The sky is falling

Time is the accident to end all accidents - Epicurus

Virilio begins by explaining how time, space and to a certain extent light have set a new benchmark for telecommunication.  Ultimately, his meaning is that geophysical space is not not significant in the presence of telecommunication technology that can allow us to exist in a digital space at near real time.  Interestingly, he points out how the speed of light is now the benchmark for “real” time.  It is fascinating to hear in the news about how the scientists at CERN have (allegedly?) found electrinos that are capable of moving faster than the speed of light.  I’d be interested to hear what Virilio’s thoughts were on “real-time” in the age of particles faster than the speed of light.  I expect that this can lead for discussions of communication faster than one can see?  Fascinating stuff to think about.

Building on the notion of space and time causing distance to be (nearly) irrelevant Virilio introduces the notion of dromology.  Basically, dromology applies the ideas of space and time that Virilio bases much of this book on to a study of ecology.  Peguy makes an interesting claim when he discusses the idea that “there is no history, but only a public duration” (23).  This is a perfect seguay into a discussion of the rhythms of life and art.  I expect that much of what we call reality is a process of rhythm.  Rhythms of materials moving and suspended to and by this rhythm.  In addition to the material, much of life is the “crazy-random-happen-stances”(Dr. Horrible) that are the meat of life.  Things come and things go.  History is our ability to remember and record these happenings.  But, what happens to this history when the speed of happenings becomes so fast that we are unable to record that which happens.  

One question, when space no longer matters and the world is moving at the speed of radio waves will the world be smaller or larger?  Fusan suggests that the world is becoming more conformed.  I’ve always thought of the Internet as a space that allowed unparallelled creativity (largely, because it allows for the perception of anonymity or solitude).  But, does no the real world allow for creativity as well?  Perhaps, but maybe not as easily as the ‘net.  We are after all programmed to survive by not over exerting ourselves and doing risk analysis (fight or flight) on just about everything (at some level).  Given those things it is perhaps easier for us to engage in activity using the super speed of the Internet, but is it anymore fulfilling (or perhaps less so) than doing something with Y/Our hands.

As Virilio begins to question how we can “live if there is no more here and if everything is now?”(37) I began to question his claims.  At some point in most every argument that is presented to me I step back and examine the claims within the greater scope of my world view and not simply based on the constructs from which these claims are generated.  At this point I’m starting to feel like he is getting to the farthest possible logical conclusion from his (somewhat lofty) argument.  This is a good thing.

Part two

The second section of the book begins with a frightening discussion of micro machines.  Virilio states that at some point in the future we will become a training ground of micro-machines.  :Creepy:.   I come back to this idea when Virlio begins discussing the idea of the teledildonic accoutrement's used for coitus.  Micromacines, space, time, closeness.  Virilio applies all of these to reproduction and the phenomena that surround it.  Particularly he points out the ideas of genetic engineering and how these are causing rifts in the conjugal plane.  

I synthesize all of these things down to the idea that Virilio would have us (the world) caution ourselves against the acceleration of things.  It seems wise, as a society, to take a step back and to consider the possible ramifications of our actions.  Like so many cyborgs, we (seem) to be heading towards a life/space/place of instant gratification.  Soon enough it seems that we will no longer be able to (or indeed have need) to wait on anything.  It has long been my thought that most things worth doing are both hard and take some time.  With these things in mind, if we do continue to accelerate and stay on this trajectory the future will (almost certainly) look much different than it does now.  So, looking out the world before us is an open sky and the horizon is probably not the limit.  In fact, the horizon is probably irrelevant given the relative non-importance of space and time so that we can in fact “fall upwards” (3).


How might Virilio react to the information that CERN has found something (allegedly) capable of moving faster than the speed of light?

How can we live if there is no more here and only now?

Conduction -Duck-tion....Apparently Utley beat me to the puntum

Chapter 7:  Justice Miranda

As we’ve moved through MEmorial I’ve been captivated at considering the different ways that richness can be added to composition to create an effective message (in this case a MEmorial).  One of the methods that Ulmer describes to work with in doing this is the importance of an Egent being able to construct an emblem.  These emblems work to allow the viewer to fill in gaps in meaning based on the image itself.  The emblems, interestingly, are to be created using the notion of induction rather than the logic of memory.  Ulmer states that: we may still use the concept of justice in the EmerAgency, but if we are to intervene in the impasses of 9/11 and beyond we must…have access to the new kind of category formation becoming available through imaging.”  Therefore it is critical that we, as Egents, work towards a goal of justice using whatever electrate means are possible.

Ulmer continues to work towards protecting electracy when he discusses that there is no evidence to suggest, “we recognize whole situations by apply rules relating to salient elements”.  This supports the notion of induction because we are so caught up in trying to use formal logics to make connections between symbols and meanings.  While the use of induction allows for a more creative logic that many of the more logical try to adhere to formal scientific logics.

Ulmer points out the impact that media has made on daily practices.  Particularly the story of how the police handbook mentions to the officers that they should not use the “good cop / bad cop” technique as it has become cliché because of use in the media.  This seems parallel to me with the notion of justice moving forward from literacy and other things moving forward into electracy. 

Themes of Turing are woven together with the themes of interrogation and justice.  I found Ulmer’s statement about how the Miranda case causes rhetoric to look unconstitutional to be interesting.  This is based on the courts findings that interrogation is any action that they police may practice from which they might reasonably expect to elicit the truth.  I draw from this that persuasion can be any action that might reasonably cause someone to be persuaded.

Turing Test:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq0ELhpKevY

Ulmer continues to elucidate on the MEmorial when he explains that we are to find “Gems” in the popcycle of discourse.  And further, that these gems are to be “felt”.  I love the notion that through electracy things can and should be “felt”- it aims for such a richness of communication.

Ulmer further develops his thoughts when he discusses how he sets a scene that is “might show more than it is able to tell, something about the place of popular culture…”.  This further advances the notion that this electrate invention is so much more capable than literate composition.

Chapter 8: Soft Wishing Y

In chapter 8 Ulmer shows an example of a MEmorial wherein the Egent consults by “adopting a public problem as a guide for personal action”.  As he continues he breaks down MEmorial Consulting into a nice summary (215).  As he explains conduction he mentions that wishing (as relating to the Y) is most often used as a supplement to the scientific process.  Ultimately, conduction is the method that Egents utilize in order to conduct a MEmorial or to do a consultancy. 

Electracy:

In explaining Electracy, he mentions that the EmerAgency is designed to treat the Internet as an inhabitable monument.  And it purpose is to allow people to understand or at least to experience or appreciate the presence of abject policy decisions.

Conclusion:

In the conclusion Ulmer leaves us with several interesting examples of Memorials, including putting out strings of Christmas lights in New York.  One of the key themes (in my mind) is the notion of Resoneon which Ulmer explains as being “the relationship between the classic essay and the MEmorial) (248).  The notion that the MEmorial is to capture the Neon Glow and not merely the thing itself is very interesting to me.  Ulmer also says “The MEmorial deconsultation uses commemoration to exceed the impasses revealed in disasters”.  Though at the beginning I had trouble accepting the need for memorialization of disaster I’m starting to get it.  But, I’m still wondering if the purpose of the book was to create a rich form of memorializing tragedy or as a project that electracy can be practiced on.  So with that, our time with Ulmer draws to a close.  I’m particularly excited about continuing our work on the MEmorial. 

Questions:

What was the Punctum of Electracy?

Does the MEmorial, as a peripheral, have the potential to make the "main" memorial abject?

Ulmer 3

“As an institution of the image, the Internet is the prosthetic unconscious of a virtual america becoming global, and in this capacity it constitutes a living, dynamic, thinking and feeling monument” (115).  The internet is based on images.  The internet is a medium that allows those who practice theoria to experience monumentation in a digital sense.  Ulmer recently posted a picture of a place I presume he wanted to visit but was satisfied with a Google Street view image. -- Prosthetic indeed.

The MEmorial attempts to reduce the resistance by supplementing (merely) the literate tourist experience with the electrate image designed to expose ones own presence as shadow or blind spot in a collective field... (116).  

The emblem for the Chilean miners in many senses could be the image of the shirtless miners in the mine.  Ulmer says that “the most useful feature of the emblem-ad operation is the translation of values across cultural domains” (124).  I find this especially interesting for the case of the Chilean miners because many of the miners mentioned that they were more warmly welcomed outside of Chile.  One miner said that the people of Chile were jealous and barely paid attention to them, while in the United States people were flocking to touch or just to see the “33”.  The image of the miners, in the darkness, is a large sense was transmitted around the world.  But, perhaps the punctum hit most strongly in the United States where the miners where companies who were pinched by this emblem were vying to send the miners numerous gifts such as mopeds and other things.


“The purpose of the peripheral is to make a case for losses of life (or other expenditure) whose public, collective relevance as sacrifice are not recognized” (131).  This is interesting in that it presumes that the sacrifice is not recognized.  I’m wondering why it is necessary to have a MEmorial if society can decide to have a regular Memorial.  Nevertheless the idea of the MEmorial, in a way, makes Memorials more sticky.  They cause the viewer and the creator to actively engage in the memorialized.  This, is certainly an elusive thing that many have tried to strive after- a rich way of describing something.

Ulmer says that materialism and other things “bring abject experiences into discourse without” glorifying them (132).  He then follows that with the idea that the MEmorial is to “articulate the unacknowledged values to be found at this level of experience” (132). He then goes on to elaborate that the piercing idea should be abject in that the “community acknowledges” the problem but does not recognize it as a sacrifice (134).  This idea is tremendously powerful to the MEmorial we are proposing.  In fact, in doing our MEmorial the object is secondary to the goal of the MEmorial.  But, does one necessarily overshadow the other?  We’ll see.

The MEmorial is to take what might be viewed individually a number of times and aims to bring it into a way of being that can affect the collective public.  The digital apparatus could not be more perfect for doing this.  Indeed, this, would not (likely) be possible without the internet.

Ulmer asserts that the cause of the sacrifice is not important as is the sacrifice.  But, I find it troubling when he asserts that this “sacrifice” pays the debt.  What debt, to whom, and who or what compels this.  I see where he is going with the idea, but I think it is over sold.

The idea that electrate writing (or composition) does not express “truth” but that it expresses the ideas is interesting.  The transition from literacy to electracy highlights the differences between literacy and electracy.  Whereas literacy (it could be argued) aims to express a truth; Ulmer actively argues that electracy is more “obtuse”. 

I am particularly fascinated when Ulmer begins to explain the origins and reasons of puncepts.  He explains that Lacan writes of tree’s or words using all definitions of them and all forms of the word (151).  This is very interesting to me as it seems to assume an interesting link between word and thing.  These ideas of thinking creatively, seeking to find more meanings and draw them into communicating a thing seem to be very key to electracy.

Ulmer explains that consultation is not based on “text”.  Of particular interest to me is how he continues to deconstruct the idea of the material metaphor of weaving that is often tied to the notion of writing.  He furthers this with the idea that MEmorial is “felt” which (after a fashion) continues the textile metaphor.  So “MEmorials are not texts but felts”(167).  Sythesizing this with all of the other information provided to me about what a Memorial suggests to me that a major goal of the MEmorial is to (in the form of a peripheral) create a monument to an abject sacrifice and to do this by making a testimonial.  I’m most fascinated by the various realms of materiality and really- multimodality that are described in this book as possible methods of creating the neon glow to be experienced by one who sees the monument.  

MEmorial

“it is our task to bring about a state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against facism”  (Ulmer, quoting Benjamin 59)  This seems to imply that recognizing a sense of emergency (or an exigency) is imperative for something to justfy memorialization.  That being said, creating a memorial (peripheral or otherwise) brings the issue to the consciousness of the people and can then allow action to happen.  This is an important idea as it is also the reason for having a MEmorial in the first place.

The urgency for this is no accident.  It is mirrored in the name EmerAgency.  “merge, emerge, emergence, urgency, urge” all of these terms are part of the portmanteau.  This notion of Pun is something I am trying to work into our MEmorial as it serves many purposes.  The pun reminds the user that there are multiple concepts coming together and I think that in a very large way it reminds the user that words (like thoughts and ideas) are malleable.  

This malleability seems to be a a key point in the notion of electracy.  Ulmer argues that critical reason is based on a fallacy.  And this, is precisely the point where electracy can step out.  Reasoneon is the perfect blend of this importance.  While other literacies strive for clarity, electracy seeks to capture the aura of something.  This is precisely the neon glow that attracts attention.  Ulmer captures Benjamin's idea so clearly when they discuss the notion of the sizzle selling the steak and not the steak itself.

Im fascinated by this idea that the Agency casts a shadow.  Ulmer steps outside of the box (again) in describing the caligraphy of the phrase EmerAgency.  There is one key idea that I think he misses.  The idea that a memorial can cast a shadow over other things.  I have come to calling this something that is DeMemorialized.  When one thing is memorialized, something else is not.  Not everything can be memorialized and have all of the attention called to it.  However, I do quite agree that finding the things “aura” can be a very elusive thing and that very few will attempt to do this (though many of them are featured prominently in the readings).

Ulmer almost gets to discussing the idea of DeMemorialization when he touches on “compassion fatigue”, but I don’t think he quite gets there.  However, the idea that he presents is important.  This idea that people are “tired” of being compassionate, and that they know more about more “situations” now, than ever before, but yet, they do not have the capacity to be compassionate towards them because they are just another caught in the flow.

As I move through this book I am consumed with the idea that there “is more to this, than there is to this”.  As that line is mentioned in Mel Brooks the producers a conservative, inside-the-box thinker and being encouraged by a broadway producer (and scam artist) to try new things.  The producer is encouraging the fellow that he is a “fountain” and that there is “more” to him “than there is to him”.  I think it is clear that Ulmer is openly inviting people to build upon his work.  Where others seem to shroud their ideas in secrecy and preventative langugae, Ulmer’s work begs to played with.  

In forming the EmerAgency he is giving Egents Agency.  The notion of the MEmorial is but a frame work.  In fact in many ways the notion of electracy ( I think) is still being realized.  It is up to those who do the scholarship to frame where the scholarship is going.

That being said, for the MEmorial I am working on creating we are actively trying to make it evocative.  Ulmer says that we should not try to literally re-create the experience, but that we should convey the idea.  This is where I suspect many might get stumbled.  I think traditional monuments do this quite well.  For instance the Oklahoma bombing site does not literally translate what happened; so why should a MEmorial?  The symbolism is quite important.  The key is capturing the instance and transforming it into that neon glow.

A MEmorial begins as a respose to news (65), I suppose in many ways all things are news and that our understandings of things are rhetorical.  In my case, the MEmorial is very much based on the news but I am not sure that this is, necessarily, the starting point from which a MEmorial must begin.  In many ways I find myself resistant to setting up too many ground rules (which Ulmer is continuously and somewhat slowly unfolding) with regards to making a MEmorial.   I’m hoping to incorporate a number of different elements into capturing the “Aura”.  These, seem to be important ideas as far as the MEmorial and electracy as a whole go.

Wrapping up I think Ulmer does an awesome job presenting a variety of different mediums that serve as MEmorial.  Any ciriticism I might have is largely put into check by the approachable nature of the work and the creativity that it inspires.  In that respect I am very anxious to meet with my group tonight and continue working on our project.

Re/Think(ing) Memorials

Synthesizing all of today’s reading it seems to be a call to re/think memorialization. By that I mean not only the process of making memorials, but also the notion of considering what should be memorialized and how this might best be captured.  For this to work we need to be more creative (I’m saddened by how hollow that sounds).  This innovation will not come from inside any discipline (3), but as egents in an electrate age we should be free to draw on all forms of experience in order to create.

Building from the tragedy of 9/11 Ulmer constructs the notion of MEmorial which is ultimately an electrate memorial.  What is the difference?  “MEmorial visualizes at least a part of this formation of coherance in which electrate society is held together not by a master narrative but by collections of meaningless signifiers” which materially emobody the sinthome (symptom). (Ulmer 28)  What does that mean?  I’m not 100% sure.  But, I am reasonably sure that it calls for us to re-think what we think.  By that I mean that our general assumptions about things (in this case memorials) are not necessarily sufficient in the age of electracy.

This idea seems to be supported when Ulmer states that the purpose of this experiment is to “invent a role for digital technology in general” (34).  That is to say, that all to often I feel that we assume that things are already set in stone and we are reacting to them.  I think the point of the MEmorial is to ACT on something instead of re-acting to that thing.  We do not yet know what role technology is going to play in society, but we can un-do the fact that it is here.  We can, however re-think the way we use it.  Further than that I opine that we must constantly consider our use of things.  As Turkle cautioned us to be careful in our use of technology or at least cautioned us with regards to accepting technology.  So too do I feel that Ulmer is calling us to re/un think the way we do things right now.

At one point in the book Ulmer describes an assignment he was given in a class.   He was told to “Draw Kierkegaard’s laugh and integrate it into the model of Nietsche’s eternal return that you constructed out of cardboard last week” (38)  I’m not sure I would know how to respond to that.  I think that’s the point.  Most of us do not know how to respond to things that are so strange.  Yet, it can hardly be denied that many of the most important things, if they are to be re-thought, will be re-thought in strange ways.

“This consultation is conducted in the spirit of the musical sense of chora: music associated with the muses and hence with general (economy) rhythms absorbed unawares through the musical experience by the young were to be made explicit by means of philosophy” (39).  This statement goes on to further support my claim.  I expect that we could suggest any number of metaphors for a MEmorial.  Music is particularly interesting because it plays into his description of the Traffic Sphere MEmorial.

Traffic Sphere



The notion of the ear in the sky is particularly fascinating because Ulmer remarks that this device does not need to be built in order to be effective.  Ultimately, The goal of traffic sphere was to “make highway fatalities perceptible, thinkable, recognizable as sacrifice” this is to be done by shifting them away from the “private sphere of one at a time” (43). Ultimately this ear will reveal the rhythm of crashes.  

The reasons for conducting a MEmorial are almost as numerous as you can imagine.  Individually I feel that each thing has plenty of room for memorialization.  However, at one point Ulmer comments that automobile accidents would take on their “proper significance” (45) if they were given their own section of the evening news.  I find this troubling, because firstly it assumes that these things are inherently valuable (I’m not asserting they are not) but secondly if this is important that certainly numerous (NUMEROUS) other things are equally important.  At this point the tv news would be flooded with everything.  I’m reminded of Henry Jenkin’s re-thinking television as something akin to a giant user specific swirl.

To wrap things up, this chapter calls for a reconsideration of how we memorialize things.  The chapter also goes into discussing what a memorial is and how we can use different ideas to impress the memorial onto an individual and to the collective.

What is a memorial?

How can we re-think this memorial?

Do all things deserve to be memorialized?

Is it possible for something to be un-memorialized?

Ulmer, Gregory. Electronic Monuments . 1st ed. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minesota, 2005. ix-280.

AcaFan

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ugr0pt6QexFG9-IhAXkhqplCPVAi8PTj4S_UTu5xm2k/edit

Throughout much of the book Nardi discussed aesthetic experience and the magic circle and other similar things.  Towards the end of the book Nardi switches to more general topics.  In particular she deals with the topics of addiction, gender and culture.

She starts with reminding us that Dewey and others who study problematic internet use (PIU) can be easily frazzled by video games.  World of Warcraft is no exception.  Blizzard explicitly creates these games so that they are “addictive”.  It’s about profit, the more people that play the game, the more money they make.

Its interesting that many of the most devout players of wow acknowledge that they are addicted to the game and even use pathologized terms to describe themselves.  Nardi references the one fellow who compares himself to a dealer of crack in regards to trying to get his friends to play WOW.

It seems prudent to address the notion that addiction in video games is not necessarily the end all be all.  People can suffer from PIU for a variety of reasons, addiction being prominetly featuered.  But, often addiction to the video game can be caused by the fact that the player finds their “real life” to be less than satisfactory.

As with any other “abnormal” condition, the symptom is only “abnormal” when it begins to cause the subject duress and harm their lives.  That being said, there is no norm for what an appropriate amount of Internet play is.  I’ve often wondered if we all are not completely hooked on technology.  Turkle so eloquently described the “cyborgs” who had a difficult time when they were not hooked up to the computer.  Nardi Reference Dewey saying that it is important to find a balance in doing things.  As with any aesthetic experience things can quickly get out of control.  Balancing out one thing with another is perhaps a good idea.

Nardi also covers theory crafting and Mods.  I’m particularly interested in Mods in part because I am curious about how “purists” and “tweakers” view games.  WOW has a lot of room for each and many people may consider it “cheating” to use keybinds or macro’s.  Indeed many of the more “seasoned’ players tend to have their characters automatically set up so that one button drops a mob.  

I have a friend who is quite a techie.  At one point this fellow set up a five screen display.  Hooked up several computers to his display and linked 5 wow accounts together so that he had but use one keyboard and mouse and all five characters would act simultaneously.  In terms of PVP this is ridiculus.  How could one person (or even a PUG) deal with one optomized super bot of this nature?  

The section on Gender is easily one of my favorite of the book.  Though the topic is somewhat old hat at times, Nardi does a good job of keeping the concepts “fresh” and relating things to WOW.  The notion of a guild really opens up the Gender studies in WOW.  While in the game itself one mght avow to be a male or female there is no real way to be certain.  Whereas in a guild often voice chat is an integral part of the gaming experience.  When these factors come to bare it becomes much more difficult (but I suppose not impossible) to cover up who is in fact male or female.  

Much of Nardi’s analysis of the Gendered speak kind of reminds me of Foucault.  Who says what, when where and to whom.  The use of blue language is one of the easiest measures for Nardi.  She mentions that while the male dominated game tends to have somewhat course language the guild is very family friendly and as such they seek to be respectful of other members.  This strikes me as a good balance for all kinds of team work.  Being respectful of others-- powerful idea.

Moving to one of the last topics Nardi deals with is the use of WOW in Asia.  I find the notion of “Gold farmers” to be very interesting.  Amazon.com has an online tool called The Mechanical Turk where people will sign up to do very menial internet tasks often related to transcribing or entering numbers.  The pay for these tasks is extremely low and almost anyone (with an internet connection) can undertake any number of tasks with little to no thought.  Gold farming seems like this.  I cannot imagine that an individual would be able to sit around and engage in the most mundane of tasks.  I found it especially hard to believe that some of these people would want to continue to play the game even after their shift at work had ended.

Questions:  Will another MMORPG be able to be “The WOW Killer”?

Where do you see the most potential for beneficial educational practices in MMORPG’s?

How has writing this book changed your outlook on video games?