Benjamin starts off his essay with a quote from Paul Valery, stating that innovations will change not only artistic techniques but "our very notion of art" (pg 217). Benjamin's essay proceeds to analyze an effect which I find very interesting and have often focused on: the effect which mass production (or in the case of this essay, the ability to generate exact copies) has had on the perceived purpose of both art and the artist, (which Benjamin primarily sees as the loss of the "aura," a mysterious element generated from ideas of originality, uniqueness and significance in works of art.)
Benjamin illustrates his point with specific references to technologies of reproduction, in terms of their impact on the speed at which reproduction can take place: lithography allowing art to keep pace with printing, photography allowing it to keep pace with speech, and film breaking out of these relays entirely, to present an image which Valery says "which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign"(Benjamin, pg 219).
Benjamin takes a curious turn in the Epilogue, in which he relates his interpretation of events as they relate to technology and art, to fascism. He says that the aesthetics of war arise from an unnatural utilization of the increase in productive processes, such as technical devices and speed, if their natural utilization is "impeded by the property system." He says that war is proof that society hasn't matured to the point where technology can serve as its organ, and that also technology hasn't developed to the point that it can "cope with" society's influence (pg 242).
In the last paragraph, Benjamin seems to make a morbid culminating synthesis of the end result of our concepts of the significance of art, saying that war is the only way a sense perception changed by technology can aesthetically satisfy itself (pg 242). This is due, he says, to self-alienation, created by the increasing distance between the actor and his image of himself as offered by technology, which gives self-destruction the position of an aesthetic experience. Thus the "art for art's sake" tradition of bestowing unquestioned significance to art, culminates in a kind of legitimization of war.
I think this article first of all helps clarify some of the reasons behind the difficulty we may experience in defining ourselves and our work as "new media" practitioners and thinkers, in that it highlights the challenges in even defining terms such as media,interactivity, virtuality, hypertext, and the "newness" of "new media."
Aarseth illustrates again and again the initial vagueness with which these terms are applied in gaming, the internet and computer-based communication, and following through to end in the futility of even attempting to fully define these terms, as she says on pg 431 "this list of unfruitful uses of 'virtual' could go on and on, but that is not very fruitful either" and on 426 that interactivity "has meant much as a rallying point in the funding and spreading of digital media... perhaps it is time to bestow an 'honorary concepthood' and leave it at that." She seems to be saying that many of the terms we rely on for describing our experience and practice of "new media," exist as a result of vogue, rallying points, or appeal to an "ideology of novelty;" (pg 436) meaning a presumed promise of improved life arising from new technology.
A point which I find particularly interesting is Aarseth's relation of instances in which innovations have arisen as "the result of individual or small groups of programmers who simply wanted new communicative tools," (pg 422) and which result again and again in technologies or communicative forms and experiences which prove far more effective and influential than the efforts of industry or state to do the same. She cites William Gibson's eloquent, however perhaps also brash, summary of this effect on page 423: "the Street finds its own uses for things-- uses the manufacturers never imagined. (29)" This trajectory of history arising from "the Street" is, I think, integral to our understanding of "digital culture" and genuinely appealing in the way it contextualizes the work of so many programmers-- in that it unveils a source of power other than mega-business and political forces, standing as a crucial element in the construction of "digital media" universes as we now know them.
--A perhaps personal comment: I can't say that I'm completely satisfied with the term "the Street" as the means of characterizing the individuals and groups behind the many innovations which have arisen in this manner-- it seems a little clumsy and inaccurate, perhaps historically misplaced-- however, "the Street" also seems to me the most concise and direct summarization of this effect I believe I've seen: the only other term I've seen used to describe efforts which seem to arise organically from "the people," instead of from directed efforts on the part of ruling powers, is "democratic," (also referring to art forms which have "open doors" for creators originating from outside the dominant power structure) which also seems like a weak metaphor for the specific cultivating powers behind Linux and Unix and email. However, as Aarseth has noted, this inaccuracy and clumsy application is symptomatic of many of the key terms of our practice.
I think the main point of the essay is summed up on page 221 when Foucault says that the panopticon enables power to "solve the problem of the accumulation of men without the growth of an apparatus of production capable of both sustaining them and using them." In other words, the increase in numbers of human beings poses a problem for those who wish to control them. The result of increasing numbers of human beings, not subjected to forces which harness their energies and total existences towards the support of power's structure, is the appearance of chaos-- and only through a system of observation, constant and ubiquitous, can these increasing numbers be managed.
Foucault also points out the structural similarities between prisons, schools, hospitals, barracks...
The author speaks alot about aloneness-- a paradoxical aloneness in the presence of others. The author also talks repeatedly about an entity seeking or needing the observation of others, for validation or verification-- he even says that entities need observation in order to guarantee their own existence. I am not sure I fully understand these two points nor that they can be derived from Jenni's experiments with the camera in her room, however I find these interesting perspectives on the situation of an identity-bearing individual in a universe of cameras.
In this concise essay, Zizek positions various uses of the world "reality" next to each other and demonstrates how filmed individuals puncture these interpretations at different moments while they are being filmed. Such moments occur in "reality shows," where people perform themselves for a camera and break away to comment on that reality from the "real world" outside, and also in "real life" where we act in those same roles and presume them to be the basis of reality behind all fiction, always being performed for audiences with or without a camera. Perhaps this element is the key to understanding Burgin's idea that one's existence is only validated by observation; in that "real life" is a show being put on for somebody, and would have no basis, no solidity as grounds for fiction, if it were never observed. This was all in all a brilliant and concise essay on the makeup of reality in my opinion.
Haraway draws parallels between instances and depictions of the cyborg as it appears in science fiction and medicine, and a proposed next stage in feminism. The cyborg, being a figure characterized by a combination of contrasting origins, and a being whose existence defies the seeming concreteness of the boundary between identities, stands as a metaphor for the turn which Haraway says feminism needs to take, in order to outgrow the confines of boundaries which appear to exist between "woman" as a category, and other categories such as ethnicity-- feminism, in order to fulfill its purpose, must be able to transcend the boundaries which have been erected by oppressive power structures, and encompass "women" (which Haraway points out is a category of complexity and of difficult contents to define) of other identities.
I would like to ask about what Haraway describes as a "feminist science," which she begins to talk about in the latter part of the essay, and hypothesize whether such a science would be possible and what realities might need to be cultivated in order for a feminist science to develop. I wonder whether Haraway is describing a possible aspect or revision to an existing science, or to all existing sciences, or whether she is envisioning a science distinct from others currently in existence, which would somehow pursue the actualization of the construct-defeating qualities of the cyborg, or some other goal. Or I wonder whether Haraway is speaking strictly in metaphor.
I also notice that Haraway places science fiction on the same trajectory as bourgeois novels, however Haraway draws many of her examples of fictional deviations from bounded categories of gender and race. Does she see these fictions as exceptions from an overall tendency of science fiction, or does she mean that, while science fiction has this overall position in literature as a speculative continuation of bourgeois narratives and supposed near-future actualization of bourgeois concepts, these instances however take the other potential of the genre by defying the "gravity" of such presumptions and trajectories?
Kember relates the story of the field of Artificial Life, historically as well as in literature and science fiction, and highlights the elements of such research which have proven problematic. One of those problematic areas has been the need of a definition of life--
as well as an understanding of whether it is the computer or the programer who is assumed to have been bestowed the power of creation and, by extension, the power of autonomy.
On page 72, Kember brings up another element in the complex pursuit of artificial life: the concept of artificial life as life without death. The question of "death" in the virtual context and pertaining to beings which (some would argue) never experience life proper-- and whether actual "death" can possibly happen to beings not actually "alive", makes the idea of artificial death, to me, just as interesting as the question of artificial life.
On page 71, Kember talks about Levy's interest in a "mysticism" surrounding the emergence and ongoing definition of life, and says that Emmeche dispelled this idea from the ALife Project, saying that a certain "vital" fundamental exists in life, but which he however refuses to link with or attribute to a mystical quality. This is another element in the conversation on the possibility on ALife which I think very important and compelling--
is it necessary that we think of life purely in its taxidermic or raw-plastic (to coin a phrase for something so elaborate as to be presently beyond my power to explain in better words at the moment) sense, in order for us to compare the results of ALife and such projects, with something we could call as "real" life taking place "outside and previous to" computing?
Is it necessary that we divert all discussions of life in its spiritual sense-- albeit we can't pretend there is only one of these-- but must we go on without any mention of the spiritual, "mysterious" qualities of life-- the possibility that there is "something else" present in the being of a living thing-- an animating force or something of the kind-- which departs upon death; a non-visible and non-detectable difference between a being alive and the same being dead?
(perhaps i'm stepping out of safe ground with regards critical thinking--- i don't know how to go about such questions, such concerns) because i believe, that if our conversation were to go with these presuppositions in hand, instead of the presuppositions that there is no such force or that such force is divorceable from the "reality" which ALife models itself after, then the products of ALife would look far more illusory, far more a game of words and terms (on page 60 Kember points out that Ray "refers to the first or original creature as 'ancestor,'" seeming to reveal that these processes resemble evolution much more closely when they are given names, and then intentionally encouraged to conform to images, which bring the natural world to mind-- however, how much less like the natural world would these systems appear, if they were given names other than 'ancestor,' 'parent,' 'daughter', 'mate', 'evolve,' and 'die' to name a few) than an actual instance of life within the platform of the machine.
A few websites and resources jumped into my mind as I was reading these texts..
http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/
symbioticA (The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts) is an "umbrella organisation that runs a variety of activities including Residencies, Workshops, Academic Courses, Exhibitions and Symposiums" (from website) Wikipedia calls them "an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SymbioticA) They also offer what I believe to be the world's first MS in Bio-Art (this is how it was advertised to me when I first saw its flyer in Prague in the CIANT exhibition space-- (CIANT=International Center for Art and New Technology)). They are funded in part by the University of West Australia, and they describe themselves as located within the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the same institution. Here's what the website says about the degree, and 2 undergrad courses they offer in Bio-Art: "Emphasis is placed on developing critical thought, ethical and cultural issues and cross-disciplinary experimentation in art and science with an access scientific laboratories, techniques and expertise." I find it interesting that emphasis is placed in these areas, and I wonder at the conversations they must have and the process they go through in arriving at "conscientious" balance. (I however also suppose the same questions could be being pondered about our own department)
I hope I don't seem to be unnecessarily copy-pasting from their website, but I find the description of the courses themselves also interesting and pertinent to our discussion:
A practical and theoretical investigation, through critical engagement of the nexus and differences of the art and science cultures through the use of the technologies of life science/biotechnology as an art-form.
An introduction to biological lab practices and techniques within the context of contemporary arts practices dealing with the manipulation of living biological systems.
A course designed for art practitioners, scientists and humanities scholars who wish to engage with creative bioresearch. The focus is on recent advances in the life sciences, both in theory and practice. It requires students to take both pre-existing Art and Science units and will consist of an equal content/discourse/methodology from the two disciplines. A true collaborative approach should reflect a rigorous artistic and scientific inquiry. The conflicts and differences that may occur will be fertile ground for further discussions.
The laboratories focus on learning scientific techniques in a meaningful way for both the artist and scientist and using scientific techniques for creative output in order to create a true hybrid unit of Art and Science that is multidisciplinary in nature as well as in title. Students who have previously majored in arts will be required to take science units and science graduates will be required to enrol in art units. Students would then join together in the SymbioticA units." (http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/welcome/about_us)
--Even during my undergraduate degree, a sense of value was placed on interconnecting art and science-- which seemed to be (tragically) stranded at polar opposites of the cognitive spectrum, longing to be rejoined. I am guessing that the end goal in such joining of forces would be that the two together would more effectively pursue their separate goals? While combining art and science (or at least art and technology, not identical but not without its similar ground) is also an aim or our program, it could be that symbioticA is seeking an even more in-depth, literal marriage of the two.
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/bioart/index.php?page=5
here is an interesting article about an exhibition of bio-art, which goes into detail on the particular challenges which new media poses museums--
while the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Renssalaer does not offer a degree nor have a department in bioart, the Center does maintain the Bio Art Initiative--
http://www.arts.rpi.edu/bioart/
The Bio Art Initiative is a collaborative research project between Rensselaer’s Arts Department and the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS). This project proposes to lay the foundation establishing RPI as a premiere institution for the synthesis of emerging biotechnological research and media art practice. " (taken from website)
Interestingly, one of their exhibitions "IN THE PRESENCE OF THE BODY 1" held a conference, in which Steve Kurtz, a member of the Critical Art Ensemble, was a speaker (see !!! http://www.arts.rpi.edu/bioart/pages/archive%20body1.htm) Details on the presentation are here: http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/activities
Also interestingly, the site lists some video resources on bio-art which they have brought to Rensselaer, of which they list the following: "Videos by Paul Vanouse, Critical Art Ensemble w/Rich Pell, Bio-Kino and MEART the Semi Living Artist (hosted by SymbioticA) and Boryana Rossa/Oleg Mavromatti "
The CAE seems to be participating in the medium-- was I wrong in interpreting our articles as evidence the CAE were opposed to or at least extremely critical of bio art?
Here is an interesting article on bio-art from bio_medicine.org:
http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-news/Drawing-with-DNA-3A-Bioart-illuminates-genomics-1092-1/
Two comments arose for me while reading the texts. One, was that I want a really clear statement of what our critiques of bio-art and genetic engineering in general are or "ought to be," since this is quite regularly whisked over or treated as "too obvious" to articulate. Quite often I've asked "what's wrong" or what should we be concerned about, with regards genetic engineering, and I've been answered with vague remarks "genetically modified tomatoes are not supposed to be here" or worse, just wierd looks and laughter implying I must be stupid, devoid of any answer whatsoever. (A comment from a friend about that first remark: "We're not supposed to be here!") If this is the best we can do, then I don't think we have an argument.
another comment i have, i got from reading the third article. towards the end, it hints that there have been seeming attacks on both artists and on scientists by the government-- The following scenario came to my mind: now that artists have become somewhat of the conscience of the emerging sciences (or this at least seems the place which conceptual art commenting on technology seems to be trying to take) while seeming, from a scientific perspective, to be standing in the way of advancement of technology and science by calling its motives into question, there is this point of friction between the arts and sciences. What if the government places itself as an opponent of both of them? Might these two need then to forget their differences and join forces against oppression of creation and development in both fields? (how's that for a science fiction?)
Here are two videos of interest to this topic:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/juan_enriquez_on_genomics_and_our_future.html
Juan Enriquez "Decoding the future with genomics" --this talk actually puts forward alot of the issues concerning genetics. First he calls the human genome the most significant news currently-- he presents the companies at work on the project and the speed at which the project is decreasing in price of the project (also equates identity with genome already) --Also Enriquez cites a gene developed during the bubonic plague as the reason for the current HIV epidemic being more widespread in Africa, where this plague-resistant gene didn't develop, than in Europe. He also presents stem-cell research, which is a topic I'd like to know others opinions on. In addition, he equates genes with data, eventually comparing an apple to a floppy disk (a floppy disk?? in 2007?) He also goes into some very problematic territory with regards comparing national productivity to "literacy" to the "language of life," leaving us with a very America-centric message promoting such literacy.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/alan_russell_on_regenerating_our_bodies.html
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_rothemund_details_dna_folding.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuality_Continuum
---another author working on virtuality: Moravec (said the body, being flawed, should be gotten rid of entirely)
Jonas presents us with direct and stark interpretations of humankind's possible "destinies," as they are seemingly intended in dominant discourse and in the cataclysmic or "danger" model. I find his summaries of these destinies elegant and startling-- on page 196 Jonas relates the end result of current ideologies: "To become ever more masters of the world, to advance from power to power, even if only collectively and perhaps no longer by choice, can now be seen to be the chief vocation of mankind." And on page 203 Jonas describes the looming danger that "all mankind may find itself in a lifeboat," thus giving us the metaphor of a lifeboat, an elegant tool of reference for the potential situation posed us by technology. The first quote strikes me as a deeply shocking suggestion, however not a surprising analysis of streams of thinking which dominant attitudes towards technology imply about humanity's destiny.
Jonas presents us with a few causes for the crisis resulting from technology: among them being the fact that our machines ("these novel entities") are themselves consumers, thereby impacting humanity's impact on nature.
Jonas' use of the word "man" to refer to humankind, while looking on the surface like an obsolete and deeply dated term and reference, in a way may pose for us an intriguing key and point of entry for questions about such biologically and socially universalizing terms as "humanity," "humankind," "man" and "mankind--" terms which seem to wield linking and connecting power even as they simultaneously work to divide and stratify. He does break down the term "man" somewhat, though not in terms of its exclusiveness, but in terms of the difference between using "man" as the descriptive term and using "men" as such-- the small difference resulting in a vast shift in how we look at and mentally assemble the society or individuals under its lens.
I was intrigued by Lyotard's assessments of language as software, and as a form of regulation of living things which makes them "technical objects" (pg 13). I was also surprised to find, in Lyotard, a definition of technology which doesn't rely on electricity or human products, page 12 "any material system is technological if it filters information useful to its survival, if it memorizes and processes that information and makes inferences based on the regulating effect of behavior..." finally algae qualify as technological. This broadening of the term technological was not on grounds I expected. When Lyotard begins his argument that technology wasn't invented by humans but "the other way around," I was expecting reference to the discourse on how technology either fragments or fabricates subjects which we understand to be our human identity. This more "biological" interpretation of the human as the product of technology seems to be a different approach to bridging the nature-human-machine segmentation.
I find it interesting that Lyotard brings up Kleist and Dogen-- two authors who have appeared under different circumstances in my other work and research. Kleist is an important author in the arena of understanding puppetry and the puppet as cultural concepts; his argument was that the human body is devoid of grace, as it is subject to consciousness (especially self-consciousness) and emotion, and because it lacks a single, stable center of gravity ("The Actor and the Uber-Marionette"). Dogen is an author who is starting to turn up in my study of the origin of identity, and how those origins arose differently in European and "Eastern" philosophies.
On another note, Lyotard's initial criticism that in 4.5 billion years the sun will explode, therefore rendering futile the tendencies of philosophy towards incredulity, a bit ridiculous on the outset, since 4.5 billion years would be an exhaustively long period and a mark of previously unseen success if any theory were to last so long. However I can also read this as a metaphor referring to a great variety of "ends" including those we are not able to forsee but must nonetheless anticipate.
I will respond to both readings in one entry.
The Bergson essay, while dense in conceptual content enough to merit another several readings before I will feel confident that I've read and comprehended it, left me with a few memorable quotes:
"my activity, by becoming automatic, shows that consciousness is no longer needed." "the size, shape, even the color, of external objects is modified as my body approaches or recedes from them." "you may say that my body is matter, or that it is an image: the word is of no importance. if it si matter, it is a part of the material world; and the material world, consequently, exists around it and without it. if it is an image, that image can give but what has been put into it, and since it is, by hypothesis, the image of my body only, it would be absurd to expect to get from it that of the whole universe... my body... cannot give birth to a representation."
We have been reading alot about the concept of the body, in these many readings, and this essay in particular lays down groundwork for comprehending the way the body becomes a significant keystone of meaning in the following essay.
It is helpful that Hansen gives us another angle on Benjamin's writing, and also of Deleuze. The following issues, brought up in the essay, I found interesting: 1. the threat (for an image) of becoming so pervasive as to loose all meaning... to this i add the question, what happens when the image becomes reproduced beyond retention of original function? 2. the idea that photography may lead to the demise not only of the aura of the images it concerns, but to aura in general. 3. that the photo (and other technologies) brings statization to the image, demolishing "romance". 4. That the body's impact on the "real world" is to filter it according to "relevance," producing images.
5. that an image or picture is a thing detached from what it "comes from" or was drawn from, subtracted from that something by Perception, which is an act of the body (here is where reading of the Bergson's essay, and his idea that the body is an actor and not acted upon, becomes a key resource for understanding the meaning behind this activity of filtering and image-production by the body.) 6. That Deleuze may have, in his essay, suspended the function in the body in the creation of the image... in favor of the "frame" (which i ask, is this a really valid reading of Deleuze? from which essay does this arise?) 7. "motion functions as the concrete trigger of affection" to which i ask, where or what does concreteness arise from?
8. the digital image is a numerical image-- the picture is drawn from pixels, instead of something in reality, therefore is more removed, in a way. i hope i am not overly oversimplifying, though i'm sure i am to some degree. i am led immediately to question what's the big difference between pixels and photons-- or blobs of ink, but i'm sure that a closer reading of this essay would reveal the innate and carnal difference that he is percieving. 9 I really like his definitions of new media on page 10 and 11, though I take this as a first impression, previous to any focused, extended effort of critical thought about it. I take it that prolonged thought, or experience, of digital media may well reveal holes in these definitions, this is a suspicion i get from the the fact that this definition seems so powerfully linked to film and photography (and is therefore focused on the viewer's entry into the image)
On the Tanaka reading: I needed first of all to find a definition of idiomatic: of, relating to, or conforming to idiom 2 : peculiar to a particular group, individual, or style (webster)
idiomatic
1. Pertaining or conforming to the mode of expression characteristic of a language. 2. Resembling or characteristic of an idiom. 3. Using many idioms. 4. (music) Parts or pieces which are written both within the natural physical limitations of the instrument and human body and, less so or less often, the styles of playing used on specific instruments.(wiktionary)
Thus idiomatic writing, as "used to describe innate musical capabilities of interactive technologies," seems to me to imply that there are codes and tendencies in electronic music, which we recognize and learn by way of repeated exposure across many origins and creators, which helps communicate and encourage certain allocations necessary to engagement in the genre (I believe, at this point, that this is what Tanaka means.)
I most enjoyed Tanaka's talk on page 279 of the authorship of artists, and his rationale for maintaining the term "creator" for those engaged in the creation of systems and software which actually places a user or audience member in the productive role. I also liked the fact that he touched on the troublesome aspect of hierarchy which goes along with the role of composer, and how this aspect seems to form an obstacle to democratization of art media. I feel Tanaka delves most directly into the repercussions of the conflict between these two obligations, of ownership and dissemination of participatory access, at the very end, when he mentions the somewhat paradoxical backlash of legality against the tendency of music towards the loss of its status as a commodity and subject of economic transaction.
The Robinson essay focuses on the concept of play as a necessary component of musical experimentation. A very accessible essay, Robinson lays out some goals in the development of sound toys, concerning the development towards more user-friendly and effective interaction. Robinson also suggests that novices to musicianship will have more to gain through using such toys, as there won't be the issue of professionalism getting in the way of play. I wonder how musicians may respond to this assertion.
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