The Next Adventure

Hello, all. First, a comic to sum up my Honors class that I have been blogging about lately:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/turtles.png

Thanks again to the ever wonderful xkcd.

I just wanted to post a quick update on what I'm doing now. Tomorrow morning I am heading out to Half Moon Bay, CA, to start a fellowship with the Not for Sale Campaign. It's a non-profit organization that works to fight slavery and human trafficking. This is a cause I have felt passionate about and been involved in for a few years, and I'm very excited to take the next step and becoming more involved.

Ideally, I would like to do some blogging this fall, although, as we all know, I'm not the most consistent blogger. But one can always hope. In the meantime, for any who are interested, you can read about Not for Sale at the following link:

www.notforsalecampaign.org

Also, this is an unpaid position, meaning I have to do some fundraising work. So if any you feel able to and called to support me, you can do so here:

https://nfs.webconnex.com/christy

Thanks, all, and I'll try to stay in touch.

Response: Barney and Andrejevic

This week I am responding to Prometheus Wired: The Hope ofr Deomcracy in the Age of Network Technology by David Barney and iSpy: Surveillance and Poer in the Interactive Era by Mark Andrejevic.

This week’s prompt:
[…]But what is the central reason for this disagreement: what, in other words, do the optimists “just not get” about digital media, according to Barney and Andrejevic? Do you think that the latter two writers might consider the work of the optimists to be a twenty-first century version of what the Marxists called “ideology”?

Barney’s disagreement with the digital optimists seems to be similar to my disagreement with Hayek. I was annoyed with Hayek because I felt that in his idealistic exaltation of “maximum freedom of individual choice,” he was completely ignoring the reality of the many powerless people exploited by the choices of those who have the power to exercise their freedom of choice. Barney makes a similar argument. Although it may be true that the implementation of network and computerized technologies in the workforce would result in a net increase of jobs, as the creation of new types of jobs would outbalance the elimination of manufacturing jobs, Barney points out that those who held the eliminated jobs are not necessarily hired immediately into the new jobs (often, he says, they are not). He seems to feel that the digital optimists try to reduce human lives and all the implications therein to numbers: “The point here is that, even if jobs eliminated by network technology are eventualy replaced by jobs ‘elsewhere’ in the economy, the fact of their elimination is more significant in the lives of the people who held them than is their replacement with a job for somebody somewhere else” (135).

I wonder how Norbert Weiner would respond to Barney’s argument. I interpreted Weiner’s argument in The Human Use of Human Beings to be that both machines and humans have their place in production, and that once machines become available to fill certain tasks, they should be implemented, thereby freeing humans up for more appropriate activities. Weiner feels that to place a human in a job that should be given to a machine is to degrade the human. The human mind should be stimulated, not demeaned to menial, mindless tasks. As such, I think he would approve the use of network technologies that eliminate jobs in the manufacturing industry and the creation of more human appropriate jobs, although there are some positions which have been replaced with machines that he would probably not approve. However, it is difficult to make such an idealistic argument in the face of Barney’s numbers and unemployment rates. Would Weiner maintain that machines should still be implemented, and that concurrently targeted efforts should be made to reintegrate those who lost their jobs into the workforce in new positions?

Andrejevic seems to disagree with the idea that the interactive nature of the internet will lead to a more egalitarian society. For him, this same interactivity praised by digital optimists is one of the key elements in the creation of digital enclosure. Despite claims towards egalitarianism, Andrejevic recognizes that someone still controls and has access to all the information that is exchanged through digital interaction. In an information economy, information is a kind of currency, and, according to Andrejevic, we willing turn over large amounts of this currency to the controllers of the information systems, creating an informational hierarchy: “A similar division of groups can be discerned in the emerging digital enclosure between those who control privatized interactive spaces (virtual or otherwise), and those who submit to particular forms of monitoring in order to gain access to goods, services, and conveniences” (3). Andrejevic does not buy Kelly’s idea that “the web runs on love, not greed.” The controllers of “privatized interactive spaces” only want to exploit the information of “those who submit” for profit.

I found reading the opening pages of iSpy and Andrejevic’s description of Google’s plan for contextual advertising. Today, contextual advertising is an everyday occurrence, and while it is sometimes annoying, we don’t generally view it as having the same sinister qualities as does Andrejevic. Is this because it is really not so sinister after all, or are we just desensitized? Are we so used to submitting to the information controllers so we can get the goods and services we want that we cease to resent such advertising as an uninvited invasion of our privacy?

Response: Kelly, Lurie, and Trippi

This week I am responding to “The Web Runs on Love, not Greed,” “Making my own Music,” and “We Are the Web” by Kevin Kelly, “Why the Web Will Win the Culture Wars for the Left” by Peter Lurie, and The Revolution will not be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything” by John Trippi.

This week’s prompt:
Like the writers for week twelve, those of week thirteen strike a strongly positive note about the future ... What do you make of their arguments? Are they too optimistic, or do you think that at least some of their predictions are likely to come true, if they haven't already?

While the writers we read this week were rather optimistic, and often had a flair for the dramatic (Kelly’s repeated attribution of the term “miracle” to the internet, Trippi’s title “The Overthrow of Everything”), they did not strike me as naïve as Barlow’s “Declaration …” did. While they have high hopes for the transformative potential of the internet, their expectations seem to be built to a greater extent on facts or history. Trippi’s assessment of the internet’s power to mobilize and connect comes from his experience in the Howard Dean campaign, where it did precisely that. He notes the way the internet empowered members of the campaign, and from that observation he extrapolates that we as consumers will demand this same empowerment from all our usage of the internet. I think this, for one thing, has definitely proved to be true. From personalization of blogs and web pages, to sites selling custom-designed, made-to-order products, to the plethora of iPhone apps available for download, consumers seek convenience, choice, portability, and ease of access.

Kelly’s argument is similar, in that he affirms that internet users will be driven to create content out of passion, not for profit. When internet users are empowered to create (blogs, vlogs, fan art, etc.), they will. Kelly portrays the relationship between the internet and its users as a symbiosis—the one offers a platform that empowers the other to keep the first going.

I had some problems with Lurie’s argument. His argument is fundamentally McLuhanesque, in that the structure and nature of the internet promotes a deconstructionist manner of thinking in its users. I think this is generally a valid point, and I have also observed that people are less willing to trust a single source. However, I think in his assessment of the implications of this trend takes some things for granted which are highly debatable. He conflates religion and politics in his argument, assuming that the “right” is entirely made up of subscribers to centralized, authoritarian religions. While it may be true that more such religious people identify with the political right than with the left, he seems to think (or, at least phrases his argument as such) that this is an absolute categorization. There are, in fact, conservatives who identify as such for economic reasons (they favor the free market) or reasons of governance (they want less governmental interference) than for traditional social values. Lurie’s argument does not address why the deconstructionist nature of the internet would undermine these economically or politically conservative modes of thought. He also makes the converse assumption that all members of the political left are agnostic. This, also, is untrue. There are many religious liberals, and for some of them their belief in the importance of social welfare programs is fueled by a religious (even if unorthodox) faith. Would a deconstructionist system that will destroy religious belief challenge the reasons why such people identify as liberal, causing them, perhaps, to opt instead for a free market where they can pursue their own ends? Lurie does not address this possibility in his article, and I feel like it weakens his argument.

Response: Negroponte, Barlow, and Gilder

This week I am responding to Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” and “Selling Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net” by John Perry Barlow, and Life After Television by George Gilder

While reading the Barlow essay “Selling Wine Without Bottles” and Barlow’s discussion of how our information-age, material-based mindset concerning intellectual property cannot be applied to the digital age, I was reminded of Melissa Anelli’s discussion of how copyright infringement and intellectual property was negotiated in the early days of the Harry Potter fandom and its presence on the internet. Anelli is the webmistress of the Leaky Cauldron, a popular Harry Potter fansite. Her book, Harry, A History, details the growth and development of the Harry Potter fandom. I unfortunately did not bring my copy of the book to school with me, so I can’t quote the direct passage. However, points out that the beginnings of the Harry Potter fandom were concurrent with the internet’s rapid development as a community forum (the Y2K era). In this time, fans began making fan websites, fan art, fan fiction, etc., using names and terms from the Harry Potter books. When Warner Brothers bought the rights for the Potter films, they began cracking down on what they felt to be copyright infringement, targeting these fansites. There was a highly publicized of a twelve-year-old girl, who had started a Harry Potter fansite, receiving a “cease-and-desist” letter from Warner Brothers. Being twelve, she, quite understandably, freaked out, thinking she was about to be sued or arrested or something. There was a great deal of backlash against Warner Brothers after this, and in the ensuing months they worked out exactly how to respond to these unauthorized usages of Harry Potter names and terms.

Again, I regret that I don’t have the book with me, so I can’t precisely say what the result was; I think it has something to do with making profit, but then again I know that wizard rock bands write music about Harry Potter and sell their music for profit. In any case, I think it’s an example of companies attempting to apply the industrial-age mindset described by Barlow to digital goods in the post-information age. While the use of the name “Harry Potter,” the term “Expelliarmus,” or the image of the Hogwarts crest in fan art may technically violate the sorts of copyrights we are accustomed to using, there just seems something wrong with penalizing a pre-teen for drawing a picture of Harry Potter and posting it online. J.K. Rowling herself, I think, has spoken a bit on the topic, and said that she is glad that people find her work and her world to be a source of creative inspiration, and she does not want to stifle that or to shut down conversations. I think this sort of negotiation that has occurred within the Harry Potter fandom is indicative of the negotiations that will need to happen in all sectors of “the economy of the mind” to achieve a system that allows free exchange of ideas but also does not violate a creator’s right to their creation.

I mentioned wizard rock above, and I think that’s an example of Negroponte’s new Sunday painter. In chapter 18 of Being Digital, he says, “The middle ground between work and play will be enlarged dramatically. The crisp line between love and duty will blur by virtue of a common denominator—being digital. The Sunday painter is a symbol of a new era of opportunity and respect for creative avocations—lifelong making, doing, and expressing” (Ch. 18). Internet forums like YouTube, DeviantArt, and Etsy allow people the opportunity to, perhaps, turn their recreational arts-and-crafting into a source of profit. The internet allows them to find and appeal to niche markets—like “wrock” (wizard rock) for Harry Potter fans or “trock” (timelord rock) for Dr. Who fans. These internet platforms allow amateur artists a low-cost way of distributing their art to a wide audience, until they gain enough attention or fans to profit. This is one example of digital media’s empancipatory power, in that it creates greater freedom of expression.

I think it’s interesting how both Negroponte and Gilder note an increasing emphasis on personalization and interactivity in our new technologies. In chapter 13, Negroponte describes the way new technologies can gather very specific demographic information about an individual, such that that individual’s devices may offer him or her extremely personalized information, recommendations, and advertisements. Similarly, Gilder discusses how the television, a one-way broadcast device, is giving way to the more interactive telecomputer: “Instead of a master-slave architecture in which every receiver can function as a processor and transmitter of video images and other information” (18). This capacity for user to interact with machine, and for user to interact with user via machine is what many of the Marxist writers (Ensenzberger, Baudrillard, etc.) we read earlier wanted in order to make new media truly democratic. The fact that more contemporary writers are noticing the existence of these trends is probably a source of their optimism. If the earlier, Marxist writers prescribed interactivity as the necessary change in media, and if interactivity is in fact encouraging, contemporary writers may feel that the democratization of the media is actually in their power.

And now, for your listening pleasure, "The Bravest Man I Ever Knew" by The Ministry of Magic.

Response: Haraway, Plant, and Turkle

This week I am responding to Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, Chapter 8, “A Cyborg Manifesto” by Donna Haraway, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, Chapter 9, “Virtuality and its Discontents” by Sherry Turkle, and “Ada Lovelace and the Loom of Life” by Sadie Plant in The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production.

This week’s prompt is:
What political potential might radical feminists (or radicals of any stripe for that matter) find in the new media forms that are absent in the mass media world of the decades immediately following the Second World War?

It seems that, for the writers we read this week, the primary political potential in new digital media lies in the ability to dissociate oneself from traditional labels and categories that have, historically, been used as justification for disenfranchisement or disempowerment: gender, race, class, etc. The anonymity of the internet would allow members of these groups to express their ideas and creativity apart from these restrictive classifications. Cyberspace represents for these writers a deconstruction of artificial, repressive social categories.

This is certainly so for Haraway. She rejoices in the fluid nature of the cyborg: “[Cyborgs] are as hard to see politically as materially. They are about consciousness—or its simulation” (153). The cyborg, according to Haraway, distills human interaction down to pure consciousness. This, she says, “changes what counts as women’s experience in the late twentieth century,” because it blurs all sorts of constructed boundaries—not only race, class, gender, and so on, but also human-animal, or material-immaterial (149). As a feminist, she sees this blurring of boundaries as a deconstruction of artificial conceptions of femininity: “There is nothing about being ‘female’ that naturally binds women. There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested scientific discourses and other social practices” (155). Modern electronic media will change women’s experience by allowing them modes of expression previously denied to them due to such socially-imposed constructions.

Plant gives a more historical view of the way the development of electronic media has influenced and involved women. She details the relation between computers and textiles, a craft generally associated with women, and discusses the history of women and computers, beginning with Ada Lovelace and continuing through twentieth-century women computer programmers. While her argument may be less theoretical than Haraway’s, she makes a case for computers and electronic media as an achievement of women as well as men. She marks an important place for them in a field which, today, is often associated with males, thus emphasizing their capacity to partake in a traditionally “masculine” discipline. She does not attempt to argue that women are somehow innately suited for computer work, as Freud tried to argue that women are innately suited for textiles. Rather, she indicates that women were allowed entry to the world of programming because it was considered menial, like weaving (p. 262). Once allowed entry, they excelled in ways that would be influential in the development of contemporary electronic media. Plant sets forth women’s historical involvement with the development of computers as a testament to their ability to excel in traditionally male industries, thereby undermining the assertions of Freud and others that women cannot think analytically.

While Turkle focuses less on women and more on middle-class young adults, she, like Haraway, discusses the empowerment offered by internet’s deconstruction of accepted social categories and norms. In the world of MUDs, people’s ability to recreate themselves as they desire offers them a sense of empowerment they may not feel in their real life. Although she seems wary of the conflation of simulation and reality, she does remark the greater level of participation exhibited by members of cyber-communities. Like Haraway, Turkle affirms that the disassociation of self from embodiment is empowering. She does offer a caveat: “The challenge is to integrate some meaningful personal responsibility in virtual environments. Virtual environments are valuable as places where we can acknowledge our inner diversity. But we still want an authentic experience of self” (p. 254). Haraway does not seem to share this concern for authenticity—she rejoices at the way cyberspace blurs all boundaries. Turkle, on the other hand, only values the empowerment of cyberspace to the extent that it does not replace simulation for reality. While she may also appreciate cyberspace’s capacity to deconstruct borders, it is useless to her if it results in an inability to discern or an apathy towards reality.

Response: Turner, Hayles, and Disneyland!!

This week I am responding to From Counterculture to Cyberculture by Fred Turner, chapters 2 and 6, and How We Became Posthuman by Katherine Hayles.

While reading the section about cybernetic art worlds in chapter 2, “Stewart Brand Meets the Cybernetic Counterculture” or Turner’s book, his descriptions of the artistic environments created by the various avant-garde movements of the mid-20th century reminded me a lot of something that is generally not considered to be countercultural or subversive: Disneyland.

I am sure that several hippies are now rolling over in their graves. They must be scandalized that I would compare their art to something so corporate, so businessy, so, well, Disneyfied as the Disney parks. But hear me out. I have always perceived a great deal of artistry in the Disney parks, and I think the very reasons why those avant-garde movements found meaning in their particular mode of expression may be applied to the Disney parks and may explain in part why they have achieved such a devoted, enduring fan base. True, the Disney parks are constructed upon a business model, which the avant-garde artists would have shunned, but the parks reach a level and species of artistic and emotional engagement that I find similar to what the cybernetic artists tried to create.

The first passage in which I was reminded of the Disney parks was in the description of USCO’s cybernetic art productions:

Rather than work with a transmission model of communication, in which performers or others attempt to send a message to their audience, USCO events tried to take advantage of what Gerd Stern called “the environmental circumstance.” That is, USCO constructed all-encompassing technological environments, theatrical ecologies in which the audience was simply one species of being among many, and waited to observe their effects (51).

This is exactly what the Disney parks are. In my own private musings (because I am the sort of nerd who muses about the artistic classification of the Disney parks), I have called the parks “immersive, interactive, environmental theatre,” a description which sounds very similar to Stern’s idea of “the environmental circumstance.” Like USCO’s performances, The Disney parks use a variety of technologies, appealing to all five senses, to create intricately themed environments that engage with guests on artistic levels. To me, this is the biggest difference between the Disney parks and the average theme park—for example, a Six Flags. The latter is really just about thrills and fun. Honestly, most of the roller coasters in Six Flags parks are more intense and thrilling than those in the Disney parks. But that’s all, really. Adrenaline rush, yummy food, adrenaline rush, fun show—thrills removed from any sort of artistic engagement. In the Disney parks, on the other hand, the thrills are always part of a greater story, be it an epic adventure—chasing the Yeti on “Expedition Everest” or experiencing the paranormal on “The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror”—or a short, poetic snapshot—the sights, sounds, and smells from a hang glider in “Soaring Over California” or the excitement of rushing to a rock concert in “Rock’N’Roller Coaster.”

Every detail in the parks and the attractions is minutely, carefully crafted to totally immerse guests in environment and story, from the subtly transitioning music moving between lands to the forced perspective used to make the castle and the buildings on Main Street look taller than they actually are. One of my favorite bits of trivia has to do with the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The story of this attraction is that one day, at the Hollywood Tower Hotel, sometime in the 1920s, all the guests of the hotel suddenly disappeared in to … (in my best Rod Serling voice) the Twilight Zone. In order to thoroughly create the illusion that everyone had disappeared in a moment, there are several props strewn about in the lobby, including an in-progress Parcheesi game. Rather than just placing pieces on the board, the Imagineers hired two professional Parcheesi players to play for an hour. At the end of the hour, the players had to get up and leave the table, leaving the pieces where they were, to create the illusion that the fictional players had actually disappeared.

Turner mentions many times the techno-mysticism in the work of the USCO artists; they availed themselves of all sorts of technology to explore how they could be used artistically, to create an effect or to heighten the consciousness of the audience. This most definitely applies to the Disney parks. Disney has always been on the cutting edge of examining the artistic potential of new technologies. This tradition goes back to Walt himself, who, upon seeing an audio-animatronic bird, became enamored of the technology, and immediately began considering how to use and improve this technology. Disney continues this tradition today with such attractions as the World of Color water show in Disney’s California Adventure. This show uses fountains, laser projections on screens of water, pyrotechnics, music, and animation to create a spectacular and moving show. However, despite Disney’s use of new technologies to create new types of effects, it is the way it uses technologies that is truly telling. Today, we have ceased to be awed or surprised by audio-animatronic figures, but attractions like Pirate of the Caribbean continue to be beloved because of how they use older technologies to tell a story. They bend these technologies to a greater artistic effect, and so they continue to hold emotional significance even after the technology itself loses its novelty.

Finally, Turner describes a sense of “mystical together-ness” that the USCO artists strove to cultivate: “they aimed not only to help their audiences become more aware of their surroundings but also to help them imagine themselves as members of a mystical community” (52). In my experience, the Disney parks are one of the best environments for creating such a sense of “mystical together-ness.” From the oft-heard “Have a magical day!” to the excitement over seeing a favorite character, to the feeling of camaraderie with other guests, this sense of community is pervasive in the parks. When I was last at Disneyland, last November, I went with my friend Lisa, who had never been before. Upon first entering the park, we went to City Hall to get her “First Visit” button. Throughout our three days at the park, guests and cast members alike congratulated her on her first visit and asked if she was having a good time. That sort of conversation that would be strange anywhere else, but it feels natural within the communal air of the parks. While the avant-garde artists used psychedelic drugs to create this effect, the Imagineers use the much simpler drugs of endorphin highs and adrenaline rushes to create the same feeling.

As is probably clear by now, I could talk about Disney forever. So I will conclude with the thought that, although it is true that the Disney parks have a much larger business component than movements like USCO, they share many of the same artistic qualities and techniques. This all to argue that the Disney parks are not, as many critics would say, merely monuments to consumerism and mass media. They are truly immersive works of art.
One final observation on this front. Disneyland Park opened in 1955, concurrent with many of these avant-garde movements. I am not inclined to think this is coincidence.

A few words on Hayles, now that I have blabbered so long about Disney. I found what she said about the self being an information-processing entity (I can’t find her exact wording) interesting, and I think it might help explain the phenomenon observed by Foucault of or cultural obsession with the idea of an author. If the self is basically information, and the body is just a prosthesis, then one’s writing is, in a way, actually part of oneself. In fact, it may be considered more an expression of self than the body, because writing is made of information, not matter, so it is essentially more similar to an informational self. Hayles does not seem to think that this conception of self as pure information is the best (she seems to want to celebrate, rather than reject, the human material existence), but the existence of that conception may explain why we want to attach an author to a work so badly. We want to have some conception of the “self” behind that piece of writing. If the writing is an extension of the author’s self, it seems to make sense to use the same signifier for the work that we use for the writer—the writer’s name.

Response: Hayek

This week I am responding to The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek.

It seems to me that for Hayek, the most important value, which should be preserved at all costs, is individual freedom of choice. I may be not fully understanding or oversimplifying his position, but he seems to think that any restriction of individual choice will propel us rapidly down the slippery slope to totalitarianism. While reading this week’s selections, I couldn’t help but feeling that his viewpoint comes from a place of privilege (I’m using it a casual sense, not in his sense). He writes with contempt about restrictions which would turn individuals into means “to be used by the authority in the service of such abstractions as the ‘social welfare’ or the ‘good of the community’” (96). Even restrictions intended to aid the common good are dangerous in Hayek’s eyes.

I am not very educated in politics or economics, but I do a lot of volunteer work with social justice, so I thought about his argument in terms of Fair Trade. For those who don’t know, Fair Trade is a certification process that ensures that growers in other countries are paid fair wages for their labor and use sustainable agricultural procedures. You can read more about it here. It’s especially important in industries like the chocolate industry, in which slave labor and the exploitation of children is a huge problem. So, in that light, it’s hard for me to take Hayek’s obsession with individual choice seriously. A certification like Fair Trade does, in fact, individual choice. When a chocolate brand agrees to supply only Fair Trade chocolate, it is agreeing to submit itself to certain restrictions. So yes, it does decrease the freedom of choice of the chocolate makers.

However, let’s look at the other end of the spectrum. What about a young African boy, living in forced labor on a chocolate plantation? Without a labor restriction like Fair Trade, what options would he have? Continue to live as a slave on the chocolate farm, run away to try to find other options in an area where chocolate plantations are nearly the only option, or to try to make his way in a world where he has no education or qualifications to recommend him. Hayek wrote about the power that a monopoly holds over consumers—in this case, the owner of the chocolate plantation holds a monopoly on food and shelter as far as the boy is concerned. So how likely is the boy to leave a life of forced labor, when it is his only known source of life and sustenance? In this case, a labor restriction like a Fair Trade certification would give that boy more individual freedom of choice. If he lived on a Fair Trade farm, his family might have enough money to give their children more options, even potentially an education. So, a restriction in the name of the “social welfare” or the “good of the community, “abstractions” of which Hayek writes with scorn, does in face increase individual freedom of choice, just for those at the bottom of the economic spectrum, not those at the top. It seems to me that Hayek is only really concerned for the maintenance of individual choice for himself and others in his class, as he disregards the idea that measures which benefit the “common good” benefit many individuals, allowing them greater freedom of choice in what they do with their lives.

Again, I may have misunderstood his argument and have just gone a Fair Trade rant for no reason. He may be referring to other types of restrictions (government imposed, rather than voluntary). But as a supporter of Fair Trade, I couldn’t help getting irritated at his dismissal of the individual freedoms of agricultural workers in developing countries as merely elements of some abstract “social welfare.”