Pertinent Article

The future of books.

This is neat

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=137053719

CYBORGTASTIC

and quite reminiscnet of Neuromancer, I must say.

http://techflesh.com/9-implants-that-make-human-healthy-body-even-more-useful/

Final Exam

“Reading w/ the Digital Human” Course Description

One of Marx's main ideas is that of “historical materialism;" he argues that, rather than ideas, it is the technological developments of an age which change human societies and thus human beings. The spinning jenny brought the Industrial Revolution, and the computer brought what many have come to call the Digital age. The press is no longer the printing press, but the barrage of online and television news outlets—Facebook and Twitter included. The e-mail has replaced “snail mail,” and for some, the internet itself has come to dominate their personal communications so much so as to have almost replaced the “human community.” But what is the human being and what is the human community? Can there be a set of “criteria” that determine whether a human society is functional or dysfunctional? And how do the digital technologies affect the functionality of these societies? In this class, we will explore these questions using texts from the fields of literature, sociology, philosophy, critical theory, and even the blogosphere. One such text is McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage, a book which is itself multi-media in its format, and which deals with pressing questions of the human and the environment, and how the new media come to define the new “global community” that we find ourselves living in right now. It claims that we live in a more participative society; is this still true, or has the internet made us more passive?

We will also challenge, then, what constitutes “reading,” and the importance of reading, and thinking, and most of all, thinking critically, within ever-changing social contexts so that we may achieve a better awareness of our world and a better way to live (actively) in it.

Book: “Pluto” by Urusawa/Tezuka

Synopsis:

Mainly because of Hollywood, we often equate robots with apocalyptic settings. But what about the notion of a robot designed to be completely selfless? In Pluto, we see a modern-day incarnation of Tezuka's “Atom,” the selfless robot. Set in a highly developed world, Pluto commences when a serial killer begins to murder the “greatest robots of the earth,” often beloved robots responsible for much of society's progress.

Some questions for discussion:

The story provides ground to discuss some questions about “humanity” and the “human community.”

1. As robots became more advanced, they were allowed more into human society (ie, the “robot bill of rights”). As a result, there has been a backlash of (racist?) humans who form groups like the anti-robot KKK, etc. How plausible do you think this scenario is? Which side would you take?

2. We see robots “acting like” humans (as Atom does when he pretends to eat ice cream) without experiencing any of the “actual” human feelings. What does this say to the concept of “human” as a social construction?

3. Robots often exchange their “memory chips,” literally containing all their lives' memories. Where is the robot's soul? And where is the human soul?

Final Exam

Course Description:
We are living during an intersection of old and new technology. We are uniquely poised to view the coming world and see how it supplants or enriches what our experience of the world has been. Marshall McLuhan shows us how our mediation of information shapes our reception. Baudrillard expresses our concerns with how our reality is shaped and shapes itself and us. The iPad is an excellent representation of new technology but is in no way unique. It is, however, indicative of the sea change taking place in media and technology.
By “reading” the iPad by reading texts we engage and take part in understanding the future of things to come. The future is now so to speak and we would be remiss not to explore it. We will look into this world through the lens of fiction, theory, and research. We will seek to see not how we are shaping technology but how it is shaping us.
Neither the iPad nor the student is an independent subject separate from each other. We will explore what it means to be human but also put pressure on the need for this distinction. How do we express our human-ness? How does the iPad cyborgize us and us it? At what point are we do we stop being human and become defined by our prostheses? William Gibson’s Neuromancer explored this concept in a fictive dystopian world. We are living in a reality that is not far removed from this fiction. It is time to start looking at the state of humanity and understanding that it is as dynamic and shifting as technology.
Ancillary Text:
In order to more fully understand the enmeshing of humanity into this digital age it is necessary to read Simians, Cyborgs & Women and particularly “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” by Donna Haraway. It will allow us a theoretical perspective from which to look at the dichotomies not only of machinery and humanity but also that of man and beast and reality and fantasy. It will critique the idea of the holism of nature and how in fact “By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short we are cyborgs.” She will help us dispel the rumor of our untainted humanity and force us to see that we are not only cyborgs now but that we have been for quite some time. Her work shows how we have become a sort of hybrid species equally well adapted for both the natural and unnatural world. We are post-human and advancing.

Jeffrey Muir

Final Exam-Chris Langer

Through Reading W/ the Digital Human, our class confronted the quickly changing world of technology. To what extent are these conventions, reading with paperback books, merely just habituated muscle memory actions that just need to be readjusted. We have naturalized the experience, and part of this class was talking the nostalgia that is reading. How can we get over the passage of the medium and appreciate the content, as opposed to the medium? When did we move past it with paper? It is relatively new, and was seen as an impediment to thoughts and speech at first invention. The habituation of new tasks is the new challenge. What we are experiencing through this transition is a movement from a work to text. Barthes describes a work as “concrete, occupying a portion of book-space,” with the being experienced “only in an activity, a production.” The book is transcending, the novel can cut across works; the medium has changed. This class delved into the world of technology, explored the pyramid of the e-book, and looked forward into what could be the future of learning institutions, as we know it. One of the main fallacies of the rise of digital technology is that technology has lost a human aspect. No technology is “human-less,” and by absorbing new features and implementing them in different fields, technology only furthers human progress. Our study through the Ipad broadened our scope into the penetration of technology in our world.

Additional Text.
I would add Michael Foucault’s “Of Other Spaces” to the syllabus, using it to show the implication of the Ipad as a space itself, something unlike other, but also playing off the influences of the past. Foucault describes a heterotopia, an other space that embodies the functions of society it resides in. A heterotopia is able to, according to the third principle, “juxtapose in a single real space several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible.” An e-book is a representation of this, with it’s ability to bring in multiple forms of medium into one, whether it be the video, audio, or text, the e-book brings all of these together.

Final Exam

Reading (W/) the Digital Human is a course which examines the different ways technology has contributed to our understanding of what it means to be human. Through Massumi, we examined how technology functions as a partial subject, and is therefore crucial to our existence as humans. What Technology Wants provided another (and, some would argue, overly rigid) framework for understanding the role technology plays in the lives of humans. Both of these works had in common a similar tendency to define by interdefining—humanity was defined in relation to other animals as well as technology, and in the case of What Technology Wants, the characteristics of technology were compared incessantly to those of other life forms to establish patterns between different kinds of being, and also to examine the differences. It would appear that it is impossible to define any type of being without reference to other types of being. In support of this observation, Parables for the Virtual offered a metaphysics in which no being was complete unto itself and each only existed as a “partial subject,” a being with the ability to interact with other beings. It was this interaction that defined the different sorts of being; in the same way, humans are defined not by their own existence, but by how they interact with other existent beings. By examining the ways in which humans interact with technology, Reading (W/) the Digital Human created a long, messy web of (inter)defintion for what it means to be human.

The obvious choice for a text to be added to this course would be Donna Haraway’s “A Manifesto for Cyborgs,” which lays a philosophical foundation for cyborg existence (as Neuromancer could be said to provide a practical model of how cyborg existence might become possible). Haraway embraces a more interactive definition of humanity, purged of the mythical essential human—a cyborg culture would be based on the assumption that we were all born (created) “a hybrid of machine and organism”. To be human (or to be existent) is to be a cyborg, a shifting web of “contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes”. For a cyborg, to exist is not to be a whole—it is to be interdefined, to contain and be contained by other existences.

Final Exam

Reading (w/) the Digital Human is, I believe, primarily concerned with dispelling the myth of real versus virtual (a dichotomy pervasive in our culture) and that digital technology represents a ‘new’ (or even better or worse) form of human existence. By starting with the iPad and e-books, we as English majors confronted a topic close to home: The paper book versus the digital copy and whether one is more physical or “real” than the other. This was opened up to the wider field of the digital age including art, music, and social media. It seemed to me that the culmination of the class occurred in Brian Massumi’s Parables of the Virtual, which made clear that all experience is virtual to some degree because of our mind’s reliance on prostheses; using a computer is not that far removed from typing with your hands or viewing through eyes. Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler further drew attention to this mediation and sense of space. It was a physical book that drew attention to its own virtuality and our placement within that strata. Another theme we spent time exploring was what place means in regards to new media; For example, where are you when you are on the internet? You seem to inhabit both, say, a book store and the uncomfortable low backed chair you are sitting in. There are also servers that that data you are browsing seem to physically inhabit. We discussed what this may mean for our consciousness; unfortunately, it became quite clear that there are no easy answers.

I would choose to add what is pretty consistently considered one of the greatest narrative video games of all time, Deus Ex, to the class syllabus. This allows us to explore a different type of digital narrative and media, one that was only touched upon in class when we discussed the “choose your own adventure” stories. What are the differences between an e-book and game? Are the two blending? Further, the game’s story directly deals with themes of prosthesis and the evolution of technologies. It is also steeped in post-cyberpunk culture, thus making William Gibson’s Neuromancer the perfect lead in.

-Andrew Maxwell

Final Exam Essay

Reading (w/) the Digital Human is a course that explores the socio-digital culture that our generation is immersed in.  Particularly in the Western world, society is co-dependent on the technological advances that have happened within the last several decades.  This dependence is seen not only through the physical objects such as cell phones, computers, or e-readers.  However, it is seen within out language, education institutions, and perspectives. Both Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants, as we read in  Marc Prensky’s “Digital Native, Digital Immigrants,” understand techné on varying levels, but society as a whole still sees in terms of their digital dependence. 

Therefore this course was important in understanding the effects that the digital age has had on us and vice versa.  Furthermore, technology will keep advancing in the coming years and future generations so it is imperative to not only understanding but embracing.  If our society thinks in terms of techné then we must utilize it. 

The iPad allowed for this utilization.  I was able to use the iPad in terms of my classes, my scheduling, and social media.  From the beginning of the academic year until now I have a heightened awareness of my digital dependence and can think in terms of it at a scholarly level.      

One of the additional reading I would have added to the class is Crash by J.G. Ballard.  It is a book that would have fit perfectly with the course description. It is about James Ballard who becomes close to a man, Vaughan, and both show each other sexuality in automobile crashes.  This sexuality progresses and forms into a issue of dependency.  The men, and certain women, in the narrative are addicted to technology and can only experience pleasure through violence in cars.

Reading (w/) the Digital Human Tentative Syllabus

Course Description
The goal of this course is to examine, challenge, and dissect the word “human” and the terms and conditions under which we (as a society) use this word. We will attempt to deconstruct “human” by discussion of what it means to be “human,” especially through our exploration of the “human” within common (though perhaps misapplied) dichotomies (i.e., human vs. machine, real vs. digital, human vs. environment). As the name of the course suggests, we will not only be attempting to “read with the digital human,” gauging how we should understand our increasingly digitized environment and the issues that come with it (for example, planned obsolescence, gatekeepers of information, movement between realms of physical and digital, generational gaps, etc.), but also to “read the digital human,” investigating how we have been programmed by the technology that we (as a society) have created. In order to achieve these goals, we will read and discuss several texts over the course of the semester, ranging from theoretical essays to short stories. For example, will examine William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer, and discuss how its setting, characters, and themes challenge accepted notions of reality and humanity. In this particular novel, we will look at the ontology of prosthetics insomuch as humans use prosthetics (i.e., drugs, body modification, the Internet) to implement or otherwise alter “reality” and “traditional human experience.” Students will hopefully come away from this course having learned to question and to deconstruct the given; rather than assuming, “I am human,” students should ask themselves, “What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be living? What is reality? Why do these terms matter?”.

Required Reading
Neuromancer by William Gibson
“A Cyborg Manifesto” by Donna Haraway (Available on BB under “Course Materials”)

Justification for Reading
We will be reading “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” by Donna Haraway. In this essay, Haraway criticizes modern social structure (from a feminist standpoint) by arguing that the term “human” is irrelevant because humans have become “cyborgs” (which she defines as, “creatures simultaneously animal and machine, who populate worlds ambiguously natural and crafted”). This reading has been selected because of Haraway’s close examination of dichotomies (human vs. animal, human vs. machine, science fiction vs. reality, etc.), which results in the deconstruction of the term “human,” a term that is called into question by the very nature of this class.

Recommended Reading
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Justification for Recommended Reading
I have chosen to include two novels (Frankenstein and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), which are not required, but which focus on themes relevant to the objections of Reading (w/) the Digital Human. Both of the listed novels question the meaning of the term “human” by depicting technically non-human creatures (Frankenstein’s monster, Replicants), which seem to display a greater scope of human emotions to a greater intensity than actual human characters. These novels beg to know whether it is possible for a creature to be more human than human and whether the accepted system for differentiating human from non-human is intrinsically flawed. I believe that either (or both) of these novels would serve as excellent supplements to Haraway's Cyborg Theory.

AI and the Uncanny: Presentation Post

As simulacra of humanity approach that of a real live person we experience an increase in affinity with said simulacra—but only to a point. For instance, we have no problem with a character like C-3P0, because although he behaves like a human he bears only the most passing resemblance to a person. The epitome of the uncanny valley is a corpse, because while it looks just like a living person, it lacks that requisite humanity. The same is true of robots, androids and cinema. Humans like to try and emulate human emotion and expression, and as of now, artificial intelligence is far from perfect, though that won’t stop scientists from trying to obtain “more human than human” perfection. Latest AI scientists seek to program computers (and thus robots) with cognitive thought so that a computer will have the ability to visibly read--and understand--the expressions on the user's face. With a flick of the user's finger or a tightening in his lips, a computer may soon be able to read these motions as "angry," and react accordingly. For some people, advanced technology such as this will be world-breaking, exciting, a new way of approaching our more mechanic counterparts; for others, however, the mere thought of computers with cognitive thought is downright frightening and shocking. The uncanny valley is really an uncanny wall in which those who strive to create a human that is "more human than human" will continuously face a Zeno's paradox situation in which no matter how close an animator or sculptor gets he will never reach perfection.
This might be in part explained by Kristeva’s theory of abjection—that humans are repulsed by those objects which challenge our sense of boundaries and limits. Things which come from the body but are not alive, which are part of oneself but simultaneously not part of oneself, meet this criterion, and according to Kristeva this explains the disgust of a human when viewing spit, dung, or other forms of bodily discharge. Similarly, androids who approach, but do not reach, a human appearance may fall into a gulf which challenges our perceptions of what it is to be human. Androids force us to acknowledge the fact that we are cyborgs, and differ from our machines in degree, not in kind. This terrifying (and liberating) revelation has led to a new late-20th and 21st century conception of intelligence and consciousness as detached from any specific state of matter (such as the human body)—the posthuman is a construct which we use to understand our existence as cyborgs, and to try to reframe the paradigms through which we understand our existence in relation to other beings, both living and mechanical.
That being said, it is also important to realize that while AI is still imperfect, it is constantly improving, and as it continues to improve, it constantly challenges our conception of what it means to be human and blurs the lines between human and computer. In our presentation, we used examples like the computer-generated post-modern essay and the Turing test using the Internet chatbot A.L.I.C.E. to show how difficult it can be to distinguish between human and something else—something robotic, something computer-generated, something virtual, something other. So, if we can’t tell the difference between human and this robotic other, what is the difference, and why does it matter? Maybe there is no difference. Perhaps it is already irrelevant. As Timothy Morton puts it, “The brilliance of Blade Runner, and of Frankenstein, is not so much to point out that artificial life and intelligence are possible, but that human life already is this artificial intelligence.” Maybe that’s the most terrifying thing about the uncanny valley; the closer humans get to being able to successfully replicate what is human, the more our notion of what it means to be human is obliterated.

--Jeffrey, Maria, Amelie, and Holly

"Everything is Amazing and Nobody's Happy:" Louis CK on the Modern World and the Eternally Unsatisfied Human Being

Here's a humorous bit on people being ungrateful that our amazing technology can sometimes be... a little less amazing.

Creeptastic.

Funny story... while I was logging into blogger to post this article, Google checked with me to make sure it had my correct phone number. When did I give Google my phone number? ...oh, wait, I have an Android. Yeah, that'll be it.

A Blogga My Own

So I've been working on this blog now. It purports to be on "stories, as long as they're told." Check it out if you want.

http://roundaboutstorytelling.blogspot.com

Statistical Error in Hikikimori Presentation

In the presentation, I mistakenly said that 10% of the Japanese population were hikikimori. I had gotten this statistic from a Japanese video, but I read it mistakenly. The actual number are thus:

According to psychologist Tamaki Saitō, who first coined the phrase, there may be one million hikikomori in Japan, representing 20% of all male adolescents in Japan, or 1% of the total Japanese population.

From: Saitō, Tamaki. 1998. Shakaiteki Hikikomori (Social Withdrawal). Tokyo: PHP kenkyuujyo.

Sorry for the confusion. It's still a big number, though.

Related news in America:

Neglected child dies while parents play World of Warcraft: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2005/06/547.ars

Teenager goes into convulsions after playing World of Warcraft computer game for 24 hours: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1086700/Boy-goes-convulsions-playing-World-Warcraft-24-hours-straight.html#ixzz1JWxgN9eb

Broken Heart

My first stop motion attempt.
Snow Patrol, Headlights On Dark Roads

Simularea and the World of Art

 

 

CaitEmma

Erik Johansson

Erik Johansson

Cole Rise

Cole Rise

Dove Evolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXf8fr0Kp3Q
GirlTalk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JBAxkZun3s&feature=related

READING FOR TUESDAY APRIL 12

Hey guys,
We were hoping that everyone could take a look at these two short articles before our presentation tomorrow. Both of them are pretty short and straightforward, so please look over them enough to be able to participate in class discussion. We decided to choose an article from Science Daily and a more theoretical article that incorporates Baudrillard's simulacra and has a few references to a few other things we've talked about in class. We chose these reading because our project is dealing with Artificial Intelligence, and we thought that it would be interesting to look at how A.I. can be applied to Baudrillard and the simulacra. A few things that you may want to ask yourself when you are reading: How do androids, cyborgs, and robots (as depicted in the Science Daily article or otherwise) relate back to simulacra as used by Long (and Baudrillard)? How does Long's opening statement that "the truth is meaningless" apply to simulacra and artificial intelligence? How could Long's article be used to dissect Veskler's claim in Science Daily that robots can be used to better understand human problems?

Here is the link to the Science Daily Article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101230114808.htm

And I'm having trouble getting the link to Long's article to work, but it's short, so I'll just copy + paste it here:
The Stone Door: Rationalism, Baudrillardist simulacra and surrealism
Stefan E. Long
Department of Literature, University of Oregon

1. Neotextual capitalism and Lacanist obscurity

“Truth is meaningless,” says Sontag; however, according to Abian[1] , it is not so much truth that is meaningless, but rather the economy, and subsequent collapse, of truth. But in Foucault’s Pendulum, Eco examines surrealism; in The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, however, he affirms the capitalist paradigm of narrative. The subject is contextualised into a surrealism that includes sexuality as a paradox.

“Sexual identity is part of the dialectic of narrativity,” says Lacan. Thus, if Lacanist obscurity holds, the works of Eco are reminiscent of Koons. Lyotard uses the term ‘pretextual dialectic theory’ to denote a self-justifying whole.

But de Selby[2] implies that we have to choose between Lacanist obscurity and subcultural Marxism. In Ulysses, Joyce reiterates patriarchial predialectic theory; in A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, although, he deconstructs surrealism.

However, Bataille promotes the use of capitalist desituationism to analyse and read sexual identity. A number of discourses concerning surrealism may be discovered.

But the premise of Lacanist obscurity holds that consciousness is capable of significance. Foucault suggests the use of surrealism to deconstruct sexism.

2. Expressions of defining characteristic

“Class is impossible,” says Debord; however, according to Finnis[3] , it is not so much class that is impossible, but rather the genre of class. Thus, the subject is interpolated into a capitalist desituationism that includes language as a reality. Sartre promotes the use of the postcapitalist paradigm of discourse to modify sexual identity.

If one examines surrealism, one is faced with a choice: either reject cultural theory or conclude that expression must come from communication, but only if Derrida’s model of Lacanist obscurity is valid; if that is not the case, Bataille’s model of capitalist desituationism is one of “subcapitalist rationalism”, and hence intrinsically used in the service of capitalism. It could be said that the subject is contextualised into a conceptualist materialism that includes truth as a whole. The characteristic theme of the works of Joyce is the dialectic, and some would say the absurdity, of postcultural class.

“Sexual identity is part of the failure of consciousness,” says Foucault. Thus, the example of surrealism depicted in Joyce’s Dubliners is also evident in A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, although in a more mythopoetical sense. Bataille suggests the use of structuralist subcapitalist theory to attack sexism.

If one examines surrealism, one is faced with a choice: either accept textual objectivism or conclude that the goal of the participant is deconstruction. It could be said that if Lacanist obscurity holds, we have to choose between capitalist desituationism and the postconstructive paradigm of narrative. Derrida uses the term ‘surrealism’ to denote the role of the artist as reader.

“Society is fundamentally dead,” says Debord. But the primary theme of de Selby’s[4] critique of the dialectic paradigm of discourse is the common ground between sexual identity and reality. The premise of capitalist desituationism implies that academe is capable of significant form.

The characteristic theme of the works of Joyce is the collapse, and subsequent futility, of postcapitalist sexual identity. Therefore, Lyotard promotes the use of surrealism to analyse and challenge class. La Fournier[5] suggests that we have to choose between Lacanist obscurity and precapitalist textual theory.

However, an abundance of discourses concerning the bridge between society and class exist. Surrealism states that expression is created by the collective unconscious.

It could be said that Debord uses the term ‘postdialectic construction’ to denote the rubicon, and some would say the economy, of cultural sexual identity. If surrealism holds, we have to choose between the substructuralist paradigm of reality and textual desituationism.

Therefore, Sartre suggests the use of surrealism to attack outmoded, colonialist perceptions of society. The subject is interpolated into a precapitalist conceptual theory that includes narrativity as a totality.

It could be said that Geoffrey[6] holds that the works of Joyce are not postmodern. Lyotard promotes the use of Lacanist obscurity to read truth.

Therefore, Sartre uses the term ‘Derridaist reading’ to denote the difference between society and class. If surrealism holds, we have to choose between capitalist desituationism and the subcapitalist paradigm of consensus.

But the subject is contextualised into a Lacanist obscurity that includes narrativity as a reality. The main theme of Abian’s[7] model of capitalist desituationism is not deconstruction, as surrealism suggests, but subdeconstruction.

In a sense, many theories concerning postcultural feminism may be found. The primary theme of the works of Joyce is a self-sufficient totality.

But Reicher[8] states that we have to choose between Lacanist obscurity and predeconstructivist narrative. The subject is interpolated into a dialectic paradigm of context that includes sexuality as a reality.

3. Surrealism and neocapitalist theory

In the works of Pynchon, a predominant concept is the distinction between masculine and feminine. However, in Vineland, Pynchon affirms capitalist desituationism; in Mason & Dixon he reiterates Baudrillardist hyperreality. If surrealism holds, we have to choose between neocapitalist theory and cultural discourse.

But Debord suggests the use of surrealism to challenge hierarchy. La Fournier[9] holds that we have to choose between neocapitalist theory and dialectic narrative.

It could be said that the main theme of Prinn’s[10] essay on capitalist desituationism is not, in fact, construction, but preconstruction. If surrealism holds, the works of Fellini are postmodern.

1. Abian, C. W. S. ed. (1976) Capitalist desituationism in the works of Eco. Panic Button Books

2. de Selby, E. J. (1995) The Absurdity of Language: Surrealism in the works of Joyce. University of Georgia Press

3. Finnis, G. F. L. ed. (1989) Structuralist desublimation, surrealism and rationalism. Loompanics

4. de Selby, T. H. (1994) Reassessing Expressionism: Surrealism and capitalist desituationism. Panic Button Books

5. la Fournier, K. ed. (1977) Capitalist desituationism and surrealism. Harvard University Press

6. Geoffrey, N. P. L. (1993) Discourses of Genre: Surrealism in the works of Joyce. University of Michigan Press

7. Abian, P. ed. (1974) Surrealism and capitalist desituationism. O’Reilly & Associates

8. Reicher, Y. G. B. (1998) Dialectic Discourses: Capitalist desituationism in the works of Pynchon. Oxford University Press

9. la Fournier, P. ed. (1974) Capitalist desituationism and surrealism. Schlangekraft

10. Prinn, Z. U. H. (1986) The Collapse of Narrative: Capitalist desituationism in the works of Fellini. Yale University Press

David Bordwell Says DVD's Have Made Movies More Like Books

In the following blog post/essay (slippery nomenclature! whee!), renowned film critic David Bordwell (anybody who's taken a class with Dr. McCormack knows about him) asks the question: To what extent has the DVD changed viewing habits and movie storytelling?

He goes on to entertain and defend the notion that the DVD made a movie more like a book.

I think this is appropriate for the blog because he is referring to that point that McLuhan made, "all media work us over completely," a point that we've also been discussing in the classroom.

So now, ironically, we read movies more like books; or, according to Bordwell, we have the ability to do so. How, in light of his insight, should we think about the notion of seeing media as something that "progress?" I'll leave you guys with a quote and then a link to the article:

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2007/05/13/new-media-and-old-storytelling/

This sounds odd, because we think of digital media as replacing print. Yet consider the similarities. You can read a book any way you please, skimming or skipping, forward or backward. You can read the chapters, or even the sentences, in any order you choose. You can dwell on a particular page, paragraph, or phrase for as long as you like. You can go back and reread passages you’ve read before, and you can jump ahead to the ending. You can put the book down at a particular point and return to it an hour or a year later; the bookmark is the ultimate pause command.

More from Vancouver

Continuing from the other day, on my panel at ACLA one speaker discussed Calvino's "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler," and another speaker talked about Borges's "Library of Babel" in relation to new media memes. (My talk, of course, was on airports and the temporality of air travel.)

As I mentioned in my last post, the panel I was on was called "Defining the Postcontemporary"—and I was reminded that Brian Massumi's book "Parables for the Virtual" is one of the books in the series "Post-contemporary Interventions" that Duke University Press publishes. So, even in this loosely topical way, the panel was grappling with similar questions as our class, about what defines the present, and how we might move into a (speculative) future, without nostalgia for past forms and with open minds toward different social practices...

It was just exciting and affirming how many intersections there were, between the conference panel and our class. It made me feel really good about what we have been doing all year: even when our subject seems endlessly expansive or recklessly sloppy, even when we seem to be quibbling about fine points that simultaneously have bewildering scope, we've been on the leading edge of difficult conversations about traditional forms of knowledge and new media technologies. The conference panel made me proud of what we are doing—proud of how you all have been exploring these subjects and making connections across our complex (if all too slippery) contemporary field.

Virtually in Vancouver

I'm thinking about you all as I attend the American Comparative Literature Association conference in Vancouver this weekend...I wish you could hear how relevant our class is to current studies!

On my panel alone, which is entitled "Defining the Postcontemporary," people brought up such topics as:

"Gatekeepers"

New media memes like the "doubles guy"

Does e-reading changes the production of literature?

How is the internet an 'institution'?

I'll post again after my panel reconvenes today, as I'm sure more themes that resonate with our class are bound to come up...

Gmail Motion

Check it out!

Just a small note

So I was looking around in the app world today to see what worthless free apps I could find (they're always my favorite). I ended up with one called Grass. You can guess what it is just by the title, and yes it really is that worthless and boring. You are literally staring at a patch of grass that will move a little bit when you touch it. That's it. Nothing more to it. I just thought it would comfort everyone to know that there are worse apps than the Guru Meditation out there.

Another thing: why does this app really exist? Are there so many people in this world that never get a chance to play with actual grass so they need it on their iPad? How could anybody ever think that this could in any way simulate touching actual grass???

Orwell versus Huxley

http://forwearemany.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/huxley-vs-orwell.jpg

Hyper Hyper Text and a Flood

Greetings from a friend of a friends in a bed I've never seen with a computer thats not mine.

Alright, so I was pretty excited about tomorrow's reading (or rather today since its 3:00 am).  However, to preface this early morning post: the Carrollton Hall dorms flooded around 11:00pm.  On my floor, 6th to be exsact, down the hall there was a accident causing the fire sprinklers to go off.  The entire right side of the building is just short of destroyed. Ceiling ties, carpeting, walls, and rooms are done for. (If you think this is dramatic then you would be right. It was a scene out of Titanic.)

Students were bustling outside the emergency exits, alarms were flaring, and uniformed persons were in command.  My favorite part was when, during evacuation, I passed the room that the accident occured and saw water quickly flood out into the hallway. Yikes. Even better was seeing the side of the building from the outside seep with water and spill in mass off the brick and flood the walkways.

Chaos.
Yes. Chaos.
[Never let go Jack!]
Quite the chaos - oh - and the same type of chaos in say... "The Medium is the Message."

Alright, so I'm not sure how my life will be in the next few days so I figured I would post. Janelle told me I would like McLuhan piece since I am a huge fan of "The House of Leaves." Good call.  MM was pretty entertaining and definitely made 5 pages in the Moleskin.

So here we go...
I thought the break down of each social construct, such as family or education, was a great aspect in the beginning of the book. Along side the images filled with irony and propaganda, it was a intriguing rhetoric that McLuhan used.  Certainly (and especially since most people know of my passion for photography) the images were all at once odd, beautiful, haunting, and amiss, dare I say, simulacras? This in and of itself was a fabulous chaotic decision on McLuhan's part.  He was able to utilize photos that not only stimulated the events or people within the image, but also stimulate the sense of chaos while reading.  I found myself asking where would he take me next?

Next, the quotes held their own in the piece as well.  While the images and photography somewhat scream for attention, the quotes were dominant. For example, in a world of chaos, what would you say if asked, "Who are you?" Touche McLuhan.

Now, beyond the images and the curiously inserted quotes, the context of what McLuhan was saying follow through with what the class has been talking about. I'm sure most can agree that there was plenty of references to Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants.  Furthermore, McLuhan uses this tension of generations to explain that there is indeed a language barrier going on.  This language barrier, extending out of the electric circuit (EC), is what causes the discrepancies and fissures between those who are comfortable inside the circuit and those who are not.  Because correct me if I'm wrong, but McLuhan believes that whether one acknowledges it or not, we are all already in the EC.

Living in the EC is at once daunting and demanding.  We are daunted by the effects of EC through media, but it cannot escape it because it demands that we participate in it.  This is why Digital Immigrants, from a McLuhanian point of view, are simultaneously afraid and already within the EC.  It is quite like McLuhan's notion of the ear.  We are forever unable to turn off hearing, unless we are deaf.  Unlike the eye, there is no lid to shut it.  We have no way of shut ourselves from EC.

 [The ear is to noise as we are to media.] 

However, what happens when we embrace EC?  We cannot be released from it - our society is marinated in the technological age - but if we can come accept it what would that mean?  Because of EC McLuhan says that children are growing up faster.  True.  Because of EC our news comes immediately. True. --> Everything is fast, fast, fast.  

Great, well what does that mean? 

If I'm Tim Morton I'd say we are in the Mesh. In a way thats very true.  To a certain extent we are Meshing.  However, a distinction needs to be made.  Media isn't creating a Mesh for us.  They are not necessarily creating these "connections".  Yes, EC allows for such connections, but media and EC are perhaps only illuminating the Mesh and/or this interconnectedness.  EC is the medium through which our solidarity is revealed.  

This is what I can do at a close run to 4:00am now.  (My apologies.) Its be a hard day, if I make to Bobet it I'll be in my PJs, wish me luck, and pray to the dorm room gods. 

C

P.S. The iPad unfortunately got left behind. 

Google Books deal revoked

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12827031

This is relevant to the class' interests.

YACHT

http://vimeo.com/5860685

So, this link is to the music video for musicians/performance artists/digital media enthusiasts/whatever YACHT. It's basically an experiment in symbols without context and I thought people in this class would find it interesting. In many ways I think it's very similar to the Heavy Industries piece in that it ellicts an emotional response which is devoid of any concrete meaning.

Chapter 1

You are the Reader--the controller of the iPad. Settle back, stretch out your legs. Perhaps you enjoy shifting positions--your attention flits from one thing to another (homework to New Orleans cuisine to Stanley Fish's latest blog post), and your ever-changing position mimics your thought process. Bed. Carpeted floor. Wooden chair by the TV. You turn off the TV. Place the remote control on the chair's armrest, change your mind, lay it on the floor.

Relax. Sunlight filters into the room from the part in the curtains--too dim. Adjust the brightness of the screen. Better. You press the Home Button on the iPad with your index finger, type in your password (0523--your birthday), and go to Settings. You sit back, throw your legs over the armrest and finally breathe. Relax. Anticipate.

You have found the ideal position: the iPad is propped up against your thighs. There is a small smear in the upper-left hand corner of the screen. You attempt to ignore it as you go on the Kindle App to read. The smear catches your attention; you sigh, tug on the long sleeve of your shirt, click the iPad's screen off, and rub at the mark. Your sleeve leaves a trail of streaks across the screen. You become obsessed. You press your tongue against the cotton of your sleeve--the sleeve is now damp, the ocean blue now a navy--and you return to the screen, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing--the streaks will come off--and then you stop to admire your handiwork. There are wet streaks and dust has collected in the crevices of your iPad cover.

Your ideal position has now been compromised. You decide--with an emphatic nod to yourself--that the streaks will not bother you. (You remember that your obsession with precision and perfection led you to snapping at anyone who dog-eared your printed books...You sigh in relief at the mere thought that books are now electronically produced and you no longer have to worry about broken spines and dog-eared pages and food stains).

Willing yourself to ignore the dust, you tap the Amazon Kindle app, and your library immediately loads. Swiping your index finger from right to left across the screen, you scroll through your library. You stop at your modest collection of Pynchon novels. With the tap of your middle finger you choose Gravity's Rainbow. You have read this before (twice), but you decide that there must be something you have missed in the past. You debate whether to go through your bookmarks and notes to spark some sort of argument in your head, but you ultimately decide on starting at the beginning of the e-book: your location is 1%, 1-11.

You begin reading "Chapter 1 Beyond the Zero." You skip over the quote by Wernher von Braun and onto the first sentence. "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now."
The words are too familiar. You are having second thoughts about your selection.

It's not that you expect anything in particular from this text—you have learned that no entity is complete within itself, that no text will satisfy your craving for the ultimate text. There is no text without a sequel, an update; the ever-permeable nature of digital technology demands the constant evolution of textuality. You have learned not to expect a feeling of fulfillment at the end of a novel. You have learned to expect the novel's second edition to replace the first, with or without your consent. You have learned to save your favorite passages in a word document--one never knows when they will be altered by some unseen force. Presumably this force knows what it's doing--it may be presumptuous of you to save a scrap of text which the author wishes to alter--and you feel a pang of guilt, but still you save scraps and phrases which mean something to you, trying to preserve the relics of last year, last month, last minute.

You decide abandon your rereading of Pynchon in favor of browsing the Internet for a suggestion of something new. You open Safari and open one of your favorite blogs. Lucky for you, this blogger has just published a review of the new "digital translation" of Calvino's novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Modernized For The Digital Era! the advertisements proclaim proudly. An Ode to the Collaborative Force which is Intertextuality! Experience the Inevitable Thrill of Translation! You weren't sure what this meant, exactly, but the phrase was somehow compelling. So you opened your Kindle app and went to the bookstore. Good for you.

In the bookstore, you glance briefly at the Amazon recommendations. Your brother recently bought his textbooks on your account, and as a result your most recent recommendations are of varied content--textbooks on nuclear physics, Wodehouse novels, an interactive graphic novel by someone you've never heard of but you think your younger sister mentioned him, once. You pass these by. You have a limited amount of time. You can't go buying every book in the damn store--it would surpass the memory capacity of your iPad, for one thing.

You type Calvino's name in the search bar and allow yourself to be directed to the latest edition of If on a winter's night a traveler. A cheerful prompt informs you that others who have bought this item have also bought other novels by Calvino. You do not want other novels by Calvino. You select If on a winter's night a traveler, and you buy it.

Once you've tapped the purchase button, the iPad screen flashes to your electronic library. A small, somewhat transparent digital cover of If On a Winter's Night a Traveler appears on your shelf next to The King James Bible (free edition) and Reading Borges After Benjamin (which you bought in hopes of doing some extra reading for your Reading W/ the Digital Human class but have yet to finish). You patiently watch the little bar signifying the progress of the download of your book fill with blue. The progress bar vanishes and the cover becomes opaque.

You are now ready to begin reading Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.

For Irnerio

Book art.

Final Project Proposal

*This group had several ideas and this is one of the prospective ones.  There may be some slight changes if and when consultation with a professor is necessary. 

ERIK JOANSSON, photography and retouch artist

In a digitized world, there are several types of mutative or evolutionary social changes.  These changes can be considered both mutative and evolutionary.  This fluctuation in society is what is arguably bringing progress concerning many cultural facets.
We have talked about change social facets with music digitizing, books digitizing, to the classroom setting digitizing.  However, what happens when something as "human" as Art is digitizing?
Today, there are many forms of digital art; there is anything from digital photography, digital to stop-motion films, digital/ electronic music and the like.
Our group would like to explore the world of Art and how it is mutating and evolving from being a separate entity from the technological world to how it is embracing it and relying on it.  We will do this through an exploration of contemporary artists, different mediums with devices like the iPad, and how the Art is being presented with blogs and showcase websites.

Cait, Kalee, Joshua

Japanese Digital Culture

Japanese Digital Culture. The aura of the Japanese culture and its connection to digital media is already loaded with
content. We are going to research how a completely different culture has adopted the digital sphere, and the different
factors that have made a contribution. Japanese industries continue to dominate internationally in digital hardware
such as cameras and displays, but has fared less well in content and services. Although certain areas, like anime,
have become popular in younger cultures, they still represent subcultural niche products taht are not major
export industries for Japan. Some commentators call this the Galapagos effect, and it will be interesting to see what
factors led to the rise fo the dominance of certain digital "species."
Japan can also serve as a great example for the dangers of technology. Although it may be easy to say, "no, we're not
like them," part of our presentation would just be about asking the question: are we really not like them? If not, are we not even close?

Final Project: Chris Rolando and Elle

The Reality of the Digital Human

Final Project Proposal:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a concept that is almost as old as science-fiction itself, and our fascination with AI has only increased since its first forays into popular culture. Movies such as I, Robot and Blade Runner have shifted our attention from a mere possibility to a real threat to our reality. As a society, however, it remains to be seen if our issue with Singularity or AI or even Cognitive Robots is a matter of uncanniness. Will our asinine fascination with propelling our technologies towards these different concepts come to an abrupt stop when we are face to face with a thinking machine? Have we, in fact, already come face to face with such a machine? When do concepts such as Singularity, AI, and Cognitive Robots become too uncanny? Do these concepts expose the mechanics of human thought, or can the mechanics of human thought be brought to bear on modern technological developments? In our project, we wish to not only present these issues to the class, but to also decipher and expand upon the phrase "digital human" in an attempt to come to terms with our new reality--a reality, simultaneously liberating, alluring, and terrifying, in which thought is not by definition the exclusive domain of the homo sapien.
Tentative reading list:
Improving Cognition in Computers (US News)
New Cognitive Robotics Lab Tests Theories of Human Thought (Science Daily)
The Singularity: Humanity's Last Invention? (NPR)
Response to The Singularity: Humanity's Last Invention
I, Algorithm (New Scientist)
A Manifesto for Cyborgs (Donna Haraway)

By: Amelie Daigle, Maria Pinheiro, Jeffery Muir, and Holly Combs

Individuality of the Masses/Final Project

Our final presentation will be focused on how we implement "the individual" and aspects of technology with our digital interactions. We will use three different, well-known programs to indicate how technology has been able to become programmed to learn from and in some ways, capture aspects of humanity in the forms of "personalized programming." By using the technology we interact with everyday, programming can effectively learn from and use our own online choices to determine personalities; in a way, personalized programming is a tool in which digital culture could effectively teach technology how to understand and possibly even replicate human taste and personality. The digital media that we interact with on a daily basis is effective because we have programmed it to our individual tastes- but learning the individuality of the masses leaves us with this question: have our programming devices programmed us?

Andrew, Jonas, Terra

Ipad Dos

So, tomorrow Apple is unveiling the Ipad 2. http://gizmodo.com/#!5770645/next-weeks-apple-event-what-to-expect has the details if anyone else is interested(and a link to the live coverage that will happen tomorrow at 1:00PM).

NYT: Child Addicted to iPad

"The iPad is a magic electronic babysitter that creates instant peace in the household."

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/a-parents-struggle-with-a-childs-ipad-addiction/?src=me&ref=homepage

Jeffrey's Midterm

Using Guru Meditation I am continuously reminded of N. Katherine Hayles How We Became Posthuman. In particular I think of the passage, "The posthuman subject is an amalgam, a collection of heterogenous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction." This app foregrounds our subjectivity in a disembodied yogi. We are the floating yogi. More than just an avatar that we control in this game he (she, it, ?) is the digital representation of our heightened consciousness. It is meant to be a visual presentation of our ability to be mindfulness. Later in the same section of Hayles she cites deLeuze and Guattari and their concept of a "body without organs" which brings to mind Donna Haraway's Manifesto for Cyborgs. Guru Meditation is our meditating agent that desires our conscious engagement with a meditative state. It demands its form of meditation in order to function. Otherwise it is simply a figure sitting in a dark place. There is no way of forcing the app to show us what it will do when we obey it's needs, namely sitting still and quiet, except to comply.
Guru Meditation also fits the article "What is an app?" perfectly. Of course Bogost both wrote the article and "wrote" the app so it would stand to reason that they would coincide. Using the Guru Meditation app I think about the dictionary definition that Bogost alters to fit the actual app and not just the word. It is hard to imagine what the not-slanged and not-shortened version of this application would be, but it is easy to see how it has slanged and shortened the practice of meditation. It seems very apropos of the zen buddhist practice of running meditation. In his information section on the app Bogost imagines people using it on the bus or in a crowded place and engaging in mediation on the fly. Whereas meditation has traditionally been a practice of becoming and then remaining still, Guru Meditation condenses this. It demands immediate stillness and then encourages you to best your previous records for focus.
I am above all else frustrated by this app. I see meditation as something that you cannot do wrong. Guru Meditation on the other hand demands strict adherence to its way of being. I find myself not letting go and becoming still but increasing in agitation until I give up. In fact during today's experience with it I felt, for the first time, that it actually did reflect my mindfulness at the end. Something went awry and my app entered a sort of schizophrenic loop between the opening screen, the all black screen with the figure, and the guru on his mat. It cycled through this repeatedly while buzzing a static tone. I thought "yes, this is in fact a reflection of my state of relaxation." A constant attempt to enter a meditative state that is constantly being drawn back out to general awareness only to attempt to dive back in, with the same results each time.


I have an app called Gilt. It is an iPad app for an online clothing store that sells designer clothing and goods at discounted prices. It also has a section, Jetsetter, in which it is possible to book lavish hotel accommodations at high end resorts around the world. I find it fascinating because it is an app designed to improve upon the experience of shopping a website which in turn was designed to improve upon or at least simulate and/or replace the experience of shopping in a store.
Removing the website from the equation however it is curious to see what has happened. The app is on the third level of the simulacra. It is very really founded on the model and aims at total control. It maintains the "cart" of the real store and the "departments" to separate goods but it offers the user a seemingly all seeing and all accessible interface to them. It is founded on a concept of shopping to which there is no original. Even the department store, were there to be a brick and mortar Gilt somewhere, is founded on a fallacious idea of the marketplace. In fact the fact that Gilt does not exist as an actual place is indicative of the level of simulacra on which this app operates. It is meant to be a representation of a thing that does not exist in reality. It is a cybernetic game in which users shop a store that is not real. However, the experience of shopping Gilt influences our concept of how we shop in reality. We want the real world to reflect our ability to have unbridled access to goods like we do online. In a very real sense the experience of shopping online recreates an ideal for which there is no origin. It is a "desperate rehallucinating of the past" in which the "real" experience of shopping can never surpass the model because this real was "only the pretext for the model."
On the other hand these images of goods are indicative of the first order of simulacra. The photographs are signifiers of the actual goods. They grasp toward reality and the real object.

Holly Combs Midterm Pt. 2

Barthes has 7 conditions explaining what "Text" is to him, and I'm going to go through each one, looking at the Facebook app on my iPad in order to see where it falls on the plain of "work" and "text."
1.) Text is not a defined object, cannot be separated from work, a "methodological field" vs. something concrete, held in the language vs. held in the hand
Okay, so Facebook is definitely not a concrete object. It is held entirely in computer code language and whatever language users choose to post on their profiles. If Facebook is a text, I would not know how to go about separating it from the "work" because I'm unsure what the work could possibly be. Perhaps, if someone compiled a book entirely of Facebook statuses or Facebook notes, that would be a work, whereas Facebook would go on existing as a text.
2.) Text does not stop w/ (good) literature, not a hierarchy, cannot be classified, always paradoxical, limits rules of enunciation
It kind of makes me giggle thinking that "good" literature has any place in Facebook, and yet it must. Of the millions of people who use Facebook, some of them must be influenced by "good" literature and must post ideas founded somewhere in "good" literature. Actually, there are millions of Facebook profiles dedicated solely to "good" literature. For example, I am a fan of the David Foster Wallace page on Facebook and a fan of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. After the billions of misspelled and slanged statuses that people regularly post, I don't think that anyone would argue that Facebook stops at (good) literature. And yet, there is nothing hierarchical about the posts on Facebook. Is Robert Bell's Facebook better than mine because he has 900 friends and I only have 50? No, there is no hierarchical advantage to having more friends. Is Robert Bell's Facebook better than mine because his statuses contain well-thought out ideas communicated in multi-syllabic words and mine usually only contain the lyrics to a song I'm listening to? No, again no hierarchical value. Like many digital mediums that exist today, the text that is Facebook cannot be classified in in its entirety according to literary genre. However, the app store does easily classify the Facebook app as a "social" or "social networking" app.
3.) Text structured but decentered, no closure, serial movement of dislocations, overlappings, variations
Currently Facebook has no center and no closure. I thought at first, the "center" might be the profile screen or the homepage, but then, I realized that screen is different for every person who logs on. As of now, there is no "closure" or end to Facebook in sight. Sure, the sight may close down someday, but when that happens, it won't be the same as the closure provided by a work. If Facebook stops running, there will be nothing to look back on, no closing the cover of the book, the way that their is with a work. As for the notion of serial movement, I think this is one of the places that the term text is most applicable to Facebook. Facebook is ever-changing because people are constantly posting new ideas, information, etc. on their profiles, and new profiles are being created all the time. There may be 4 different Facebook pages for the same band or event or even the same person, and the information that people post may in some ways overlap.
4.)Text is plural/has plurality of meaning, it is like a cloth, the text can be itself only in its difference
For every user, the Facebook homescreen looks different because they are connected to different people, pages, and events. The Facebook experience differs from person to person, though some experiences may be similar. Depending on who you are, who you're friends with, what pages you follow, and when you log on, the Facebook experience can be completely altered.
5.) The text has no father figure, text=network, no respect owed to the author, author can only visit the text as a guest
As I previously mentioned, the Apple App Store, classifies Facebook as a "social networking" tool. By definition, Facebook is a network. It is a web of profiles linked together by comments, likes, pokes, messages, and other posts. Perhaps Mark Zukerberg is the founder of Facebook, but his control over what people post on Facebook is limited at this point. This is not to say that it is totally absent. Facebook gatekeepers do exist in order to ensure that users do not post anything "offensive" on their profiles.
6.) Work=object of consumption, text=activity, something to be played with
Facebooking is definitely an activity. It is a verb; it is something that people do. Users spend hours logged into Facebook chatting with their friends, updating their profiles, and posting things on friends walls. But isn't Facebook an object of consumption as well? Why this social networking site over any of the other ones? And while users are Facebooking, aren't they also taking in their friends' profiles and taking in the ads on the side of the screen?
7.) Work=pleasure of consumption, cannot be rewritten; text=inseparable from enjoyment, achieves transparency of social relations, all language circulates freely
I'm not sure where Facebook falls in the topic of enjoyment, as most Facebook users claim to hate the site while spending hours on it. However, visiting Facebook is a choice, and I'm going to argue that people would not freely choose to get on Facebook if they did not somehow feel that life would be less enjoyable if they did not have a profile. Obviously, social relations are transparent on Facebook. When I log in, my homepage shows me who has recently become friends with who and what my friends have posted on each other's walls. Also, all of my friends and their comments to me are displayed on my profile for anyone to see.
After this exercise, I feel that Facebook does not fit neatly into Barthes' critical framework in terms of his distinction between "work" and "text." Though, the Facebook app seems to be more controlled and tangible than Barthes' "text," it seems to be more text than work due to its classification as network which is constantly changing and which creates different experiences from user to user.

Midterm

Part one:
While playing the guru meditation app, I was very quickly frustrated.  First I was stuck on a dark screen with the weird, blobby guru telling me I was too loud every time I sniffled. Then when I finally got to some scenery, I guess I wasn't still enough for the picky little guru because he sent me back to square one 3 times. It was only at the very end of the seven minutes that I even got the clock to start. The entire time I felt this bizarre anger towards the little guru.  I was trying to interact with him, trying to follow the rules of his game; but he was essentially ignoring me. Instead I was left beating on his door begging him to start floating so I would at least have something to look at.
It was, admittedly, a pretty annoying 7 minutes. I wasn't relaxed at all.  I definitely feel more 'meditated' reading a book than trying to please the guru with my balance skills.  At the same time, I kept thinking about Marc Prensky's article on digital natives and digital immigrants. Which one of them would enjoy this game? Is it one that involves deep attention or hyper attention? Does it even involve attention? In his article, Prensky discusses the differences between legacy content and future content in the educational system.  Which one does guru fit into?  Should i even be trying to label it as either of these?
I just can't figure out where to situate this app. Is it an app made modern but calling back to the deep attention of the past? Or is it a modern game just trying to be original? Is it even a modern game? I guess by the standards that it involves a touch screen and sound sensitivity it is modern, but the idea for this app was born with some of the very first video games. The fact that it's a meditation app is only an homage to the very old meditation board.  
Perhaps Bathes has an explanation for my lack of definitiveness.  In 'The Death of the Author,' he talks about how the "explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it" and says that "once the Author is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes quite futile." I know that, in literature, we have not seen the death of the author.  But maybe Barthes was right.  Maybe the death of the author has come to us in the form of the app.  We don't know who is behind these things.  I don't even know who made the app I'm using now and it's never really troubled me.  I can interact with this app or my weather.com app without worry or concern about who is behind it.  But the more that I think About, the more I begin to feel like my iPad is full of    anonymous people.  
All of these apps can be read as texts.  But these these texts are different from books, magazines or movies.  We have experienced, through the iPad and other things like it, the "birth of the reader," as Barthes calls it.  There is literally no interaction with any sort of authorship in the app world.  There is no call for it.  So what about guru makes me feel unsettled? Why doesn't feel like guru needs an author?
Perhaps it is because guru really does call back to an older time.  But what would the author for an app be like anyway? Has there ever been an instance where there was an 'author' for an app? Maybe I'm even more of a digital immigrant than I thought. 

Part two:
The app I find most fascinating (I'm serious) is the app store.  I go there every day. I like to see what apps are in, what apps are out, what apps are free, what new, unnecessary thing I can do next on my iPad.  It feels like a really bizarre version of going to Forever 21. There's so much for so little and it's so overwhelming how many options I have.  So looking at Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Science Fiction," what order of the simulacra is this app? Is it natural? Well, no.  I really don't think the app store is naturally occurring.  I believe that the app store is simulacra of the second order.  It is "productive, productivist, founded on energy.". There is nothing new, original, or beyond ordinary about the app store.  While it "corresponds science fiction," in that it is truly a manifestation of the immense bounds technology has taken, it is not among the complete other and beyond that the third order identifies with. Perhaps the apps themselves are members of the third order, but the app store is simply the iPad version of any normal store.  It's format is not original.
Perhaps if the app store featured some really awesome way for me to enter in all of my interests and it would tell me apps that I like.  As it is, I search for "PDF reader" in the search bar and that's about as good as it gets.  It doesn't even do suggested apps, which amazon or barnes and noble will do for books, movies, etc.  The app store is merely a "mechanical robot machine," as Baudrillard characterizes the second order.  It does not have any sort of momentum or original power.  It is simply the iPad version of Forever 21, complete with a sales rack.