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?
Monday, March 31, 2008
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?
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?
Sunday, March 30, 2008
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?
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.
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)?
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)?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
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?
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?
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
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?
Sunday, March 16, 2008
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?
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?
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?)
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.
“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.
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?
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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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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Saturday, March 15, 2008
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)?
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)?
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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?
Sunday, March 9, 2008
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?
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 ?
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?
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?
Saturday, March 8, 2008
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?
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?
Friday, March 7, 2008
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?
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?
Thursday, March 6, 2008
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?
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Response to Haraway: Alex, Alexina and Emmanuel
Haraway's main theme in her manifesto is the cyborg. The cyborg is the anti-feminism in her mind. The perfect cyborg is based on the image of the woman, but an asexual one.The cyborg is the anti-feminism in her mind. The perfect cyborg is based on the image of the woman, but an asexual one. This technological innovation can be interpreted as a future "us". With cyborgs, it is harder to control people because they are not categorised anymore based on their race and gender. This text is undeniably feminist. ForHaraway this term means an equality amongst genders. She's afraid of giving birth, because it affirms that she is a woman; rather, she would prefer to be an asexual cyborg and regenerate. Her distinction is harnessing the future to empower women.Haraway does not believe in integrating future technologies into historical methods or worse, natural ones. For cyborgs have no innate history. These creations are unfaithful to their creators. This makes them wholly independent. In a society of cyborgs while there is no domination, in their world there exists only collaboration. This establishes political unity. There are no longer definitions which divide society in her utopia. The original feminist idea was directed at white women only; women of colour had to fight their own battles of colour and feminine identities. Instead,Haraway proposes the cyborg as an all-encompassing feminine ideal where race and sex do not exist.
Throughout the text, Haraway brings to light many concepts regarding the cyborg. The author believes this creature is a solution to many of society's woes but it can also demonstrate human handicaps. It is possible to applyHaraway's concepts to human life, i.e. not only to feminist issues. Although she brings about many concepts of unity and harmony (such as respect for nature, animals and cultures), the most important one is of a whole. That is, a collaborating society which has no innate history, culture, race or gender. This community of cyborgs is a solution to our amalgamation of old traditions and new innovations. For the author, this is an unsanitary mix. In movies, the machine is portrayed as an being without faults.Haraway brings about many examples in her text. Although this is helpful in understanding it, she often appears to contradict her theories on feminism. It would be formidable for women to have an equal place in society. As we said in the summary, the cyborg may be a perfect image of the female being that can regenerate once injured. It looks like she's searching for a world without incapacitation, without visible injuries or disabilities. Whereas there might be differences in colouring, height, weight, etc., there would not be any signs of injuries or disabilities. The retarded mind would be regenerated to be made "intelligent"; the paralysed body would be made to walk again; the missing limbs would regenerate as soon as it is missing... In short, perfectly unblemished asexual women... But don't these differences make humans so much more individual? Is it ethical to restrict cyborgs'individualities ? Another point that is related to regeneration: with (re)birth, we lose our genetic memory/history. That is, we don't inherit our mother and father's memories, but we learn all over again. With regeneration, however,Haraway seems to suggest that that genetic memory/history would be donated. Thus, she suggests that cyborgs are higher beings even than us humans, because they are able to keep that memory and add to it. Haraway's vision may be that of one lacking faith in humanity. She may even be qualified as egocentric for concentrating on women as opposed to society as a whole. She is correct in pointing out that humans are talented in constructing barriers between varying elements.
Is the predetermined aspect of cyborgs (prior knowledge of outcome) what makes them an attractive Utopian society?
Throughout the text, Haraway brings to light many concepts regarding the cyborg. The author believes this creature is a solution to many of society's woes but it can also demonstrate human handicaps. It is possible to applyHaraway's concepts to human life, i.e. not only to feminist issues. Although she brings about many concepts of unity and harmony (such as respect for nature, animals and cultures), the most important one is of a whole. That is, a collaborating society which has no innate history, culture, race or gender. This community of cyborgs is a solution to our amalgamation of old traditions and new innovations. For the author, this is an unsanitary mix. In movies, the machine is portrayed as an being without faults.Haraway brings about many examples in her text. Although this is helpful in understanding it, she often appears to contradict her theories on feminism. It would be formidable for women to have an equal place in society. As we said in the summary, the cyborg may be a perfect image of the female being that can regenerate once injured. It looks like she's searching for a world without incapacitation, without visible injuries or disabilities. Whereas there might be differences in colouring, height, weight, etc., there would not be any signs of injuries or disabilities. The retarded mind would be regenerated to be made "intelligent"; the paralysed body would be made to walk again; the missing limbs would regenerate as soon as it is missing... In short, perfectly unblemished asexual women... But don't these differences make humans so much more individual? Is it ethical to restrict cyborgs'individualities ? Another point that is related to regeneration: with (re)birth, we lose our genetic memory/history. That is, we don't inherit our mother and father's memories, but we learn all over again. With regeneration, however,Haraway seems to suggest that that genetic memory/history would be donated. Thus, she suggests that cyborgs are higher beings even than us humans, because they are able to keep that memory and add to it. Haraway's vision may be that of one lacking faith in humanity. She may even be qualified as egocentric for concentrating on women as opposed to society as a whole. She is correct in pointing out that humans are talented in constructing barriers between varying elements.
Is the predetermined aspect of cyborgs (prior knowledge of outcome) what makes them an attractive Utopian society?
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, group response by chris, eric & audrey
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault critically describes an eighteenth century world that moves toward "educating" the mind. In this society, individuals learn self-discipline and how to transform their bodies into the kinds of bodies needed in the society that they live in. He calls these kinds of bodies the "docile bodies". He discusses how the society controls its members in our time. His chapter regarding panopticism discusses how he believed the panopticon was a generalized mechanism that illustrated disciplinary society through economics, politics and scientific techniques. It rationalizes and makes useful human bodies docile, for more higher and demeaning dominant classes.
A society forces docile bodies to believe in whatever that is dictated to them. We can take the simple example of how people believe that mass consumption is a direct translation to pleasure and self satisfaction - in this sense, the docile bodies are the consuming bodies that believe you are what you buy. During the group discussion, we were contemplating whether or not this is a 'good' or 'bad' thing, is it a threat to society rather than a benefit? We saw it as specific members of society looking against this example, where they would think outside of the box and resist the "mental self-discipline". Would it be justifiable for society to eliminate certain tools, such as literature, mass media or postsecondary education? As for the certain individuals that do believe these examples are used to analyse society, is it important to separate our academic work from our personal life? Would these consumptions be better fit to society as choices rather than obligations?
Inventions and control are two very important elements in this text. We can see the internet or any other type of mass media as a utility that allows any individual to express themself. As it was mentioned before however, with being able to express ourselves, we are restricted by understanding the information that is given to us each and every day, i.e. through schooling, books, etc. It can be seen as either / or. Expressing ourselves is a good way to send personal messages across to others, but is it not, in some sense, contributing to our "docile bodies"? Has it opened more oppurtunities for people? or has it restricted people to sit in front of a computer screen and be masked their entire lives through technological advances?
A society forces docile bodies to believe in whatever that is dictated to them. We can take the simple example of how people believe that mass consumption is a direct translation to pleasure and self satisfaction - in this sense, the docile bodies are the consuming bodies that believe you are what you buy. During the group discussion, we were contemplating whether or not this is a 'good' or 'bad' thing, is it a threat to society rather than a benefit? We saw it as specific members of society looking against this example, where they would think outside of the box and resist the "mental self-discipline". Would it be justifiable for society to eliminate certain tools, such as literature, mass media or postsecondary education? As for the certain individuals that do believe these examples are used to analyse society, is it important to separate our academic work from our personal life? Would these consumptions be better fit to society as choices rather than obligations?
Inventions and control are two very important elements in this text. We can see the internet or any other type of mass media as a utility that allows any individual to express themself. As it was mentioned before however, with being able to express ourselves, we are restricted by understanding the information that is given to us each and every day, i.e. through schooling, books, etc. It can be seen as either / or. Expressing ourselves is a good way to send personal messages across to others, but is it not, in some sense, contributing to our "docile bodies"? Has it opened more oppurtunities for people? or has it restricted people to sit in front of a computer screen and be masked their entire lives through technological advances?
Foucault – Discipline and Punishment - Angela and Matthieu
The traditional, ritual, violent forms of control have been replaced by discipline. Under disciplinary systems the body is seen as something that can be subjected, used, transformed and improved individually. It aims to make the individual body “more obedient as it becomes more useful, and conversely”(Focault, 182). Discipline is concerned with the infinitesimal details of the individuals’ lives. It emerged in order to address the inefficiencies that arose with the rise of industrial production and the subsequent accumulation of the population into large institutions. Discipline is a technology, a set of techniques for ordering human multiplicities. The aim of discipline is to increase the docility and utility of the elements of a system thereby increasing the efficiency of the entire mass phenomena.
Through hierarchical observation (via surveillance), normalizing judgment (via punishment) and examination the masses are individualized and categorized by degrees of normality. The process of normalization ensures homogeneity as well as individuality, which allows for the determination of difference. Examination is the ritual of power of discipline, serving as a mechanism of objectification. It provides documentation of the individual, thus formalizing the individual within power relation. It provides a framework in which the individual is analyzable, describable object and for which the document serves as a tool of control and domination.
In “Postscript on the Societies of Control” Deleuze reflects on the difference between Foucault’s Discipline and a new form of control, which he refers to as the societies of control. In societies of control controls are modulations, factories are replaced by corporations, schools by perpetual learning and examination by continuous control. Societies of control are societies in a higher order capitalism in which the operation of markets is the instrument of social control and individuals are pitted against one another in order to motivate.
How does Foucault’s analysis of the examination and Deleuze’s analysis of competition for the purpose of motivation relate to the systems of control in Concordia University? Compuational Arts? CART 255? Can you see either of these models of systems of control functioning in these environment?
What kinds of architectures (if any) will enforce societies of control?
Through hierarchical observation (via surveillance), normalizing judgment (via punishment) and examination the masses are individualized and categorized by degrees of normality. The process of normalization ensures homogeneity as well as individuality, which allows for the determination of difference. Examination is the ritual of power of discipline, serving as a mechanism of objectification. It provides documentation of the individual, thus formalizing the individual within power relation. It provides a framework in which the individual is analyzable, describable object and for which the document serves as a tool of control and domination.
In “Postscript on the Societies of Control” Deleuze reflects on the difference between Foucault’s Discipline and a new form of control, which he refers to as the societies of control. In societies of control controls are modulations, factories are replaced by corporations, schools by perpetual learning and examination by continuous control. Societies of control are societies in a higher order capitalism in which the operation of markets is the instrument of social control and individuals are pitted against one another in order to motivate.
How does Foucault’s analysis of the examination and Deleuze’s analysis of competition for the purpose of motivation relate to the systems of control in Concordia University? Compuational Arts? CART 255? Can you see either of these models of systems of control functioning in these environment?
What kinds of architectures (if any) will enforce societies of control?
Discipline and Punish - JS, Peter, Morgan and Nick
In "Discipline and Punish: History of the Prison", Michel Foucault attempts to analyze the French judiciary system starting with a retrospective in the 17th century and how the methods of torture, discipline and punishment of society have been implemented and changed throughout time. In “Docile Bodies”, Foucault identifies the ultimate purpose of discipline of creating docile humans in order to maximise their economical output (utility) and their obedience in a system (docility). In this chapter, the importance of controlling details is also mentioned, as it is, combined with the correct means of diffusion, an important pervasive technique for subtle domination. In the next chapter, three instruments that ensure this disciplinary method are mentioned: hierarchical observation, where a network of gazes is established to ensure constant and subtle surveillance; normalizing judgment, where homogeneity is sought, making sure that individual differences are easily tracked and later used; and examination, where the objectification of humans and their documentation increases the “knowledge is power” premise. Finally, in “Panopticism”, the docility-utility concept is reinforced by connecting it with the apparatuses of production and how the two increase the uneven distribution of power. The concept of “societies of control” is explored by Deleuze, by saying that the techniques of domination have evolved into modular control being held in a constant overlapping and mixing of systems or institutions. Lastly, he mentions the state of current capitalism, where the marketing of the product overrules everything else.
Our discussion began by bringing up the concept of the self-sufficient warrior-like man and wondering if his existence was still possible in our current world. The image of the independent man that does not need others for his survival seemed quite utopian in the intricate network of human multiplicities, where we all have a specific role to fulfill. Later, we drifted on the schooling system and how it molds our character and train of thought. Definite differences could be seen from a public school in
reponse à Foucault & Deleuze
Dans les corps dociles de Michel Foucault, ils explore la logique disciplinaire des sociétés du 18e siècle. Cette logique était appliquée dans un premier temps aux soldats dans le but de les garder dociles et de les rendre le plus efficace et prévisible possible. Mais cette logique s'est étalée à plusieurs sphères de la société touchant les institutions scolaires, les hôpitaux et les usines.
Deleuze, dans son post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle a poursuivit la réflexion de Foucault qui étudiait ce phénomène au 18e siècle et l'a comparé au modèle contemporain de société de contrôle. Ce modèle, qui avait été prédit en quelque sorte par Foucault qui voyait ce changement venir dans un avenir rapproché, est l'évolution des disciplines. Les ressemblances saute aux yeux, le même but étant de faire de l'homme une créature malléable et sans originalité. En voulant garder ce façonnement des corps et des esprits un de leur but premier, ils ont tout simplement changer la façon dont ils allaient arriver à leur fin. Ils ont enlevés les distinctions clair entre les différentes institutions de formation et lieux de travail confondant ici la logique hiérarchique de l'échelonnage en gardant constamment les ouvriers en formation et en exerçant un contrôle excessif sur tous les employés pour sans cesse valider leurs travail. En ayant établi ainsi une structure flou le prolétariat devient encore plus qu'avant le travailleur abusé qui n'a aucune idée du pouvoir qui se trouve entre les mains des dirigeants de l'usine. Cette logique s'est appliquée à une bonne partie de la société.
Il est ainsi possible de voir à quel point le système n'a pas changé autrement que dans les procédés utilisé pour en arriver à ses fins qui lui évolue sans arrêt au profit du contrôle.
Deleuze, dans son post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle a poursuivit la réflexion de Foucault qui étudiait ce phénomène au 18e siècle et l'a comparé au modèle contemporain de société de contrôle. Ce modèle, qui avait été prédit en quelque sorte par Foucault qui voyait ce changement venir dans un avenir rapproché, est l'évolution des disciplines. Les ressemblances saute aux yeux, le même but étant de faire de l'homme une créature malléable et sans originalité. En voulant garder ce façonnement des corps et des esprits un de leur but premier, ils ont tout simplement changer la façon dont ils allaient arriver à leur fin. Ils ont enlevés les distinctions clair entre les différentes institutions de formation et lieux de travail confondant ici la logique hiérarchique de l'échelonnage en gardant constamment les ouvriers en formation et en exerçant un contrôle excessif sur tous les employés pour sans cesse valider leurs travail. En ayant établi ainsi une structure flou le prolétariat devient encore plus qu'avant le travailleur abusé qui n'a aucune idée du pouvoir qui se trouve entre les mains des dirigeants de l'usine. Cette logique s'est appliquée à une bonne partie de la société.
Il est ainsi possible de voir à quel point le système n'a pas changé autrement que dans les procédés utilisé pour en arriver à ses fins qui lui évolue sans arrêt au profit du contrôle.
Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze: Group response from Natalia, Mike, Martin, and Fernando
Michel Foucault, in his essay "Docile Bodies", and the accompanying "The Means of Correct Training" and "Panopticism", examines the eighteenth-century society in its relation to control and discipline of citizens. Gilles Deleuze follows the "Docile Bodies" in an attempt to situate contemporary society in comparison to Foucault's eighteenth-century model. He concludes that our society is no longer driven by discipline, but by a fluid system of control. While the 'discipline' model is very strict in its formation, especially in its attention to minute detail, Deleuze’s “control” model is less rigid and more adaptive towards changes in contemporary society. However, both are a result of de-humanizing objectification that is the focus of the “Docile Bodies”. According to Foucault, the docility is a result of a strict system of discipline that breaks down the relationship between humans and their bodies, making the bodies a property of the state which is controlling them. As this process runs through all levels of society, and its attention to detail is so meticulous, it is able to shape the docile citizens from their youth onwards with great precision. Resembling a military camp or a perfectly-designed machine, the rigidity of the structure coerces the objectified bodies to do exactly as it pleases, or suffer strict punishment for deviating from the norm.
Foucault & Deleuze - Alexis, Ramy, Sean
The first text, by Foucault, talks about different systems of control & discipline, first and foremost: the military. Discipline frameworks then move on to schools, hospitals, law and then finally the family. It is quite simply the description of discipline in our society. The second part, by Gilles Deleuze, helps take the observations defined by Foucault to apply them to our current society by taking into account the new technologies that enable Panoptic surveillance in the industry of power.
The fact that all aspects of life and work are subdivided, makes it so that life, in certain respects, resembles the army. One section cannot perform, even live, without another. How can the infantry be efficient without the artillery to clear a path before it. In the same way the cold cuts factory worker is of almost no use if there is no bread factory to provide him with the wheaty goodness of a two-sided sandwich. This way, it is much easier to observe and discipline. In the "Divide and Conquer" spirit, every section of the army, or of society for that matter, is neatly separated and looked down upon. But is also share a life dependency, which also keeps them in tight formation. Foucault's analogy to the panopticon prison brings up the ideas of sousveillance that have since then evolved in retaliation of the omnipresent surveyor. Watch the watcher. It is ironic that with the coming of technology, surveillance had reached it's highest point, only to suffer retaliation using it's own tools of the camera and the sensors.
Have mechanisms of control and discipline become so intrinsic in ourselves and in our society that we would still live under the rules of discipline without having the framework around us, would we not confine ourselves under those terms if we KNEW the frameworks were gone? Is it not the only way we know how?
Who's on Facebook?
The fact that all aspects of life and work are subdivided, makes it so that life, in certain respects, resembles the army. One section cannot perform, even live, without another. How can the infantry be efficient without the artillery to clear a path before it. In the same way the cold cuts factory worker is of almost no use if there is no bread factory to provide him with the wheaty goodness of a two-sided sandwich. This way, it is much easier to observe and discipline. In the "Divide and Conquer" spirit, every section of the army, or of society for that matter, is neatly separated and looked down upon. But is also share a life dependency, which also keeps them in tight formation. Foucault's analogy to the panopticon prison brings up the ideas of sousveillance that have since then evolved in retaliation of the omnipresent surveyor. Watch the watcher. It is ironic that with the coming of technology, surveillance had reached it's highest point, only to suffer retaliation using it's own tools of the camera and the sensors.
Have mechanisms of control and discipline become so intrinsic in ourselves and in our society that we would still live under the rules of discipline without having the framework around us, would we not confine ourselves under those terms if we KNEW the frameworks were gone? Is it not the only way we know how?
Who's on Facebook?
Foucault & Deleuze response: Charles-Antoine, Charlotte, Jos
In "Docile Bodies", Michel Foucault shows how the details explored by disciplines subjugate the human body and thus,provides easier power for whoever wants to take it. In Foucault's words, disciplines create a relation of docility-utility, thus facilitating the maintainance of order by whomever holds the power. He also explains how the disciplinary institutions enables the convergence of information or knowledge of details of the masses up to the highest entity of a hierarchy: the use of a network of "supervisors, perpetually supervised". Discipline is also about normalizing judgment and imposing homogeneity: establishing a system of punishment, a standardized education system. The system is not yet completed without Examination, which is a much more subtle exercise of power because it is invisible. It could be understood as systems of statistics analyzed by the one(s) in power, in which individuals are objectified and documented, case by case. Notice the word statistics wasn't used by Foucault as it is more appropriate if we relate his ideas to our historical and technological situation. Gilles Deleuze, in "Postscript on the Societies of Control", does so fitting our modern society and capitalism in the model of Michel Foucault.
It is interesting to read the cycle between Foucault's description of the "school" and the "disciplinary" apparatuses. Through schooling, the disciplinary power is able to educate its subjects, and in turn educate itself. Does this mean that Foucault's beliefs are that knowledge is power, and is it also safe to say that Deleuze disagrees, stating that money is in fact power? After speculation of both texts, it seems that what Foucault describes is a modern society trying to govern the masses, while Deleuze speaks of a postmodern one; however it is one that has replaced the search for knowledge as power with attaining money as power: power of the corporation. Instead of searching for the "absolute truth" through education, we now search for money through training. Reformity is out. But is it really? Is it so different now than it was before World War II, or is Deleuze saying that it is perhaps only different because we are more aware of being watched? It could be argued that we are just as aware as we were before World War II, only now we have more liberty to discuss it. However, the texts do fall into Marx's theory of the fetishism of commodity even though the commodities may have changed slightly (or have they?).
Has our view of money really changed postmodern sociey, or has it been this way all along? Has the drive for obtaining money really liberated us into making our lifestyle and career choices, or has it actually limited us even further?
It is interesting to read the cycle between Foucault's description of the "school" and the "disciplinary" apparatuses. Through schooling, the disciplinary power is able to educate its subjects, and in turn educate itself. Does this mean that Foucault's beliefs are that knowledge is power, and is it also safe to say that Deleuze disagrees, stating that money is in fact power? After speculation of both texts, it seems that what Foucault describes is a modern society trying to govern the masses, while Deleuze speaks of a postmodern one; however it is one that has replaced the search for knowledge as power with attaining money as power: power of the corporation. Instead of searching for the "absolute truth" through education, we now search for money through training. Reformity is out. But is it really? Is it so different now than it was before World War II, or is Deleuze saying that it is perhaps only different because we are more aware of being watched? It could be argued that we are just as aware as we were before World War II, only now we have more liberty to discuss it. However, the texts do fall into Marx's theory of the fetishism of commodity even though the commodities may have changed slightly (or have they?).
Has our view of money really changed postmodern sociey, or has it been this way all along? Has the drive for obtaining money really liberated us into making our lifestyle and career choices, or has it actually limited us even further?
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