Response to Hardt & Negri by Alex, Alexina & Emmanuel

The text describes the U.N. as a controlling structure with omnipotent power over the world. This structure is created in an effort to prevent world crisis. It is not only a protective measure for individuals but also for governments of the world. The U.N. is unfortunately an organization which decides what is universally good. They are the law upon which every subscribing state's law is based, inherited by the monarchy and liberal models proposed by Hobbs and Locke. It is not a collaboration, but rather another type of power entirely, an Empire, as the authors suggest. They talk about "just wars" as wars approved by a community for the "greater good". They have a right to make "peace wars", though the term is ironic because the U.N. says it is good and because it is good, the local government has to agree with them. War, to them, isbanalised and absolutised . Because it appears to be everlasting, the Empire cannot be overruled or overthrown by those few who disagree with them, but they are scared of that possibility. By undermining their authority, the latter begins to deplete. To remain successful, the empire must convey to the public that their power is necessary. The empire is not disconnected from local government. It is directly affected by the changes occurring in global populations. Their declines are related. Conditioning humans to the desires of the empire forms bio power. A power structure which is innately built and harvested in populations. The distinction between local and global is a false impression of the power situation. Humans revolt once they become aware of an internal conflict between the implanted laws and their beliefs. This is different from Foucault's point of view. Our world runs on money. Those who hold the most, are able to sway policies. They are the elite. Through communication media, the political power, imagination and symbolic forms influence humans. News media and non-governmental organisations identify universal needs and defend human rights, leaving the actual task of addressing the problem to the Empire. Moral intervention by theseNGO's prepares the stage for the Empire to make military interventions. Denouncing and peace-talking, in a sense, comes before the actual act of war-making to bring on that peace. "Just war" as well as rights are supported by the "moral police" (theNGO's ), just as they are supported by the local police. The UN is located in a space without borders. It is in a flexible environment, everywhere and nowhere and the same time. It has been created to fashion an illusion of security in the lower working class.

Stalin says "one death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic". One death is tragic, personalised, it has a name. On the other hand, a million deaths are faceless, easier to swallow for the masses who are tuned in to the crisis or war. Those deaths are just as tragic, but rendered less so by the fact that we can't possibly imagine all those lives slipping away. We cannot think in or conceive such large terms or numbers, it is too overwhelming. Stalin killed approximately 20 millions Russians. There he dismisses those deaths as unimportant in the face of his campaign of power. Such words also make sense when contextualised with the U.N.'s "just war" concept. Do they happen to care how many die? We think not. Their goal is to police the world on their terms, regardless of the number of deaths. Canadians penetrated Iraq in an effort to keep "peace". This duty has become a cleanup of American devastation. Although there has been recent revolt against this, it mostly passed subtly thanks to the approval from the Empire. If we are to take this new knowledge to the next level, we must find a way to govern our planet effectively. One approach to this is an independent third party. Someone unbiased and uninfluenced by this planet's money would be a good candidate. Our governments could report to the independent third party for it to make uninfluenced suggestions. We believe the ideal implementation of this anti-empire is an alien race charged with managing our planet. Visions of the world will always be affected by social class. This is important in Marxist theory. The bourgeois class is more educated while the proletariat find it difficult to climb this ladder. This is not only a social problem, it is faced by many who wish to pursue post-secondary education. Foucault analyses the whole of society. In the video shown in class, it is normal that the two philosophers project different opinions as they come for different sociopolitical backgrounds. In the movie Equilibrium, everyone has to take a pill to eliminate their emotions and supervise them, make them more controllable. The society dominates all on earth. We mention this movie because, in the text, they mention that "the formation of a new right is inscribed in the deployment of prevention, repression, and rhetorical force aimed at the reconstruction of social equilibrium: all this is proper o the activity of police.".

In fact, is it possible that comtemporary society should revert to living without Empires like the UN in an effort to develop more humanly?

WHY CYBERSPACE? - Wendy Chun - Angela and Matthieu

In "Why Cyberspace?" Wendy Chun analyzes the construction of cyberspace and the Internet. She begins by exploring notions of space in cyberspace. Chun compares cyberspace to a shopping mall, a privately owned, publicly accessible space. Cyberspace emerged from Gibson's science fiction and thus it is a space imbued with mythical qualities. Cyberspace "is a free space in which to space out about space and place"(43). It challenges space and place. Chun investigates how the Internet is about time and points out that the Internet has erased the difference between viewing a storing data. Chun explores how different Gibson's Utopian cyberspace differs from the Internet. She shows how capitalist systems of control operate within the Internet and the broader computer industry, from the production of components by Asian women, to High-tech Orientalism, to the effect of the TCP/IP protocol. She interrogates the question: who is is the user who uses and who is the user who is used by the system? She also questions how the systems of control operating within the Internet effect democracy.

Wendy Chun, By Tomer, John and Chris

The main concept in the first chapter of Wendy Chun's "Control and Freedom", is "cyberspace"
Chun attempts to explain the term "Cyberspace", and brings up some difficulties that arise when approaching this concept.
One of the main difficulties is the notion of "space".
She shows that cyberspace is more of a tool, an apparatus, than an actual space.
Furthermore she states that there really is no basis to call this apparatus "space", and the only reason it is called so, is for legal reasons that apply to legislation over the internet.
Chan compares the lack of space when facing the internet, to the spatial aspect of television.
In this comparison Chun shows that a television program appears at a certain time, and on a certain channel, thus conforming to the idea of "space".
We thought that this idea does little to prove her point. Web pages can be seen as just as "spatial" as television channels. Furthermore time does affect the internet. So much so that there has been invented an "Internet Time", a clock specifically for the internet, to regulate it.
Chun sees the usage of the internet as a sort of "time travel", because a user can be in multiple places at once, browsing effortlessly between WebPages.
Again, we failed to see the novelty of this idea in comparison with the television. One can "channel surf", just as effortlessly on the television, and with picture in picture technology one can also view multiple channels at once.
Chun brings up Foucault's idea of heterotopia.
The heterotopia differs from the utopia in that a utopia is a fundamentally unreal space, while a heterotopia is a real space, which is simultaneously mythical and real.
We thought that this idea applies very well to the concept of "Cyberspace".
Cyberspace is by no means a utopia, but it is a heterotopia because it conforms to the two basic requirements:
It is undeniably "real", insofar that none can deny it exists.
It has many "mythical" aspects, not the least is the lack of physical "space", that Chun explains.
The idea that we thought about for our question is the following:
Can steps be taken to increase the "reality" and physicality of the "cyberspace"?
Can we forge physical space to the cyberspace? And if we do, will it still be considered "cyberspace", or a virtual reality?

Chun - by Morgan, Peter, Nic and JS

Summary
The first chapter of ‘Control and Freedom’ by Wendy Chun looks at the emergence of the Web through the birth and life of what we know as ‘cyberspace’. Explaining the legal context of the ‘official’ creation of a new electronic 'space' in which things 'happened', and that had originally no local standards. She addresses the notions of place and space in relation to a network that went from being public (government owned), to privately owned and being massively commercialized. Then she goes into the field of cybernetics, talking about controls systems and how cybernetics work, which is explained to be all about maintaining internal communications through an external central nervous system. She also talks about the origin of the word 'cyberspace' which came from literature (Gibson’s Neuromancer). The ‘cyberspace’ is described as unnamable and unlocatable, as a 'free' space, using symbolic addresses and naming systems to facilitates human comprehension. It is said that ‘space’ and ‘time’ are used interchangeably, and that while ‘cyberspace loosens place, place is no longer stable or proper, and disappear and move rapidly’ . It is question of Manovich’s 'database complex' , meaning the desire to store everything. Then talking about how new media and navigable spaces, throughout interfaces, establish new relations between space and tours.

Other ideas explored are : The notion of ‘time’ as much important as space, and the active participation required by the web, compared to non-interactive TV (passive).How most DSL offer download speed faster than upload (consumer mode). Example of spatialized web (VRML) where no space exists but only objects belonging to different individuals (just like in SecondLife). Virtual realities, and multiple persona, alter-egos, The web as a space for compensation, compensatory heteropias, or spaces of pure order. The example the of the e-commerce paradise, internet as a perfect other space. Foucaults example of the boat as the perfect heterotopian example, also in close relation with colonial moments. The use of the word 'pirate' , in relation to exploration and piracy, which may indicate or create radical changes. The web surfer, who feels as home while, constantly moving from place to place, (Beaudelair's Flâneur). The perfect spectator who can see but must not be seen, who leaves not trace, but reveals other people traces. The gawker, a commodity dependent being, that stands an stares. The myth of the superagent, leading you to think that you leave no trace. Controlling code, and the architecture of the internet, content and code as parallel systems. The founding principle of the net as being control and not freedom. Open source softwares.

Near the end, she mentions that , instead of exploring utopian possibilities, it would be better to see how the web can enable something similar to democracy.

Discussion
We began with a discussion on how we approach the internet. I told of how, for me, the internet is a space, be it social or utilitarian. My paths through the net are like my daily routines through the city. It is also a social space -- a place I go when in need of social interaction. For Nic, on the contrary, the internet is an information resource, like a book. What I consider to be social arenas (forums, lists, irc, social nets etc.) are merely sources to be mined for Nic.
He is a lurker. We then looked at the cyberpunk fantasy of cyberspace as an environment for heterotopia. How would it even be possible given current technology? Isn't it disappointing that the web has become private, commercialized, and homogenized? Was it ever possible for the web to have the richness (space) depicted in Neuromancer? Are "underground" hacker-type internet users closer to the cyberpunk aesthetic than the average user? How did the open source movement emerge from cyberpunk and in what way does it differ? Unrealized are the images of the lone hacker, roaming the net. The new power lies in mass emergence. Taxonomy. Web 2.0. Is the clean, user-friendly aesthetic of the web 2.0 (the antithesis of cyberpunk aesthetic) an effect of (response to) privatization? Perhaps open source is anti-cyberpunk in that the software is competing with commercial software. In an open cyberspace, the hegemony of dominant software configurations would disintegrate. But open source creates a "structure of sharing". This reminded us of Yuill who talks of "socially directed" creation.

Is cyber-space desirable? Should the advantages of the web be integrated into the real, or are the heterotopic benefits of the division between real and virtual worth the schism of the individual?

Empire - Alexis, Ramsy, Sean

Empire. World order brings an example, brought in our current times by, mainly, the UN. The UN was made as an ideological way of globalising the world [consequence of capitalist production?] however where it's theory fails to translate into practice is where our product of Empire begins. The Empire itself is the transition from nation-states to global entities validated through the juridical process of a supranational source. Empire itself constantly makes it's presence necessary, eternal and absolute and casts morality ethics and justice into new dimensions. Biopolitics is about the relationship of power applies to the individual. Foucault says that "life has become an object of power in itself". The indirect result of life is labor. Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt make reference to Marx and talk about the de-substantiation of manual labor (commodification). This translates to power being an output of life and being intrinsic to society, therefore not requiring external groups: government, Empire as it were. Alternatives to an Empire talk about the possible evolution of empires on the local and global level. They write about alternatives to the empire as a method of illusionment, specifically, the ability for segments on the local level to create a sense of identity for its members. This is done as a way to defferenciate the new social structure from the old and its flaws.

The entire text is pretty good reflection of what is happening today, 20 years later. the new alternatives to Empire are a way to brake away from the mistakes of Empire as it was built on old models that do not apply to today's global political and economical structures.

Chun by Ben, Duy, Scott, Kevin

The Internet has gone through the process of metamorphosis to become some thing much more transcendent and abstract called the Cyberspace. In this cybernetic space, virtually no rules and no limits exist. Even human attain an ever ability to escape from the prison of the bodies and be free. Different from its sci-fi origins, cyberspace embraces ambiguity and contingency, one can navigate and control the interface but not the space, and the path they take in cyberspace. Cyberspace allows for an “imitation indistinguishable from the ‘real thing,’ yet completely separate from it.” Compensatory heteropias are ordered, perfect, and meticulous. Cyberspace does not adequately protect users from becoming spectacles; rather, it focuses their “gaze away from its own vulnerability and toward others as spectacle.” Whereas the flâneur is an impartial, unobserved observer, independent from the scene he/she witnesses; the gawker is not independent, “disappears, absorbed by the external world,” and becomes an impersonal being. TCP/IP is now a technical cornerstone of global telecommunications networks, as it makes it possible for networks that run on different physical media, and that use networking standards to communicate with each other. The Internet cannot be completely censored; however, its censorship depends on local configurations and routing protocols. Both of these are affected by the privatization of the Internet backbone.

As place is defined while space is undefined and contingent, getting lost in the cyberspace is like wondering in a jungle of black holes. Indeed, will this cyberspace is an exact replica of our bigger universe and consequently will inherit its charateristics? Our discussion led to whether informed emersion into Cyberspace should warrant the ability to see without being seen, or whether being seen is simply part of the agreement. The reason for this question is because it is arguably not mandatory to connect to this space, despite there being advantages.

Empire. Jos; Charlotte; Charles

In 'Empire' the key element to understand here is that globalization cannot be understood as a simple process of de-regulating markets. The term 'Empire' makes allusion to a very Foucault type of situation, where we are subjected to a power that is defused or decentralized but all seeing. The flow of people and information is deemed too unruly to be monitored from a single source. The world they describe is one that abandons the old idea of a ruling class for a more complex system of inequality. Everything is blurred beyond logical interpretation. This particular event (Empire) acts as a kind of prophecy.

Wendy Chun, Group response from Natalia, Fernando, Mike, and Martin.

In “Why Cyberspace” Wendy Chun discuses the internet and cyberspace, she refers to this system as a heterotopia this means that it posses all kinds of diverse content and homogenous which means that while it is accessible everywhere it is another system of control. She argues whether a system that homogenizes all information is good. Concerning Space she talks about the cyberspace not being one yet having its own illusion of time and space based on the real. We talked about our relationship to the internet and its potential to blur our notion of time. Spending a large amount of time on what it’s called cyberspace results on the user being a passive receiver with a sedentary lifestyle. So how much of internet time does it takes for it to affect someone’s reality. We agreed that code is a democratic tool because it can be disseminated through open source to people. But codes work somehow like different languages which are not approachable by most of people so the actual change that a democratic code can make is questionable.
Although time is a human construct how does cyberspace recreate our relationship with time?

Response to chun by alexina, emanuel, alex

The author asks the simple question: "why do we call cyberspace 'cyberspace'?". There is no physical location required for these disembodied interactions. Chun continues in describing the ownership of "cyberspace" from a private space, that is an expanse-less metaphor for space, owned by government authorities to a publicly accessible form owned by corporations. A binary definition which leaves little room for gradation. The concept humans used to comprehend this interconnected network of networks was through science fiction works. Cyberspace, in these works, was navigable - that is, the characters moved through its virtual reality much like video game characters - and tangible, and its size and scope were visible to the user. The use of the term Cyberspace is an abstraction of the technicality of the Internet. This abstraction manipulates the user to believe they are truly navigating a vast environment. This environment possesses even more abstraction as it uses names as virtually meaningless variables for human understanding. This area has been declared an area of freedom thanks to its name. This may be misleading. Cyberspace is build on memory and space as opposed to time like previous media. The Internet is a vulnerable space in that flooding, hacking, and otherwise harmful actions may occur perpetuated by its settlers (hackers) who claimed that environment. The cyberspace culture takes place in reality while all its signs and effects take place outside of it. This Internet does more than mirror reality. It is its own simulacra giving a person more importance than in real life. Chun mentions how the code is law. That is to say that once the code is established, users and programmers abide by it and create according to it. Even open codes are controlling as the final say relies on a certain power figure, whether by the government or a private "open" corporation. Therefore, the Internet is not a free playground. The Internet is a tool which those who are oppressed can use to be empowered. The Internet is the most efficient medium for communications. This is why humans, as suppressed beings, are driven to use the medium.

The new home of Mind is the following online applications: skyrock, digg, skyblog, myspace, youtube, facebook, livejournal, blogger, etc. They demand an implication of the user and his mind into his actions online. These are examples of the simulacra created to protect users' privacy although they often appear as a window into their lives. The medium is a liberation where users can reclaim their freedom. She questions who owns the Internet and how much freedom we have online. Is it truly open to any discussion? Is the content truly always 'there' for us to peruse? Website owners can take away content at any time, thus taking away the concept of public content. Discussions are more often than not moderated by individuals who censor content or take it off the site when it is not compliant with their own bias/position. When content is limited or available only through special conditions, it may require special permissions or payment to access. The internet satisfies the futuristic desire to teleport. It morphs space and time like a teleporting time machine. Humans get instant satisfaction from participating in cyberspace activities. We can see democracy on website like wikipedia where user have a grade depend of there implication and good reviews. We can also see a lot of of other examples like digg, deviantart (good example of freedom), newgrounds and forum but each website still with laws and regimentation. We think that the following phrase, "This virtual passing promises [...] to protect our "real" bodies and selves from the glare of publicity", is dated. Online advertising is more present than ever at this time, and young girls and young guys are faced with images of perfect bodies and perfect lives, thus telling them that they must change in order to be popular, etc.

Could the Internet be qualified as the first step to a "real" cyberspace? Is it merely a test to improve users' literacy regarding a bigger "place"?

Kittler - John, Tomer, Chris

Kittler states that the gramophone was able to record undifferentiated sounds, without the need of editing. He links reality with the composition, the actual sound waves that are captured by recording, and then he goes on to write about film, that “Instead of recording physical waves, generally speaking, film only stores their chemical effects on its negatives.” He also argues that the dominance of printed words was being questioned in the later nineteenth century even before phonography, photography, and cinematography. At the same time, Kittler argues, the cultural view of writing changed drastically due to the increasing use of the typewriter. What Kittler meant was that because of all these gadgets, we were loosing sight of reality and that what ever was being produced was not real at all, just some form of translation.

Now, as we fast forward to the present, what Kittler mentioned still applies to the modern ways of recording audio, video or images. Instead of having data chemically shaped onto film, everything is made out of 1’s and 0’s. At least that’s what Kittler implies. The fact that we have hardware and that nearly all the media that is produced, is just being translated to us by these computers that store nothing but binary. He means to say that everything has come to that. It’s some code that is being translated to us through means of speakers or monitors and that there is nothing real about that. There is no true depth to it.

Just a century ago, media was all analog but now it’s all digitally reproducible. To what extent will this form of data storage be developed? And if it keeps progressing the way technology is now, does it mean that one day even organic dna, like food and maybe even humans, will be broken down to be stored or transmitted digitally?

Kittler - Alexis, Ramy, Sean

summary?
Kittler start explaining how the future (now) pipes all medias of film, sound and even text through optic cables. how these 3 connected medias are merely storage systems to message we produce as they contain no output method and [can not, in themselves, change the meaning of the messages stored in them]. In consequence only their quality is gauged. These new data storage systems store time. since the past could only store time through textual means. which is why everything ended up in a library. In contrast tribal oral traditions would become extinct, or encapsulated by the, then monopolistic tradition of, writing. writting itself can only store words within the confines of it's 28 letters. The new systems of images and moving images bring about new ways of thinking and remembering. Old ways are replaced, "memory" is replaced with new images instead of hallucinations that would have to be though through words. He later on explains a new division between the media and writing (brought back thanks to the typewritter). Writing now divides itself from the soul and looses it's sensuality. Sensuality now picked up by the media. with this new technologies comes the distinction between the real, the imaginary and the symbolic. the world of the symbolic itself is world of the machine according to Lacan. New terms are introduced again, those of the continuous, as handwriting, and those of discrete, as the typewriter. As ubiquitous digitalization approaches, numbers and figures become the key to all of us.

The second is about programing as an abstraction from the hardware that controls the computers of then and how, when writing code, that writing looses it's meaning because it is so abstracted from it's final interpretation. He goes on to discard software as having any kind of existence outside the hardware that interprets it for which reason it is all the more insisted as being property. without software, we are left with the bare bones of computation, the hardware, at which point efficiency is maximized since there is no abstraction to make it inefficient and wasteful. Kittler writes about having a new type machine, composed entirely of hardware, and that this new machine, confronted with such an increase of signals, now noise, would only fall into perceived chaos and back to Shannon and away from IBM.



ideas

In the first text Kitler seem to share many of the same concerns as McLuhan. Notably in the persistence of recorded in history through written word. The communicative property of history becomes subjugated to the written word. Understandably, but still, bananas. History is currupted by various external sources (external the archival form) most notably, the people who write it. In this sense, our group was more in agreement with the previous text Encoding / Decoding as it better addressed the various sources of manipulation instead of harping on the failure of a medium ( In this case, written words). People still need memory, even with recorded history, we require memory to find history books, or history classes, and definatly, what chapter we where at in the readings. Without memory itself, we would get stuck, reading the same information over and over again, similar to a computer.

Which leads to the second text, "There is no software". Its questionable how serious the statement could be, as its either A: a case of playing with words to validate and communicate a point ( that software is an abstraction that inherits the flaws of language in its inability to represent prevision of process, or rather usefull algorhythms) or B: Frederick Kitler is firmly against abstraction for the aformation weakness in language and beleives that keyboards should be composed of three keys, 0, 1, enter. Scratch that, human computer interaction should be limited to hardware operators modulating freequencies with a screwdriver. Such efficient computation ( as it subverts the computational overhead of... everything ) would lead to modeling of meaningful interaction. Admittedly, the set of problems that are turing complete are infact, a subset of all possible problems, including the interesting and the meaningful. However the abstraction utilised in the creation of programming languages and software is not embded with the failures he describes. As complexity itself takes different forms, or rather the confrontation with complexity, scaling, takes different forms. Beyond performance (the issue that relates most directly to computability) complexity itself scales as it relates to humans. As in, it would take a really long time to program something meaningful modulating signals on a circuit board when the same problem could be solved easily with a programming language. Computability in its binary form, as in, whether something is deterministic and can be computed also suffers from this complexity.


questions

do new systems of data storage, such as film and sound, effect our way of thinking in the same way linguistic determinism does?
If such problems of complexity where solved and a system was constructed to accurately model noise (chaos) or rather, the human realm, would it be recognisable as such by humans?

Kitler review by Chris and Éric

Friedrich Kitler dans son texte Preface to Gramophone, Film, Typewriter avance que les medias déterminent notre situation. En fait, son analyse médiatique repose sur la transformation au fil des âges des moyens de communication. De la parole à l’écriture en passant par l’enregistrement phonographique au film, l’information se perd dans des trous noirs et l’intelligence artificielle qui gère cette masse d’informations, nous abandonne sur le chemin des commandes complexes. Lorsqu’il opère à leur limite, les médias plus anciens, tel l’écriture, sont assez sensibles pour enregistrer les signes et les indices d’une situation donnée. De plus, Kitler prétend que contrairement à ce que McLuhan prétendait, les médias resteront toujours incompréhensibles car les technologies actuelles exercices un contrôle direct sur toute la compréhension possible et évoque son illusion.

Dans le texte, There is no software, Kitler prétend que les logiciels n’existent pas car ils sont intrinsèquement liés aux matériels (hardware) donc nécessairement, ils ne peuvent exister que si les matériels existent.

Le texte de Kitler apporte un point de vue différent et plus actuel sur les médias que tous les autres auteurs que nous avons vus au préalable. Sa vision de la transformation de l’écriture, médias anciens, en une information plus volatile et malléable est assez intéressante. Parcontre, noius sommes moins convaincus par son texte There is no software, où il remet en cause l’existe des logiciels. Nous croyons que ces drniers exoistent en eux-mêmes au point d’être partagé sur Internet et en personne.

Response to Kitler - Sam,Manuela and Yin YIn

In the required readings for this class “Gramophone, Film, Typewriter” and “There is No Software”, Kittler discusses that originality and self expression is lost due to the media and technology. He talks about moving-images, sound recording and the art of handwriting. Handwriting was viewed as being a form of identity when the pen touches the paper, how everyone’s is different and cannot be replicated but with the computer and all the available software’s, a font can now be manipulated till the creator is satisfied ( color, size, font type) all originality and identification is lost. He also says that media "define what constitutes reality". That media stores time in different forms; information is written on or encoded into a media.


Through out this class we have come across a recurring subject in these texts; the loss of originality and identity. It is obvious that Kitler is disappointed with technology replacing “hand on” forms of creation, writing and literature; all these mediums have been put aside and replaced with media. This idea of loss in originality when a paper is typed is quite relevant now for students who write essays for class, the papers criteria (single spaces, size 12, font type Times New Roman) dismisses all creativity except for the content.


Is possible that a digitally create work can have individuality but not in the sense of the presentation but in the content?

Kittler Response: Natalia, Mike, Fernando, Martin

In “Gramophone, Film, Typewriter”, Kittler discusses how all media have been reduced into “rows of numbers”, which is the concept that he pushes further in “There is No Software” by stating that hardware is the only significant aspect of computation. He stresses that media define our understanding of the world, and dictate the illusions that we see around us, mistaking them for sense perception. With all media blending into one, the differences between them become negligible, essentially eliminating the concept of media itself. However, this is merely a continuation of the way the world has been defined by media, such as in the relationship between writing and history. In “There Is No Software”, Kittler continues this argument about the control of reality by the media, placing particular emphasis on how this control is driven by arbitrary logic, and is limiting in its representation of the world, which is in essence chaotic.

Since the time this article was written, Kittler’s prediction of the blending of media has already began to materialize in the form of the internet communications. It has also taken another form in art, resulting in the current trend of multimedia artworks that use the ability of shifting media to their advantage. While Kitler appears to be rather pessimistic about it, this blending resembles Haraway’s utopia of hybridity, and can be seen to actually hold promise in how information is interpreted and used. His ideas about non-existence of software, however, are more problematic as they undervalue the creativity that goes into its creation and use. By stating that everything is reduced to 1’s and 0’s, he suggests that all of the work done on the computer is merely that. It resembles the Modernist approach to painting, viewing it merely as colour and plane.

What would be, following Kittler’s idea, the computation arts equivalent of flat abstraction? Would such an artform hold a valid place in contemporary art world?

Kittler response: Charlotte, Charles-Antoine, Jos

Friedrich Kittler describes how the world of symbolics turned into the world of the machine.For him, media are lost in the digital realm; they become numbers, thus transformable into each other through algorithms. However, the monopoly of the digital realm is not a unique case. In order to understand why, we must first understand his notion of media. First of all, media "define what constitutes reality". Media store time in different forms; information is written on or encoded into a media. The act of writing is very old, and since its debut, written languages had to be organized uniformly. The same notion of writing on a media is taken by cinematographs. However, the hallucinatory power of reading and writing is more and more lost or controlled by all lower-level apparatuses. Since most people are unaware of the lower technical levels and can only see the higher levels, they cannot see through the "monopoly of writing". The same concept was understood in "There Is No software": only the lowest level (hardware) really exists. Those who cannot see this hidden level through the higher ones do not understand fully the medium they are using and lose their "hallucinating power".

The IBM measure (logical depth) explains that "the value of a message [is in the apparatus'] buried redundancy." This means that the receiver already has the ability to figure out what the computer does, only at "considerable cost in money, time, or computation." The text also mentions that have become gods in the way that we dictate history through the monopoly of writing. Readers may be inclined to ask if Kittler is implying that software is an example of our laziness, or if he is suggesting that software cannot possibly ever replace us because it is an extension of ourselves i.e. created in our own "image". If this is true, does this mean that software can naturally never help us to do anything besides speed up our own abilities because it is created by us, for us, and with many of our own limitations? Just as the code of stylized hand-writing changes with geographical location, community, teacher, and classroom, software is also programmable. But Kittler writes that "this all-important property of being programmable has, in all evidence, nothing to do with software," as it is apparent in all things, in all skills. This is a confusing statement. The first text is undeniably reminiscent of Benjamin's discussion of the effects of mechanical reproduction because it insists that the craft of handwriting, the soulful experience with the pen and paper, has disappeared with inventions beginning with the typewriter. However, Kittler seems to find the typewriter a less offensive apparatus as it is "something between tool and machine".

Software is simply a way in which people can 'communicate' with sophisticated machines. But is this form of communication an innocent one? Is what Kittler stresses in these texts similar to Baudrillard's concerns? Is he asking readers to recognize the cold hard facts that remain when all else is removed, to understand that our era has become an era of simulation? And in addressing the craft of handwriting, could it not be argued that programming is a soulful form of craft as well, a new kind of poetry (not as a replacement of the 'old' kind, but as a different species)?

Kittler: Morgan, Peter, Nicholas, JS

In "Gramophone, Film, Typewriter", Friedrich Kittler works through how moving-image, sound recording, and the typewriter have overthrown the monopoly of literature and the written word. He argues that electricity has made "obsolete" the "hallucinatory power of reading and writing." That is, the "'...glowing colors, shadows, and lights'" that emerge from the "serial data flows" of 'sensual' words, or from the spaces between the words. This, he shows, "separated the data flows of optics, acoustics, and writing and rendered them autonomous". While the text was once both "film and record simultaneously", it has been fragmented by the three temporal new-media (with the typewriter as more an apparatus than a medium). Kittler also touches on a fundamental difference between media and text: media represents the real in a direct, almost 'analog' way, while text is symbolic, discrete, digital. He claims that this cleanly divides "matter and information...the real and the symbolic"; "...man becomes physiology on the one hand [(media)] and information technology on the other [(text)]".

Honestly, we had trouble distilling "There is No Software". He seems to argue that, because software comes down to "local string manipulations...to signifiers of voltage differences", that software doesn't really exist. He continues this line of thought by asserting that as we create increasingly abstracted levels in the software hierarchy, lower levels are deliberately hidden. Thus, he reasons, we don't really know what we're writing. He also argues that modern computers, in their ability to simulate nature, are limited by "artifical" hardware and software limits. As an example, he compares Turing Machines to the DOS operating system with its 8-character file-name limit. Finally, he imagines computers based more on information theory (and chaos theory) that will supersede current hardware limits (for instance in the ability to model nature and "real numbers').

Our discussion began with Kittler's statements about the temporal nature of literature and it's 'new' replacements (or derivatives), recorded sound and film. We asked, "has sound and film replaced literature?" Surely not. Diving deeper into the text revealed that literature has not been replaced, but fragmented into the three media after which the essay is named. "Electricity", claims Kittler, has rendered literature as an electrifying, imaginative experience obsolete. But hasn't the internet reunited literature, sound, and film into a single medium? Kittler addresses this directly and shows that the reintegration is irrelevant; sound, image, and word are still fundamentally fragmented. We then explored the idea that media is non-symbolic, a sort of direct or "analog" representation of the real, while on the contrary, text is symbolic, discrete; hallucination must bridge the gap between the words. A picture is worth a thousand words, but a sentence is worth a thousand pictures said Peter. In a sense, this is an analog vs. digital discussion (and Kittler addresses this indirectly in his conclusion). At first we were confused as to what was the significance of the typewriter, given the Heideggar quote...it's surely an apparatus and not a medium...but referring to Kittler's notion of the tripartite fragmentation of literature cleared this up. Back to analog vs. digital: we looked at Kittler's distinction of "physiology" (media) vs. "information" (text). What is the nature of this division (what is the nature of the physiological, the analog). Kittler brings claims that moveable type was a "muscular" extension while new-media is "nervous" extension. Is the nervous system "physiological" or "information"-based? Analog or digital? Doesn't this all become information in the end anyway in a digital computer? We finished with a discussion of typography...where does expressive typography lie in this? Is it the merging of the physiological/expressive with the informational/discrete?

Regarding software, we brought up issues of abstraction...what really is going on in there under all those layers? Why is it significant that what we do is reduced to microscope, binary code? What is the significance of abstraction, of hierarchical language?

Finally, to ask a question: Kittler seems to suggest that we need a new kind of computer, one based on information theory (cybernetics?), without "artificial" limits, and without software. What is the purpose of this? Is a radically new, but 'universal'ly useful machine a reality?

Response to Kittler - by Ben, Duy, Kevin and Scott

Kittler first writes about optical fiber networks, and how this medium merges mediums that were before seperate. A prominent concept in his writings is the storage media. The latter which recalls and reproduces the flow of time. He covers transitions such as writing to type. He then moves from the Turing machine into discussion about there not being software. His basis is that any software broken down reveals hardware and analog signals. Observations are made concerning how machine are discreet and ordered while reality of man is continuous and chaotic.

Discussion about the Turing machine led to questions about interface. Aspects that deal with the user interaction with the computer cannot be defined by a mathematical formula in the sense that there is no perfect interface. From considering our interactions with computers, we notice that we are conditioned to use certain interfaces. For example, the qwerty keyboard is not in theory better than the dvorak layout after having switched from typewriters to computers, yet it is widely used.

Does the discrete nature of computers make it a difficult medium to try and recreate the chaotic man?

Response to Kittler by Alexina Alex and Emmanuel

The point in Kittler's first essay is to bring forth the point of digitisation erasing all individual media and matching them together. Indeed, it is now possible to mix sound, image and voice together to create a more realistic world in film, whereas sound alone could not be as compelling. And, again, the medium is the message: the content of one medium will be another medium that in turn will have content that is another medium, etc. (e.g. the moving image has sound that has voice and language that was written beforehand). Media created by humans trick us to believe that they stimulate our senses like reality. In fact, mediums are tightly controlled and limited stimuli. It is important not to confuse methods that filter data with our sense perception. Reality is decided on the basis that media stimulates humans accurately. This is how they give meaning to human perception of the world. Media are a vehicle with confined capabilities. This enables a standard to be created. The first of this type is writing. It was the first way to store information in a way that could be easily accessed by others. The author states "This is why anything that ever happened ended up in libraries". This means the only perceivable truth exists in writing, whereas oral truths were considered merely legends. The problem is that these truths are all from the past. It is not possible to read what is currently happening. Therefore, we "read the dead", as in dead events, not necessarily dead authors. Data is organised in such a way as to simulate human perception: it reproduces reality with binary numbers. The title of the text comes from Kittler's concept that the invention of the gramophone, the film and the typewriter represent the first instance of simulating reality and stimulating human senses, namely the ear, the eye and the brain, respectively. It is possible to create media which are as unique as their creator. This is not the purpose. In fact, media must become standard and dividual, a universally accessible truth. Computers will forever be dividual because their creators have made mistakes that will never be changed. The second text proposes that computers hide the act of writing. There is an almost infinite hierarchy of codes that hide what truly happens what happens in the machine that is, at its basis, a passing of electricity. Words are no longer the language of letters, but of mathematical programming and functions, therefore escaping our perception. There is nothing so primitive as the language of the binary: 0 and 1 the passage of electrical current. Software cannot exist without hardware. The ability to program is an attribute of the hardware, not of the software.

On the topic of software, the price manufactures charge for their product is more representative of knowledge placed in the software. We are in a pay-for-service society. This case is no different with software, otherwise we would be paying peanuts for grains of sand. Humans have developed a way to create standards which anyone can understand. This limits what our senses are able to perceive. It would have been preferable to construct a machine which incorporates environmental variables in its operation. This is the principal behind machines which could possess individuality. Company executives used to buy iPods to their kids, then started wanting a similar toy for themselves that would be appropriate in the office environment. The MacBook Air and the iPhone were thus produced to cater to their "needs". This underlines how media technology influences office technology. "Numbers and figures become the key to all creatures" is a very vague phrase and can be interpreted in many different ways: the figures could be the symbols that represent the numbers and the key to the creatures is how we can understand and represent the creatures in an almost mathematical way, with numbers, that become an image. Or, the numbers could be one thing, and the figures are a representation of things in our lives, and the key is the solution that allows a synthesis of these creatures that are in fact us, humans. Perhaps the author discusses a subject that is understood in the programmers' world, but isn't in the regular users' world. But, maybe regular users are starting to assimilate the concept, therefore the subject that might have been very strange when the text was first written could very well be understood nowadays.

Is the human being conscious of the fact that the image that he sees is simply a layer over the underlying code?

Yuill, Crandall, Dunne -- by John, Chris and Tomer

The author of the first text describes the meaning of the word program and how the practice has originated. He explains how this practice has come to be known as "the new media".
The definition of the word is the process that will be determined.
In today's society, programs are used by people and venues everywhere.
A program is a set of codes that is designed to anticipate and provide a service.
This new media has divided society into two classes:
Ones who create such programs and the others who use it.
There is great importance on the relation between a programmer and a user.
It talks about what the word "programming" means and what are its goals to achieve as a product.
Our technology has advanced. We have brought forth the concept of the operational construct. This was largely used in the military, since the 1950's, as digital computing began to be substantially integrated into command and control tasks, and weapons guidance systems.
As techniques and ideologies of automation begin to take hold, we can say that a radically new kind of engagement complex begins to emerge.
As for the last text, it is about how art is being separated from its function.
"Design approaches are needed that focus on the interaction between the portrayed reality of alternative scenarios, which so often appear didactic or utopian, and the everyday reality in which they are encountered",


We can not hide from the world we live in.
Computers and technology are integral part of our future. Everything is programmed.
Our lives are programmed. We wake up at a certain time, we go to school, we eat at a certain
time, we go to sleep etc. All aspects of our life are programmed.
There might be some variables here and there, but such is the case for most programs as well.
Tomorrow I have class at 9 o'clock. We are obliged to attend these classes because we are programmed by society.
If we do not go to school, we are not relevant.
Is god the one who created this great program, and are we his user base? Or perhaps this program is of our own design? There is a great importance between the a programmer and a user.

In a world where everything is planned out from the start, are we the the ones programming it, creating our own reality? Or are we the ones using it? In other words, are we programmers, or are we users?

Re: Yuill, Crandall, Dunne -- by Angela and Matthieu

Simon Yuill in his essay "Programming as practice" makes the case that programming, typically associated with computing, can be understood as an autonomous practice that manifests itself regardless of the medium. The "programmatic practice" is characterized by "mark-making" in the broadest sense, and which provides for a known outcome, gives rise to mechanisms that govern the dissemination of design and production methods. It has roots in Arab/Islamic arts and mathematics. Weaving, the Jacquard loom, musical scores, and automation are used to highlight that pattern notation is present across many media and art practices. Programmatic systems lead to distributed creativity ("ongoing production", blurring of creation/artifact) and gives new, emerging media a possibility of impacting culture if we are able to understand and promote the practice as being relevant beyond computing.

Jordan Crandall outlines the model behind what he calls the "operational construct": a grouping of computer-aided operations that track and analyze objects to "facilitate an arrangement of power." He cites the military as being a driving force in the elaboration of the technological means with which the "construct" can be actualized. The net effect of the operational construct is to link actors across space and time to reduce the time needed for crucial decision-making. The technology has seeped into civilian life too: navigational systems to map unknown territory, television broadcasts that "construct" and influence how we understand events (the "spin", a field of representation and perception leading to changed ways of seeing and knowing.) The operational construct is but one "window" onto reality: it cannot open other windows and in fact can only convey that the other windows project barbarism or irrationalism (the construct has a "license on reason"). Crandall, in explaining how the operational construct leads to an arrangement of power (analytical tradition, panopticon tradition, i.e. scientific analysis and spatial control), suspects that operational constructs are created to sustain systems of conflicts.

In "Real Fiction", Anthony Dunne enumerates the different forms of design objects: prototypes, installations, models, and props. He argues that the gallery should not be treated as a showroom for future consumer-oriented production (he rejects the prototype), but rather as a way to be critical of fundamental ideas behind the material objects. According to Dunne, the designer is responsible to challenge the status quo and introduce new ideas about everyday experiences. These do not have to mimic reality, but rather create a feeling of "estrangement", mix reality and fiction, and be embodied by "non-working models" to establish "scenarios" that are not "didactic" or "utopian" but "heterotopian": a plurality of habitable worlds.

We found Yuill's article to be well-rounded and just in its approach to the programmatic practice, having experience in computing, and were able to draw parallels from our experience. We discussed issues relating to the GPL and open-source models of software production, and wondered what impacts an open-source approach might have on politics, locally and globally, or to distribution of other goods and products. We focussed on Crandall's notion of the operational construct, and how it relates to ideas of discipline and control. We found it troubling that militaristic endeavors could have such long-lasting impacts on the civilian individual.

In the intensifying, programmatic, collaborative, and on-going practices of producing art, mathematics, and science, might artists have the means to oppose 'arrangements of power' as set by 'operational constructs'? Hasn't this structure of struggle always existed?

Programming/Operational Construct/Design - Peter, JS, Nick, Morgan

The first text presents programming as an art form in itself. Comparing code to architectural schematics, weaving patterns and Arabic Khatt (calligraphy + mathematics) the author discusses the reproduction and distribution processes of programming and the social communities that it has given rise to. The second text introduces the concept of an “operational construct”, which is a series of computer-assisted mechanisms that track and analyze their subject matter, facilitating an arrangement of power. This apparatus, fueled by command, control, and communication networks, is apparent on the battlefield through precise target bombing and on one’s TV set during a sports event with an advancing digital readout. The last article deals with design as a way of critiquing society and how one interacts with their environment. Through discussing how viewers perceive design objects in a gallery setting the text suggests how these electronic products could shape the experience of everyday life.

Our discussion began with the last article, first examining how one generally associates design objects with mass production. Many of the designs discussed in the text are obviously not appropriate for large-scale production, yet are we still able to connect them with artistic merit? Another issue with design is the evident fetishism attributed to an object, elevating it above its use-value to an aesthetic pleasure. The success of many design objects depends on their fetish-value yet can design be used purely for use-value creation? The 100-dollar computer, for children in 3rd world countries, is a good example of design applied to get the most usability out of an object. We then switched to the first article, wondering what are the exact differences between analog and digital forms of creation. Is it possible that there is an underlying algorithm and programmatic language to painting just like programming computer code? Obviously this algorithm is deeply embedded in the physical-manipulation code that we learn from birth but to a computer, mixing paints, dipping the paintbrush and then applying it to the canvas would be a huge library of actions (not to mention learning anatomy, perspective and all the other things involved in studio arts education). Instead of seeing a list of directions like that of a piece of code maybe those directions are imprinted in our minds. Therefore the real difference between programming and painting is in its medium – one uses binary and the other uses atoms, which make up the paint. Online coding communities and open source programs are another interesting result of the programming medium. It was pointed out that in these communities, not only are the end-result programs critiqued but the style and artistic quality of the code itself is also important. We quickly looked at the second article, linking it to the power structures of Foucault and Deleuze.

Could the open source movement involved with programming transfer to all aspects of society? And if so, could this be the final phase of societal control, allowing complete dissemination of power and a return to communism?

(DISIPLINE > CONTROL > OPEN SOURCE?)

Yuill,Crandall and Dune - Sam, Manuela, Yin Yin, John

In the text Programming as Practice: a comparison of old and new media ,Simon Yuill the author wants us to embrace programming and understand that it is not only a technical application used for computer technology which everyone refers it too but as a separate independent creative practice.Programming can be describe as (system, method or process) of planned out instructions (like architectural designs, music notation and textile patterns) which are used by artist and craftspeople for designs of works. Basically a “scientific” art formula is used to create a layout that holds heavy information that describes the delivery of each step, what will be used, what goes together and what will be the final outcome of your work, also the final outcome of your work will reflect on how well you coded it as you create new ways to present material.Also coding can be applied and manipulated to fit into a wide variety of subjects; mathematics, geometry, music, architectural design and textile patterns.

“Diagrams for an “Operational Construct”” by Jordan Crandall is the next essay and is relatively short. Crandall starts off his text giving a backdrop on when digital computing began to integrate itself in command and control tasks and weapon guidance systems, basically programming first becoming part of the military, which was in the 1950’s, and goes on saying that this was also a period where the techniques and ideologies of automation began to take hold, and that this was the emerging of a new kind of engagement complex. Jordan Crandall discusses the concept of an operational construct, which broadly defined is an assemblage of computer-assisted operations through which objects are analyzed, tracked, and negotiated, in order to facilitate an arrangement of power. Basically it’s another technological advancement that has helps to control, and monitor the population.What operational construct attempts to do is reshape how people view things, it is a domination of thought,Through machine-human-discourse integrations, the operational construct is that which helps to ORCHESTRATE A PERCEPTUAL COORDINATION, while 'playing' its subject-objects WITHIN A DETERMINED SITUATION whereby AN OPERATION OF ENFORCEMENT IS CONDUCTED."


Seeing that design is a tool to enhance the habitable world, on every level of senses. Anthony Dunne explained how design art is always looked upon as a utility in the real life even just solo pieces in an art gallery. That is why he carefully separated this essay in three different sections. Section one: The Design Object as an Installation. Section two: The Design Object as Model. Section three: The Design Object as Prop.Installations. This section talks about how Design art in general is viewed as an installment. Viewers, readers and audience usually take the art and try to bring it into the real world and analyze how it can be applied/used in the real world. Example that Anthony uses is: the booth like structure, where visitors are able to control lighting in a hemisphere surrounding their head which compares street furniture, and public utilities with mass consumption, state ownership and industrial production. Model. This second part talks about how installations should have models or prototypes that work so that the link of gallery and real life is bounded. This model can be used like the booth and make people think that this might work in real life.Props. This sections talks mainly about props and film and how they use film to show how the prop or the new product is used in real life. This is another way an art designer can show how his prototype or product for the inhabitable world is and functions. Props are images/replicas/fakes of what the public should be waiting for, to use or work with.


We found interesting that Yuill broadens the scope of the word “programming” so that it fits not only to computer related elements but also to art and other disciples both old and new. The fact that it also helps to share and communicate it to others so that it becomes the act of a group is appealing in terms of reaching out and obtaining new ideas.In Crandall’s case, it is imperative that we look closely at the benefits of human-machine synchronization before diving into it thoughtlessly. As with the example of the sports game, the more we rely on the abilities of machines, to calculate time down the imperceptible fractions, the more it seems we are losing our human qualities.It no longer seems like we are trying to enjoy the game for the game, but the time left on the game and all the little details.

Texts of Yuill, Crandall & Dunne by audrey, chris & eric

The first text of Simon Yuill discusses the fundamentals of programming, what it truly is and what its role is in new media. He compares and contrasts programming to other specific media by using examples that illustrate how programming does not tie into any other media. Using the example of knitting, he shows there is no relation to that medium and programming whatsoever. He also talks about the social structures that it lies in and how it can be used to create new order and creativity.

The second text of Jordan Crandall discusses a new concept that he calls “operational construct”, which forms the way we as human beings think and act in the world. He states that this “operational construct” is based on computational technology and the effects it has on our perception. It derived from three things essentially growing from within the military: command, control and communication (as we mentioned in last week's discussion).

The third and final text of Anthony Dunne discusses presentations as a whole and the how consumption for ideas that exploit the conceptual status of objects as ideas are intertwined, as opposed to objects as mass products. In addition, he talks about how it is really important for a designer to continuously think in a critical sense, both about his ideas and the ideas they obtains from the world that surrounds them. Through this he states that individuals will have a better comprehension, better way of perceiving things and a more fluent understanding of content that will essentially be valid to their knowledge towards the world.

Yuill se base développe plutôt son point de vue autour du Free Open Source Software comme instrument de changement social et artistique. Je crois que le développement de ce type de logiciels open base peut permettre du transformation de la relation producteur-utilisateur propre au concept de programmation qui a cours depuis sa création. La construction de cette nouvelle dynamique aura des répercussions au niveau sociale et artistique. Non seulement les utilisateurs pourront influencer le développement des logiciels, mais il permettera à quiconque d'utiliser une base commune dans le but d'en faire partager le plus gran nombre possible. Il n'y aura plus de petits groupes qui pourront détenir le pouvoir de la connaissance et de la technologie car elle sera disponible à tous autant dans son utilisation que dans sa conception.

Crandall voit plus le développement de la programmation comme une nouvelle façon d'imposer le contrôle et le pouvoir par la construction de la représentation. Les nouveaux médias n'ont comme fonction que de créer un climat où les utilisateurs doivent de mouler au fonctionnement des machines. Autant le matériel que le discours sont construits de tel façon qu'ils jouent un rôle dans la production de situations qui ne font qu'anticiper se qui vient de se produire.

16 mars

Dans le premier texte, Simon Yuill nous retrace l'histoire et les origines de la programmation. C'est très intéressant de voir l'évolution de ce domaine qui est aujourd'hui a la base de notre société. Au début, c'était pour des buts totalement autre que l'informatique, désignant le processus amenant a créer un motif. Cette logique venant du monde arabe a été créée pour la production et l'utilisation des documents a l'intérieur du lourd système bureaucratique de l'empire Abbasid. L'avénement de ces techniques dans le monde occidental nous ont amenés entre autres l'algèbre, mot dérivé de l'arabe ''al-djabr''. Le second texte ''diagram of an operationnal construct'' nous montre la relation que l'on a avec les appareils technologique dans un contexte militaire. Nous sommes constamment en synergie avec les appareils que l'on utilise a travers un genre de grille qui met dans un espace virtuel commun les soldats, les armes, les systèmes de communication et les commandants. L'ensemble des composantes, incluant tout l'environnement physique sont concentré dans ces systèmes, ce qui rend le soldat dépendant de ce tout. La limite entre l'homme et la machine est floue et le deviendra de plus en plus. Le dernier texte portait sur la perception du design par rapport a son côté déconecté du réel. Comme le disait si bien E.Manzini "La responsabilité ultime du designer est de contribuer a la production d'un monde habitable" . Il est donc naturel que dans lesconcepts d'un designer indépendant de toute pression de corporations ou autres, le produit crée une distance avec la réalité qui permet a celui qui la regarde d'apprécier la vrai valeur conceptuelle de l'objet. Pour créer l'effet désiré sur l'observateur, le designer doit lui-même décider des caractéristiques du design qu'il exposera, car pour faire réfléchir l'observateur, il faut qu'il soit ouvert et enclin a l'idée en question. En fait, ça devient une sorte de tactique, un genre d'apprivoisement soit par la qualité plastique, ou par un contionnement inusité. Toutes les raisons sont bonne pour créer l'effet désiré.

Yuill, Crandall, Dunne: by Natalia, Martin, Mike, and Fernando.

Simon Yuill’s article discusses how programming can be seen as distinct practice that is separated from any specific medium. In the process of doing so, he situates it in context of other non-digital media such a weaving. He ties programming to the social structures within which it exists, drawing attention to how it can redefine creativity in relation to distribution and reproduction, placing them within the process of production itself.

The second article by Jordan Crandall introduces the concept of an “operational construct” which emerged as a result of “command, control, and communications” networks within the military. The need for computation-assisted observation, and the desire to reduce the time between observation and analysis, led to the creation of a system of total observation that is done both by humans and computers simultaneously. This system is so prevalent in contemporary society that it permeates all aspects of daily life, and changes our perception of the world.

Anthony Dunne’s “Real Fiction” talks about the role of critical design, which is not aimed at commercial distribution, but is used as means of critique. He proposes different ways of displaying critical design objects, analyzing how this change of context has an influence on the meaning of the objects. For example, the idea of a non-working prototype can be exploited for meaning in itself, such as in the example of bombs by Gregory Green. Dunne emphasizes the responsibility of the designer to think critically about the world around them, creating alternatives, or causing people to analyze their relationship with objects.

Jordan Crandall’s article is very interesting in its relationship to our class discussion on “societies of control”. He really analyses the means through which control is executed, and how it alters our whole perception of the world. The Anthony Dunne text highlighted the role of the designer in not merely accepting the Crandall’s model of society, but using theoretical objects to critique our relationship to it. As such, it can be closely related to the Yuill’s concept of seeing programming as a collaborative practice, particularly in relation to Open Source Software, and its ability to alter the way that we see creativity and artistic production.

How can we apply the ideology of a collaborative practice, such as that of the Open Source movement, to a “traditional” studio-based practice aimed at making a living? Can the two be compatible?

Code 1; by Alexis, Ramy and Sean

The first text looks at programming methodologies, attitudes and how they are applied to other mediums, mediums that are specifically NOT programming, mediums such as knitting. It also talks about what programming is, in essence as the marking of a procedures to achieve a set final product.
The second introduces this new concept of an operational construct, which is a new way of perceiving and acting in the world thanks to technology. Operational constructs have largely been used in the military but the operational construct has evolved out of media and the divisions between the military and the civilian are now much harder to perceive. The author argues that the operational construct serves only to produce the very situations that they maintain.
The third text talks about how design is seperated from functionality in many ways and how to bring art pieces closer to the people while still retaining it's first function engaging the viewer to think critically about a certain topic the artist would be bringing to attention.

The programmatic logic applies to life as well. The daily routine as it were. Don't we all know to a certain extent what will happen next monday? The schedules, the obligations and the control that is applied to us from society are all a testament to this. We talked about the context of war and the operational construct and made quick link to how the americans fight terrorism before they get it served to them. When talking about designs and prototype, the ever popular Apple Inc. came to mind and how a non-working iPhone is pretty boring. We are seeing an application of programmatic logic into media which in turn affects this notion of the operational construct that surrounds us. The operational construct itself only servers to anticipate detrimental scenarios, and we wonder what does that say about the designs applied in media that have no critical value.

How can we change the detrimental nature of the operational construct if we can't keep art at it's critical value when presenting it as a prototype to large, money oriented, corporations who would not like shameful values of society to be put in the spot light since they themselves participate in those values?

On Programming, Operational Construct, & Real Fiction by {Ben, Scott, Duy, Kevin}

In “Programming as practice: a comparison of old and new media,” Simon Yuill talks about programming’s role in new media. He defines the practice as a “form of mark-making that encodes and guides processes of production.” He differentiates between the designer and the one who follows the designs, calling this the programmatic system. These programmatic systems allow for communication of designs and production methods between large social bodies. Mechanisms to govern these come into existence. He says that programming is “’socially directed’ mark-making,” and that programmatic systems increase the sophistication of tasks. Separation of design and production, modularity, and mathematics were discussed in an historical Arab-Islamic context. With “Diagrams for an ‘Operational Construct’”, Jordan Colandall discuss the special relationship called operational construct emerging between computational technology and the defense economy and shaped by many factors including new tools and techniques as well as the social, cultural, and political contexts. This engagement has been a part of the Western discourse involving the history surveillance which has been now digitally assisted with advanced technology. This is driven radically by the nature of the army for better and more instant response of the communication, command, and control process. This contributes to the continuing conflict, reflection, and adaptation within the human-machine discourse. The text explains how much society has acknowledged the technological involvement is omnipresent and almost natural. It is present in all forms of communications. There is an example with the use of GPS systems for navigational control of the car. It allows the user to feel in control, but it is also being “watched”. This is a spectacle symbiotic, where the users must interact with the apparatus so it could be useful. "Real Fiction": time is an important factor in a design installation; immediate feedback is one of the most important elements. A genotype is different from a prototype as it represents the essence of idea but is not a perfect realistic replica of one. A prop is an object to represent an idea, but in an even more broad sense. A prop does not necessarily have to represent an actual object; it could simply be a way to demonstrate an idea.

Open Source Software was discussed. Its promising presence in current times, acknowledged. Whether or not it could realistically become the absolute standard was questioned. The long and controversial relationship between the defense economy-the army and technology has been a key point for the discussion. How one can visualize a new future for the reciprocal and mutual engagement between the two that has been two essential for their own survival. The vision of a new generation of technology that is independent from the army and transnational corporations would encounter many difficulties regarding the funding, inspiration, and motivation; yet it is not impossible. We shouldn’t take the technologies for granted. The more humanity depends on technology, the more humans become machines and create existential questioning. Technology should be crafted to take a more intuitive approach which enhance sensorial capabilities. Time plays a role in art installations that only occur for a limited period (such as the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude), this adds to the appeal of the installation, even though the objects in it are static.
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Programming and Design (Jos, Charles-Antoine and Charlotte)

Traditionally, programming is not known as a source of art. "Programming can be understood as a form of mark-making that encodes and guides processes of production". The aesthetic properties of a programmed system are imbued in the artworks created from them. Programs tend to be tied to the social structures that employ them. The introduction of the GNU for open source software separates it from the ENULA used by Microsoft. The GNU thus allows for a much wider range of contributors to the code. Programming can therefore be attributed as a social form of mark-making. Khatt (from the Arabs) can be translated as "calligraphy". We can attribute the Arabs with many concepts that are now present in modern computing. Arabs used techniques used in programming in their carpet weavings as well. The school of Bauhaus was the first school to be credited with teaching its students to program using punch-cards for the Jaquard programs. It is important to remember that programming is not solely linked to computers, but to a variety of artistic media. "The most significant shifts taking place in current 'new media' are not so much in the formal natures of the artifacts, or their aesthetic styles therefore, but the ways in which the practice is realized at a social level. Operational construct "warps" space and time and links multiple actors as if they were one. In the 1950s new technologies and ideologies were beginning to take shape. New forms of the computer-assisted observation and analysis took shape. "The operational construct is an assemblage of computer-assisted operations through which objects are analyzed, tracked and negotiated, in order to facilitate an arrangement of power". The operational construct is also meant to eliminate the intervals between all of those things so that one could have a greater window to act upon. The operational construct is shaped out of mediatization and has a self-contradicting existence. It mixes spectatorship, commerce and combat in one and delivers images of the system that they help maintain. The third article discusses how conceptual design allows us to challenge preconceptions of the products in our lives. That these objects, sometimes, mirror reality in a way that it makes them more real then the real. These designs also allow a window into a world that is not ours but eerily alike ours.

As discussed in the first article, "Programming as practice", programming, computers and Internet are not in a world apart of the real world. Digital world certainly has some specific characteristics, but we can see in those technologies the reflection of our world. Meaningful observations can be made on creative relations in the digital world (GPL/GNU), as some barriers of the real world do not apply and laws are difficult to maintain. Furthermore, the digital realm is more easily malleable, modifiable and repairable, thus evolving more quickly. Manzini's idea about designers is "less on interaction with discrete objects than on systems of objects", or "independent agents [who] use their imaginative skills to propagandize socially and politically desirable situations".

Since the mechanisms of Internet have inspired many on political issues, could we say that it is a social, global work of Art made by all of its users, simply because they use it the way it works right now(sharing, GNU/GPL, P2P)?

Response to Yuill, Cradall, Dunne by Alexina, Emanuel, Alex

In the first text, the author dissects the word program. The term actually means to instruct how a process will be performed. While the outcome may be predetermined, it is dependent on the language used to create it. Programs are common to many practices, most of which are completely unrelated to computing. As McLuhan explained in his text "The Medium is the Message", the influence of a programming structure (the medium) always affects the created product referred to as "artifact". We can do a distinction about two kinds of people: those who create the program, and those who use the program. The relation between programmer and user is quite important. The latter is dependent on the artifacts and therefore, dependent on the creator. In this case, the creator has the ability to control social behaviour. With the introduction of GPL (General Public License), this boundary is destroyed. This new model gives the users the possibility to modify the ''artifact'' program without the intervention of the creator (programmer). Later, the author explains that khatt is a term without which we wouldn't have algebra to facilitate the creation of more complicated designs, where "reverse engineering" uses programming first to be able to visualise those designs. In the Fairisle example, we find that a small community is distributing their programmatic creativity to people who in turn will use those "templates", deskilling themselves. Programs have become a feedback loop where the artifact is used to create more applications. The programmer does not predict how the user will use his product. However, the user is empowered to intuitively create new processes of production. The next text starts off with an introduction of programming as a military means: to command, control and communicate intelligence (C3I). To the author, war brings on evolution. The "operational construct" is a building of efficiency. This is a method to create a point of convergence for information where time and space can be modulated. These machines obtain this ability by allowing their human controllers to transmit any information instantly through space to remain in perfect synchronicity. It is important to note that while we use these devices, our eyes are skewed though the viewfinder of this apparatus. The final text begins with articulating that design holds an important place other than in commercial applications. These are therefore able to force a reflection on behalf of the viewer as the works are conceptual in essence. The museum is to become a site where users can try items, like a store. We would then no longer encounter exhibits where a distance is created between the piece and the viewer. The pieces must activate the audience while remaining provocative. Instant satisfaction is key. This is the case for a design object as a prop. Function is irrelevant.

This is similar to Benjamin's theory on the audience watching a movie. We are also looking through an apparatus, especially when communicating, which makes our point of view biased. The e-Art exhibit had elements of the "freak show", where they were unrelated one from the other. This made the experience strange and uncomfortable on a whole. Sometimes the pieces even looked fragmented, unfinished. The author says that the film is better than an unfinished object because it satisfies the short attention span of the audience. We think that it's better not to encourage the short attention span, to have them question and take position with or against the subject of the film. It should be a commercial work instead of a private one. One of the questions we asked ourselves was whether our civilisations would be what they are today if it hadn't been for wars. Socially and technologically, we think that we wouldn't be the same if it hadn't been for the C3I way of thinking. Military technology like the Intranet became public and thus has encouraged people to use it on a wider basis. Because of this progress, the public now has access to those military means, and thus, we think that the rivalry and war between programmers and people will now push them to create better technologies. Softwares are now open-source, and the contributions and resources provided by several programmers make us use time more efficiently, which brings us to the concepts of propagation and operational construct that round up the three texts that we had to read.

Is considering the museum a test environment similar to a business which appeals to instant satisfaction of the public beneficial to the fine art?

Re: Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto" -- by Angela and Matthieu

In Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto", she introduces the concept of a 'cyborg' representing a technologically-developed sentient being that embodies the capacity for pushing the existing boundaries of today's world. It is an agent for the breaking down of dominant and mostly binary societal structures such as class and gender. As a woman in a patriarchal society she draws parallels between the struggles of feminism and that of dichotomies in ideology. In fact she claims her preference of the 'cyborg' over today's definition of a woman, namely that of a goddess. She conceives of this 'cyborg' by first pointing to scientific progress as invalidating the difference between animals and humans, between humans and machine (in terms of machine supported and enhanced humans). She also points to the pervasion of technology in our lives as a reason we should embrace it as it allows us to thrive despite having our identities become increasingly confused.

It's difficult to conceive of a world without technology being so ubiquitous, but not an impossible mental task. We found that Haraway underlines the importance of embracing technology because it is here to stay, and it can be harnessed to rebel against age-old ideologies. The 'cyborg', then, is the pinnacle of human and technology relations; it gives a mind to a body that, she argues, is increasingly losing its human element. We found the feminist aspect to the manifesto quite interesting and tied in well to the concept of boundary transgression, and how a re-thought "human" design could achieve what "traditional" humans have been unable to, up until now.

Do societal and identity struggles slowly wane from our collective consciousness as technology itself becomes more and more pervasive, overtaking our focus, softening us to hegemony? Can we ever get to creating a 'cyborg society' for the purposes that Haraway manifests?

Donna Haraway - "A Cyborg Manifesto." by Audrey, Eric and Chris.

Dans le texte de Donna Haraway « A Cyborg Manifesto » il est d’abord expliquer la fonction et l’essence du cyborg, qui représenterait en quelque sorte les fondements d’une société future (ou celle dans laquelle nous vivons présentement). Décrit sous plusieurs formes, le cyborg serait avant tout une « créature » hybride du vivant et de la machine : imagination condensée et réalité matérielle, créature à la fois animal et machine, idée politique, sociale et moderne. Son manifeste évoque la diminution des limites entre la technologie et l’humain (organique), l’humain serait donc à la fois animal, machine et homme tout en pouvant être autre, il serait aussi une unité d’où les frontières déjà minces ne seraient plus existantes. Elle fait aussi la différence entre la perspective d’un monde érigé sous l’emprise des impositions proscrites sur les mécanismes sociaux et l’exposition de plusieurs identités disparates définies par l’union des nouvelles réalités cyborgiennes. Haraway donne référence à un monde asexué, au féminisme, à l’évolution de notre monde politique au détriment de plusieurs caractéristiques qui dès lors seront des éléments du cyborg, milieu technologiquement modifié et amélioré, une idée qui semble consciencieusement décrite mais étrangement applicable.

L’idée d’une complexité technologique, le cyborg, qui guiderait le développement de l’humain est envisageable dans un avenir prochain. Plusieurs prétendent qu’ils est nécessaire de s’associer à la machine, et d’unifier quelques soit les liens originels que nous avons avec celle-ci pour en faire un tout plus fort. Il en est de même avec les animaux, autre race qui saurait nous rendre plus complexe de par son association. Il est inévitable de voir un jour le monde sous un angle technologique puisque nous travaillons ardûment à le rendre ainsi, tous semblent vouloir accéder à un stade supérieur. Pour ce qui est de la femme, Haraway rappelle la structure de genre, les classes, le travail, l’identification sexuelle, la race et bien d’autre. Il n’en est pas moins que malgré son statu féministe (ou anti-féministe), l’auteure veut un mélange complet entre les divers éléments du système, un mélange homogène parfait, qui saurait ainsi faire prévaloir notre évolution.


L’être humain est peut-être le stade le plus évolué des espèces terrestres voir même existantes, il est optimisé selon l’idée par laquelle, il peut lui-même se modifié de part ses propres inventions et se permettre des auto modifications. La race humaine serait alors selon Haraway qu’une partie du chaînon, l’Homme se donnerait lui-même à sont évolution pour créer une nouvelle race cyborgienne… mais celle-ci ferait-elle de nous un élément inférieur ou tout simplement nous rendre plus technologiquement plus avancé sans nous relégués à être captifs de nos inventions ?

Cyborg manifesto by Alexis, Ramy, and Sean

The author starts the manifesto by describing the cyborg, the cyborg being a future result of our society future. she writes about cyborgs being ether and quintessence - light and clean because they are nothing but signals. In that respect she puts human between animals and cyborgs, where the first is the past and the latter the future. Her feminist topic comes from the dualism between mind/body, animal/machine, etc. Since her cyborg myth transgresses boundaries it is her manifesto to pick up on the cyborg myth and get the "political unity" that will take down the domination of "class, gender"etc. This strongly links onwards with her Marxist approach. Since a Marxist/Socialist approach destroys boundaries of class (amongst other things).She writes about embracing technology as a way to clear up the dualism that is often found within ourselves, be it mind/body or anything else. Technology unites.


In Many ways technology itself is an expression of the capitalist market that created it. how do the poor gain access to technology if you clearly have to pay for it. How does THAT get rid of boundaries that are supposedly "Transgressed"? Technology is, in many ways, an expression capitalist market because of the way it is distributed which works on the capitalist model. in that sense it is an expression of that model. Although the manifesto isn't presented as a feminist piece, we do wonder if the topic of feminist hasn't dried up.


Can technology escape it's goal of homogenization and, instead of making everyone the same, embrace the differences and diversity of everyone and unify them as well without creating a misunderstood class difference of gender or colour, but make them understand those differences - not as superior or inferior, but as simply different?

Haraway - "Cyborg Manifesto" - By JS, Morgan, Peter and Nick

In her Cyborg Manifesto, Dona Haraway addresses the notion of human identity by establishing the myth of a cyborg society. She defines the term cyborg as an entity that transgresses established boundaries of society, politics and technology. First, she says that the threshold between animal-human distinctions are overridden by scientific and biological ideologies; next, she describes the blurring between the fields of the organic (human) and machine; finally, she enunciates the break of physical and non-physical, or of the visible presence of humans vs the invisible ubiquity of technology. Haraway also displays two different perspectives of this cyborg world; one, where control mechanisms are imposed on society, the other, an embrace to this fused realities and the affirmation of broken identities. Also, the evolution of current methods of domination is analysed and presented in a list of dichotomies comparing them with the old ones. Throughout her essay she states that current feminism theory should be viewed from the cyborgian perspective, as women as well have fallen out of the definable boundaries established in Western society, like male/female, mind/body, etc. Finally, Haraway points out her preference on being a cyborg than being classified into the Earthly, fragile, adored and helpless position of women as depicted in history (goddess).



The technological dualistic notions of the cyborg were clearly familiar for all of us in our discussion. Having grown up in a sci-fi culture, we made obvious connections to anime classics like "Ghost in the Shell". Nowadays, the idea of the human body as a mechanism and as a complex machine has become commonplace. But, beyond this technological approach, we debated about the concept of the cyborg as a transgressor of social, political and cultural frontiers. We established that most of the dualisms that rule the hegemonic dominant Western world, find their genesis as consequences of colonialism. The breaking of this binarism in a world where institutions overlap each other, where cultures are constantly fused, creating sub-cultures by the minute, where the immediacy of information keeps us so connected, yet so closed, creates the perfect environment for a breed of cyborgs. When identities meld together and cultures are blended, an individual culture appears; a cyborg culture. For us, this embracing of the cyborg seems to be a solution or at least a survival technique in the current state of the world. Instead of returning to nature and trying to avoid the actual simulation, should we embrace it?



In the cyborg world, aren't there imminent dangers of hybridizing and forsaking the natural? Isn't a cyborg world, suppressing and eliminating varieties and diversities in culture, economy, politics, ethics, etc?

Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto" John, Manuella, Sam, YinYin

Donna Haraway, a professor of feminist theory and technoscience. In her article "A Cyborg Manifesto", she embraces the cyborg, and criticizes feminism and identity. Her ideal cyborg would be an unidentifiable "pod", if we may, to get away from the idea of a women. This cyborg would be Haraway and any other woman that would follow her ideologies. She wouldn't have any female qualities, to an extent that she wouldn't even be pregnant.Her concept of the cyborg would basically erase the lines of Human and animal, and human and machine. This means that humans are animals and would be under the same umbrella. The borders of the human and machine/technology would be distroyed as well. These boundaries has already been broken in 2008. Just take a look at the war-amps and medical advancements. We as humans have incorprated machine/technology in the anatomy of man to help us survive. For example, pacemakers, artificial limbs (cybernetic limbs) and just the ordinary hearing aid.

As a group we came to the conclusion that we as humans shouldn't reject boundaries between humans and machines and reject boundaries within the human race, for all to prosper. Now a days we as humans need machines/technology to survive. Like in the example above within the medical realm of things.However, at the same time, we shouldn't relinquish our personal identity because that is what makes us distinct beings and not all automations that act based on certain "pre-programmed" needs. Can we, as humans, survive by not rejecting boundaries, human and machine?

Haraway Response: John, Chris and Tomer

The main idea in this text is the "cyborg" and how it relates to questions of gender, Marxism and technology, among other things.
The cyborg in Haraway's universe is not confined to the science fiction definition.
That of a half android half human creation. She does some comparisons with that definition, but ultimately she refers to cyborg as anything that is "more" then simply human. Wether it be by machine implants or something far more abstract. When what makes us human is fused with something else, some addition, something alien, we become a "cyborg". In our opinion, in this text there are two different types of "cyborgs". The actual cyborg and the analogy of the cyborg.

The analogy of the cyborg is used in Haraway's text to analyze complex issues. Just like the cyborg is not just one being (he is the fusing of two or more entities), so are women and the question of feminizm, not one dimensional.
Woman cannot be named, generalized, totalized around a particular set of features—because she is fractured by differences (ethnicity, social standing, wealth, sexuality).
The analogy is taken further with the example of "women of color". These need to deal with questions of ethnic opression in adition to gender opression.

The cyborg itself is a creature bred from capitalism and patriarchy. As such it side steps many of the concepts which make us human. Even though the "cyborg" may have started out no different then any human, by becoming "cyborg" he loses much: The search for religion, the fear of death, insistence upon consistency and completeness, natural reproduction and many more.
By fusing man and machine we take upon ourselves the godlike task of creation.
Our question is: As fusing man and machine becomes technologicly inevitable, when does one lose our humanity? When tecnological boundaries are no longer an obstacle, how will we be able to tell human from elaborate simulation? What is it that makes us human?

Haraway Response: Charles-Antoine, Charlotte, Jos

Haraway's essay introduces the metaphor of a cyborg: one which blurs the lines between women and men, human and machine, human and animal. She discusses her opposition towards identity politics and states there is "nothing about being female that naturally binds women". As privatization grows, public space reduces for workers in this new economy. The "homework economy" is an important term here; Haraway explains how work has been (and is becoming) more and more feminized. All people are finding themselves in a state of vulnerability in the workforce, even (and especially) the white male who once dominated the scene. But the author does point out that this is not quite as bleak as it may seem, as more and more women are being involved in sciences and are resisting the military urge. This new economy has served to break down earlier distinctions between public and private domains: home and state are like networked communications rather then separated entities. A major key point related to her cyborg allusion: Cyborg imagery suggests "a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves." Haraway admits that in order for the society to finally accept women for who they are (as cyborgs) that machines, identities, categories, relationships etc must all be destroyed.

The text seems not to defend (socialist and radical) feminists, but to criticize them for ignoring a larger issue. They have fought for a voice, which they have now received. Now it's time to use that voice, and not to exclude any form of being (man/woman, human/machine, human/animal) when speaking. Haraway explains that we can't define the world in strict parameters anymore, rather we are better to accept dualisms of cyborg reality. The struggle with politics, she says, is "to see from both perspectives at once" as one will reveal information about the other that would otherwise be unknown. This is a powerful piece of advice, but in a world where both sides are corrupt, is the level of corruption what we learn about the other? Although Haraway does not claim perfection in the term "cyborg", she states at the very end of the text, that she would "rather be a cyborg than a goddess". She would rather be clouded in a blurry notion of dualities than be forced into a "consciousness of exclusion through naming", being under the misconception of an absolute truth. One could argue that the idea of being a cyborg is more realistic in the sense that, upon inclusion of an attribute, it does not force the expulsion of another. In a world where technology has become a part of us, an "extension of ourselves" as McLuhan put it, we may have difficulty in defining ourselves, but perhaps the point of this article is to prevent us from suffering, attempting to fit ourselves (and others) into one category, by asking us to break down such barriers which serve as exclusion devices.

It's been 20 years since Haraway has written this essay. Now that women in certain fields of medicine have become a mainstay, can one say that part of her wishes have now come true? Or are we still headed in the wrong direction? Although objectification of women is at its greatest in other fields (fashion), has the gap between cyborg and goddess diminished or increased?