I think your two observations that
a) statistics aren't applicable here and
b) a postmodern map might try to represent through inscrutability
are the reason the gyre appealed to you in the first place, when you kept saying how some people thought the gyre was the size of Texas--no!--of France!! etc etc., and how mind-blowing the disparity between and enthusiasm embedded into those claims is. I think that's why the gyre became such a good focal point for these questions, because it eludes our efforts to map it in traditional ways. Again, though, I think it's really important (and this is something I'm trying to apply to my own thinking as well) not to see the gyre as an un-problematic, living definition of these post-modern issues of (non)place and non-mappability.
I think that both potential points of comparison are interesting, but why do you need them? I guess it just seems like a lot of work to take on at this point. The landfill is pretty awesome though---the way a certain type of non-place is being made even more invisible, literally being buried under the earth to make way for a new surface, one that we will be quite able to say is 3x Central Park or whatever.
Isle of Flowers made me think about two things:
1. The desire, when talking about global economy and trash as its symptom, to extract and re-commodify some small representative object---a tomato, some bath toys (that's so crazy!!! little sailors in one big bathtub--how perverse), or I'm also thinking of that Dave Eggers essay in which he traces a t-shirt that some kid in a third-world country wears back to its origin (people talk about that a lot---startling photographs of refugees wearing Celtics t's). This attempt tries, I think, to make garbage speak by re-integrating and re-mapping it into the global economy. How can garbage speak of the global economy without returning to it?
2. The end of Isle of Flowers, when the women and children collect the plant matter, seemed to me to capture an interesting place in the chain of things...when an object has been pressed and squeezed and all the exchange value has been wrested from it, use value still remains in a perverse way. I'm not exactly sure what I mean here, but it seemed like trash as this underbelly and these people as a kind of underbelly so destitute they had fallen so at the bottom of the chain almost seem exempt from it---a loaded comparison, definitely, but both the garbage and the people represented this kind of map-less, obligation-less, exchange-less parallel system of values, places, and networks.
I'm working on writing today, I'll send it to everyone later tonight or tomorrow, hopefully.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
speaking of trash
so, back fro california. there's a lot to be said, as always. i'll try to be making short updates every day compiling some of the stuff i've been working at.
to preface things:
you should all should watch this movie... i saw a couple years ago and, along with darwin's nightmare (which has a lot to do with trevor paglen's blank spots), made me want to be a documentary filmmaker.
check out the the isle of flowers
it's only 12 minutes, and a really really amazing film.
anyway
NB: i'm very tempted to try to 'understand' the complex systems of trash flotsam/jetsam, recycling science/providures, same with landfills, but i realize that my main concern should be representation, not actually creating my own sort of enlightened understanding of these processes (at least scientifically, looking for the their 'true' form)
that is, as an interpreter, i can't expect to create my own 'map' of the garbage gyre, or of another spots of trash, mostly because i don't have the resources. i guess that's what film school is for.
one of the reasons why i think this film is so helpful is that it is an amazing representation of the relationship between humans and trash. also, watching it after having read marx gives another important level to it. that is, understanding the consequences between exchange value and use value.
i wonder if marx ever talks about garbage.... garbage is the underbelly, or perhaps, the dark side of the society of the spectacle (thinking of debord here). i know marx talks of the 'ghost' of labor value. we can look at an object and realize that it on an ontological level it contains the energy and power of some human being, somewhere. but i'll admit my knowledge on marx is limited, so feel free to call me out here.
this could definitely go into nick's area of research. spam, of the internet, is an interesting combination between spectacle and trash. its hope is to gain our attention, to call out to us, to say 'look at me, follow me!', but by virtue of that quality it turns into trash (nick you really should read that book on the development of the commodity in victorian england if you haven't already, it's where most of this is coming from).
back to problems with GIS...
i planned on trying to use GIS as a way to examine trash, but i'm getting wary of it. reading jameson's article on cognitive mapping, it seems that he values aesthetics over information. that is, he says that art should teach us, but it's still aesthetics. my concern with GIS is that it might be too statistical for what i'm looking at here. and also, really, i haven't found any GIS maps of trash, but that might be saying the same thing: we don't really know how to turn trash into numbers, or numbers that make us money. trash only turns into exchange value for a select group of people.
the isle of flowers turns up that dichotomy even more. if we're looking for affect, statistics will only get us so far. and for maps, at some level, i think aesthetics come first. in a 'postmodern map', we need to rely on a certain amount of unrealiability, of infallibility.
here's where you guys come in. i want to compare the non-space of the gyre to one of two other (places).
basically, i can see trash collecting in one of these two other spaces: on seashores, and in landfills.
seashores are appealing because they, opposite of the gyre, are the definite marker of a 'space. nothing makes a darker line on a map than the area between land and ocean. also, trash/flotsam makes it way either into the gyre for eternity, or back onto land (or finds its way out of gyres, and back onto land.)
but landfills are fascinating also, and one in particular: the fresh kills landfill.
it's no longer a landfill, but for fifty years it resided on staten island as not only one of the largest landfills in the world, but the largest structure in the world. its total volume was greater than the wall of china. visible from land, space, everywhere. medical waste (hypodermic needles) littered miles of jersey coastline in the late 90's.
and now: it's going to become a park. completely covered up, three times the size of central park. as in, it's going to disappear. even more crazy is that vast majority of the WTC debris is held there, including any stray human remains that weren't picked up.
discuss. this is me asking to you all how i should refine a comparison into a question of representation.
and speaking of navigation
to preface things:
you should all should watch this movie... i saw a couple years ago and, along with darwin's nightmare (which has a lot to do with trevor paglen's blank spots), made me want to be a documentary filmmaker.
check out the the isle of flowers
it's only 12 minutes, and a really really amazing film.
anyway
NB: i'm very tempted to try to 'understand' the complex systems of trash flotsam/jetsam, recycling science/providures, same with landfills, but i realize that my main concern should be representation, not actually creating my own sort of enlightened understanding of these processes (at least scientifically, looking for the their 'true' form)
that is, as an interpreter, i can't expect to create my own 'map' of the garbage gyre, or of another spots of trash, mostly because i don't have the resources. i guess that's what film school is for.
one of the reasons why i think this film is so helpful is that it is an amazing representation of the relationship between humans and trash. also, watching it after having read marx gives another important level to it. that is, understanding the consequences between exchange value and use value.
i wonder if marx ever talks about garbage.... garbage is the underbelly, or perhaps, the dark side of the society of the spectacle (thinking of debord here). i know marx talks of the 'ghost' of labor value. we can look at an object and realize that it on an ontological level it contains the energy and power of some human being, somewhere. but i'll admit my knowledge on marx is limited, so feel free to call me out here.
this could definitely go into nick's area of research. spam, of the internet, is an interesting combination between spectacle and trash. its hope is to gain our attention, to call out to us, to say 'look at me, follow me!', but by virtue of that quality it turns into trash (nick you really should read that book on the development of the commodity in victorian england if you haven't already, it's where most of this is coming from).
back to problems with GIS...
i planned on trying to use GIS as a way to examine trash, but i'm getting wary of it. reading jameson's article on cognitive mapping, it seems that he values aesthetics over information. that is, he says that art should teach us, but it's still aesthetics. my concern with GIS is that it might be too statistical for what i'm looking at here. and also, really, i haven't found any GIS maps of trash, but that might be saying the same thing: we don't really know how to turn trash into numbers, or numbers that make us money. trash only turns into exchange value for a select group of people.
the isle of flowers turns up that dichotomy even more. if we're looking for affect, statistics will only get us so far. and for maps, at some level, i think aesthetics come first. in a 'postmodern map', we need to rely on a certain amount of unrealiability, of infallibility.
here's where you guys come in. i want to compare the non-space of the gyre to one of two other (places).
basically, i can see trash collecting in one of these two other spaces: on seashores, and in landfills.
seashores are appealing because they, opposite of the gyre, are the definite marker of a 'space. nothing makes a darker line on a map than the area between land and ocean. also, trash/flotsam makes it way either into the gyre for eternity, or back onto land (or finds its way out of gyres, and back onto land.)
but landfills are fascinating also, and one in particular: the fresh kills landfill.
it's no longer a landfill, but for fifty years it resided on staten island as not only one of the largest landfills in the world, but the largest structure in the world. its total volume was greater than the wall of china. visible from land, space, everywhere. medical waste (hypodermic needles) littered miles of jersey coastline in the late 90's.
and now: it's going to become a park. completely covered up, three times the size of central park. as in, it's going to disappear. even more crazy is that vast majority of the WTC debris is held there, including any stray human remains that weren't picked up.
discuss. this is me asking to you all how i should refine a comparison into a question of representation.
and speaking of navigation
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
affectivity
e-show: LINK-A. POLICIES OF AFFECTIVITY, AESTHETICS OF BIOPOWER: a selection of 11 web art works on contemporary affectivity and its
technological mediation
(the "show": http://www.vinculo-a.net/english_site/central.htm)
a lot of the links don't work anymore but here's a somewhat interesting one:
http://www.mteww.com/five_small_videos/
Jennifer Pybus, Affect and Subjectivity: A Case Study of Neopets.com
this guy put his entire syllabus for a class called Affective Politics online: http://stevphen.mahost.org/affectivepolitics.html
at the bottom of every week there is a link to download a zip file of all the readings.
and, not necessarily related, another artist's stuff: iamchriscollins.com/
also, a somewhat humorous breakdown of how the internet is used by the two sexes from about.com:
"Men are more likely to use the internet to:
technological mediation
(the "show": http://www.vinculo-a.net/english_site/central.htm)
a lot of the links don't work anymore but here's a somewhat interesting one:
http://www.mteww.com/five_small_videos/
Jennifer Pybus, Affect and Subjectivity: A Case Study of Neopets.com
this guy put his entire syllabus for a class called Affective Politics online: http://stevphen.mahost.org/affectivepolitics.html
at the bottom of every week there is a link to download a zip file of all the readings.
and, not necessarily related, another artist's stuff: iamchriscollins.com/
also, a somewhat humorous breakdown of how the internet is used by the two sexes from about.com:
"Men are more likely to use the internet to:
- Read the news
- Buy travel services or make reservations
- Check sports scores and gather sports information
- Stay updated on political news
- Participate in online auctions, such as ebay
- Write content to publish online
- Download music
- Buy and sell stocks, bonds and mutual funds
A Forrester study done in 2007 also showed that on the average men tend to stay online longer and devote more time to online entertainment and researching technical gadgets.
Women use the internet to:
- Get health information
- Read spiritual and religious information
- Gain access and participate in support group websites"
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Randall - "the terms of representation" - what do you mean? I think what I was trying to say is that the terms are circumscribed/dictated by the material...but I still don't know what you mean by terms.
I forgot about globes...obviously there's a lot more going on in mapping than longitude/latitude, and it might be cool (although pretty tangential) to look at how the complex processes used in cartography work to "accurately" reduce 3D space to mappable coordinates. I feel like I'm looking (or trying to look) into an analogous area of processes/ideas/ways of regarding spaces/networks associated with computer programming.
And re: "how different is it that one map represents that proximity of god, and another represents colonial acquisitions?" Right off the bat, I'd say not at all, when you put it like that-- just the somewhat arbitrary visual "depictions" of space as reflecting one or the other ideology...but that's just my gut. It's a cool question.
So far today on me mind: Internet as a city vs. internet as an ocean, possibly with the crowd as a shifting medium that mimics/moves between the two.
There's some really productive overlap between the three articles Wendy sent-- Rafael's article on cell phones, Jameson's article on cognitive mapping, and Manevitch's social media article.
I'm going to think on all that some more, though, and we can talk about em tonight.
I forgot about globes...obviously there's a lot more going on in mapping than longitude/latitude, and it might be cool (although pretty tangential) to look at how the complex processes used in cartography work to "accurately" reduce 3D space to mappable coordinates. I feel like I'm looking (or trying to look) into an analogous area of processes/ideas/ways of regarding spaces/networks associated with computer programming.
And re: "how different is it that one map represents that proximity of god, and another represents colonial acquisitions?" Right off the bat, I'd say not at all, when you put it like that-- just the somewhat arbitrary visual "depictions" of space as reflecting one or the other ideology...but that's just my gut. It's a cool question.
So far today on me mind: Internet as a city vs. internet as an ocean, possibly with the crowd as a shifting medium that mimics/moves between the two.
There's some really productive overlap between the three articles Wendy sent-- Rafael's article on cell phones, Jameson's article on cognitive mapping, and Manevitch's social media article.
I'm going to think on all that some more, though, and we can talk about em tonight.
bouncing thoughts
there's really a ton to go on in your post lizzie. i think those are some of the same questions being asked in relation to 'modern' and 'postmodern' maps.
-i agree that the material limitation of the page is a factor, but the theorists i'm reading are more concerned with the terms of representation on the page than its actual materiality. the difficulty of map 'projections', that is, accurately mapping a curved space onto a 2d space, has been around since the age of exploration, more than 500 years. there was never any contention over whether the earth was flat or not--that debate is a total modern fabrication.
so, globes have been around for nearly just as long, only they were a lot more expensive to make. but needless to say, deconstructing/altering materiality and dimensions of a map is a way for advancement. in terms of buckminster fuller's dymaxion map, it is a map that is both 2d and 3d. what's killer is not just being able to witness that dimensional transformation, but how the world is represented in the 2d version. not only is it a relatively accurate projection, but (1) the land mass of the world is represented as being nearly contiguous, rather than separated and (2) the 'center' of the map is no longer based on european trade routes. so whatever ideology existed in the format of early maps (which either had the west as center for biblical or economic reasons).
check out the map on the shower curtain that's in the sheldon street bathroom. it has the world represented, but it also contains the cosmos and the heavens. i don't know if it's even an actual map, but minca talks a lot about the 'metaphysics of representation'. we should consider the relationship between the view, the map, what the map physically represents, and what (ideologically) the cartographic representation of the physical space represents. how different is it that one map represents that proximity of god, and another represents colonial acquisitions?
one last bit:
minca also talks about the 'world as exhibition', which is a big keyword in postmodern theory (disneyland being the prime example). that is, a space does not reflect an ideology or represent the 'other' so much as exhibit it.
on trash-iotics:
i found an interesting, almost disturbing coincidence, thinking about the sci-li as exhibition (the first high rise library ever, btw, and considered to be an architectural failure). it's done in the 'brutalist' style, which i think speaks for itself.
a famous brutalist complex was the pruitt-igoe project. founded as a sort of low-income utopia, the project failed and was later (very symbolically) demolished.
and another complex by the same architect, symbolically built, symbolically destroyed? The WTC.
-i agree that the material limitation of the page is a factor, but the theorists i'm reading are more concerned with the terms of representation on the page than its actual materiality. the difficulty of map 'projections', that is, accurately mapping a curved space onto a 2d space, has been around since the age of exploration, more than 500 years. there was never any contention over whether the earth was flat or not--that debate is a total modern fabrication.
so, globes have been around for nearly just as long, only they were a lot more expensive to make. but needless to say, deconstructing/altering materiality and dimensions of a map is a way for advancement. in terms of buckminster fuller's dymaxion map, it is a map that is both 2d and 3d. what's killer is not just being able to witness that dimensional transformation, but how the world is represented in the 2d version. not only is it a relatively accurate projection, but (1) the land mass of the world is represented as being nearly contiguous, rather than separated and (2) the 'center' of the map is no longer based on european trade routes. so whatever ideology existed in the format of early maps (which either had the west as center for biblical or economic reasons).
check out the map on the shower curtain that's in the sheldon street bathroom. it has the world represented, but it also contains the cosmos and the heavens. i don't know if it's even an actual map, but minca talks a lot about the 'metaphysics of representation'. we should consider the relationship between the view, the map, what the map physically represents, and what (ideologically) the cartographic representation of the physical space represents. how different is it that one map represents that proximity of god, and another represents colonial acquisitions?
one last bit:
minca also talks about the 'world as exhibition', which is a big keyword in postmodern theory (disneyland being the prime example). that is, a space does not reflect an ideology or represent the 'other' so much as exhibit it.
on trash-iotics:
i found an interesting, almost disturbing coincidence, thinking about the sci-li as exhibition (the first high rise library ever, btw, and considered to be an architectural failure). it's done in the 'brutalist' style, which i think speaks for itself.
a famous brutalist complex was the pruitt-igoe project. founded as a sort of low-income utopia, the project failed and was later (very symbolically) demolished.
and another complex by the same architect, symbolically built, symbolically destroyed? The WTC.
Borders
I think borders are interesting, too. And I also think it might be impossible to discuss borders without being completely within the ideological and material implications of the 2D page.
And re: microcosm---I think there's a lot here to connect to the panopticon and imaginings of different systems of societal control. Does microcosm-as-revealing-truth result in thinking that translates both to methods of visual representation AND methods of implementing societal control/imagining how society works, is controlled? One of the books Nick has, I forget the title, is about the internet as exemplifying a new kind of control, and it talks about the panopticon and the control society.
And re: microcosm---I think there's a lot here to connect to the panopticon and imaginings of different systems of societal control. Does microcosm-as-revealing-truth result in thinking that translates both to methods of visual representation AND methods of implementing societal control/imagining how society works, is controlled? One of the books Nick has, I forget the title, is about the internet as exemplifying a new kind of control, and it talks about the panopticon and the control society.
stuck in books
This stuff about maps is making me think about the way our conceptions/perceptions of space are framed by the page. I think this is something you’ve been reading about a lot, Adrian, but maybe not quite so explicitly in terms of how materiality is affecting mapping/our perceptions of the world.
What you said, Adrian, about the distinction (or lack thereof) between the representation of the world and its reality made me think about navigation and the literal experience of mapping yourself—representing coordinates, for example, to communicate or discover where in the world you are.
Mapping oneself according to horizontal/vertical coordinates—I did it a lot when I first came to Brown, standing in Faunce Arch squinting at the little buildings, tracing over and across from 3C to find Wilson or whatever. And this is not a layman’s form of self-orientation. I don’t know much about latitude/longitude but I think it works pretty much the same way. The world-made-page is not something that’s just done when actually drawing on or creating a page that depicts the world; it is a self-orienting process that helps us map ourselves in real-time, in real-space.
I think the act of finding oneself on/against/through a map is always a strange one when done in day-to-day life, and could be an EXTREMELY productive “scene of interpellation” to use for this project (Althusser).
Longitude/latitude—the ocean keeps coming up…I think it’s the exception that constantly snags our attempts to orient ourselves in space, or, more precisely, to orient space according to the limitations of the 2D page. Maybe that’s why the internet keeps being compared to an ocean—because it can be but doesn’t have to be a surface??
The persistence of the horizontal/vertical axis indicates powerfully how representation/the-world-known-only-through-representation is still imprisoned by the material limitations (ontological and ideological) of the 2D printed page.
We know the world is round, yet we still represent our placement in space as if we are standing on a big flat page/map (When has a map ever NOT been a page??? Got any examples, AQR?).
A horizontal/vertical system of representation seems a pretty weak one through which to imagine our placement in the world, let alone the universe, at this point in our scientific knowledge. I think these thoughts I’m having are things you’ve been reading about for awhile, Adrian—Cartesian imagining of space vs. some kind of disorienting post-modern 3D?
Thinking about horizontal/vertical I think, in addition to time (which is a fascinating element to translate into visual representation—how to represent time a-temporally?!), DEPTH is a big one that gets ignored (re: the blue marble, etc). When 3D space gets translated into a 2D representation, where are we (as viewers) supposed to “be”? In outer space?
This makes me think about two powerful and associated viewer experiences experienced through maps/the world as a surface, as a page—
1. Being the one holding (or viewing) an actual (or virtual) page, being constructed ambiguously outside the map (because there is no way to map the coordinates of the viewer of a map on a page depth-wise (forget about zoom for a sec), except in an always-fixed statement of distance (the world from 10,000 ft. or whatever)
2. Envisioning oneself as a tiny figure on a big flat map of the world, i.e. producing one’s understanding of space through horiztonal/vertical coordinates. Who’s watching you then?
I also think it's interesting, in the satellite maps Adrian shared, that those are constructed out of many images, compiled carefully so as not to obstruct "reality" with cloud wisps.
What you said, Adrian, about the distinction (or lack thereof) between the representation of the world and its reality made me think about navigation and the literal experience of mapping yourself—representing coordinates, for example, to communicate or discover where in the world you are.
Mapping oneself according to horizontal/vertical coordinates—I did it a lot when I first came to Brown, standing in Faunce Arch squinting at the little buildings, tracing over and across from 3C to find Wilson or whatever. And this is not a layman’s form of self-orientation. I don’t know much about latitude/longitude but I think it works pretty much the same way. The world-made-page is not something that’s just done when actually drawing on or creating a page that depicts the world; it is a self-orienting process that helps us map ourselves in real-time, in real-space.
I think the act of finding oneself on/against/through a map is always a strange one when done in day-to-day life, and could be an EXTREMELY productive “scene of interpellation” to use for this project (Althusser).
Longitude/latitude—the ocean keeps coming up…I think it’s the exception that constantly snags our attempts to orient ourselves in space, or, more precisely, to orient space according to the limitations of the 2D page. Maybe that’s why the internet keeps being compared to an ocean—because it can be but doesn’t have to be a surface??
The persistence of the horizontal/vertical axis indicates powerfully how representation/the-world-known-only-through-representation is still imprisoned by the material limitations (ontological and ideological) of the 2D printed page.
We know the world is round, yet we still represent our placement in space as if we are standing on a big flat page/map (When has a map ever NOT been a page??? Got any examples, AQR?).
A horizontal/vertical system of representation seems a pretty weak one through which to imagine our placement in the world, let alone the universe, at this point in our scientific knowledge. I think these thoughts I’m having are things you’ve been reading about for awhile, Adrian—Cartesian imagining of space vs. some kind of disorienting post-modern 3D?
Thinking about horizontal/vertical I think, in addition to time (which is a fascinating element to translate into visual representation—how to represent time a-temporally?!), DEPTH is a big one that gets ignored (re: the blue marble, etc). When 3D space gets translated into a 2D representation, where are we (as viewers) supposed to “be”? In outer space?
This makes me think about two powerful and associated viewer experiences experienced through maps/the world as a surface, as a page—
1. Being the one holding (or viewing) an actual (or virtual) page, being constructed ambiguously outside the map (because there is no way to map the coordinates of the viewer of a map on a page depth-wise (forget about zoom for a sec), except in an always-fixed statement of distance (the world from 10,000 ft. or whatever)
2. Envisioning oneself as a tiny figure on a big flat map of the world, i.e. producing one’s understanding of space through horiztonal/vertical coordinates. Who’s watching you then?
I also think it's interesting, in the satellite maps Adrian shared, that those are constructed out of many images, compiled carefully so as not to obstruct "reality" with cloud wisps.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
borderline thoughts
it seems like a lot of artists/geographers jump at the opportunity to include the '4th dimension', time, into their work, which in a map or picture's case is the presentation of a particular reality.
having conquered both the infinite horizontals (exploration of the earth's landscape) and the 'infinite' verticals (notwithstanding a trip to mars, apparently), time seems like the next obvious place to go.
(the distinction between horizontal and vertical is important, i'll add. one means 'the world' and the other means 'planet earth')
so a map of time would be one that involved live updating or a warping of space so the time it takes to get between two locations is represented as a distance itself, rather than the true physical distance (an obvious application is public transit).
here's a proposal for a theoretical project in-between time. that is, maybe there are some steps between 2/3dimension maps and 4th dimension maps. one of the things i've been rolling around in my head (especially in relation to the garbage patch) is the meaning of the border. on the majority of political maps, the border is simply represented as a dark line, with opposing colors to mark off territory.
but the variety of 'borders' is astounding. where is the border that runs through a mountain range or a desert? in a relatively blank space, the borders blend together... on a map a blue country and a red country should have a border that blurs and at some point becomes green.
or how about the DMZ between north and south korea? how could one represent that border? as a bold black line? an indent in the paper, or just ripped away completely?
the fence between mexico and the us was a topic of conversation this weekend. the pedestrian/vehicle fence totals about 350 miles out of around 2,000. that's less than 20%, but holds a big a political middle finger from the US to mexico. maybe we could scratch 'fuck off' onto where the fence occupies.
And... buckminster fuller's dymaxion map
having conquered both the infinite horizontals (exploration of the earth's landscape) and the 'infinite' verticals (notwithstanding a trip to mars, apparently), time seems like the next obvious place to go.
(the distinction between horizontal and vertical is important, i'll add. one means 'the world' and the other means 'planet earth')
so a map of time would be one that involved live updating or a warping of space so the time it takes to get between two locations is represented as a distance itself, rather than the true physical distance (an obvious application is public transit).
here's a proposal for a theoretical project in-between time. that is, maybe there are some steps between 2/3dimension maps and 4th dimension maps. one of the things i've been rolling around in my head (especially in relation to the garbage patch) is the meaning of the border. on the majority of political maps, the border is simply represented as a dark line, with opposing colors to mark off territory.
but the variety of 'borders' is astounding. where is the border that runs through a mountain range or a desert? in a relatively blank space, the borders blend together... on a map a blue country and a red country should have a border that blurs and at some point becomes green.
or how about the DMZ between north and south korea? how could one represent that border? as a bold black line? an indent in the paper, or just ripped away completely?
the fence between mexico and the us was a topic of conversation this weekend. the pedestrian/vehicle fence totals about 350 miles out of around 2,000. that's less than 20%, but holds a big a political middle finger from the US to mexico. maybe we could scratch 'fuck off' onto where the fence occupies.
And... buckminster fuller's dymaxion map
Saturday, July 18, 2009
A few updates
From Postmodern Temptations by Claudio Minca:
This critical vision (a modern analysis of geography), however, has found itself, for the most part, hard pressed to overcome that exquisitely modern habit of reasoning in dualistic terms: that is, of envisioning the map and the territory as two rigorously and necessarily distinct objets; of considering society and space as two dimensions - associated, perhaps, but clearly distinguishable one from the other; of seeing the representations of the world and the world itself as two cleanly/clearly separate realms.
the question: how do we separate our actual experience of the world from its mappings, or its representations? what can we learn from our obsession with the 'microcosm', the notion of a model that can be extrapolated to a larger 'truth'? wendy said in our last meeting that mapping might be overdetermined. i think that tendency is in part due to our sense of empowerment (and this is coming from minca) that we are gaining access to some metaphysical or greater 'truth' by observing maps, that the maps merely *represent* a greater space, when, in reality, our experience is limited to the map. the map represents itself.
****
Mapping our trash
a cool map of the garbage patch, but with its own limitations as well
a little dorky, but a nice slideshow of contingent moments on google maps (about halfway through)
This critical vision (a modern analysis of geography), however, has found itself, for the most part, hard pressed to overcome that exquisitely modern habit of reasoning in dualistic terms: that is, of envisioning the map and the territory as two rigorously and necessarily distinct objets; of considering society and space as two dimensions - associated, perhaps, but clearly distinguishable one from the other; of seeing the representations of the world and the world itself as two cleanly/clearly separate realms.
the question: how do we separate our actual experience of the world from its mappings, or its representations? what can we learn from our obsession with the 'microcosm', the notion of a model that can be extrapolated to a larger 'truth'? wendy said in our last meeting that mapping might be overdetermined. i think that tendency is in part due to our sense of empowerment (and this is coming from minca) that we are gaining access to some metaphysical or greater 'truth' by observing maps, that the maps merely *represent* a greater space, when, in reality, our experience is limited to the map. the map represents itself.
****
Mapping our trash
a cool map of the garbage patch, but with its own limitations as well
a little dorky, but a nice slideshow of contingent moments on google maps (about halfway through)
Friday, July 17, 2009
once again, limited by comments
so i'll just post this here in response to nick.
A few things--
Some of the stuff here is awesome. Others, as we've touched on, feel trite and trivial.
But to avoid critical tautology...
My biggest complaint about video art has always been scale. For a museum, 'installation' is the key word. Over and over again: a weak digital projector, shot on minidv in poor lighting, repetitive motion or scenario that, in its hour long running time, amounts to some theoretical piece. web art suffers from the same problem, but more so because it's limited to our screen. this also brings up the question of transferring gallery art onto the internet. for analog mediums, it's basically impossible. can it be successful for a youtube pastiche?
hence, wendy's first question: "are you talking about digital art or web art?"
there's a definitive line between the two, and we all know it. i won't talk on my phone in a museum, but right now, typing here, i might as well be on the toilet.
a conversation from two days ago:
4:23 PM Tally: hey- would u be down to contribute to our bloggg?
http://eadersdigest.com/
we would love to have u onboard
4:24 PM B-)
4:25 PM me: shit
yeah sure sure
what are the requirements
Tally: um.. theres a thing called the internet
and it desperately needs curation
curation indeed. I think that, in general, our efforts would be better concentrated into analyzing a single piece/site/website/text rather than dumping a slew on us. the white page/black hyperlink homepages are, well, frustrating. like trying to turn the web page and having it slide back under you.
***
musings:
youtube circular breathing: the excitement here is not just listening to the tones, but clicking on the links to other videos, and creating an entirely new set of varied tones. so, why isn't on a larger scale? couldn't one make a huge rang of tones/loops that could create a whole orchestra? ie TERRY RILEY - IN C
bugs in screens:
web art that can only be made with the use of a digital camera, a camera exterior to the computer. the bug represents that space between the screen and the projection (or illumination, whatever LCDs do). it's interesting to think that space is still there. for film, that's the space between the projector and the screen; for video, the analog space of degradation between the magnets of the tape and the CRT. laptops and ipods are approaching a state where the screen is the machine, and the machine is the screen. but the 'bugs' still have something to say, an area to occupy.
youuuuutuuuuube:
can we say a network of time? this is the best one.
A few things--
Some of the stuff here is awesome. Others, as we've touched on, feel trite and trivial.
But to avoid critical tautology...
My biggest complaint about video art has always been scale. For a museum, 'installation' is the key word. Over and over again: a weak digital projector, shot on minidv in poor lighting, repetitive motion or scenario that, in its hour long running time, amounts to some theoretical piece. web art suffers from the same problem, but more so because it's limited to our screen. this also brings up the question of transferring gallery art onto the internet. for analog mediums, it's basically impossible. can it be successful for a youtube pastiche?
hence, wendy's first question: "are you talking about digital art or web art?"
there's a definitive line between the two, and we all know it. i won't talk on my phone in a museum, but right now, typing here, i might as well be on the toilet.
a conversation from two days ago:
4:23 PM Tally: hey- would u be down to contribute to our bloggg?
http://eadersdigest.com/
we would love to have u onboard
4:24 PM B-)
4:25 PM me: shit
yeah sure sure
what are the requirements
Tally: um.. theres a thing called the internet
and it desperately needs curation
curation indeed. I think that, in general, our efforts would be better concentrated into analyzing a single piece/site/website/text rather than dumping a slew on us. the white page/black hyperlink homepages are, well, frustrating. like trying to turn the web page and having it slide back under you.
***
musings:
youtube circular breathing: the excitement here is not just listening to the tones, but clicking on the links to other videos, and creating an entirely new set of varied tones. so, why isn't on a larger scale? couldn't one make a huge rang of tones/loops that could create a whole orchestra? ie TERRY RILEY - IN C
bugs in screens:
web art that can only be made with the use of a digital camera, a camera exterior to the computer. the bug represents that space between the screen and the projection (or illumination, whatever LCDs do). it's interesting to think that space is still there. for film, that's the space between the projector and the screen; for video, the analog space of degradation between the magnets of the tape and the CRT. laptops and ipods are approaching a state where the screen is the machine, and the machine is the screen. but the 'bugs' still have something to say, an area to occupy.
youuuuutuuuuube:
can we say a network of time? this is the best one.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
a few artists and pieces i like
rafael rozendaal is a really talented programmer and his stuff is always cool and aesthetically pleasing but not all of it surpasses the novelty realm into that of art. these are my favorites of his though:
http://www.biglongnow.com/
http://www.colorflip.com/ -- i like the frustration that is created by not being able to peel the top layer back more than he's programmed it to allow
guthrie lonergan might be my favorite of these guys. here are a few of my faves:
http://www.theageofmammals.com/2008/3notes.html
http://theageofmammals.com/2007/20012006.html --- i like the social focus of a lot of his work amidst the drier theoretical works and the purely aesthetic pieces.
http://www.theageofmammals.com/2008/floorwarp2.html --- lizzie: textures, paths with no beginnings or ends
http://www.theageofmammals.com/groupshot/ (an idea i had and then saw this)
http://theageofmammals.com/2006/artistlooking.html
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EBF5D6DC4589D7B7 -- this was in the new museum's younger than jesus show but was apparently altered by the curators into oblivion and ended up as just being these videos playing on free standing monitors with no viewer participation or context.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F4B63F92D2DC4E98 -- though not really attributable to him as an artwork i love this concept.
http://twitter.com/vvork -- probably my favorite use of twitter, in theory, though it's not that compelling a read. i feel like it points out a lot of the downfalls of twitter as well as "amateur" internet art writing. fyi "VVORK is a daily website that offers a carefully curated collection of contemporary art."
http://www.damonzucconi.com/
http://damonzucconi.com/Work/FlagsTethered
http://www.0-00-00.com/
http://damonzucconi.com/Work/WithoutReflection
harm van den dorpel -- there's way more here than just the front page options; each piece has tags below it on its own page that lead to other similar pieces.
http://www.harmvandendorpel.com/bison.htm
http://www.harmvandendorpel.com/holism/index.php?n=spiral
i can't find his sleepwalkers anymore but they were so awesome, let me know if you find them. that is the annoying part about his website. maybe a microcosm of the internet?
and this is just really cool: http://yooouuutuuube.com/
http://www.biglongnow.com/
http://www.colorflip.com/ -- i like the frustration that is created by not being able to peel the top layer back more than he's programmed it to allow
guthrie lonergan might be my favorite of these guys. here are a few of my faves:
http://www.theageofmammals.com/2008/3notes.html
http://theageofmammals.com/2007/20012006.html --- i like the social focus of a lot of his work amidst the drier theoretical works and the purely aesthetic pieces.
http://www.theageofmammals.com/2008/floorwarp2.html --- lizzie: textures, paths with no beginnings or ends
http://www.theageofmammals.com/groupshot/ (an idea i had and then saw this)
http://theageofmammals.com/2006/artistlooking.html
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EBF5D6DC4589D7B7 -- this was in the new museum's younger than jesus show but was apparently altered by the curators into oblivion and ended up as just being these videos playing on free standing monitors with no viewer participation or context.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F4B63F92D2DC4E98 -- though not really attributable to him as an artwork i love this concept.
http://twitter.com/vvork -- probably my favorite use of twitter, in theory, though it's not that compelling a read. i feel like it points out a lot of the downfalls of twitter as well as "amateur" internet art writing. fyi "VVORK is a daily website that offers a carefully curated collection of contemporary art."
http://www.damonzucconi.com/
http://damonzucconi.com/Work/FlagsTethered
http://www.0-00-00.com/
http://damonzucconi.com/Work/WithoutReflection
harm van den dorpel -- there's way more here than just the front page options; each piece has tags below it on its own page that lead to other similar pieces.
http://www.harmvandendorpel.com/bison.htm
http://www.harmvandendorpel.com/holism/index.php?n=spiral
i can't find his sleepwalkers anymore but they were so awesome, let me know if you find them. that is the annoying part about his website. maybe a microcosm of the internet?
and this is just really cool: http://yooouuutuuube.com/
aesthetics and computation group MIT
This website/group looks like it's really at the forefront of interaction with and understanding of the materiality of the internet/computer BEYOND superficial demonstrations of the capabilities and failures of the interface.
CHECK IT:
http://acg.media.mit.edu/concepts/volume01.html
CHECK IT:
http://acg.media.mit.edu/concepts/volume01.html
post-it
me: i thought of a cool thing
Nicholas: yee??
me: people design web pages like other graphic-design objects (magazines, etc)
1:59 PM but there are often completely separate sidebar and header and footer things going on
Nicholas: mmhm
me: randomly generated sometimes?
i don't know
but it does create this oddly sutured, oddly seamless surface
Nicholas: like gimme a page frinstance
me: i dont know like google generating ads based on email content
2:00 PM Nicholas: yeah
me: what i'm thinking of is more how there are options to play with that, with the page being really designed and laid-out, but there are these encroaching edges
you could probably make a page that would do cool things
2:01 PM or not a web page but something that looks into that idea
Nicholas: yeahh
yeah, kind of like that guy trying to write with all the word windows open
2:02 PM me: maybe, but also it's just an interesting element of web graphic design
im just thinking about this because i'm reading about paul rand, who designed all this shit for IBM and Microsoft and stuff, but he was a magazine guy
and there are some different design considerations for the web page
like banner ads, for ex.
Nicholas: yeah
2:03 PM me: maybe you could bring that back out of the monitor and let those considerations/limitations play in cool ways with non-electronic pages
WHO KNOWS
there's this cool website called tifprabap.org where she has videos in which she points (in the video) to the side bar
its weird
Nicholas: ooh
2:04 PM me: have you seen this website
its nuts
Nicholas: no
me: listen: she makes like pep-talk videos for herself
she has her WHOLE LIFE
(she's a dancer)
and she always has the same music in the background
and she posted them all
Nicholas: that's insane
Nicholas: yee??
me: people design web pages like other graphic-design objects (magazines, etc)
1:59 PM but there are often completely separate sidebar and header and footer things going on
Nicholas: mmhm
me: randomly generated sometimes?
i don't know
but it does create this oddly sutured, oddly seamless surface
Nicholas: like gimme a page frinstance
me: i dont know like google generating ads based on email content
2:00 PM Nicholas: yeah
me: what i'm thinking of is more how there are options to play with that, with the page being really designed and laid-out, but there are these encroaching edges
you could probably make a page that would do cool things
2:01 PM or not a web page but something that looks into that idea
Nicholas: yeahh
yeah, kind of like that guy trying to write with all the word windows open
2:02 PM me: maybe, but also it's just an interesting element of web graphic design
im just thinking about this because i'm reading about paul rand, who designed all this shit for IBM and Microsoft and stuff, but he was a magazine guy
and there are some different design considerations for the web page
like banner ads, for ex.
Nicholas: yeah
2:03 PM me: maybe you could bring that back out of the monitor and let those considerations/limitations play in cool ways with non-electronic pages
WHO KNOWS
there's this cool website called tifprabap.org where she has videos in which she points (in the video) to the side bar
its weird
Nicholas: ooh
2:04 PM me: have you seen this website
its nuts
Nicholas: no
me: listen: she makes like pep-talk videos for herself
she has her WHOLE LIFE
(she's a dancer)
and she always has the same music in the background
and she posted them all
Nicholas: that's insane
imagined materials
A brief history (beginning, of course, in medias res):
Al Gore, January 31, 1998:
Imagine, for example, a young child going to a Digital Earth exhibit at a local museum. After donning a head-mounted display, she sees Earth as it appears from space. Using a data glove, she zooms in, using higher and higher levels of resolution, to see continents, then regions, countries, cities, and finally individual houses, trees, and other natural and man-made objects. Having found an area of the planet she is interested in exploring, she takes the equivalent of a "magic carpet ride" through a 3-D visualization of the terrain. Of course, terrain is only one of the many kinds of data with which she can interact. Using the systems' voice recognition capabilities, she is able to request information on land cover, distribution of plant and animal species, real-time weather, roads, political boundaries, and population.
....
She is not limited to moving through space, but can also travel through time. After taking a virtual field-trip to Paris to visit the Louvre, she moves backward in time to learn about French history, perusing digitized maps overlaid on the surface of the Digital Earth, newsreel footage, oral history, newspapers and other primary sources. She sends some of this information to her personal e-mail address to study later. The time-line, which stretches off in the distance, can be set for days, years, centuries, or even geological epochs...
2002:
Beyond the Infinite: (look mom, no gloves!)
More on the current state of Digital Earth later
Al Gore, January 31, 1998:
Imagine, for example, a young child going to a Digital Earth exhibit at a local museum. After donning a head-mounted display, she sees Earth as it appears from space. Using a data glove, she zooms in, using higher and higher levels of resolution, to see continents, then regions, countries, cities, and finally individual houses, trees, and other natural and man-made objects. Having found an area of the planet she is interested in exploring, she takes the equivalent of a "magic carpet ride" through a 3-D visualization of the terrain. Of course, terrain is only one of the many kinds of data with which she can interact. Using the systems' voice recognition capabilities, she is able to request information on land cover, distribution of plant and animal species, real-time weather, roads, political boundaries, and population.
....
She is not limited to moving through space, but can also travel through time. After taking a virtual field-trip to Paris to visit the Louvre, she moves backward in time to learn about French history, perusing digitized maps overlaid on the surface of the Digital Earth, newsreel footage, oral history, newspapers and other primary sources. She sends some of this information to her personal e-mail address to study later. The time-line, which stretches off in the distance, can be set for days, years, centuries, or even geological epochs...
2002:
Beyond the Infinite: (look mom, no gloves!)
More on the current state of Digital Earth later
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
"works" so far
ok so here are a few of the things that i've made (none are hosted online so you have to download them) and short explanations. feedback please. they are arranged generally from most-based-in-intellectual-thought to i'm-going-to-do-this-because-it-seems-cool-and-see-if-it-means-anything-later.
HUMANA (open .gifs using firefox) (this is just the .gif since i haven't made the final web page yet)
Humana questions the perceived reality of Google Street View and its position at the vanguard of photographic mapping of our world’s streets. The piece contains a .GIF made from current (as of July, 2009) screenshots of the Old Humana Building in downtown Louisville, KY on Google Street View combined with videos posted on YouTube of its implosion in the summer of 2008. This juxtaposition transforms Google Street View from an accurate rendering of current civilization and an example of cutting edge technology to a tool for nostalgia – a last refuge for a structure whose destruction is well documented throughout the internet and whose absence can be seen “in person” in the actual physical location where it once stood.
PROBLEMS WITH “HOWL”
Problems With “Howl” attempts to isolate and emphasize the authoritative nature and perhaps anti-innovative tendency of Microsoft Word’s grammar- and spell-check functions. The piece is made of screenshots of the all ten pages of Allen Ginsburg’s poem “Howl” once it is copy/pasted into Microsoft Word in white font so that only the suggested grammar and spelling corrections are visible. This seminal work of the Beat generation becomes invisible, reduced to a series of red and green lines that draw attention to only the perceived problems with the work according to Word.
PIXELATED PAINTINGS (2 Kelly, 2 Close, 1 Monet, 1 Seurat)
This series uses photographs on the internet of famous works of modern art, reduced to low resolution, then screenshot, and blown back up. The chosen works all employ a similar color strategy to that of pixels on a computer screen, which are abstract forms of color when seen individually or up close but combine to create an image when seen from afar. Here is the best example: (see the original here)
PIEDMONT CUT OUT
Piedmont Cut Out is a .GIF of screenshots from Google Maps Street View in Piedmont, Delaware that moves the viewer forward through a digitally recreated rural landscape while it loses its resolution, and subsequently the illusion of reality, with each passing frame until finally reduced to as simple and abstract a composition as is possible using Adobe Photoshop’s Cutout effect.
OREGON RAIN
Oregon Rain is a .GIF made with a series of sequential reduced-quality screenshots of Google Maps Street View on a highway on the Northern border of Oregon, a section of road apparently photographed by Google during a rainstorm.
THE SEVEN A’S
The Seven A’s is a .GIF made from seven blown up screenshots of the letter ‘a’ in an internet browser. When small sized black text on web pages is enlarged it often reveals itself to be made up of a multicolored grid of squares that only appear black when they are all the size of a single pixel. When I typed the letters “a a a a a a a a a a a a a a […]” into my Firefox search bar, took its screen shot, then enlarged it, a pattern emerged within the a’s. The first and third ‘a’ were made from the same combination of colored pixels, while the second, fourth, and sixth used a different set, and the fifth and seventh used a still different combination. After the seventh ‘a’ the pattern repeated: 1 2 1 2 3 2 3… The .GIF cycles through this pattern forever.
#000000
#000000 is an abstract composition made by randomly rearranging the 583 squares of color that made up the characters ‘#000000’ (the HTML code for the color black) when I took a screenshot of it on the internet and enlarged it. (this is not completed since it's very time consuming and maybe not worth doing but below is the image i'm taking the pixels from)
here are examples of the same process used on the letters 'a' and 'b' to show you what the final product will resemble:
LONGEST DRIVE IN THE CONTINENTAL US
Using Google Maps, I attempted to find the longest drive possible between two request-able "locations" in the lower forty-eight states using the most direct roads (in terms of estimated driving time according to Google Maps) without leaving the country. Please send me any longer routes that you find.
WHITE WATER
White Water is a .GIF made from a screen shot of an early version of the computer game The Oregon Trail. The spinning rectangle is an enlarged section of pixels meant to appear as foam in a low-resolution image of a river.
HUMANA (open .gifs using firefox) (this is just the .gif since i haven't made the final web page yet)
Humana questions the perceived reality of Google Street View and its position at the vanguard of photographic mapping of our world’s streets. The piece contains a .GIF made from current (as of July, 2009) screenshots of the Old Humana Building in downtown Louisville, KY on Google Street View combined with videos posted on YouTube of its implosion in the summer of 2008. This juxtaposition transforms Google Street View from an accurate rendering of current civilization and an example of cutting edge technology to a tool for nostalgia – a last refuge for a structure whose destruction is well documented throughout the internet and whose absence can be seen “in person” in the actual physical location where it once stood.
PROBLEMS WITH “HOWL”
Problems With “Howl” attempts to isolate and emphasize the authoritative nature and perhaps anti-innovative tendency of Microsoft Word’s grammar- and spell-check functions. The piece is made of screenshots of the all ten pages of Allen Ginsburg’s poem “Howl” once it is copy/pasted into Microsoft Word in white font so that only the suggested grammar and spelling corrections are visible. This seminal work of the Beat generation becomes invisible, reduced to a series of red and green lines that draw attention to only the perceived problems with the work according to Word.
PIXELATED PAINTINGS (2 Kelly, 2 Close, 1 Monet, 1 Seurat)
This series uses photographs on the internet of famous works of modern art, reduced to low resolution, then screenshot, and blown back up. The chosen works all employ a similar color strategy to that of pixels on a computer screen, which are abstract forms of color when seen individually or up close but combine to create an image when seen from afar. Here is the best example: (see the original here)
PIEDMONT CUT OUT
Piedmont Cut Out is a .GIF of screenshots from Google Maps Street View in Piedmont, Delaware that moves the viewer forward through a digitally recreated rural landscape while it loses its resolution, and subsequently the illusion of reality, with each passing frame until finally reduced to as simple and abstract a composition as is possible using Adobe Photoshop’s Cutout effect.
OREGON RAIN
Oregon Rain is a .GIF made with a series of sequential reduced-quality screenshots of Google Maps Street View on a highway on the Northern border of Oregon, a section of road apparently photographed by Google during a rainstorm.
THE SEVEN A’S
The Seven A’s is a .GIF made from seven blown up screenshots of the letter ‘a’ in an internet browser. When small sized black text on web pages is enlarged it often reveals itself to be made up of a multicolored grid of squares that only appear black when they are all the size of a single pixel. When I typed the letters “a a a a a a a a a a a a a a […]” into my Firefox search bar, took its screen shot, then enlarged it, a pattern emerged within the a’s. The first and third ‘a’ were made from the same combination of colored pixels, while the second, fourth, and sixth used a different set, and the fifth and seventh used a still different combination. After the seventh ‘a’ the pattern repeated: 1 2 1 2 3 2 3… The .GIF cycles through this pattern forever.
#000000
#000000 is an abstract composition made by randomly rearranging the 583 squares of color that made up the characters ‘#000000’ (the HTML code for the color black) when I took a screenshot of it on the internet and enlarged it. (this is not completed since it's very time consuming and maybe not worth doing but below is the image i'm taking the pixels from)
here are examples of the same process used on the letters 'a' and 'b' to show you what the final product will resemble:
LONGEST DRIVE IN THE CONTINENTAL US
Using Google Maps, I attempted to find the longest drive possible between two request-able "locations" in the lower forty-eight states using the most direct roads (in terms of estimated driving time according to Google Maps) without leaving the country. Please send me any longer routes that you find.
WHITE WATER
White Water is a .GIF made from a screen shot of an early version of the computer game The Oregon Trail. The spinning rectangle is an enlarged section of pixels meant to appear as foam in a low-resolution image of a river.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
orienting myself a little, reviewin'
I also just thought I’d review some stuff we talked about and say a little bit about where I’m starting to narrow myself. I need help with/ideas for that, still—so this is for my benefit, mostly.
One question—should we post stuff we’ve already talked about? I’m a little confused about the uses of this blog. Is this just to have a place to store all our thoughts, pre-writing, etc? To keep Wendy updated? Sometimes I don’t know how to filter info for this blog because I’m not sure whether I should exclude or make sure TO include what the three of us have already gone over or mentioned. We can talk about this next Monday.
I think I’d like to look at the material metaphors that construct users’ relationships with virtual pages, looking at two or several web sites in which users are imagined to have varying levels of web expertise (i.e. knowledge of the specific workings that the computer does to create the surface page).
I’ve been reading more descriptions of hypertext than hypertext itself. The language used to evoke and imagine a) the virtual space created by complex, for-all-intents-and-purposes immaterial processes, and b) the emergent virtual spaces that users actually interact with, is not only fascinatingly varied, but the two avenues are often conflated.
Just the verb “interact” is loaded with ambiguity (as Landow has pointed out, and as I am instantly observing in my own instantiation above…). What is the user interacting with? Obviously, it is both the complex digital processes of the computer and the resulting interface. It seems to me that writing on hypertext and digital media is, as a whole, unclear and uncertain about which level of interaction (virtual surface or their digital inner workings) really constitutes the ontological essence of the users’ relationship with hypertext. I’d like to look at the way varying levels of understanding about actual computer processing and programming affects the way the interface is conceptualized as a virtual space.
SO WHAT WEBSITES AM I GOING TO USE????
Also: we noticed in our meeting that mine and Adrian’s interests (and I’m sure Nick’s) constitute an interesting inverse: for him, virtual/digital/internet mapping and systems of space construction as they pertain to an unimaginable, man-made, physically existent no-place (Great Pacific Garbage Patch) VS. the imagining of virtuality as a physical place.
And lastly, I also wanted to mention the way our “Objective Facebook” discussion played into/led me to some of the things I’ve been thinking about. Just the fact of our coming up with endless ways to make the computer interface behave like other materials points to the elusivity of the virtual as a material in its own right. What are we “actually” working with? Does it matter?
One question—should we post stuff we’ve already talked about? I’m a little confused about the uses of this blog. Is this just to have a place to store all our thoughts, pre-writing, etc? To keep Wendy updated? Sometimes I don’t know how to filter info for this blog because I’m not sure whether I should exclude or make sure TO include what the three of us have already gone over or mentioned. We can talk about this next Monday.
I think I’d like to look at the material metaphors that construct users’ relationships with virtual pages, looking at two or several web sites in which users are imagined to have varying levels of web expertise (i.e. knowledge of the specific workings that the computer does to create the surface page).
I’ve been reading more descriptions of hypertext than hypertext itself. The language used to evoke and imagine a) the virtual space created by complex, for-all-intents-and-purposes immaterial processes, and b) the emergent virtual spaces that users actually interact with, is not only fascinatingly varied, but the two avenues are often conflated.
Just the verb “interact” is loaded with ambiguity (as Landow has pointed out, and as I am instantly observing in my own instantiation above…). What is the user interacting with? Obviously, it is both the complex digital processes of the computer and the resulting interface. It seems to me that writing on hypertext and digital media is, as a whole, unclear and uncertain about which level of interaction (virtual surface or their digital inner workings) really constitutes the ontological essence of the users’ relationship with hypertext. I’d like to look at the way varying levels of understanding about actual computer processing and programming affects the way the interface is conceptualized as a virtual space.
SO WHAT WEBSITES AM I GOING TO USE????
Also: we noticed in our meeting that mine and Adrian’s interests (and I’m sure Nick’s) constitute an interesting inverse: for him, virtual/digital/internet mapping and systems of space construction as they pertain to an unimaginable, man-made, physically existent no-place (Great Pacific Garbage Patch) VS. the imagining of virtuality as a physical place.
And lastly, I also wanted to mention the way our “Objective Facebook” discussion played into/led me to some of the things I’ve been thinking about. Just the fact of our coming up with endless ways to make the computer interface behave like other materials points to the elusivity of the virtual as a material in its own right. What are we “actually” working with? Does it matter?
change, blogoacknowledgement
True. It’s a good idea to remember that the US isn’t necessarily where available democratizing media is being used to harness political power to its greatest subversive potential. It’s also important to remember that the US isn’t where it’s all happening, en general.
I’ve been thinking more about Lovink’s cynical take blogs, and reading Landow’s mini-history of the shift from manuscript to print technology in the introduction to Hypertext 3.0.
As I initially pointed out to you, the point of my post wasn’t necessarily to say that blogs aren’t avenues for political subversion, but that their ubiquity and availability somehow cues us to read them as so.
Landow’s writing has pointed out two pertinent points here:
1) Technology can have contradictory and simultaneous effects on and uses in culture, which will invariably shift as time passes, and
2) Our collective memory of the historical transition from manuscript to print technology, in which an elite art became available to the masses, can shed some light on the way an even further disseminated technology of publication (i.e. the internet) is being read.
Basically, based on the democratizing effect that print technology had in re-mediating the manuscript, it makes sense that we would initially (and still) view blogs and other web tools for self-publishing as intimidatingly, perhaps anarchically democratizing (and therefore, politically powerful).
However, as Landow points out, there is no reason that media developments should follow the same patterns or expand upon the effects of previous media transitions. I tentatively believe, therefore, that we are experiencing (in “Western” blog culture, if it makes sense to make that geographical distinction) a new kind of political and cultural effect of new media.
In the case of blogs, simply, proliferation ≠ democratization.
I’ve been thinking more about Lovink’s cynical take blogs, and reading Landow’s mini-history of the shift from manuscript to print technology in the introduction to Hypertext 3.0.
As I initially pointed out to you, the point of my post wasn’t necessarily to say that blogs aren’t avenues for political subversion, but that their ubiquity and availability somehow cues us to read them as so.
Landow’s writing has pointed out two pertinent points here:
1) Technology can have contradictory and simultaneous effects on and uses in culture, which will invariably shift as time passes, and
2) Our collective memory of the historical transition from manuscript to print technology, in which an elite art became available to the masses, can shed some light on the way an even further disseminated technology of publication (i.e. the internet) is being read.
Basically, based on the democratizing effect that print technology had in re-mediating the manuscript, it makes sense that we would initially (and still) view blogs and other web tools for self-publishing as intimidatingly, perhaps anarchically democratizing (and therefore, politically powerful).
However, as Landow points out, there is no reason that media developments should follow the same patterns or expand upon the effects of previous media transitions. I tentatively believe, therefore, that we are experiencing (in “Western” blog culture, if it makes sense to make that geographical distinction) a new kind of political and cultural effect of new media.
In the case of blogs, simply, proliferation ≠ democratization.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
blogochange
This is really a comment to Lizzie's last post, but posted up here for ease of formatting:
As for the first section, I don't think we can throw out blogging or techno-networking as low points for 'movements of change'. I think this absolutely holds true for the United States and other countries, but only because people are overall ambivalent about social change, or a digital revolution. '68, according to a lot of people, just didn't work out. So yes, I'd agree that blogging/techno-networking didn't emerge out of 'social or political movement', but I don't think there even IS a movement it could have attached to.
The situation is entirely different in other countries. Point in case: Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran.
Without Twitter and Blogging, especially with the infrastructural support of the West, this revolution either would not have happened or we wouldn't know about it (is there a difference?).
According to Clay Shirkey, "...this is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media."
There are other examples, too, though. 'Web 2.0 Para Todos' started as a convention in Bolivia to introduce Web 2.0 to the masses, as a means for subversive news and communication. In Bolivia, like other countries in South America, state control of the media isn't associated with discontent and constitutional rights as it is in the West, but with a history of repression and violence.
Here's the Indy Article and a blog post.
And then there was the violence in Kenya last year, when the government shut down cell service because 'incisive' text messages were being blindly sent throughout the country (kudos to Prof. Kay Warren).
anyway.
I'm also interested in slash fiction and the implementation of deconstructionist/structuralist/whateverist theory... are there any websites or specific examples you could link us to?
As for the first section, I don't think we can throw out blogging or techno-networking as low points for 'movements of change'. I think this absolutely holds true for the United States and other countries, but only because people are overall ambivalent about social change, or a digital revolution. '68, according to a lot of people, just didn't work out. So yes, I'd agree that blogging/techno-networking didn't emerge out of 'social or political movement', but I don't think there even IS a movement it could have attached to.
The situation is entirely different in other countries. Point in case: Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran.
Without Twitter and Blogging, especially with the infrastructural support of the West, this revolution either would not have happened or we wouldn't know about it (is there a difference?).
According to Clay Shirkey, "...this is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media."
There are other examples, too, though. 'Web 2.0 Para Todos' started as a convention in Bolivia to introduce Web 2.0 to the masses, as a means for subversive news and communication. In Bolivia, like other countries in South America, state control of the media isn't associated with discontent and constitutional rights as it is in the West, but with a history of repression and violence.
Here's the Indy Article and a blog post.
And then there was the violence in Kenya last year, when the government shut down cell service because 'incisive' text messages were being blindly sent throughout the country (kudos to Prof. Kay Warren).
anyway.
I'm also interested in slash fiction and the implementation of deconstructionist/structuralist/whateverist theory... are there any websites or specific examples you could link us to?
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
thoughts before we meet
I don't have time to fully flesh out what I've been thinking before we meet later today, but here are some things, just to get them out there--better formulation is needed to go forward, possibly to understand things in the first place.
I've been thinking about fan 'slash' fiction and the way it interacts with some things Hayles has written on the materiality of electronic writing and the body/computer relationship, as well as some writing on blogs by Geert Lovink (great name).
The early analysis of both blogs and 'slash' fiction cast both as examples of subversive discourse in critical dialogue with the mainstream. Since then, there's been considerable evidence that this is not exactly true. Blogging, observes Lovink, failed to arise out of a particular movement or social event. It seems that the increasing popularity of a uniform format for content implied the mobilization of a cohesive social force. The popularity of the specific software used for blogging, Lovink argues, does not imply a cohesive ideological position or political function. I think it's interesting that the volume of blogs "out there" both secured their presence from a critical mass standpoint (Lovink points out that blogs "exist" because of all the ones that never get any hits), as well as implying the cohesiveness of their content and its subversive intent as a form. A similar, uncritical casting of 'slash' as subversive has also been overturned by recent scholars (ex. Woledge) in favor of terms of analysis that arise out of slashers' own attitude towards what they write and why. To me, the fact that the large number of people using a specific internet medium for self-expression implies a viable presence which is read as a politically or ideologically-bound community, yet in actuality fails to capture a movement, indicates a specific and emerging practice of online networking. Blog culture seems to be a community in which the individuality of specific blogs and their disconnectedness from others is confirmed and legitimized by the fact of their ubiquity.
--
I’ve also been thinking/reading about the relationship between critical (deconstructive) theory and hypertext. The focus on the internet as a re-mediation of print technology and writing practice means that the deconstructive theorists (Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, among others) who “eerily” anticipated hypertext with their theories of language are the funnel through which many hypertext authors and theorists (usually the same people) conceive of the re-mediation of print by computer technology. This means that sometimes, although not always and not completely, hypertext writers/theorists (I’m thinking of Jenkins, Bolter, and Landow) imagine hypertext as presenting the opportunity for an unproblematic, embodied practice of signification. It’s as if the entrance of computers as a medium is a linear evolutionary move by which the limitations of print as pointed out by deconstructive theorists are now becoming the basis for a new type of reading through which the passivity of traditional readership is replaced by reading as a practice—as Bolter puts it, the computer is “not a metaphor for but a technology of signification” (Bolter, 177). It seems like the activity and interaction inherent to experiencing hypertext is conflated with a consciousness of its mode of existence.
A lot of focus is placed on text/work as distinguished by Barthes, and on the "author function" as elaborated by Foucault. To collapse and summarize the two, work is defined as the part that correlates with the author function (which is the concept of the author as distinct from referential individual, associated with origin, root of meaning, or conversely with lack or absence--both, points out Foucault, construct him as essential and central to the work). The text, on the other hand, is supposedly distinct from the boundary defined by the limits of the author function as it influences and borders the work, a formless and borderless play of signs and meanings. With someone like Bolter, it seems that he believes that the medium of the internet makes all previously-bounded "works" into "texts." But by privileging the idea of sequence, the experience of reading, the idea of exit and entry point, the text as a cohesive body (if only made cohesive by various readings), hypertext theorists are identifying the physicalization of a series of metaphors about and guiding principles of print form without necessarily changing the "mode of existence" of a hermeneutic text.
And a question: Can writing as a practice be imagined without conceptions of the work, of the author function? Aren't things posted on message boards, etc., more like utterances than compositions, if we're going by Foucault's definitions?
Also: is there really any forum on the web for the kind of generative content I'm hoping to work with??
I've been thinking about fan 'slash' fiction and the way it interacts with some things Hayles has written on the materiality of electronic writing and the body/computer relationship, as well as some writing on blogs by Geert Lovink (great name).
The early analysis of both blogs and 'slash' fiction cast both as examples of subversive discourse in critical dialogue with the mainstream. Since then, there's been considerable evidence that this is not exactly true. Blogging, observes Lovink, failed to arise out of a particular movement or social event. It seems that the increasing popularity of a uniform format for content implied the mobilization of a cohesive social force. The popularity of the specific software used for blogging, Lovink argues, does not imply a cohesive ideological position or political function. I think it's interesting that the volume of blogs "out there" both secured their presence from a critical mass standpoint (Lovink points out that blogs "exist" because of all the ones that never get any hits), as well as implying the cohesiveness of their content and its subversive intent as a form. A similar, uncritical casting of 'slash' as subversive has also been overturned by recent scholars (ex. Woledge) in favor of terms of analysis that arise out of slashers' own attitude towards what they write and why. To me, the fact that the large number of people using a specific internet medium for self-expression implies a viable presence which is read as a politically or ideologically-bound community, yet in actuality fails to capture a movement, indicates a specific and emerging practice of online networking. Blog culture seems to be a community in which the individuality of specific blogs and their disconnectedness from others is confirmed and legitimized by the fact of their ubiquity.
--
I’ve also been thinking/reading about the relationship between critical (deconstructive) theory and hypertext. The focus on the internet as a re-mediation of print technology and writing practice means that the deconstructive theorists (Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, among others) who “eerily” anticipated hypertext with their theories of language are the funnel through which many hypertext authors and theorists (usually the same people) conceive of the re-mediation of print by computer technology. This means that sometimes, although not always and not completely, hypertext writers/theorists (I’m thinking of Jenkins, Bolter, and Landow) imagine hypertext as presenting the opportunity for an unproblematic, embodied practice of signification. It’s as if the entrance of computers as a medium is a linear evolutionary move by which the limitations of print as pointed out by deconstructive theorists are now becoming the basis for a new type of reading through which the passivity of traditional readership is replaced by reading as a practice—as Bolter puts it, the computer is “not a metaphor for but a technology of signification” (Bolter, 177). It seems like the activity and interaction inherent to experiencing hypertext is conflated with a consciousness of its mode of existence.
A lot of focus is placed on text/work as distinguished by Barthes, and on the "author function" as elaborated by Foucault. To collapse and summarize the two, work is defined as the part that correlates with the author function (which is the concept of the author as distinct from referential individual, associated with origin, root of meaning, or conversely with lack or absence--both, points out Foucault, construct him as essential and central to the work). The text, on the other hand, is supposedly distinct from the boundary defined by the limits of the author function as it influences and borders the work, a formless and borderless play of signs and meanings. With someone like Bolter, it seems that he believes that the medium of the internet makes all previously-bounded "works" into "texts." But by privileging the idea of sequence, the experience of reading, the idea of exit and entry point, the text as a cohesive body (if only made cohesive by various readings), hypertext theorists are identifying the physicalization of a series of metaphors about and guiding principles of print form without necessarily changing the "mode of existence" of a hermeneutic text.
And a question: Can writing as a practice be imagined without conceptions of the work, of the author function? Aren't things posted on message boards, etc., more like utterances than compositions, if we're going by Foucault's definitions?
Also: is there really any forum on the web for the kind of generative content I'm hoping to work with??
Monday, July 6, 2009
click chains, robot interlocutors
Adrian - I showed this to Lizzie but thought it might interest you too: http://www.daniel-everett.com/search.html
He used the hit tracker on his site to trace back hits to the google search queries that ultimately led to his site and made little installations about them. Mapping chains of clicks... Reminds me of that game people play where they get two seemingly completely unrelated topics on Wikipedia and race from one to the other by only clicking page links on successive Wikipedia pages.
Lizzie - I want to think more about conversations with SmarterChild and other instant message robots. He himself is "dead" now but look at the "definitions" of him on urban dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=smarterchild
The overwhelming favorite is:
He used the hit tracker on his site to trace back hits to the google search queries that ultimately led to his site and made little installations about them. Mapping chains of clicks... Reminds me of that game people play where they get two seemingly completely unrelated topics on Wikipedia and race from one to the other by only clicking page links on successive Wikipedia pages.
Lizzie - I want to think more about conversations with SmarterChild and other instant message robots. He himself is "dead" now but look at the "definitions" of him on urban dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=smarterchild
The overwhelming favorite is:
| smarterchild | 4439 up, 321 down   | |
| A pretentious robot who believes it's better than you, that spends its time on IM messaging services provided by AOL. The worst part about SmarterChild is that you can't cause any real harm to it when it invariably irks you off. | ||
Sunday, July 5, 2009
A few things
Adrian, you might be interested in this. I haven't tried it yet since it doesn't work on Firefox but it was described in the book Wendy gave me as something like "a browser that shows entire websites at once" and is trying, in a internet-sonar-type way to make a database of every single web page on the internet. www.c5corp.com/1to1
Also for Adrian: Trevor Paglen photographs the satellites -- http://www.paglen.com/pages/projects/other_night/index.html
Lizzie, I think you'll be into this too. It's a bit choose-your-own-adventure-ish: http://www.teleportacia.org/war/war.html
Now some half-ideas I've had recently:
The discussion in the aforementioned book (I don't have it with me which is why I keep referring to it this way) on telecommunications having converted space into time in terms of data transference reminded me of the photo-finishes from track events where the runners are all photographed individually at the moment they cross the finish line but the images of all of them are shown on the same page with the relative distance between them being the amount of time between their finishes, with time as the x axis. Here's a good example: http://coachdeanhebert.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/100-photo-finish.jpg
I guess it is really sort of the opposite of telecommunications in the sense that it converts time back into space.
An "objective facebook" where users create the pages of their "friends" instead of their own pages. The obligation/responsibility of the user is to portray their friends accurately. The only control over one's own page is the ability to choose who one's friend are. Each item on a person’s page is easily traceable to its author so there is accountability. What about disagreements among users about how their friends should be portrayed? Lizzie suggested not being able to see one's own page and having to get someone else to show it to you if you are ever going to see it. Do you think this would function more as a social experiment, a therapeutic social exercise, or could it actually be something people enjoy using and find a purpose for? Considering the amount of work it would take to create anything like this that is remotely functional, this is probably just a theoretical proposition but to me it's an interesting idea.
Also for Adrian: Trevor Paglen photographs the satellites -- http://www.paglen.com/pages/projects/other_night/index.html
Lizzie, I think you'll be into this too. It's a bit choose-your-own-adventure-ish: http://www.teleportacia.org/war/war.html
Now some half-ideas I've had recently:
The discussion in the aforementioned book (I don't have it with me which is why I keep referring to it this way) on telecommunications having converted space into time in terms of data transference reminded me of the photo-finishes from track events where the runners are all photographed individually at the moment they cross the finish line but the images of all of them are shown on the same page with the relative distance between them being the amount of time between their finishes, with time as the x axis. Here's a good example: http://coachdeanhebert.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/100-photo-finish.jpg
I guess it is really sort of the opposite of telecommunications in the sense that it converts time back into space.
An "objective facebook" where users create the pages of their "friends" instead of their own pages. The obligation/responsibility of the user is to portray their friends accurately. The only control over one's own page is the ability to choose who one's friend are. Each item on a person’s page is easily traceable to its author so there is accountability. What about disagreements among users about how their friends should be portrayed? Lizzie suggested not being able to see one's own page and having to get someone else to show it to you if you are ever going to see it. Do you think this would function more as a social experiment, a therapeutic social exercise, or could it actually be something people enjoy using and find a purpose for? Considering the amount of work it would take to create anything like this that is remotely functional, this is probably just a theoretical proposition but to me it's an interesting idea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)