Week 5 Media Ecologies - Augmented and Virtual Realities

Augmented reality and virtual reality bring to fruition objects that do not materially exist. (Wikipedia, 2010)We could assume this of our own temporal realities in that the only things that exist are those that illicit some kind of physical or psychological response from us (Murphie, 2011) They exist because we create them through perception. Therefor all things in the world are based upon multiple virtual realities and in fact upon as many virtual realities as there are minds to construct them. However there are other ways of thinking of the virtual including the collapsing of time-space through technologies of broadcast, biometric data driven animation and spatially aware technologies such as GPS and smart phones all of which alter our perception of the temporal reality. A mountain becomes a dot on a map or a Krispy Kreme has a virtual donut hovering over it when viewed through an application such as Layar. International colleagues are framed by the borders of a screen and the aperture of the lens. All of these are “virtually” lived experiences, but are not quite in the realm of true reality, if there is such a thing.

So where does this leave us in a world of haptic screens and virtualising machines? Is the new reality fast becoming one that is entirely virtual? Chris Grayson seems to think so. The proliferation of augmented reality technologies into our most loved devices is only the beginning according to Grayson who sees heads up displays and 3D overlays becoming major elements of our ongoing cyborg transformation (Grayson, 2009). Grayson points out that the majority of attempts made at an augmented reality experience have been from a capitalist perspective and thus sales focused. I can certainly see a varied application in search and rescue operations where rescue teams unable to penetrate disaster affected areas could deliver visual based evacuation information to victims on the ground through an easily modified data set distributed to AR capable devices.

But as Andrew Murphie points out in 'The World as Clock: The Network Society and Experimental Ecologies' these technologies do not occur within a vacuum. They are born of the intersections between various media ecologies and social affordance. (Murphie, 2004) The CGI donut is born of advertising, the action of the user from the concept of the tourist and the technology that supports AR is already made of hundreds if not more media ecologies and the freedom to capture an image is a highly political construct. All of these individual elements, which exist as far more than their whole, operate at different frequencies which Murphie argues are able to synchronise or “transduce” into a particular ecology, (Murphie, 2004:120) which deliver the social, cultural, geographical, technological, physical and psychological phenomenon of virtual or augmented realities which are massively reshaping our experience of the world around us.

Bibliography:

Anon. (n.d.) ‘Virtual Reality’, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality

Grayson, Chris (2009) ‘Augmented Reality Overview’, GigantiCo http:// gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009/6/23/augmented-reality- overview.html

Murphie, Andrew (2004) ‘The World’s Clock: The Network Society and Experimental ecologies’, Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 11, Spring

Murphie, Andrew (2011) 'Media Ecologies' lecture notes distributed in Advanced Media Theories at The University of New South Wales, Kensington Campus, 28 March 2011

Extending the Mind, Natural Memory and Virtual Memory

As  someone with a memory which fails to think in a linear fashion as others do and who can never remember important dates or times it would seem that I am a prime candidate for technologies that alleviate this experience through hypomnesis as described by Bernard Steigler in ‘Anamnesis and Hypomnesis’. (Steigler, 2008) I forget doctors appointments meetings with friends, bill payments etc., but somehow in the midst of all this I am able to remember long sequences of numbers. And not just some sequences but many, from my medicare card number to credit card details and the exhaustively long sequence required using Telstra Telecard. For me the externalising process involves a singing of the sequence so as to create a readily recalled tune. Each phone number rather than being merely digits is a song. This is much like Alan Kay’s Youtube video on learning where a woman learned to play tennis, not through examining the technical aspect of the forehand, backhand and serve but through externalising her mind through vocalisation. (Kay,2008) My experience with missed appointments might then be due to the fact that the part of my brain responsible for such functions doesn’t speak the language of the appointment (Kay 2008), which also is in the unfortunate position of not being particularly melodious. Maybe the part that does store this information is the same area that lights up when I listen to a song as suggested by Alva Noe in her work titled ‘Does Thinking Happen in the Brain?”. (2010, 13:7) If this is the case, and I have no hope of singing all my appointments into my head, then technologies that help extend the mind might help.

I assume that many people retain and protain simultaneously as I do, but in the highly visual world in which I live I do not require technologies to assist me in my pursuit of the perfectly merchandised window (this is my day job) yet I still use them. If merchandising is to be considered sculpture then what I am undeniably doing is externalising my mind. The relationship between the evolving display and my memory is reciprocal. A medium must be reached between what is imagined and what is possible. The end result is an articulation of both my retention and protention. I have a vision of what might evolve and the memory of how to achieve it, but at the same time I use my phone to take photos of interesting arrangements in other locations so that If I don’t quite remember then a piece of technology will. This is what Andrew Murphy refers to as the dynamic ecology of virtual memory, an interplay between natural and virtual memory. (Murphie, 2011)

This also raises issues surrounding the concept of the “cyborg” in that my phone becomes both a mental and a biological extension of myself. (Clark, 2010) I welcome discussion on this point.

References:

Clark, Andy (2010) ‘Natural-born Cyborgs? Reflections on Bodies, Minds and Human Enhancement’, http://vimeo.com/16717229 (accessed 22/3/11)

Kay, Alan, (2008) ‘Alan Kay on Learning’, Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50L44hEtVos (accessed 22/3/11)

Murphie, Andrew (2011) ‘Lecture Four Globalisation of Memory via Media (pdf)’, http://arts3091.newsouthblogs.org/files/2011/02/3091_2011_lec4_memory_web.pdf , (accessed 22/3/11)

Noë, Alva (2010) ‘Does thinking happen in the brain?’, 13:7 Cosmos and Culture http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/12/10/131945848/does-thinking-happen-in-the- brain (accessed 22/3/11)

Stiegler, Bernard (n.d.) (2010) ‘Anamnesis and Hypomnesis: Plato as the first thinker of the proletarianisation’ http://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis  (accessed 22/3/11)

Media Ecology Week 3

How do we know if we never experiment? (Fuller, 2005:1) This is the question I raise with regards to media ecology and it is certainly true of any human achievement in recorded history. More specifically what happens when seemingly parallel media forms come together and result in a complimenting or conflicting relationship. (Levinson, 1997, Fuller, 2005) We must consider what is formed or what is deformed or obliterated through the advances of cultural and social media, such as SMS ability to reduce highly evolved language to singular phonetic characters. This phenomenon is not in any sense modern as Levinson suggests it is a continued evolution from the mind to the slate to the screen and so on. (Levinson 1997:17)


To argue that the media ecologies exists in a state of harmony really does fly in the face of everything our parents, grandparents, teachers and literary geniuses have been espousing for our entire lives. Their view is that spelling, grammar, punctuation are to be preserved in such a way that one generation learns the language of the one before it. Of course language, like any other media is not impervious to change in both written and spoken form, so we end up with two pronunciations of the letter 'h' and 'z', the evolution of 'I' and 'my' into me and so on. But still there exists this monopoly on language by these institutions which seek to preserve language as an integral cultural icon. (Levinson 1997:14)


Language and the written word have for the most part eliminated performance media as the dominant means of passing on information leaving out many aspects of context. Instructions for example are best delivered through visual demonstration, but as a global civilisation we choose to learn from books rather than the actions of peers. This is how we have documented humanity for millenniums and how we now reference the development of new communication technologies. This is the "media ecology". The constant marriage of technological development with language. Both words give rise to a single entity infinite in nature and capable of fostering limitless outcomes. (Fuller, 2005:3)


However the utopia of the media ecology doesn't necessarily spawn endless combinations of successful media forms. Consider the limited social success of social media gone commercial media website 'Myspace'. The sites initial popularity with online individuals was diminished by the growing presence of commercially endorsed Myspace pages, forcing many users to migrate over to Facebook and Twitter. Compare this situation with Levinsons description of the events that led to the burning of the Library at Alexandria.(Levinson 1997:12-16) In both situations the threat of the destruction of what lies at the core of the media form, requires a migration or destruction of the information it contains. We can assume in most cases that Myspace users would have developed their Facebook and Twitter profiles based on the information they had either deleted from or left behind on Myspace


Bibliography:

Levinson, Paul (1997) 'The First Digital Medium' in Soft Edge; a natural history and future of the information revolution London: Routledge:11-20

Fuller, Matthew (2005) ʻIntroduction: Media Ecologiesʼ in Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture Cambridge, MA; MIT Press: 1-12

Week 1. Technological Determinism, Cultural Materialism and Everything In-Between

From McLuhan's Technological determinism where technology is the driver of social change through 'Simulacra' theory of constant simulation and Raymond William's theories of selective participation in 'Cultural Materialism' it becomes apparent that no one school of thought can give a finite definition of the role or dominance of technology in social and cultural change. he Cultural Materialist camp is right in criticising McLuhan's viewpoint by emphasizing the role that social need, cultural adoption and political acceptance play in the success or failure of all technologies. An engagement with critical theory is almost mandatory in understanding the junctures between technology and these elements, which shape the implementation and future development of technologies.

One area of particular interest in the Andrew Murphie article is the theories of Andrew Feenberg, that technologies are imbued with the rules and aims constructed by the elites before their goal as a technology is decided. I certainly appreciate the level of government regulation that is involved in releasing a technology to the masses, however I do not consider this to be an absolute truth. For example many governments are struggling to adequately regulate online communications emanating from their states into the global online space. The breakdown of defined jurisdictions allows for innovative application of global communication tools, which give rise to new technologies such as the blogesphere, twitter, Youtube video uploads etc.

Leading on from this into cultural materialism, it is my argument that societies bring with them familiar communication and motor skills to any new technology. A counter-intuitive technology may not be successful to spite its apparent revolutionary merits. For example an iPhone requires the use of a pointed digit, facebook assumes prior knowledge of post-it note style announcement and the ability to construct a photo-album. Neither of these technologies, amongst many other examples relies solely on their ability to rupture society and force the changing of behaviours. What these technologies do give rise to is a reinvigoration of McLuhan's concept of  "Global Village".

Tiziana Terranova in her opening address at the Futurity Now conference refers to "fluid democracies" as a kind of participatory government where transparency becomes a key factor and I believe this resonates with what McLuhan was suggesting television had provided the masses. The relationships between people are strengthened through a shared experience. Television brought this concept so far in the mid 20th century by beaming the world into peoples lounge rooms. The internet as a two way platform now allows the right of reply in a conversation style, which again is an old technology re-purposed for a new medium.