatar because, visually, avatars within adult virtual environments are very sexualized. The boundary between male and female is one border that remains heavily guarded despite new technologized ways to rewrite the physical body in the flesh?? (Balsamo, 1995, p. 217). If anything, instead of disappearing, the distinction between feminine and masculine appears to be exaggerated in cyberspace (Biocca & Nowak, 2002). Adams also references Haraway?s ?Cyborg Manifesto? and I think it is relevant to the discussion the avatar that she states in the manifesto, ?technologies of visualization recall the important cultural practice of hunting with the camera and the deeply predatory nature of a photographic consciousness. Sex, sexuality and reproduction are central actors in high-tech myth systems structuring our imaginations of personal and social possibility (p.169). I am not making an argument that avatars are sexist, as Adams (2005) points out ?to dismiss all discussions of disembodied (or embodied) agency as sexist does not serve any symbolic or strategic purpose? (p. 14). I think the addition of the 3D avatars in the virtual environments might alter a ?disembodied gaze? or their addition could at least be discussed.

Oh, and ditto Karla ? Happy Halloween!

Posted at 03:51PM Oct 31, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 10 - Kathy

Castells (1996) quotes paleontologist Stephen J. Gould as saying that "the history of life... is a series of stable states, punctuated at rare intervals by major events that occur with great rapidity and help to establish the next stable era" (p. 29). Castells discusses the importance of electronic networks in the second Industrial Revolution, in that these networks were necessary for forms that followed, such as telegraph, telephone, and broadcasting. As our world becomes more and more networked, it seems that the electric networks, combined with fiber optic lines, Wi-Fi, and other new technologies, are a major indicator that we are moving into a new phase of the Information revolution - high capacity networks seem (at least for now) to be key to enabling further technological, economic, and cultural developments. We need to understand these networks and the impact that their use and development has on our societies and our lives.

If virtual place has implications for "cognitive, aesthetic, and moral space" (Adams, 1998, p.102), then it is important to look at how these places are constructed through networks and the way that we interact in these places. In Network Topologies and Virtual Place, Adams' topological diagrams of social space and the place archetypes (discussed on p. 92-93) were interesting for me to think about in the context of large networks. After reading that there are 4096 different network patterns when connecting a mere four nodes, I cannot even fathom what a topology of any particular moment of the internet as a whole might look like. This approach to virtual networks might be an interesting way to understand the differences between neutral internet structures and the proposed tiered service models - perhaps a visualization could help think about the ways that these network structures would construct different kinds of social space. Would these topologies still be workable on such a scale?

Adams also writes that "a topological similarity between a place and an electronic communication situation strongly suggests (but does not dictate) a similarity of social structure" (p. 98). What place does a topology of the current "neutral network" look like? What about tiered-service? Would "upgrading" to a tiered model be like knocking down a public library to build a book store? Are we in the midst of witnessing a democratic place become a consumer place?

Switching gears a bit, this week?s reading had me thinking also about the concept of non-humans as actors. After reading The Sociology of the Door Closer this week, I am trying to reconcile the ways that Latour talks about translation and delegation of work to machines and objects with Adams' view that only humans can be actors. Latour further explains the role of non-humans as actors in Reassembling the Social (2005). Actor network theory, which sees sociology as being more useful as a "tracing of associations" rather than a "science of the social" (2005, p. 5), stresses "the specific role granted to non-humans. They have to be actors and not simply the hapless bearers of symbolic projection" (p.10). This seems opposed to Adams' view in The Boundless Self (2005), where he writes that "agency is clearly a part of being human; technologies do not act of their own accord. They may function in society as "congealed ideology"... it makes little sense to attribute agency (the ability to act) to communication technologies" (p. 7-8). I would really like to discuss these opposing views more in class Thursday - of course, right now I feel strongly both ways.

See you all then - and Happy Halloween!

Posted at 03:35PM Oct 31, 2007 by kfoswald in General  |  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]

Week 10 - Karla

Happy Halloween all! 

Adams writes in "Network Topologies and Virtual Place," "If, as structurationists argue, place is process (Pred 1984b), then process can also be place; the implication of this processual similarity is that place indicates a process that might be divorced from material structure and location" (94).  He further comments that "communication topology can be detached from physical structure of place, yet remain tied to the concept of that place" (94).  Given the increase in use of online environments and tools for communication, these assertions seem particularly relevant, especially when one attempts to understand the geography of computer-mediated communication.  Adams mentions how names can reflect function (such as "round table") and locations (such as a town hall or bedroom) can suggest the kinds of communication that customarily occur in those surroundings.  As he notes, in terms of the places themselves, they are "physically designed and socially designated" to suport the types of communication that occur in them (94).  How does this translate for online environments, such as Second Life, which incorporate representations of real-life places, such as houses, bedrooms, etc.?  Does the anonymity of users help to break down barriers about what kinds of communication typically occur where?  If so, does this effect help to reshape our notions somewhat about what types of communication we engage in within the real-life places, or do we make such a sharp distinction between online and actual that the former does not carry over so much to the latter? 

According to Adams (again in "Network"), "[I]n the distanciated world, distress is often hidden by distance, and actions are easily divorced from their consequences in the minds of actors" (95).  When I read this statement, I thought about my own research project involving online therapy and how distance/lack of physical presence affects communication between patient and practitioner.  Of course, there are some differences between comparing etherapy to virtual worlds in which users' actual identities can be essentially completely disguised and, as a result, the fear of sanctions for their behaviors decreases.  Nevertheless, I found it striking that, as Adams indicates, "[o]ne consequence of modernization is that place, as a moral force, has dwindled in power" (95).  He mentions that when "[p]lace had a strong moral influence in regard to one's personal actions . . . if one broke the rules of social conduct, the local community bore witness and would pass judgment" (95).  Can we interpret the punishment (which can range from castigations to banishment) of those who inappropriately use online forums as comparable to the judgment from the local community Adams mentions?  How important is "embodied" judgment to maintaining the influence of place on moral behavior? 

On a final note from "Network," Adams states, "Something experienced through all of the senses acquires a greater quality of realism than something sensed only through one sensory mode" (99).  He later follows this claim with the assertion that "[i]f the experience of physical landscapes seldom involves more than one or two sensory modes, it hardly makes sense to hold computers (or other media) to a standard of reality that is multisensory" (100).  Adams gives as an example of walking into a dark room, smelling gas, and concluding there is a gas leakage without turning on the light for confirmation, as an actual physical situation in which individuals are willing to depend on one sense to reach decisions.  In contrast, virtual reality depends primarily on sight (of course), privileging that sense over the others.  Do we privilege embodiment so that we are willing in actual physical situations to depend on one sense to reach conclusions but are critical of VR for not being as multi-sensory as we would like?  Because I am within the physical space and know it to be real, even if I can only use one sense to determine the circumstances of that situation, does that make it more acceptable for me to critique VR because it does not provide me with the multi-sensory environment I want?  Although graphics have improved, does the fact I realize those visuals in VR are not completely life-like contribute to my willingness to be critical because the one sense I must rely on in that environment seems lacking?

Adams' claims in "The World of the Extensible Self" regarding uncertainty and miscommunication were especially interesting to me in light of my research focus.  As he states, "Uncertainty is always involved in communication's linkages through space-time" (3).  Further, "The ability to communicate at a distance supports the coordination of activities over great distances and hence aids the control of many risks, yet the risk of miscommunication becomes progressively greater as communications spread out in space, multiply, and engage with unfamiliar social contexts" (10).  Do we simply accept this increase in potential for miscommunication as the trade-off for being able to bridge gaps in space and time?  Although we may attempt to use certain methods to reduce the likelihood of miscommunication, such as emoticons, for example, do not these means present their own complications (how do I know my interpretation of that facial expression is the same as yours?)?  Of course, in an actual physical place I could make an expression that you do not understand, but presumably you could ask me what I was feeling or thinking for clarification.

The issue of power arises both in Adam's "World" and Castells' pieces.  As Adams mentions, access is one factor of the power struggle, as there are some who have access to technologies and others who do not (or on a more limited basis).  Castells writes in "The Information Technology Revolution," "Differential timing in access to the power of technology for people, countries, and regions is a critical source of inequality in our society" (34).  Further, "elites learn by doing, thereby modifying the applications of technology, while most people learn by using, thus remaining within the constraints of the packaging of technology" (37).  Although the Internet may be perceived as a wonderful means by which to achieve a greater sense of democracy and break down some power barriers, do we view most Internet users as just that (users), rather than as the elites who are "doers"?  If so, how does this impact our conception of the Internet?

Castells discusses the role of governments in shaping technology in his "Prologue:  The Net and the Self," stating, "[O]n the one hand, the state can be, and has been in history, in China and elsewhere, a leading force of technological innovation; on the other hand, precisely because of this, when the state reverses its interest in technological development, or becomes unable to perform it under new conditions, a statist model of innovation leads to stagnation, because of the sterilization of society's autonomous innovative energy to create and apply technology" (10).  The influence of the state on technology becomes of great concern when one considers Castells' earlier claim, "Indeed, the ability or inability of societies to master technology, and particularly technologies that are strategically decisive in each historical period, largely shapes their destiny, to the point where we could say that while technology per se does not determine historical evolution and social change, technology (or the lack of it) embodies the capacity of societies to transform themselves, as well as the uses to which societies, always in a conflictive process, decide to put their technological potential" (7).  Although the desire for governments to take  more of a "hands-off" approach toward technology is validated to an extent, how uninvolved in the technology do we want governments to be?  How do we weigh the advantages/disadvantages of government interference versus absence?

*You may have noticed I did not discuss Latour yet.  I enjoyed his "Mixing Humans and Non-Humans:  The Sociology of the Door Closer," but did not quite find a way to weave it in with the above comments on the other pieces.  One of his claims, in particular, stuck with me, so I will mention it briefly:  "The bizarre idea that society might be made up of human relations is a mirror image of the other no less bizarre idea that techniques might be made up of nonhuman relations" (273).  I found it interesting Latour considers the non-human in a sociological way and how doing so affects our understanding of what sociology/social studies means.  Maybe this will come up in class tomorrow.

Posted at 12:49PM Oct 31, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 9-Jayna, Really

Dr. Hillis?I am excited that you will be joining us for class Thursday.

The correlation between power and technology, again and again, this is a recurring point made by authors each week.  Hillis addresses the military?s use of VR over the past few decades in helping to develop and test weapons before manufacture. Like most readily available (to the public) technologies, and even some medicines/vaccines, VR has stemmed from research and development done for and by our nation?s military.  What an advantage?and what an example of our ongoing quest for more power as a World Power. I?m interested to learn from Dr. Hillis how the past few years would alter the book if he were to write an addendum. 

Certainly, we?ve seen greater availability of VR/VE, and it has even expanded beyond the gaming industry.  Just Monday, one of our CRDM contemporaries shared that her company now has conference rooms set up in an on-line virtual world, where meeting attendees can be present as their avatar?or virtually created self, in a room that is not a ?real? space, but a virtual one.  And even as I was reading this I was thinking?but how can we take advantage of VE beyond gaming, how can I, as a corporate professional, make use of this technology to make my staff and achieving our objectives more efficient?? I still don?t know the answer to this, but it does make me think about the direction instructional technology has taken and will continue to take.

 
Pardon the leap here, but there are programs where on-line classes can happen in real-time (Captivate is the one I was trained to use), with lecturing professors and students who ?raise their hand? to ask questions and make comments.  Professors can respond in real time and alter the message to the needs of the students and even use a white-board for all to see, maneuvering between Powerpoint and the board.  After Heidi (I think it was Heidi) mentioned the capabilities IBM is taking advantage of, I thought I would check JMU?s web-site to see if the Center of Instructional Technology had started to educate faculty on the potential uses for virtual worlds. This is what I found:
CFI-CIT Workshop: Come Get a Second Life!
Register now for the 3-part hands-on workshop series on Second Life!
This workshop hosted by the Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) and the Center for Faculty Innovation (CFI) will be facilitated by 2006-2007 Madison Teaching Fellows (Tim Ball, Communication Studies; Suzie Baker, Psychology; Susan Kruck, College of Business & Center for Faculty Innovation; Michael Quinn, College of Business; Sarah Cheverton, Center for Instructional Technology; & Christie Liu, Center for Instructional Technology).
Effective teaching in the 21st century increasingly requires creating advanced technology in designing instruction. Forms of computer mediated education can be inadequate and cumbersome as they are mostly asynchronous and text-based. New platforms like Second Life (SL) allow ?face-to-face? interaction in a virtual space. In addition, SL fosters student and faculty creativity because it allows users almost unlimited potential to create virtual spaces and objects that can be used in teaching and learning.
By participating in our three-part workshop you will get your Second Life avatar and learn to communicate, move (teleport), create landmarks, manage friends, join groups and modify your appearance! We will also spend some time demonstrating various educational resources and visiting some fun places in SL.

Now, aren?t you all ready to sign up?? Tim Ball was a colleague of mine in the department at JMU, and I?m fascinated to hear how he?s using this in the department?s public speaking sections.  I have my own ideas? I know the VR/VE technology has been coming for a WHILE, but like the development of anything, it seems as though it?s progress and uses now has made strides on an exponential level in the last three years (?, 5 years? What do you think?).

I won?t address it now, but I?m also interested in the comparison of VR to an acceptance of schizophrenia (p. xl); I hope we get to address this more in class.  I?ve also been thinking about my paper and how fonts/typography play a role in the virtual world.  Avatars have to write sometimes, don?t they? Perhaps the font chosen by a user is determined by the individual?s personality?

Posted at 07:12PM Oct 24, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[0]

dawn--week 9 blog

(I should probably mention that I am using a different version of the Baudrillard text, so the pagination will be different.)

This week's readings allow me to continue to talk about the identity and self in terms of the space between bodies.  My project topic is beginning reach something approaching actualization (finally), and it really is only tangentially related to embodiment.  But I find this idea interesting, and it seems to be a nice way to frame discussion of the relationship between the discrete private self (or selves, more accurately) and technologies.  So perhaps there is some there there.

Baudrillard (1994) addresses media and identity in his discussion of PBS's "An American Family."  He posits that we have moved from a model of persuasion to one of deterrence in which "'YOU are information, you are the social, you are the event, you are involved, you have the word, etc.' An about-face through which it becomes impossible to locate one instance of the model, of power, of the gaze, of the medium itself, because you are always already on the other side.  No more subject, no more focal point, no more center or periphery: pure flexion or circular flexion" (p., 29).  He goes on to point out that media are now "intangible, diffused, and diffracted in the real, and one can no longer say that the medium is altered by it" (p. 30).  
The discussion of identity and subjectivity (and agency) in "Spatial Materialism" (Wiley, 2005) also deals with these boundary issues, though not directly related to technology.  We are semi-autonomous assemblages and components of larger assemblages that "do not coincide with the biological boundaries of [our bodies] or the phenomenological boundaries of [our] perception and cognition" (p. 76).  And although we are always "concrete assemblage[s]" we remain "caught up in other assemblages" (77). 

In Hillis's (1999) introduction to Digital Sensations, I found the section "A Machine for Performance" especially meaningful for work on self and technology, and I think it ties together issues discussed in all of the readings.  I am not sure that I have completely understood the complex of VE, identity, and space discussed in this section, and I am going to try to work through it here.  In reference to the "fractured and multiple identities" we all take on, he writes, "Whether holiday makers or mothers, our bodies remain with us both as testimony to who we are and as a unifying dimension of ourselves within social polyvalency.  Not so in VEs, where users' bodies, if represented, are only components of simulated digital space and need not be tied to any representational public façade the self may employ" (p. xxxi). He goes on to point out that "one's self is constituted by and within the language community of which one is a part" and that this constitutive experience is becoming increasingly mediated, muddying the distinction between selves and technology: "Even as we experience increasing spatial segmentation among our human selves, the boundaries between the self and the technologies it uses to transcend this segmentation seem to begin to blur" (xxxiii).  But it seems, then, that if bodies function as useful physical fronts and may be recreated (remediated, perhaps?) or eliminated completely in VE, the boundary between self and other could also be destabilized, even erased, creating mass selves without discrete boundaries. 

Posted at 06:51PM Oct 24, 2007 by drshephe in General  |  Comments[1]

Week 9 - Kelly

I liked Hillis? discussion of escape. He points out that ?all too finite physical bodies are thought secondary to our minds and representational forms?a dynamic that is built in to virtual technologies? and then continues that ?all cultures facilitate this ?escape from the body and its needs and actions involving food, sex, and death.? I agree with this observation but I think it?s interesting how much of VE?s and games try to incorporate elements of the physical. A big part of the attraction to the Wii is extension of physical movement, death is maybe the most prevalent theme in games and we?ve mentioned before in class how people?s sexual persona is amplified in Second Life. The recent popularity of Larping is also interesting in this discussion. Since there is no audience the participants act out their fictional characters for their own enjoyment. What prompted this move from online role playing to physical meetings? Maybe this wish for a physical setting is partly because of a dissatisfaction with the way these worlds have been engineered. Like Hillis? discussion of the ARL world composed of ?light and almost entirely reliant on vision? (xxvi). The VE?s seem to neglect the other senses like with the ?aural icons? and the ?deauralization of space? (p. xxii). After our discussion on Ong, this kind of setting doesn?t seem very naturally attractive.

These cases and the cases presented throughout the all the readings provided great support for the Baudrillard simulacra discussion. This article really broadened my view of what can be considered a simulation?really most of postmodern culture. It?s interesting how he keeps referring to the ?death? of the real when Hillis mentions that this is part of the physical world we wish to escape. According to Baudrillard we not only escape the real world we kill it through simulation. His argument that simulations actually precede the real seemed hard to grasp at first but after reading his examples it isn?t hard to come up with others (actually quite easy). There are more discrete instances but the other day I drove a friend home and she mentioned that he neighbor ?didn?t have a job?. He pays his bills by playing online games and then selling his virtual money on ebay for ?real? money. He succeeded at completely escaping and the outside world was dead to him.

Another topic I hope we can discuss in class is the idea of the self in relation to the virtual environments. Wiley?s last theoretical challenge is for a ?more nuanced approach to the definition of the public, the private, and the self and to the politics of their articulation? (p. 86).  Hillis points out that the sense of self ?may in part be gained from the use of such electronically mediated technologies? and that ?the boundaries between the self and the technologies it uses to transcend this segmentation [among our human selves] begin to blur? (p. xxxiii). If our self is constituted by our ?language community? of which we are a part does this mean that the technology itself is part of that community? I think it is interesting in the maps we drew last week a lot of us included pictures of some kind of technology to describe the places that are important to us. Our maps seemed to represent the identity of our social space and by including a television (like I did) does that mean that technology helps compose my self? Beaudrillard and Hillis say that the distinction between the technology and our selves is blurred but I have to think about that more. At first I would argue that my identity is composed of the human interaction I receive through the technologies but then I guess how the interaction is mediated changes the information and in turn constitutes a different self.

Posted at 06:31PM Oct 24, 2007 by klnorris in General  |  Comments[0]

Week 9 - Christin

Hillis writes ?If an escapist movement in real space toward an unpopulated and virgin promised land is now problematic or unavailable, for many, seeking out and creating ?information superhighways? that permit ?migration? to new ?electronic frontiers? offers an imaginative and apparently compelling utopian alternative to physically going ?on the road.?? (xvi-xvii)  Virtual reality, then, is allowing this innate human curiosity and desire for exploration to occur.  If we don?t have a physical ?real-world? space to go exploring, we?ll just create one in a virtual reality ? we?re no longer limited by the size of the planet.  But while we?re creating it, we?re going to do so and create a reality in the way we wish we could with our own physical realities.  Kind of defeats the purpose of exploration, don?t you think?

But do we really care about the idealized exploration that we hear about with Columbus and Louis and Clark?  Maybe we?re more concerned with exploring a morphed reality so as to recognize what?s wrong with the one we already have?  Hillis later writes that ?Cyberspace not only suggests that an ideal existence is one that is technologically mediated; it also continues and intensifies a longstanding project to alter, via the use of technology, subjectivity and the meaning of what it is to be human.? (xvii)  Technology allows us to repair, so to speak, a reality burdened by humanity.  Reality is in the eye of the beholder but directly affected by those around us, so if we don?t like our reality, as opposed to removing the people we don?t like (now that?s a scary thought!) we can use technology to fix it.  Bolter and Grusin describe how ?the advocates of ubiquitous computing express grandiloquently the implied goal of all advocates and practitioners of digital media: to reimagine and therefore to reform the world as a mediated (and remediated) space.?

In light of Baudrillard?s comparison of simulation and representation, then, we could argue that a virtual environment is not a representation of reality but a simulation.  According to Baudrillard, representation begins with the idea that ?the sign and the real are equivalent? whereas ?simulation starts from the utopia of this principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as value?. (11)  So then, I wonder, if a virtual world, like cyberspace, is truly a simulation of our own reality, why do we believe crimes to be committed online?  If the world is a simulation, wouldn?t the crimes committed within said simulation be a simulated crime?  I don?t think so, but would that mean that I would have to argue that a representation can maybe exist inside a simulation?  Baudrillard says that ?represenentation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum.? (11)

Ok my brain hurts ? to reference Karla, tough week of readings!

Posted at 05:19PM Oct 24, 2007 by caphelps in General  |  Comments[1]

Week9--Jayna, almost

AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! I?ve just spent two days trying to get a couple of new Food Lions to a training class they need immediately through a person who is still learning her job?. So here it is rapidly approaching 5 pm, and my post is, well?coming up as fast as I can muster.

If only I could use a net meeting with her so she could see my PC and how our processes work, perhaps that would have helped.  It is the most accessible example of HMD (although not technically an HMD, since she/I would be maneuvering with a mouse and not a head mount) I can think of that would have been good assistance. The topic of Virtual Reality and how it alters communication is fascinating to me.  I will post more soon, but I wanted to post this before five so you all would know there is more to follow as quickly as I can (this issue I?ve been dealing with still rages on, so interruption will determine how quickly I?m back).

Posted at 04:55PM Oct 24, 2007 by jrjackso in General  |  Comments[4]

Week 9 - Nick

Virtual reality...the (next to) final frontier...these are the--

Wait.  That's the second Start Trek reference I've made, and I haven't even watched the show in years.  I should stop now.  But seriously, this concept that Hillis mentioned really stuck with me.  I have thought much in the past about how our conceptions of the world must be completely different from generations before when there was still territory to explore, some place that humanity has not seen (or humanity as one knows it).  The depths of the ocean still seem to offer some mystery, but that's about it considering outter space (that seems to be a loaded term after this week's readings...hmm) is still well beyond our reach.  I had not considered VR to be a frontier proper, and yet it really is.  We pour more energy into relentlessly improving computer technology than we do anything else including the space program, and the spaces that we create inside our screens have come to define us. 

However, is this newest frontier a simalcra as Baudrillard concieves of it?  Something that struck me about Baudrillard is that he really made a case for the simalcra becoming the real (if I understand him correctly) by producing all of the same side effects of the real and having nothing behind it.  To my mind, if that is the case is it even still a simalcra?  If there is nothing behind a simalcra and it produces the same effects as what it 'imitates' (if indeed it imitates anything), then it is the 'real'.  When does what is 'virtual' reality become reality?  I stare at the screen and realize that it stares back at me.  There is nothing behind it.  This is my world.  Or is it?  Is my virtual experience better than the real, or does it completely supplant it?  Is a virtual tourist any less of a tourist?

Bolter and Grusin consider that the idea that the purpose of the medium of VR is to disappear.  They actually go beyond VR and into certain types of painting as well.  To me, this is an interesting concept.  All technology seems to fade into the background at some point and it all shapes our reality.  Yet we will have a special relationship with VR should it become mainstream as it shapes our reality by radically shifting it.  Right now, we know what is behind VR but will we always?  I think of such dystopic movies as the Matrix.  There was something behind the simulcrum there, but most did not know it.  What would it mean if VR became, for all intents and purposes, just 'R'?  It is the old brain in the vat question, I suppose.

Posted at 03:52PM Oct 24, 2007 by nmtemple in General  |  Comments[4]

Week 9 - Jon

In the opening paragraph of Digital Sensations, Ken Hillis describes how VR "has become something of a household term. Discussion in popular media abounds, and a number of speculative, promotional books on the subject have achieved mass-market success" (xiii). I agree that, for at least the last fifteen years, there has been a lot of buzz around VR. I can remember when The Lawnmower Man came out and being amazed at the VR experience.  However, other than glossy stories in computer magazines like Wired and the occasional movie reference or news story, how accessible is VR actually? Although VR sounds amazing, my closest experience with it has been walking past the "VR Rollercoaster" at the mall, or viewing something that, from what I understand, is meant to mimic some tiny, tiny slice of the VR experience, such as an IMAX movie (not interactive, but very loud and big). As Hillis discusses, there are numerous military applications for the technology, but I am wondering when the technology will become available to anyone but the "well-heeled." Moreover, even when we do have access, will our experience be the incredibly advanced VR that we have seen in movies? For example, as described by Bolter and Grusin, the technology (as of 2000) contains "many ruptures : slow frame rates, jagged graphics, bright colors, bland lighting, and system crashes" (22). VR has existed in the media for so long that I am wondering if it will live up to its billing. Will MMORPG players, for example, ever be pulled away from their WoW interface to be immersed in a VR world?

The idea of virtual tourism was also interesting. Hillis describes how students are told that "they will not need to visit places such as the Peruvian Andes. Instead, they will enter a VE simulation of this far-off reality and, by engaging with a series of interactive images, obtain an experience as good as being there" (xix). In the context of some of the other things we have read, especially Sontag's writing on photography, it is difficult to equate the VR tourism experience as being just as "good as being there." By traveling to a place through VR, it doesn't seem like tourists will obtain the sense of documentation and narrative that go hand in hand with traveling. Individuals, smiling of course, pose, capture, and recreate their story in a photo album, a creation that may or may not represent their actual journey. In VR, I don't know if such access to narrative construction (with the tourists beings the main characters) will be available.

However, at the same time, the VR tourist will not be able to use a camera to, essentially, deal with all things foreign and reconstruct their experience. So, camera-less, the experience of a VR tourist may, in fact, end up being more real than the actual experience, for the camera is removed. Each tourist is left to experience only with their eyes and to use only words to describe their journey.

All of that said, we do have immediate access to other non-HMD style technologies, as indicated by Bolter and Grusin, that establish a flavor of "transparent immediacy" through "nonimmersive digital graphics-that is, in two- and three-dimensional images projected on to traditional computer, film, or television screens" (23). Bolter and Grusin move on to discuss the significance of linear perspective and digital photorealism, ultimately, the erasure of the human element from a photograph: "Computer graphics experts do not in general imitate "poor" or "distorted" photographs (exotic camera angles or lighting effects), precisely because these distorted photographs, which make the viewer conscious of the photographic process, are themselves not regarded as realistic or immediate" (28). I recently played a game that combined some of these elements (linear perspective, photo realism, an interactive interface) into a single experience. The game, Dark Cut 2, which came out about two days ago, is a free flash game that drops players into a Civil War medical tent, where they must perform surgeries on critical patients. Feel free to give it a try, but, I must warn you, the game is extremely graphic and unsettling. Anyway, there is no movement in the game; you are presented with what is, essentially, a Photoshop generated image of a wounded soldier. The image is, however, very real. The perspective is spot on, at no point does the game present players with anything but the surgeon's perspective on the patient. For example, there is no zooming in or out or floating about. The perspective is fixed. You interact with the patient by choosing one of many period medical tools and carrying out the surgery. While picking out instruments, the sounds of an ongoing Civil War battle burst through the speakers and flashes of light, simulating gunshots, periodically blanket the screen. Even though the experience is historical and viewed through a computer screen, when played in a dark room the experience is very, very real. I've been playing games since I was 5, and I can't recall a gaming experience that had my heart beating in time with the game like this one.  The ending of the game, which I won't disclose here, makes the game and its immersive qualities shockingly real. 

Lastly, in the context of this discussion of removing any trace of photography from the photograph, filmmaker from the film, etc., it is interesting to think about moments when just the opposite happens -- when someone flubs in the editing process and any notion of transparency is, temporarily, removed. The most popular example I can think of is in Braveheart during a battle scene. It seems that battles are shot in such a way that they capture an incredibly heightened sense of transparency. However, in this instance, someone, I don't remember who or how exactly, is struck with a weapon and, instead of the results of the blow remaining within the perspective of the film's setting, the blood splashes the glass plane between the audience and the action. Thus, for that split second, the audience is reminded that what they are seeing is just a movie. Any connection with the content of the film is pushed away with a reminder of the medium. Or, at the same time, the shot could have been edited out, so does such an effect actually heighten a moviegoer's experience?

Posted at 01:31PM Oct 24, 2007 by jtburr in Week 9  |  Comments[1]

Week 9 - Kathy

When talking about the relationship between communication and the ways that reality is culturally constructed, Hillis suggests that virtual environments will "broaden the bandwidth array of sensory information users may transmit about themselves as they begin to extend their selves conceptually via these image technologies across a global terrain" (1999, p. xxxvi). I would be interested to read more about the way that various forces came together to shape the VE available today, but am also interested in looking at how forces acting on our information networks  have the potential to alter, influence, and control the ways that we construct our "selves" in the virtual.

Virtual technologies allow humans control not only over selves, but also the construction of a reality made of both natural and synthetic parts.  Hillis writes that VR is a ?technico-cultural fix invented by a postmodern sensibility to both as a bulwark against uncertainty instigated by the perceived death of the real and as an uncanny artifact created by a latter-day nostalgic Dr. Frankenstein in search of a means of producing a seemingly vanquished (meaningful) reality? (Hillis, 1999, p. xxix-xxx).   Is this ?patch? for reality what Baudrillard is talking about when he discusses the precession of simulacra?

Bolter and Grusin (?) write that "the desire for immediacy is apparent in claims that digital images are more exciting, lively, and realistic than mere text on a computer screen and that a videoconference will lead to more effective communication than a telephone call" (p.23). As virtual environments become more advanced and more immersive, so too will the bandwidth - placing the evolution of or virtual environments in the hands of telecom companies and regulatory bodies. Their discussions on transparency and immediacy in VEs made me think about Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash (read this over winter break if you haven't already!), where individuals spend time in a place called the "Metaverse" which can be thought of as a much more immersive, interactive, and potent version of Second Life. In the virtual world in this novel, people enter the Metaverse with either custom or generic avatars, and if on a public (slower) connection, the avatar appears as a two dimensional, grainy, and in black and white. I bring this example in here to illustrate the extent to which immediacy can be effected by the speeds we dial in at, and as more and more of our daily business moves online, we have to think about the impacts that connection speed might have on the way that we access and use these worlds.

Virtual environments, such as Stephenson's metaverse and the worlds created in military training programs are all examples of "generation by models of a real without origin or reality" - what Baudrillard would call a hyperreal ? "the product of an irradiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere" (1983, p.3). Within these new worlds, looking at virtual geographies as complex assemblages can shed new light on the ways in which reality is being produced, and the possibilities and limitations of those realities. Hillis? project examines "a facsimile of this earth - a virtual geography that charts an array of representational spaces from the fantastical to the realistic" (1999, xxiii), and similarly, Wiley writes that "Human individuals and collectivities are not (or at least not necessarily) narrow, ideologically defined subjects; they are complex and dynamic assemblages of matter, energy, affect and subjectivity articulated into particular organizations of space, place and mobility" (p.79).  It seems that to make sense of our increasingly networked world we must have a sense of ?the lay of the virtual land? which is best mapped by examining where forces intersect to create and compose our worlds and our selves.

What a tough week of readings! See you all Thursday -

Posted at 01:16PM Oct 24, 2007 by kfoswald in Week 9  |  Comments[1]

Week 9 - Karla

Hi all.  I think we can agree that the readings for this week were challenging, and I admit that I struggled through some of the pieces.  In this post I will try to pinpoint some passages I found particularly interesting, acknowledging now that there is much I will not be able to cover here.

First, I really enjoyed the Bolter and Grusin chapters because of their commentary on issues of representation, reality, and presence.  As Bolter and Grusin explain, the aim "of virtual reality is to foster in the viewer a sense of presence:  the viewer should forget that she is in fact wearing a computer interface and accept the graphic image that it offers as her own visual world" (22).  They identify VR as "immersive" in terms of being a "medium whose purpose is to disappear" (21) and as attempting to encourage presence by "[coming] as close as possible to our daily visual experience" (22).  Given the use of HMDs in VR, the notion of complete immersion appears unrealistic, though it does seem plausible that users can become so engrossed by the seeming reality produced by the images in the VE to at least temporarily ignore that they are participating in a simulation.  I wonder if, and this pertains to Hillis' writing, the militaristic base of VR helps to contribute to the possibility of "immersion"?  Specifically, I am referring to VEs that draw upon conflict situations, such as the one Hillis describes with the soldiers, in which users can be "terminated", creating a sort of life-and-death situation.  Although users realize they will not actually die if they are "killed" in the VE, in the moments in which their "lives" are threatened it appears easy for users to at least briefly identify themselves with their "characters" to the point of temporarily suspending reality (video games can create this same effect, as players will vigorously grapple with controls to "save their lives" and claim "they have been shot" rather than "their characters have been shot").  VR perhaps offers a stronger sense of this due to the fact users are "immersed" rather than "existing" only outside of the game.

Drawing upon Hillis again in relation to Bolter and Grubin's discussion of VR, I found it interesting that a character in the VE Hillis describes steps in before the user can encounter part of the environment (a tree?) more closely, distracting the user from his/her goal of coming in closer contact with his/her surroundings.  Is the use of such a distraction perhaps the result of wanting to inhibit users from more closely examining the VE, thereby preventing them (as much as possible) in a way from focusing on the "unreality" of the VE?  As Hillis comments, VR "privileges sight, and other senses play a subordinate role to it" (xxii).  Of course, it seems that VR would have to depend more heavily upon sight than the other senses given the "nature" of it, but is this also the case because it is easier to recreate something visually than in terms of other senses?  "Real" sounds can be recorded and added to the VE, but presumably images that represent the sources of those sounds will still be necessary, otherwise users are just surrounded by creepy atmospheres in which they hear lots of noises but have no visuals to which to track the sounds.  Wandering around in the dark provides a real life comparison for VR users who mostly hear sounds from their environments but lack visuals to accompany the sounds, but most of us do not move around in the dark most of the time (so privileging sound over the visual would perhaps lessen the attempt to make the medium disappear in favor of immersion).  As for the sense of touch, although VEs can allow users to actively participate in their surroundings (picking up objects, for example), how do users understand the textures of their surroundings?    I think of AR Facade at this point and how the user can pat one of the characters on the shoulder to offer support, but can that user "feel" what it is like to actually touch the shoulder?  Does the user have a sense of the flesh that he/she would feel if he/she were actually touching a person's shoulder?  Or of the fabric of the sweater the character is wearing?  To my knowledge, the user lacks such notions of touch.  Admittedly, I am not really "up" on VR technology, so perhaps advancements have been or are in the process of being made to enable users a greater sense of touch in VEs. 

On a final note about Bolter and Grusin's work, which will transition readily into Baudrillard's writing, the discussion of reality is particularly interesting in terms of how individuals and media establish reality.  Bolter and Grusin state, "Instead, the real is defined in terms of the viewer's experience; it is that which would evoke an immediate (and therefore authentic) emotional response" (53).  They follow this claim with the argument "all mediations are themselves real . . . as artifacts (but not as autonomous agents) in our mediated culture" (56).  According to Baudrillard, "Whereas representation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum" (11).  Baudrillard indicates the attempt to define according to opposites, such as "the real by the imaginary" (36).  In relation to VR, it seems striking to criticize "limitations" of VEs with respect to how "unrealistic" surroundings can be, as though we identify (at least to an extent) what VR is according to what it is not.  Are such criticisms the result of the terminology we use (the use of "reality" coupled with virtual in a way that associates such reality with our "real" reality), a need to seek out and establish the real wherever we can, etc.?  I like the example Baudrillard uses of Disneyland with respect to the real, as he asserts, "Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation" (25).  If "it is now impossible to isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real" (41), why is there a preoccupation with the real?  Does the real necessarily carry some truth value greater than the non-real?  Why do we create non-real environments, but then try to recreate them in various realistic ways?

Finally, in his discussion of body and assemblage, Wiley writes, "Spinoza says that my body enters into relations of movement and rest with other bodies such that, together, we compose a new body . . . 'what we identify as a body is merely a temporarily stable relationship'" (76).  He later states, "A biological individual is a concrete assemblage with a certain degree of coherence and autonomy in relation to its contexts, so there is individual human agency, among many other kinds of agency, but the individual is always caught up in other assemblages (with tools, with other individuals, with the market, with ideologies and bureaucracies, etc.)" (77).  Wiley later addresses the subject of the other, referring to Grossberg (who drew from Deleuze and Guattari), commenting, "While identity theorists define 'the other' within an economy of difference -- that is, as what the self is not, cultural studies should see others as 'fragments' in their own positivity, 'without having recourse to any sort of original totality'" (79).  Connecting to Hillis' introduction, Hillis notes, "The ability of VEs to destabilize identity formations has clear implications for what we mean by community, city, and public life" (xix).  He states further, "The self can never be completely articulated, in part because one is never a self on one's own; however, one's self is constituted by and within the language community of which one is a part" (xxxii).  The issue of identity construction, especially in terms of online or VEs, appears to be a substantial topic of conversation now, and I think it is interesting to consider how identity formation in VEs responds to otherness.  For example, communities such as Second Life demonstrate a range of identities in terms of the avatars people use, and I wonder how "[t]he ability of VEs to destabilize identity formations" impacts how otherness is perceived in VEs. 

Given the current length of this post, I will just include a couple of ideas here at the end that I was unable to mention above.  First, Hillis mentions that "virtual reality" is sometimes used interchangeably with "cyberspace", and I am curious as to whether this is problematic?  The conversation in CRD 702 yesterday about terminology ("persuasion" versus "argumentation", for example) is partially responsible for that question.  Second, Hillis writes, "Within virtual environments, pleasure and surveillance are in an as yet underacknowledged dialectical, and not oppositional, relationship" (xxxviii).  Personally, I would like to hear a bit more about this.

*Because I am focusing my project essentially on how online therapy establishes presence and employs distance between counselor and patient advantageously for communication, the discussion of presence in this week's readings was of particular interest to me.  The lack of face-to-face communication in online therapy raises concerns regarding authenticity and the real, knowing whether a patient is telling the truth and whether the therapist is really there "listening."  One method of online therapy is VR, so it was helpful to read the pieces this week for their discussion of VEs as well.

Posted at 12:05PM Oct 24, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]