Giselle Beiguelman: "Sometimes Always, Sometimes Never, Sometimes" 2003

The above footage features two video projects called Sometimes Always and Sometimes Never, both from 2005 by the artist Giselle Beiguelman. This work shows hows mobile devices such as  mobile phones "can become an impromptu interface and a vehicle or participate in an artwork" (Paul, C., 2008, p. 223). These projects consist of images shot on mobiles by visitors to a gallery space.

"In the gallery, the audience can use a keyboard and mouse to edit, in real time, the order and position of the frames on the screen and to impose coloured filters on the images" Paul, C., 2008, p. 223-224). The result in Sometimes Always "is a dynamic mosaic palimpsest" while is similar to the visual effects I am interested in achieving in my work" (Paul, C., 2008, p. 224). Sometimes Never "creates unstable saturated palimpsest" where "added colour saturation triggers a process of erasing" that means that "no action can never be repeated" (Paul, C., 2008, p. 224). The works "create a (de)generated video that is composed and decomposed (Paul, C., 2008, p. 224).

Paul, C., (2008)  Digital Art, London: Thames and Hudson

Is It Art, or Memorex?

This is a link to an article in Wired called Is It Art, or Memorex? by Reena Jana 21/5/01 discussing the work of Net artist Michael Mandiberg. Mandiberg's "art prank" was to "reproduce" Sherrie Levines reproductions of Walker Evans work and presents them as his own: a simulation of a simulation.

Mandiberg posted his photos on two websites he created: AfterSherrieLevine.com and AfterWalkerEvans.com.

Posted using ShareThis

The Cave

"Suspension of disbelief is a fundamental part of the effective use of a virtual reality Interface. Until we can ignore the interface and concentrate on the application, virtual reality will remain a novel experience instead of a serious visualization tool." (Packer and Jordan, 2001, p. 287).

This video is a video demo that explains the functionality of the CAVE®.

producer/director: Sumit Das, Alan Millman

evl contributors: Drew Browning, Carolina Cruz-Neira, Sumit Das, Thomas A. DeFanti, Alan Millman, Daniel J. Sandin.

credits: Lewis Siegel, Kathy Koller and Michelle Miller.




The Cave (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment or Computer Virtual Environment) was conceived by the media artist Dan Sandin and the engineer Thomas DeFanti with the assistance of graduate student Carolina Cruz-Neira in 1991. It was developed at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois in Chicago.


Dan Sandin, The Cave 'Virtual Reality Theatre' (Prototype: Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois, Chicago, 1991; publicly showcased: SIGGRAPH 92, (the annual convention for the Special Interest Group for Graphics of the Association for Computing Machinery) Chicago 1992). "Virtual Realiity, accessed through dark glasses, allows users to feel as if they were in a totally different universe. For Paul Virilio, 'We are entering a world where there won't be one but two realities: the actual and the virtual' (Rush, 2005, p.237)




Michael Rush describes The Cave, a virtual environment, as “a cubic room, three meters (sic) square… consisting of stereographic computer graphics which react interactively to actions of the ‘user’, who is equipped with stereo glasses which make it possible to see other ‘playmates’ (Sandin’s word) in The Cave" (Rush, 2005, p. 234).


The CAVE's immersive experience "was intended as an allusion to Plato's cave; its multiple screens and surround-sound audio evoke the metaphor of a shadowy representation of reality, suggesting how perception is always filtered through the minds veil of illusion" (Packer and Jordan, 2001, p. 287). In his Republic, Plato "used the image of prisioners in a cave who define the basis of their reality through the shadows of fire dancing on the walls of the cave to develop concepts of reality, representation, and human perception" (Paul, 2008, p.129). The "Cave 'dwellers' do not need to wear helmets, which would limit their view of and mobility in the real world , nor don bulky gloves and heavy electronics packs, nor be pushed about by movemement retricting platforms, to experience virtual reality. Instead they put on a pair of lightweight 'glasses' and walk into the Cave, a 27-cubic-meter room with an open side and no ceiling" (Sandin, DeFanti and Cruz,-Nera, 1993 p.288).




Bibliography:

Packer, R. and Jordan, K. (2000) Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality, ArtMuseum,
Available from World Wide Web: http://www.w2vr.com/timeline/Sandin.html [last accessed 05/05/10].

Packer, R. and Jordan, K. (2001) Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality New York: Norton & Company.

Plato, (2008) Republic, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Paul, C. (2008) Digital Art London: Thames and Hudson.

Rush, M. (2005) New media in late 20th-century art, London: Thames & Hudson.

Sandin, DeFanti and Cruz,-Nera (1993) "A Room with a View" in Packer, R. and Jordan, K. (2001) Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality New York: Norton & Company, pp.287-292.

Avatars, Frankenstein, Computer Games, Science Fiction and Otherness

Before we start back on our digital cultures unit and the discussion of “The Body and New Media” , I thought that it was worthwhile adding to my comments in the number of my entries over the last month or so that explored Romanticism and the sublime. I also began to examine some of the general themes of cyberculture and cybernetics. I began to ponder the continuing power exerted over our collective imaginations of one of the great creations of horror fiction. Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) claimed to be the first science fiction novel, infuses elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic Movement. It is seen as a critique of enlightenment ideas and a warning against the technological advancements promised by the industrial revolution and science. The tale can also be seen as a critique of the French Revolution and horrors of the Terror that it unleashed.


Today the name Frankenstein has become synonymous with anxieties over science ‘going too far’. We see this in collective responses to GM crops and what we refer to as ‘Frankenstein foods’. Genetic engineering also conjures up images of the ‘mad doctor’. Science then, instead of benefiting humankind, is seen to be threatening its very existence.Frankenstein also encodes other fears and anxieties. In what way is Frankenstein’s creature monstrous? Does the creature embody our fears of difference/the other? For example, what anxieties are being expressed in James Whale’s 1931 adaptation? Are we meant to feel sympathy for the creature? Different contexts may generate different meanings. What kind of fears is expressed with films and comic books like the X-Men? Ian McKellen speaks very eloquently about his role in the film (no video posting I am afraid). The Cyborg Handbook discusses the character of Wolverine and other popular cultural examples alongside science fact.

As well as looking at the many contemporary manifestations of Dr Frankenstein and his terrible Creature: from computer games to film, animation and cybernetics, we may note that the novel also alludes to other earlier myths: creation stories, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden, the Jewish myth of the Golem and classical mythology (as suggested by Shelley’s subtitle: the Modern Prometheus).

Some more contemporary examples:

Chico Macmurtrie, Machine and Robotic Performance Artist:

Stelarc: Performance artist whose work focuses on extending the capabilities of the human body.

Chico Macmurtrie, Amorphic Robot Works: http://amorphicrobotworks.org/works/index.htm

Stelarc Online: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/

William Latham Interview

This is an interview from a documentary series called Secret Passions, from Channel 4 in the early nineties.

William Latham

Hopefully in the course of writing this blog I have shown the relevance of abstraction to my own practice. Michael Rush in his book New Media in art shows us that "abstraction is still very much alive in computer art" (2005, p. 209). William Latham's Evolution of Form is a "computer sculpture" that draws its inspiration from complex natural forms like seashells and the work of "Surrealist painters Salvador Dali and Yves Tanguy in his quest for forms that can be manipulated, reshaped (or 'carved', in virtual sculpture within the computer (2005, p. 211).

Rush claims that "Latham was amongst the first to create genetically alive forms that resemble living organisms, though there mutations only occur inside the computer (2005, p. 210)

Clip from The Evolution of Form, by William Latham and Stephen Todd, from 1989; work done at IBM UK Research Labs. Details of sotware can be found in the book: Evolutionary Art and Computers, Academic Press, 1992.

Latham and Todd have now joined Frederic Fol Leymarie (since 2006) at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and created the Mutators Research Group: http://www.mrg-gold.com

Was presented at SIGGRAPH'94 and Imagina'93 (funded by the British Arts Council and Channel 4). The sound track is from Michel Redolfi (www.audionaute.com) famous for his underwater music.

Biogenesis shows the evolution of artificial life forms in a synthetic universe where 'survival of the fittest' is replaced by 'survival of the most aesthetic'. We see cellular evolution and the replication of mutations forming chain-like structures resembling coral. The artist is like a gardener, breeding, selecting, marrying and steering the course of evolution for creative ends. The film is a record of this evolutionary process. It can be viewed as a psychedelic experience or a more subtle parody of a man's relationship with the natural world through modern technology.

This line of work is being pursued by the MRG group at Goldsmiths College in London, led by Latham, Todd, Fol Leymarie et al. (www.mrg-gold.com).

Char Davies: Ephemere

Char Davies: Osmose

"The medium of 'immersive virtual space', or virtual reality- as it is generally known- has intriguing potential as an arena for constructing metaphors about our existential being-in-the-world and for exploring consciousness as it is experienced subjectively, as it is felt."

Charlotte Davis "Changing Space: Virtual Reality as an Arena of the Embodied Being" (1997).

Charlotte Davies, artist, painter and film maker achieved international recognition for her artworks that employ the technologies of virtual reality. Her transition from traditional materials: paint and film began around 1985 when Davies began to explore 3-d computer imaging techniques. In 1987 she became a founding director of Softimage, a 3-D software company that created special effects for Hollywoods films , most notably for Spielberg's Jurassic Park.


Davies adopted the Softimaging programme for her own artistic purposes culminating the immersive multimedia work Osmose.



Osmose (1995):

Photography and Simulation: 1

I have already described and explained I think the nature of simulation as discussed by Dr Dean Lockwood in his lecture ‘Is it Life or is it Memorex?’: What is Simulation? Okay, so to some extent I have described it. See the entry for Digital Culture: 5.

I wish to talk briefly about simulation and photography. Although simulation is association with digital photography and other imagery made via the computer my examples are “originally” printed on paper via the use of a chemical process and the use negatives, again produced via a chemical process- or are at least made to seem so.

By the 1970s modernist ideas about authorship, innovation, experimentation, progress and originality were being challenged by post-modernism. Post-modernism considered art and photography amongst other forms of communication differently. Photography was now going to serve a “larger system of social and cultural coding” (Cotton, Charlotte, 2004 p. 191). The post-modernists, certainly Cindy Sherman and Sherrie Levine “became acutely aware that to present an image out of context is to alter that image forever” (Wheeler, D 1991, p. 311).

Sherman, Cindy. Film Stills Series.

1978-1980.

Cindy Sherman produced a long series of photographic simulations the Untitled Film Stills series in 1978. Described by Sherman as “one frame moving making” (Wheeler, D 1991, p. 326), this series drew from B-movies and on a whole repertoire of female stereotypes. These pictures are not just pastiches of a generic type of visual image, but operate as a critique of the cultural codes that construct femininity in our culture. Sherman condenses the role of model and photographer and as Charlotte Cotton says “she both observer and observed” (2004, p.193). Her work raises many issues to do with the representation of women: for who are the representations we see on a daily basis for? Femininity can be described as performative. Sherman appears playing with multiple images of female-ness, seemingly revealing that that the post-modern self and all identities are equally artificial and constructed. This seems to support Judith Butler’s reading of gender as performance (Ward, P 2003 pp. 133-136).

Cindy Sherman Untitled #224 1990

Caravagio Self-Portrait as Sick Bacchus
1593-1594.

Sherman’s work moved from black and white film to Cibacrome colour and expanded her repertoire. In the late eighties and early nineties Sherman abandoned popular culture and focused upon art history, “decking herself out as subjects, male as well as female, in paintings from the “schools” of such Old Masters as Holbein, Watteau, Goya” and above, Caravaggio. Here she plays Carravagio, “playing” dress-up as the sick Bacchuss (Wheeler, D 1991, p. 326). Sherman helps to enlarges photography’s history by including “styles preceded the camera’s invention, a medium whose democracy is reflected in Sherman’s oeuvre, where social and aesthetic hierarchies crumble as the artist explores with equal interest a great dispersion of differences among genres and idioms” (Wheeler, D 1991, p.326). Sherman’s work seems to reflect the fragmentary and mediated nature of our culture, society and our experience.

Richard Prince Untitled [cowboy] 1980-84

Richard Prince came to prominence in the late nineteen seventies as an appropriator of mass culture. In 1980 he began to re-photograph Malboro cigarette adverts. By re-representing and cropping the familiar imagery, cutting out the text, isolating elements and placing the image within the context of a gallery setting, Prince seems to be reflecting on American iconography and forces the viewer to re-read a mythical representation of the American west. Traditionally signs are taken in all at once by a viewer. We do not inspect advertisements like we may inspect an oil painting. Prince in re-contextualising the image may wish to attempt to slow down the eye and the pace we look at the visual.

Levine, Sherrie. After Walker Evans.

1980.

Even starker than Prince in her approach to re-photography is Sherrie Levine. Notoriously she re-photographed reproductions of famous male photographers: Rodchenko, Edward Weston and Walker Evans (above). Levine exhibited the work as her own in an “assertion that all art, far from being autonomous, is the product of history, memory and culture” Levine cited Roland Barthe in her defence: “a picture is a tissue of quotations drawn from innumerable centres.” Edward Weston for example had copied Greek sculpture in his photographs of his young son’s torso (Wheeler, D 1991, p. 326-327). These works and Levine’s other appropriations are a critiques of patriarchal notions of authorship and genius, of modernist ideas of originality, innovation and skill-- perhaps all patriarchal constructions.

Susan Lipper Untitled 1993-98

Paul Strand, White Fence 1916

Susan Lipper’s descriptions of small town America draw upon the heritage of its representation within the context of documentary photography. Lipper seeks out and finds in contemporary places connections with potentially an archive of pre-existing imagery. Untitled 1993-98 makes a formal reference to the work of the American photographer Paul Strand (1890-1970) and specifically The White Fence (1916) which Charlotte Cotton describes as a photograph that embodies “ a key moment in photography’s modernist history” (2004, p.214-5).

Zoe Leonard and Cheyl Dunne, The Fae Richards Photo Archive 1993-96

The above imagery by Zoe Leonard and Cheryl Dunye, is their attempt to reclaim and challenge official history, and construct positive representations of the marginalised. Fae Richard’s (1908-73) “is a celebrated African-American Hollywood actress and singer” invented by Leonard and Dunye (Campany, D 2003, p. 60-1). The Fae Richard’s Photo Archive 1993-6 sees the artistic appropriation of visual styles and cultural stereotypes in an attempt to blur the distinctions between pastiche and the real. These careful forgeries are constructed in such a way to seem authentic and challenge the “clichéd tragedies of the lives of infamous black singers and performers” that dominate collective cultural memory with a representation of a successful black lesbian who was creative, affluent and happy (Cotton, C 2004, p.198-9).

Jemima Stehli, After Helmut Newton’s ‘Here They Come', 1999

Helmut Newton, Here they Come! 1981

Jemima Stehli, After Helmut Newton’s Here They Come! 1999 is a critique of Helmut Newton’s Here they Come! (1981). This remaking of an iconic image emulates Newton’s style and the pose of one of the models, but Stehli’s authorship is evident by the inclusion of the shutter release cable. The critique uses a similar approach to Sherman’s in that she becomes both the subject and object of the work challenging the objectification and stereotyping of women.

Roger Fenton, The Valley of the Shadow of Death, 1855. The Royal Collection c. 2005.

Paul Seawright, Valley, 2002. Kerlin Gallery

Paul Seawright's imagery connects with moments in history. His image of the Valley from 2002 is part of a series called Hidden commissioned by Imperial War Museum in response to the conflict in Afghanistan. We do not exactly witness here scenes of conflict, but of the aftermath of battle. Commentators have noted that these pictures “draw us to these edges or fringes of things” and show us “photographs of scenes when the photographer is too late” (Lister, M 2007 p. 259). These photographs seem to pay homage to Roger Fenton’s (1819-69) war photography from the Crimea. This is an example of contemporary world events being mediated through pre-existing image-making.

An Overview:

Modernism, key ideas:

– Experimentation
– Innovation
– Individualism
– Progress
– Purity
– Originality

Post-modernism, key ideas:
– Appropriation or Simulation (see the ideas of Jean Baudrillard) is one approach by image makers
– Hyperrealism
– Questions ideas of originality, authenticity, authorship and skill and anything else on the previous list.
– Pastiche
– Parody
– The Art of Quotation
– Postmodern Art and Visual Culture largely informed by the work of:
– Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and the art movement Dada (1915-1924)
– Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935). Influences John Berger’s Ways of Seeing Chapter 1 Episode 1 (1972)
– Andy Warhol (1928-1987) and Pop Art
– Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) Simulations (1983)
– Roland Barthe (1915-1980) “Death of the Author” in Image-Music-Text (1977)

Conclusions:

Post-modernity and simulation can be about the:

– Critiquing ideas about authorship (Levine, Prince, Lipper)
– Attacking ideas about genius (Lipper, Levine)
– A critique of the art world, patriarchy and so on.
– A strategy of critiquing an authors work (Levine, Stehli)
– A way of critiquing objectification and stereotyping and challenging cultural clichés (Sherman, Stehli, Leonard & Dunyne )
– A strategy of witty appropriation
– Blur distinctions between pastiche and the ‘real’ (Leonard & Dunyne and the others)
– Reclaiming history (Leonard & Dunyne, Sherman, Levine, Lipper)


Bibliography:
Campany, D (2003) Art and Photography London and New York: Phaidon

Cotton C (2004) The Photograph as Contemporary Art London: Thames and Hudson

Lister, M (2007) “A Sack of Sand: Photography in the Age of Information” Convergence: The International Journal of Research Vol. 13 No. 3 pp. 251-274.

Ward, G (2003) Postmodernism London: Teach Yourself

Wheeler, D (1991) Art Since Mid-Century London: Thames and Hudson

Digital Culture 7: Fundamentals of Games

Before the first of Alex Wade's lectures: The Fundamentels of Games we were given Espen Aarseth's 'The Book and the Labyrinth' from Cybertext Perspectives on Ergodic literature.

Ergodic is derived from the words ergon meaning work and hodos meaning path.. It came to be applied to describe any structure with many confusing passages. The origin of the word labyrinth is not known, but it may be connected with the myths and religious symbolim of ancient Crete.

The text introduces me to a term that I have not really come across before: cybertext. Aarseth (above) describes the cybertext in ways that are familiar to me: "it centres attention on the consumer, or user , of the text, as a more integrated figure than even reader-response theorits would claim" (1997). Many these ideas seemed connected with hypertext theory and so-called media and web 2.0/3.0 approaches.


Aarseth statement that the "cybertext is a machine for the production of (a) variety of expression" is similar to Paul Valéry's "a book is a machine for reading" and critic A. Richards his 'Principles of Literacy Criticism' with 'a book is a machine to think with' (Jencks, C 1973, p. 32)



From Alex Wade's lecture:

"In Laws, Plato defines play as ‘That which has neither utility nor truth nor likeness, nor yet, in its effects, is harmful, can best be judged by the criterion of the charm it is in it, and by the pleasure it affords. Such pleasure, entailing as it does no appreciable good or ill is play’. Straight away we can see the influences that last to the present day."


Sources:

Aarseth , E (1997) Cybertext Perspectives on Ergodic literature Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press

Jencks, C (1973) Modern Movements in Architecture Penguin Harmondsworth and New York: Books.

Digital Culture: 6

Tony Richards has given us plenty of reading to do for this week: "Playing and Being: Psychoanalysis and the Avatar" by Bob Rehak, "Presence-Play: The Hauntology of the Computer Game" by Dean Lockwood and Tony Richards, and "Signature Event Context" .


"Playing and Being" gives us an analysis of video games via a Lacanian perspective (Laura Mulvey, Lacan), applying a more traditional approach to the analysis of media. Dean and Tony's "Presence-play" reads games from a Derridean (pictured: Jacque Derrida) 'deconstrctive' perspective and "Signature, Event, Context" explores deconstruction and performativity e.g Queer Theory.

Digital Culture: 5

Jean Baudrillard

According to Baudrillard reality has disappeared: we live in an age of simulation. It is an age where "truth, reference and objective cause have ceased to exist". The very "spectre of simulation" threatens the distinction between "true" and "false" (Baudrillard, 1983 p.6). Expanding upon the idea Baudrillard stated that "it is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real" (1983, p. 25)


Baudrillard, J (1983) Simulations Semiotext(e)


See also Eco, U Travels in Hyperreality

Cyberwar and Peace

Communication technologies are not always the benign force or indeed a neutral medium that software companies would like us to believe. The word cyberwar describes the use of technology in conflicts and espionage. We have witnessed the use of technology in conflicts like the two Gulf Wars and in the Balkans. Government agencies have generally lost control of the development of such technologies and so the private sector has stepped into its role. Such loss of control is viewed as a serious threat to the security of the nation state, the financial centres and military institutions.

We may think of war as being physical and throughout history we see in battles the use of conventional weapons: swords, guns and bombs. The programme argues that the conventions of warfare had not really changed between the times of Julius Caesar and the Battle of Waterloo. Mechanization of the military revolutionised war in the 20th Century radically changed the nature of conflict, yet today, it is not just the nuclear deterrent or new missile weapons systems that protect us from attack, but also the computer and its protection software. The attack comes from a hacker whose aim is to disrupt communication and information systems. This may seem the stuff of science fiction and thrillers (one thinks of films like Hackers or The Net, both from 1995), but these attacks are a regular occurrence. During the late nineties the conflicts in Kosova and Bosnia, America’s military industrial complex and many universities (MIT was one victim) were hacked by the Serb secret service and Serbian students.

Recently, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech on how the internet can spread freedom around the world. It has been seen as a response to Google’s withdrawal from China due to alleged cyber attacks on human rights activists. Before Clinton made her speech, Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer specialising in cases against repressive governments, and Tom Watson MP, discussed how the internet is used by rogue governments on the Today programme, Radio 4. Tom Watson raised the problem in House of Commons.

Robert Amsterdam agreed with the idea of the web being used to “promote freedom” and supports Google’s position. He also proposes that “we” should monitor the ways in which oppressive governments use the web to stifle debate and free expression and also notes how Western companies and multi nationals are complicit in supplying regimes with technical support. Tom Watson noted that the “Internet is a neutral tool that can be used for good and bad”. Watson suggests that democracies should attempt to restrict China and other totalitarian regimes access to communication technologies. While Twitter and Face Book has been used in Iran as technologies of opposition and change, we have also seen repressive regimes use the Internet as a technology of control to monitor dissent.


Sources:

Davies, Simon Big Brother: Britain's web of surveillance and the new technological order London: Pan, 1997

Donk, Wim van de (ed.), foreword by Peter Dahlgren Cyberprotest: new media, citizens and social movements, London New York: Routledge, 2004

Lyon, David, Surveillance society: monitoring everyday life Buckingham: Open University Press, 2001

McCaughey, Martha & Ayers Michael D. (ed.) Cyberactivism: online activism in theory and practice, New York London: Routledge, 2003

Meikle, G Future active: media activism and the internet New York London: Routledge, 2002


Web resources:

Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer specialising in cases against repressive governments, and Tom Watson MP, a prominent blogger who has tabled an Early Day Motion on the Google-China issue, discuss how the internet is used by rogue governments. Today: Thursday 21st January 0835: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8471000/8471658.stm

BBC News: “China Blocking Google” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2231101.stm

“Google censors itself for China”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm

“Web inventor warns of 'dark' net” By Jonathan Fildes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5009250.stm

“Berners-Lee on the read/write web”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4132752.stm
Listen to "Web inventor's future fears": 'The British developer of the world wide web says he is worried about the way it could be used to spread "misinformation".' Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee spoke to Pallab Ghosh on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 2 Nov 2006

“Defending online freedom” Guardian Online:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/jan/22/hillary-clinton-online-freedom#start-of-comments


Wired Online: “China Restores Google.com”: www.wired.com/news/politics/0,71121-0.html

Cyberculture to E-Culture (sounds so late eighties early 90s)? Erm... Towards E-topia? Part 2

The WWW over the years seems to shift from being a new frontier, a wild west as one writer put it, to something that resembles a property developer’s paradise. Is Tim Berners-Lee’s utopian vision and rather altruistic outlook being challenged by the giant software companies, international corporations and governments eager to control the flow of information? Certainly over the years, governments have attempted curtail “free-speech” on the web. In a previous post I said that Tony Benn championed the use of Internet and web technologies. I saw an interview where he discussed other means of communication, which were ‘nationalised’ by a government: during the reformation, Henry VIII placed a priest in every pulpit to say exactly what the king wanted his people to hear and during the reign of Charles II the postal service was established. The web, he argued was for the people and so counters the official language of institutions and governmental agencies. The web’s pluralistic and multi-vocal nature makes this a radical communication system, that ‘undermines the borders of national identity’, central authority and erodes ‘the old distinctions between public and private self’ (Ward, 1997, 2003 pp. 124-5). Its ability to transcend boundaries has led to it to be described as the first postmodern medium.

In the mid to late nineties we saw the struggle between Netscape and Microsoft for control of the Web. Controlling the means of communication controls the information that flows through it. Companies like Reuters have always appreciated the importance of technology in the distribution of information. Microsoft attempted to create an alternative web with MSN (Microsoft Network). This essentially failed. The creation of Explorer, Microsoft’s browser, challenged the dominance of Netscape. This led to disagreements over technical protocols and certainly Microsoft’s early actions have been interpreted as an attempt to curtail the freedom of the user and the eclectic and anarchic nature of the web, with Microsoft pushing it’s own ideas about protocols that were/are different from everyone else’s. These technical difficulties have been largely resolved through the dedication of people like Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org). Microsoft’s business practices have been questioned and it’s monopoly of the operating system and web browser market that has in the words of some commentators led to a monoculture, has been attacked in court. This did not lead to a break up of the company, but recently Mozilla Firefox has challenged Microsoft’s dominance of the browser market.


New Scientist: “Microsoft monoculture allows virus spread” 25 September 2003: www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4203

Cyberculture to E-Culture (sounds so late eighties early 90s)? Erm... Towards E-topia? Part 1

At the moment I sense a creeping technological determinism in my writing. From John Berger’s discussion of television, film, photography and oil painting to the more recent programmes on the virtual revolution, we see the ways in which technology seems to shape our perception of the world around us and shapes ‘our’ culture and helps us re-present reality. Like Vertov’s ‘mechanical eye’, which was ‘free… for today and forever from human immobility’ (Berger, 1972 p.12) our ‘eyes’ can travel immense distances through networks of the World Wide Web and the Internet. We can now visit the Grand Canyon on our computer screens via Google Earth.
There is another invention that radically changed European culture and politics, an ‘ancestor’ of the WWW: the European technology of printing and moveable type, in the 15th Century by Johannes Gutenberg. This technology was a key development in the Renaissance and became a major factor in the Reformation. To those privileged to read (remember most Europeans of the fifteenth century were illiterate), all world knowledge in the west resided in two sets of texts: The Bible and the works of Aristotle. Today, we throw the equivalent amount of information into the recycling bin after we have finished with our Sunday newspaper. How many words exist on the WWW? It is also important to note that in the 15th Century ‘our’ main source of information came from village gossip, art and the pulpit.

Tim Berners-Lee, the ‘inventor’ of the web and the HTML code (of course he had a little help from Ted Nelson who devised hypertext), has on a number of occasions explained his role as inventor and as an observer and commentator of its use and rapid expansion. The Internet was initially invented the 1960s, a product of the military-industrial complex to allow scientists and the military to share information and maintain communications in the event of a nuclear attack. Post cold war, from being a tool of largely governmental agencies the Internet quickly became a global network.

The idea of a global network of easily accessible information is a product of liberal capitalism and a democratic society. These inventions have created a virtual soapbox, where theoretically everyone has the right to publish: a right to free speech. Tony Benn the ex-labour MP, sees the Internet/WWW as something that is beyond the control of governments. However, since many sites are unedited there is the threat of misinformation and for the potential circulation of dangerous ideas.

Cyberhistories: Cyberspace, Cyber Art and Cyberculture

If we look at the histories of digital media and the computer, we see the development begins somewhere during WWII, with Weiner and Vanevar Bush in America: the beginnings of the military industrial complex and in Britain with Alan Turing (although the computers development can be said to be much earlier).

Postwar we see digital pioneers from John and James Whitney to Benoit Mandelbrot. Computers can be seen as a creative and liberating force, a seductive and progressive idea reinforced by advertising campaigns that promote software such as Photoshop and hardware like the Apple Mac computer. Look at the way Apple promoted the Mackintosh computer. Generally, we see a shift from computers being viewed as part of a culture of calculation (as parodied by Rube Goldberg and Heath Robinson), seen in the examples of the machines designed by Charles Babbage or seen in Bletchley Park in WWII, and stereotypically PCs and Unix and command line environments, subject to hierarchy and centralised control (a tendency of Modernism) to one that includes the Internet and the WWW and emphasises a culture of simulation that is decentralised and fragmented (a tendency of Post-Modernism). The more recent digital and interactive design of John Maybury, Jenny Boulter and William Latham will bare witness to this ‘liberation’, as they themselves reveal the blurring distinctions between design practitioners and their practices and computer science. These are just of few of the professionals who have shaped the use of this fairly new medium, influenced art and designers and experimented and stretched the creative potential of these technologies.

Plato's Cave

Many texts on cyberspace and cyberculture seem to reference this story from Plato's famous book:

Book VII of The Republic
The Republic

Written 360 B.C.E

The Allegory of the Cave



[Socrates is speaking with Glaucon]

[Socrates:] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

[Glaucon:] I see.




And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

Yes, he said.

And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

Very true.

And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

No question, he replied.

To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

That is certain.

And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -- will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

Far truer.

And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

True, he said.

And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.

Not all in a moment, he said.

He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?

Certainly.

Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.

Certainly.

He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?

Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?

Certainly, he would.

And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,

Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?

Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.

Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

To be sure, he said.

And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

No question, he said.

This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

Weblinks

Here are some useful sites dealing with Digital Culture:

Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality: About the book

Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality: The Companion Website

The Virtual Revolution: The BBC 2 Series

Digital Culture 4: Control Society

Cloud Culture: http://www.counterpoint-online.org/cloud-culture-a-new-counterpoint-publication-and-ica-debate/



Deleuze, Postscript on the Societies of Control: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=GIus7lm_ZK0

The ‘Architecture’ of the Web: Digital Utopias and Dystopias

"It’s a strange day
No colours or shapes
No sound in my head
I forget who I am
When I’m with you
There’s no reason
There’s no sense
I’m not supposed to feel
I forget who I am
I forget
Fascist baby
Utopia, utopia
My dog needs new ears
Make his eyes see forever
Make him live like me
Again and again
I’m wired to the world
That’s how I know everything
I’m super brain
That’s how they made me"

Utopia by Goldfrapp.


Ideas pertaining to the ‘modern movement’ in architecture can be used to inform many of the debates and ideas that now surround the World Wide Web, Web 2.0 and indeed Media Studies 2.0.

"1984" Apple Macintosh Advertisement directed by Ridley Scott

There is a sense of post-modern euphoria that we have broken free from the past and that old modernist theories are as redundant as their hierarchies of class, culture and taste, to name but three; we have reached some kind of e-topia. These utopian concepts partly came out of the sixties counter culture that reacted against modernism’s perceived authoritarianism- one thinks of Apple, a product of Californian sunshine and LSD, offering us an alternative world, a technological vision with a Byrdsian soundtrack, an alternative to the grey corporatism of the monolithic and historically dubious IBM. In eschewing modernist theories along with all the modernist inequities, are we in danger of throwing the theoretical baby out with the modernist bathwater?

In fact, the optimism surrounding the Internet and the World Wide Web as a communications tool has modernist utopian overtones, because modernism itself was, to many modernists, also a utopia. The web can be seen as a social condenser. The social condenser is a Soviet Constructivist theory about architectural space and how it has the ability to influence behaviour. Does not the ‘architecture’ of the WWW, a public space, break down perceived hierarchies and create an environment that allows and encourages communities to interact? Looked at this way, the computer becomes the liberation machine in a similar vein to modernism’s architectural ‘machines for living’ that were meant to somehow improve us.

There are also ideas pertaining to the pre-psychedelia, 1950s modernism of the International Typographical Style and its demand for clarity in design that are useful to us when trying to articulate the utopian nature of the Web. In web design Usability Heuristics demands similar things from its designers. The doctrine of usability suggests that with usability comes sociability.

With post-modern utopian notions of connectivity and the transcendence of national, institutional and political boundaries, are we being starry eyed in our optimism, or should we be harking back to the days of clean lines and Soviet-style functionality? The belief that new media benefit society through their attack on perceived hierarchies, and that the web is a great leveller, can be countered by the equally valid argument that the Web is undermining intellectual authority, generating failed spaces that are hostile, that threaten individual and collective security and help to circulate false information and dangerous ideas.

Is the computer best understood, then, with reference to modernist or post-modernist ideas of utopia's and dystopia's?