Reading Response: "From Participation to Interaction" by Söke Dinkla

I appreciated reading this piece, most specifically because it relates to a project I am working on. Dinkla writes that “audience participation was [a]… means to reduce the distance between performer and audience… by spatial integration” (p. 69). This makes art more accessible, and it lowers the barrier to making art. Dinkla quotes Erkki Huhtamo, who notes that participatory art is about ‘the annihilation of the barrier between life and art’ (p. 71). I’m curious though, when that barrier is blurred, or completely eliminated, what is art then? To me, I suppose that is the point – to shift the perspective and prompt a deeper understanding of what art-life is. Rather than going through life asleep, we should wake up to the possibilities around us and be aware of how our actions and interactions influence ourselves, society and the world.

I’m not sure this occurs in the same way with the Happenings; Dinkla does write that “participation is located along the fragile border between emancipatory act and manipulation” (p. 73). I’m curious about the self-reflection that occurs in an authoritarian-manipulative environment. When someone’s actions are instructed, I do think that makes them think about manipulation and authority. Just ask anyone who spent time in the military.

Dinkla writes about the paradoxical and “historically rooted antagonism between nature and technology” (p. 74). I think this is part and parcel of this course, and it captures some of what I was attempting to communicate in my first project. It really is the gist of some of my key existential questions. I found this piece to be inspirational in helping me come up with several ideas for future projects that look at how social interactions in public spaces are mediated by technology.

Can't find Ron Burnett, "Vantage Point and Image Worlds"

I'm having trouble locating this week's reading assignment. It's not in the spiral book, nor can I find it in Bb. This appears to be the correct piece. Anyone else notice this?

Reading Response: "The Vitality of Digital Creation" by Timothy Binkley

While I appreciate Binkley's reference to 'paint by number' as a 'derisive appellation' (p. 45), I wonder if this precludes it being used in a kitschy or ironic way. If it is used that way, does that prevent it from being art?

Binkley writes that "the look of computer art has evolved from austere to luscious and it is creating new roles for art as it also supplants some of the techniques employed in traditional art making" (p. 45). I'd argue that this type of evolution is always happening and has happened when any new technique or technology is used in art making. Perhaps sometimes it is in fits and starts, but it's always happening. Binkley's primary point is that digital art is different, in that it is encoded (differently) and can be manipulated in different ways. However, although photography and film are analog, they have many of the same characteristics, i.e. mass production and manipulation possibilities.

I really appreciate the interdisciplinary potential that Binkley focuses on in the piece. He writes that "The general holistic thrust of digital representation encompasses the barriers between art and science, which weaken as our art gets imbued with numbers and our science gets advanced by art" (p. 53). I find this incredibly encouraging, especially as someone who has a computer science background, but who wants to more deeply explore some of the issues facing our society and personal challenges like meaning, identity and purpose, all through an interdisciplinary arts approach. In my view, this means using a robust research process and data analysis but also digital art, traditional art, and lots of creative thinking.

When Binkley writes that "our sense of reality is determined in large measure by the scope of our representations" (p. 53), this takes me back again, to the best of my recollection, to John Berger's "Ways of Seeing," in which he talks about how technology influences how we think and see the world. It makes me wonder about comparisons of our 'reality' (tied strongly to representations) with those in animistic and tribal societies. 

Favorite quote: "We are constructing silicon bridges across time-honored mental abysses." This is an observation about how "digital technology challenges dualism" and how it takes advantages of "a cross-pollination of science and art" (p. 46).

Overall, I found this a bit of a difficult read. I'm sure it would be clearer with multiple readings and a dictionary close at hand.

Reading Response: "Program or be Programmed" Ch 6-10 by Rushkoff

While I agree with Rushkoff that we should be ourselves, I think this can be done while maintaining some anonymity. The internet used to be a big place, but it has become small with search engines like Google. Anything ever posted is essentially public record, and I like to maintain interests and hobbies using a screen name sometimes. This doesn't mean I feel free to cast politeness aside. I simply like to participate in a community without any baggage AND without taking that participation outside that community. I can build a reputation inside that community with my contributions, yet I usually have no desire to participate in that community in other (ie: physical) arenas, so my real identity isn't important or necessary. I think it's possible to communicate rationally and politely and own one's words while still using a screen name. Perhaps, as Rushkoff says, I have become cynical (p. 94). I prefer to maintain some anonymity as long as I can (although I realize that corporations like Google know a lot about me).

I agree that a lot can be lost in online forums; Rushkoff points out that only 7% of communication is verbal/written (p. 92). However, participating in online discussions can improve your writing skill, and writing IS a communication form that has been around for millennia. Perhaps digital natives don't gain this skill (not having written any or many letters AND not adapting it to early newgroups).

I appreciate Rushkoff's point about learning to program, but I also see the point in becoming proficient in program use, or more specifically using those programs to create content. I spent years as a system admin, and I felt like I was the custodian of a toolbox that I never got to use. My focus now is on being creative, rather than just maintaining the tools. I'm also focusing on hacking the box -- making it do what I want it to rather than just working within its constraints, so I am taking Rushkoff's advice here. At the same time, it's a struggle to keep up with the versions of constantly updated software (PhotoShop is one example), when I don't feel even half proficient with the version that is just now no longer current. I feel that developers keep us constantly off-balance at proficiency. While there are almost always some cool, new ways of doing things, new versions are largely unnecessary IMO. I certainly see the profit motive behind these releases (in both software and hardware), but it still disappoints me. Now the subscription model is another way of keep users off balance. That's why I've chosen to stay on older (non-CC) versions of Adobe's software AND started using more open source software like GIMP and Inkscape.

Reading Response: "The Medium is the Message" by Marshall McLuhan

My initial reaction to McLuhan is to his anonymous stanza (p. 6):

In modern thought, (if not in fact)

Nothing is that doesn't act,

So that is reckoned wisdom which

Describes the scratch but not the itch.

This strikes me particularly vis-à-vis the mainstream news networks which have minimal partisan bias. On the surface, they don't seem aware of their part in the political process even though I would suggest that they are complicit. They don't seem to have self awareness or a high level view of the part they play. This thread plays itself out through the rest of McLuhan's piece, and it seems we all play our part. Later, he notes that "any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary" (p. 8). As noted elsewhere, this calls to mind Daniel Quinn's novel Ishamel series, in which he discusses Mother Culture, which surrounds us and penetrates us, but we are not aware of it. And it is we who are at its mercy, certainly until we become aware of it, but I suppose it can even then be controlled and weaponized. Even awareness does not guarantee freedom; McLuhan notes that "The serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception" (p. 10). So perhaps this is the manifesto of uncompromised artists; to liberate themselves and others from this yoke, as well as they can.

The second big takeaway was McLuhan's observations about cubism (which I admittedly have never studied in any depth). Cubism essentially collapses all points of view into one, dropping "the illusion of perspective in favor of instant sensory awareness of the whole" (p. 7) and announcing that "the medium is the message" (p. 7). This strikes me as similar to accounts of various entheogens which reveal the truth or complete picture about an issue. It makes me wonder about peoples' experiences consuming mainstream media while consuming entheogens (although this seems unhealthy to me), and if this complete picture of the 'message' becomes clearer to them.

It strikes me that the effects of technology could perhaps be examined in a layered model, something like the OSI network model. I think McLuhan would suggest that the message goes all the way down to layer 1 (physical). He writes that it is impossible to be unaware of messages when one is constantly surround by them: "The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance" (p. 9) This sentence almost conjures the behavior of a virus (much the same as the linguistic virus described in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.) These sentiments are also express by Jacques Ellul in his 1954 book Technological Society, in which he asserts that humans are slaves to their technology (technicians) rather than users of it. Similarly, John Berger wrote in 1972 in Ways of Seeing about how the mode of communication influences the actual message. Excerpts from Ellul and Berger give you a fantastic snapshot of their books.

Reading Response: "Program or Be Programmed" Ch. 1-5 by Rushkoff

While reading the preface and the introduction I kept being reminded of both McLuhan's "The Medium is the Message" and Daniel Quinn's Ishmael series of books. Rushkoff writes, "You know when you're watching a TV commercial, but chances are you don't know when you're living in a virtual one" (p. 8) This harkens back to McLuhan's anonymously quoted stanza, which has other tangents I'll comment on elsewhere:

In modern thought, (if not in fact),

Nothing is that doesn’t act, 

So that is reckoned wisdom which 

Describes the scratch and not the itch.

Similarly, Daniel Quinn explores Mother Culture; we live in it, but we do not know it, because that's all we've ever known. Like a fish swimming in water, most of us have no context of our environment. Rushkoff mentions "the kind of money we use [and] our dependence on the automobile" (p. 10) and that "We no longer question their existence or the ways in which they impact our lives because it seems they have always been here. They're just part of the fabric of our reality" (p. 10). There are no alternatives to capitalism, because that's just the way it is. And even if there were, they would be bad.

Understanding the motivations of the person driving the car, to use Rushkoff's analogy, is critical to understanding things from a 30,000 ft view. Where are you going, and is that where your really want to go? What other destinations mightn't we have discussed? Again, quoting Rushkoff, "You may always choose 'none of the above'" (p. 52).

Great advice follows, and I've been making progress to following it. Rushkoff advises "Do not be always on" (p. 28), and I've been configuring my devices to give me space. My phone is set to Do Not Disturb from 22:00 - 0700, and I've removed Facebook from my phone and tablet. Given its stress-inducing nature, I limit checking FB to <= once a day. That said, I tend to check Twitter when bouts of insomnia strike, which I'll agree isn't helpful. I had a smartphone for a few years, then circumstances provided a retro phone for several years, and I've only recently started using a smartphone again. That break was helpful in getting out of the habit of being on FB, Twitter, and email constantly. In fact I did several hours of work email off-the-clock every week before my retro phone broke me of that habit.

I think getting rid of cable freed me of some of the linear influences that Rushkoff mentions, esp. since streaming is less of a tether than live TV (even if you consider DVR as a cable-feature). The DVR became a burden, as I had recorded programs I felt I had to watch. Even with the forced ads of the current pay version of Hulu, I feel more in control and less obligated to consume content I'm not really interested in.

On outsourcing of memory (p. 39): This is spot on, and I've noticed this specifically re: route finding. I've made an intentional effort to look at routes before I go and to have a good idea of my destination's location. I noticed that when I rely more on Google Maps, my ability to recall routes/directions decreases since I'm not using those muscles as much. While I don't care as much about memorizing rote facts that I can easily look up, route finding is not a skill I'm interested in sacrificing to outsourcing.

Reading response: “Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation” by Bolter and Grusin

Bolter and Grusin quote Jaron Lanier and Meredith Bricken about becoming a T-rex or a DNA molecule via virtual reality, or about moving back and forth to the rhythm of a song, or about becoming a droplet in the rain or the river (p. 15). It’s hard to read this passage without imagining this as a recreation of an LSD trip, perhaps without the removal of the experimenter’s ego, which would certainly act as a mediator of the experience. 

While they write that the VR experience would “diminish and ultimately… deny the mediating presence of the computer and its interface” (p. 16), I haven’t yet seen this in action, even though this article is at least 19 years old. Even current VR headsets are mediated by UI designers, who continually refine the behavior of the environment to react to the users demands. A UI designer I heard recently remarked that she watched headset users unintentionally poking at their monitors and knocking them over. She redesigned the environment to allow users to point to controls or objects which would then zoom to the user for them to select and control without reaching outstretched arms further into their physical environment. 

Another example: I used an Oculus to explore a spaceship designed by some students in a prison education class. It was very cool, but the environment was limited interactively in the same way that older first-person shooters like Doom were, and most immersive games still are. Movements and actions are limited and all objects that appear may not be interactive. The interactivity is limited by the system resources and the ability and time constraints of the designer. System glitches like clipping may reveal an oversight over the developer. 

My point: UI design is very necessary and all environments are mediated. We are not yet at a point when the medium is transparent.

The section on hypermediacy of European cathedrals mentions that altarpieces “juxtaposed media [and]... embodied contradictory spatial logics” (p. 28). I propose that these features also embodied contradictory spiritual spaces, which a parishioner would’ve experienced as some spaces that were inaccessible but for the priest. 

Ref:
Bolter, Jay and Richard Grusin. “Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation.” Remediation. MIT Press, 2000.