The unnatural interface

Today's generation have developed and 'updated' alongside the computer screen interface. By learning the functions of the window interface from a young age, users integrate with the technology until the point where interaction becomes second nature. Debra Shaw notes this connection between the body and interface, "My computer and I constitute a cybernetic system"(Shaw, 2008,pg.90). How we automatically know when to click, scroll, drag, how to search and select the content we want though the interface design, " making the interfaces "transparent" and therefore more "natural""(Bolter, 2000,pg.32). Through constant "contact with the interface" the user "learns to read, just as she would read any hypertext", the language and shared knowledge that makes up the interface experience (Bolter, 2000,pg.33)

This however identifies that though we are automated within the technological interface, we are aware it is unnatural. The "obviously mediated" functionality of the interface, the buttons, the links, the irritating Microsoft animated paperclip clearly defines the computer window from the real world. The interface is constricted by the physicality of the technological medium it is contained in. Although this lack of "the real" only furthers our desires for "immediacy", as mediation "tries to reproduce the rich sensorium of human experience" (Bolter, 2000,pg.34). There is a constant negotiation of the "visual space as mediated and as "real", a conflict between the surface and the deeper cultural meaning (Bolter, 2000,pg.41). A real life example is that of as the Disney World theme park, where fictional media content clashes with physical reality.

As Huthtamo notes "hypermediacy can also provide an authentic experience", the audience may acknowledge the unnaturalness of the medium and yet it doesn't diminish the experience (Bolter, 2000,pg.42). This is illustrated in the rise of online worlds such as "WoW" (World Of Warcraft), although the game is obviously constructed through programming and is contained within the material screen of the medium. Users still recognise it as an authentic experience, some have argued that the line between reality and the game interface has been blurred by the users "point of view". Shaw notes how we try to escape "the meat", our body's through cyberspace but we can't yet escape the reality of the medium (Shaw, 2008,pg.86).

Bolter, J.D. (2000) Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press)

Shaw, D, (2008) Technoculture: The key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

The Mighty Morphin' Desktop

An underling factor found inside Bolter's book, Remediation: Understanding New Media, is that the human mind can hide certain factors of reality right in front of your very eyes. What I'm talking about is the transformation or the "morphing" ability found with in our computer desktops. Our desktops don't just morph into a cat or a dog but into the fragmented realm in which we use to perceive time and space. In doing so it becomes a technique in "making the interface "transparent" and therefore more "natural"" (Bolter, 2000, p32) as well as making it an extension of our minds rather then our bodies.  

The metamorphosis begins with the contextual similarities to a physical object such as "file folders, sheets of paper, in-box, trash basket, etc" (Bolter, 2000, p23). Bolter conveys that this is down to a ramification that we need natural formats to help us understand new concepts. The desktop isn't a new concept but the way in which different software manufactures create their own desktop to help/interfere in the arbitrary nature of your minds. Now this doesn't mean we cant control new formats brought into our lives, more the fact that we need the natural formats to sync with the application in which we can again morph to a better future.

The morphing factor in this text is a symbolic factor that helps show the ideals of change and how we create three forms of marketing our personal woes of this transparent state. Form one is about the change in which the user becomes the desktop, the next form is the actual connection between the user and the desktop. The last form brings the transparency to stop by letting the user aware of it's unnatural state. Bolter has a similar point where he highlight the user is "brought back into contact with the interface" and they learn "to read just as she would read any hypertext" (Bolter, 2000, p33) creating this imbalance of pure and fictional.

This ideal has to become a conjunction of two forms the real and the fiction. If we cannot get over the metamorphosis then we can use our computers and desktops to their full advantage. Just like any form of window is transparent, so most we.

Bibliography:

Bolter, J.D. (2000) Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press) 

Are we too far to turn back?

Bolter, speaks of remediation in terms of technology and uses this to make examples. This is something which is not seen as much with theorists such as Jenkins or Manovich. So taking what Bolter is saying about technological mediation, I want to look at how this would transfer into the way our society and culture looks at remediation and how we accept that along side technological advances.

Bolter says remediation is "the representation of one medium in another" (Bolter, 2000: 45). So this is taking one media form, the example he uses is paintings and photography, and representing them in another, digital picture galleries.

When reading through Bolters work, I couldn't help but draw parallels between this and the Convergence Culture which Henry Jenkins writes about (Jenkins, 2008). Although Jenkins talk about the formation of multiple mediums into one.

"By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms" (Jenkins, 2008, p2)

Inline with Bolter's writing, these "multiple media platforms" would show representation of their Old Media forms in this New Media platform. How we can stand beside the Mona Lisa painting and either take a photo of it or download a photo of it will just never be the same. 

I came across a video shared on Facebook which outlines how mobile phones have taken over the human existence. Its portrayals different events where humans are on their phones or video recording a gig, when they would enjoy it much more if they didn't use their phone



Its shows the convergence and remediation of going to a concert (Old Media) and capturing it on video (New Media) even though you may never watch it again.

Remediation is really in the advancement of technology, but this advancement can often be for the worst. We can get so engaged in finding ways to interact with the media easier that we start to lose the sense of our own human beings. Soon they will be lost in cyberspace, forever

Bibliography
Jenkins, H., 2008. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide Revised., NYU Press.
Bolter, J.D. (2000) Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press)
CharstarleneTV, (2013) I forgot my phone [Online Video] 22 August. Available from; <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8> [Accessed: 6 November 2013].

The Immediacy Illusion

As Bolter states in his book Remediation: Understanding New Media, linear perspective plays a significant role to achieve immediacy (Bolter, 2000, pp. 24-25). With old media, such as painting, an author should be able to reproduce the space beyond the surface of his “image”. For the spectator of any of these Albertian windows, a paradox arises. Through the use of a linear perspective, which is similar for the way we observe the world in our everyday lives, one could get the feeling of being present in the world beyond the canvas. This three dimensional feeling is exactly what the author wants to achieve, but the truth is that the setting still is shown in a 2D manner (on the painting itself). Also for new media, such as digital photography, the photograph on itself is just a momentary take of endless space, presented on one (flat) object. This realization is to be stated as hypermediacy (Bolter, 2000, pp. 31-44), and this bridge is one no one could ever cross, leaving us with the realization that immediacy as a concept is an illusion (Bolter, 2000, pp. 45-46). Furthermore, the second technique to achieve transparency is through erasing the surface of any base (Bolter, 2000, p. 25). Here too, the immediacy illusion comes to light: on the one hand by an artist never being able to fully effaces the surface, and on the other by making the spectator aware of the author as having as skill to erase, and thereby supporting hypermediacy and debunking immediacy (Bolter, 2000, p. 25).
The general conclusion becomes then that the ways to achieve immediacy, invalid their own underlying truth. Inherent to their own logic, they make us realize that no one could ever achieve it. Hypermediacy and immediacy can be seen as two ends of a continuum, whereby one is never able to reach the immediacy end. The hypermediacy end however, one is able to achieve, as ‘absolute hypermediacy’ is when the spectator is fully aware of the medium.

Bibliography

Bolter, J. D., & Grusin, R. (2000). Remediation: Understanding New Media Ed. MIT Press.

Remediation Is New Media

Remediation is, according to Bolter, the term used to describe "the representation of one medium in another" (2000 pp. 45). To clarify this he goes on to give a fairly easy to understand example by discussing DVD picture galleries. In doing this, he raises an interesting point in that they are essentially "digitised paintings or photographs" (ibid.). This is interesting because, along with his description of remediation, we can see implicit links when talking about Manovich and his work on New Media. Furthermore, by referring to remediation as being "a defining characteristic of the new digital media" (ibid.) we can again, unquestionably, relate this to Manovich.

Numerical representation is Manovich's first characteristic of New Media, and decrees that "all new media objects... are composed of digital code" (Manovich, 2001 pp.49). We can argue here then that Bolter's cleverly chosen example candidly alludes to this, as the new media objects in this case are the digitised paintings/photographs in the picture galleries.

Another characteristic of New Media associated, perhaps even more overtly, with Bolter's idea of remediation, is transcoding which is described by Manovich as a process which "turns media into computer data" (2001 pp.63). This can be clearly seen in analysing Bolter's example, given that the physical paintings/photographs have had to be transcoded to be able to appear in the digital galleries on the DVD.

In relation to Jenkins, then, this process of taking the physical pictures and digitising them for use in a DVD picture gallery is a clear example of the fact that we live in a convergence culture, where "old and new media collide" (Jenkins, 2006 pp.2) and how easy "the flow of content across multiple media platforms" (ibid.) has become.

Bolter, J.D. (2000) Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press)

Jenkins, H (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (NYU Press)
Manovich, L. (2001) The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press)

The Desktop Metaphor

When Bolter (2000) explains the relationship between transparent immediacy, hypermediacy and remediation, one example returns several times. This is the example of the desktop metaphor. The Graphical User Interface of a computer's operating system is made to resemble a physical office, with folders, files, notepads, a trash bin and several other things that we find both in our real and in our virtual office. Creeber (2009, p.25) also talks about this metaphor as a cultural phenomenon, namely the second office revolution, being the digitization of the results of the first office revolution. However, he also refers explicitly to Bolter (2000) and the remediation rule.

According to Bolter (2000, pp.23-24) this desktop metaphor tries to elicit the feeling of transparent immediacy in the user, so that (s)he stops noticing the interface, but seems to be in a 'real' office, like the one (s)he and the computer may already be inside of. Of course this will not be perfect, because in a physical office one doesn't use a mouse to open a folder. However, as technology advances, more immediacy might be made possible, for example controlling the computer with nothing but thoughts, the "interfaceless interface" (Bolter, 2000, p.23).

On the other hand, Bolter (2000, pp.31-32) also sees the desktop metaphor in relation to hypermediacy. The different features and applications may refer to older media and strive for immediacy, but the "windowed style" gives the combination of these a new hypermedia experience, this way "the desktop interface does not erase itself" (Bolter, p.33). Maybe this way of working doesn't feel 'natural' (yet), but despite the loss of immediacy this still provides a successful interface.

After seeing the desktop metaphor as immediacy and hypermediacy, the remediation part of it is obvious. "This term refers to the idea that all new media (...) relies (sic) on one or more preceding medium, which it refashions or repurposes" (Barrow, 2010). For the desktop metaphor, these older media are the traditional office tools. So to conclude, the remediation that takes place in the desktop metaphor usually aims at immediacy, however perfect immediacy is impossible and the inevitable hypermediacy is not undesirable.

Bibliography
Barrow, T. (2010) Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation. Blog Time Barrow. 8 August. Available from: http://blog.timebarrow.com/2010/08/immediacy-hypermediacy-remediation/ [Accessed: 3 November 2013].
Bolter, J. D. (2002). Remediation: Understanding New Media new ed. MIT Press.
Creeber, G. (2009). DIGITAL THEORY: Theorizing New Media & Cubitt, D. (2009) Case Study: Digital Aesthetics in Ed. Creeber, G. & Royston, M. (2009) Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media; Maidenstone, Open University Press.

Organics VS Mechanics

We as a society have grown incredibly dependent upon technology as we use it to make our everyday lives less of a burden.  While there is no denying the rapid advancement of technology of the past few decades being extremely valuable to our growth as a species, the long-term effects could diminish our own independence.  Technologies have contributed to our understanding of ourselves the universe and what the possibilities may hold for the future of our race.  The irony in this is that, “we may have ‘made’ the machines but now, in a very real sense, they make us,” which is especially true to the extent it has even been touched upon in films such as Pixars feature film ‘Wall-E’. (Shaw, 2008, pg.88)   

As we thrive and build upon technology that makes our lives better we lose touch of what we did to adapt and survive in the first place before it even came along.  Our reliance on ourselves is essentially diminished and we are left with an essential expectation that technology will push us forward without us even attempting to control the final destination.  While we grow and prosper with these new technologies we can argue that it is destroying what it means to be human.  The idea of the perfect ‘soldier’ would be one that obeys orders and makes decisions based on calculations, not emotion.  The real question we should be asking is can we trust mankind to protect itself?  Somehow we have to believe that human decency will triumph over our desire to technologically advance ourselves.

Our love of technology now makes us wonder what possibilities lie in wait for fundamentally changing who we are.  We must remember that while technology gives us strength, this can lead to dominance, which can lead the way to abuse.  Using technology to become something more than we are can risk our ability to love and make moral choices, the very thing that make us human.  We can only hope this isn’t what the future holds.  

Shaw, C (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

Technology and People

New Media exists because of technology, it only exists as New Media when it’s viewed using technology like a laptop or a mobile phone. We are almost inseparable from this technology in that it’s increasingly difficult for us to live without it in some way. This goes hand in hand with a media saturated culture, both New Media and technology are everywhere around us, even in the more mundane things like the operating systems in your phone are all graphics based user interfaces that the user interacts with.
We created technology and how we use it changes us as we continue to improve technologically and create new things. The discovery of the circulatory system by William Harvey has shown us that technology grants us a better understanding of ourselves and with that we can create new technologies that influence other aspects of our lives (Shaw, 2008, pg.81)

We think of technology as an extension of ourselves, how we present ourselves online can be tailored to our wants through the use of this technology, be it edited photos or through the use of computer generated avatars that can be male or female regardless of which we are in reality, or even through the aspects we present on social networking sites. These versions of ourselves aren’t separate from us but are part of us.

In a world with technology infiltrating every aspect of our lives, the old ways of dividing people into classes of race and gender, among other things, start to become irrelevant and “These divisions are increasingly difficult to maintain” (Shaw, 2008, pg.87) Divisions like these in society are fading away quicker and quicker, especially in online spaces where we represent ourselves as we please and this will trickle into real life and hopefully change the way we think and our culture even further than it has done already.

Bibliography

Shaw, D (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts, Oxford Berg Press

Techno Culture and Human Bodies

It has been suggested by Debra Shaw that humans have a correlation to machines, rather than two different entities. Using the of the body's circulatory system as an example Shaw compares it to working with medical tools to create our 'natural' understand of the human body. Shaw tells us about William Harvey building upon Galen's findings how the heart served its purpose. Shaw continues to say "produced by technology in the simple sense that Harvey had necessarily to use tools to examine the workings of the heart."(Shaw, 2008, p.82) This suggestion allows us to make correlations between machines and the human bodies being repaired and reassembled using tools. 

There is a fixation among individuals to create ideological embodiments of there perfect self using technologies which have only advanced because of our understand of the human body. The example used within Shaw's Technoculture is that of Bruce Springsteen and the modern geek. Bruce Springsteen used in the consumer society to relate towards those of the working class by doing so creating a body that was enhanced with technologies within a gym.

"He thus signifies the passage from the body of the industrial worker, marked by social class, to the body of the late capitalist consumer" (Shaw, 2008, p.85). 

 

Emphasizing Shaw's notion of Bruce Springsteen, the modern geek, as the machine driven body can be constructed to fit the ideological stance within their cyberspace. With the emergence of Web 2.0, the computer literate can create new identities, to enhance properties of themselves otherwise unknown outside of cyberspace. This allows a "construction of a wide variety of private worlds and, through them, for self-exploration". (Turkle, 1984, p.21). With the technology allowing us to use pseudonyms, and be annoymous within cyberspace, the reality creates convergence between collective intelligence and its participatory culture. Do we live as a machine or in a machine?

Bibliography

Shaw, D. (2008). Technoculture: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Oxford Berg Press.

Turkle, S. (1984) The Second Life: Computers & The Human Spirit 

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture, where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press. 

Rise of the Human Machine

"...the concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is." (Shaw, 2008, p.81)

Today within the 21st century we are constantly surrounded by a non-stop technology feeding us our media texts. Our lives have become so interconnected with technology that it appears that we can not exist without them what so ever. We would not be able to live our everyday lives without the technology that we have become accustom too, as it has made us live easier lives. Mobile phones especially have become vital to our lives. From these small devices we can continually communicate to people, play games, watch video, listen to audio and download any file we wish.

Furthermore with other technological devices such as computers we can create an online version of ourselves, who is a completely different representation of who we really are. This can be done in many different forms on the internet. We can create avatar's in online games and use them as a representation of ourselves within the game. We use these technologies to reinvent ourselves as we may not be satisfied with our real world lives and decide to start over online. We become more interconnected to technology this way, as it defines the ways we can recreate ourselves.

Moreover Facebook and Twitter as basic and common they may seem also are used to reinvent our self images. And these forms can be easily be accessed through the mobile devices we constantly carry around. so there for we have constant access to these re-inventors of identities. We then see the technologies that let us do so as an extension of our own bodies and there we then become cybernetic as a result. This then causes us to further depend on the technologies that we use day to day as if we lose them, we then in turn begin to lose our self of identity; whether it be real or a digital form of ourselves. 

"Machines... 'R' us." (Shaw, 2008, p. 81)

Bibliography:

Shaw. D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts, (Oxford Berg Press)

Video:

Holiday Inn Express- Youtube channel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9PYIwPSaj4

Are we human or are we technology?

In today's society, people can't do without technology. The most popular device used by mass culture is mobile phones, using these devices give us quicker access of communication. As these are imbedded as an extension of the human body that we can't go anywhere without. However this new technology plays a higher role in new media. When William Harvey's unearthed the circulatory system it leads to the impression that using technology to discover the system helps to evolve technology on discovering how the body functions.

"the concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is." (Shaw, 2008, p.81)

Society revolves around these technology such as laptops, mobile phones, tablets which we are growing up with, there is not that many people in society that are not I.C.T literate. These concepts can be associated with Michel Foucault who identifies

"the soldier is 'manipulated, shaped, trained' so that it 'obeys, responds," (Shaw, 2008, p.82)

As people we understand what it means to be human whether we are male or female. This considerations comes across from a higher power in the context of how we function and our appearance as a gender. Fred Pfeil discusses Bruce Springsteen's projection, and the icons that follow.

"he moves activate a form of consciousness that refers to industrial technology... masculine identity in a time of insecurity and flux."(Shaw, 2008. p.84) here he is then marked from fitness to health and also items of clothing as consumers. As this is relating to what is the norm to a mass culture, as society buys into produces created to be marked to their insecurities

"In Foucault's term...is a 'marked' body."(Shaw, 2008, p.85)

Cyberspace is often a retreat from the realization of influences that are market towards consumers, giving the attentive of being what or whoever they choose to be situated as their own individual. Gibson refers to this as

"bodiless exultation of cyberspace"(Gibson,2008, p.86)

As a conclusion humans wouldn't be able to progress information fast, if it wasn't for technology, in addition to technology couldn't be as advances without humans pursuing to establish further.

Bibliography
Shaw, D (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

Super "Meat" Identity

Our cultural cyborgification has been written into our very DNA and has left a digitized finger print on all that we perceive to be apparent in our everyday lives. Societies "retreat from the flesh marks the dissolution of the body in a incurably informed world in which the 'meat' is constantly manipulated and thoroughly mediated" (Shaw, 2008, p86).  

With regard to the above statement, Shaw looked at the connotations surrounding the idea of the prefect solider and later on in the text he states the unacceptable of a woman's meaty exterior versus their "technological solution to [their] 'problem'" (ibid). He found that the "super" solider worked well inside a team and used a common term "well oiled machine" (Shaw, 2008, p82) to illustrate his point of the prefect human and its fundamentals towards a formation of prefect technologies. As well as the soldiers inside fundamentals towards technologies we have to look at their intended sexuality.


Shaw goes on to write about the imperfection of the woman and the capitalist need to use a technological stance to change their appearance through external environment. Without context we state the soldier to be a man not underlining the fact that they could be a woman and vice versa with the stance towards appearance through external environment.

When reading Shaw's text you find a underlining meaning through his readings, which highlights the stereotypical format of technology. Seen through the points above and the study of Pat Cadigan's cyberpunk story Synners (1991).  Shaw breaks down the human interaction between the four main characters which stated the difference of the weak and their empowerment through the technological and new media stance.

This now leads to "the notion that the media now allows us to all create out own complex, diverse and many faceted notions of personal identity" (Creeber, 2009, p18)


Shaw may look at the embodiment of the "circulatory system" but his underlining factor shows us that technology identifies changes in the world and produces what we understand as the ordinary.


Bibliography:
Shaw, D, (2008) Technoculture: The key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)
Creeber, G. (2009). DIGITAL THEORY: Theorizing New Media & Cubitt, D. (2009) Case Study: Digital Aesthetics in ED. Creeber, G. & Royston, M. (2009) Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media; Maidstone, Open University Press.

Rise of the machines

We are living in a post-humanist age, the age of New Media. In this New Media era, Shaw (2008, p.81) argues that “the concept of ‘human’ is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is”. In this way, Stelarc talks about an obsolete body (Shaw, 2008, p.81), since the body can now be seen as invaded and determined by technology.

During the period of modernism, the idea of the human body was dependent on accepted differentiations, such as the ones between humans and machines and between humans and animals (Shaw, 2008, p.87). These distinctions also legitimized the racial, gender and class divisions. In this respect, Michel Foucault introduced discourse, which has the function to make distinctions between what we recognize as normal or deviant. He sees the male white body as the normal, unmarked body, while all the other bodies are seen as deviant.  Moreover, discourse is reflected in media. Media institutions are disciplining and classifying our bodies and are also disseminating dominant norms, since we are constantly “plugged in to the technology” (Shaw, 2008, p. 86).

However, in our high-tech culture, the body has become obsolete since these binary distinctions are increasingly fading. Especially the opposition between the physical and non-physical is disappearing because of the use of smartphones and tablets. Haraway (1991, p.153) argues that “Modern machines are quintessentially microelectronic devices: they are everywhere and they are invisible”.  Therefore, it is uncertain who the producer or the product is in the relationship between human and machine.

Consequently, The body is now regarded as an unformed and nonstratified ‘Body without Organs’. Moreover, the body is being shaped as a cyborg, a fusion of human and machine, since it increasingly resembles the machines that determine our self-understanding. “We may have ‘made’ these machines but now, in a very real sense, they make us” (Shaw, 2008, p.88). Through the use of technology, we can create our own identity and replace our human shortcomings. We do not need to be a man or a woman, on the internet we are all equal.

Bibliography

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts; Oxford Berg Press

Haraway, D. (1991) "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century". Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge.

Humans and technology

"In other words, the concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is." (Shaw, 2008: p.81)

Have we been overcome by machines or are still human? Without technology the human race wouldn't get on very well. Think about how many times you use technology, we are always using are phones and iPods and laptops we couldn't live without these appliances. Try for one day leave your phone down and not use it, I bet u struggle. This shows how new media has overcome and that we can't live without them this shows how new media revolution has took over. This is basically meaning that we aren't being ourselves and that new media and technology has become an extension from ourselves and that we actually need them instead of want them.

Although new media wouldn’t have come about if it wasn’t for us we wouldn’t have evolved if it wasn’t for technology. We have developed a lot over the pasts due to the revolution of technology I would say that we have got smarter but also that we have got lazier as we no longer find the need to do maths we just use a calculator on our phones or we don’t remember history we just google it.

Shaw looks at William Harvey's circulatory system this is telling us that the body is "produced by technology in the simple sense that Harvey had necessarily to use tools to examine the workings of the heart"(Shaw, 2008: p.82) Now a days we don't need tools to look at the heart but that we can actually use technology to look at the heart beat and to do blood pressure and all things like that.

So overall we find ourselves turning into cyborgs as we are no longer ourselves but that we are just a form of media and that we find that humans wouldn't have evolved that fast if it wasn't for technology but also that technology wouldn't have evolved that quick if it wasn't for us.

Bibliography
Shaw, D (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

Shifting ideas of the self

One of the things Shaw discusses in his chapter on Technobodies is that new discourses are imposed throughout the changes in the environment a ‘body’ lives in. A society in which bodies are marked by social class and work implies different ‘truths’ than living in a society in which the emphasis is on capitalism, modern subjects and consumption. It actually comes down to a shift in the cultural consumption (Shaw, 2008, pp. 83-87). This notion goes back to the words of Creeber, who stated that the historical periods of postmodernism and modernism imply a shift in media, media consumption and ways of approaching media (Creeber, 2009, pp. 11-17). As Jenkins cites Pool’s Technologies on Freedom, there no longer exists a one-to-one relationship between a medium and its use (Jenkins, 2006, p. 10). So with New Media being transmitters of multiple messages and carrying out different functionalities, we should consider the way it influences a subject’s notion of how to act and what to be.

Furthermore, this shift in discourses also implies a change in which we would define ourselves as humans. When Shaw states that “the concept of ‘human’ is unthinkable without technology” he might be right in the sense that, in a contemporary culture, the mentioned discourses happen in connection with technology (Shaw, 2008, pp. 81-82). This means that with New Media making their way into our lives, and coexisting with Old Media (Jenkins, p. 14), we could consider their role in the change of this self-definition. The way we define ourselves happens in the extent of  what (new) media offer us. When technology is so engaged with the body, it will manipulate the body in a significant way, in that it offers us the necessary information about the body and determines what and how the body is. This makes us think of the body as a primarily ‘technology’ structure, with ‘technological’ processes coordinating it (Shaw, 2008, pp. 88-89).


Bibliography

Creeber, G. & Royston, M. (2009). Digital Theory: Theorizing New Media: digital cultures. Berkshire: Open University Press.  

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture, where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

Shaw, D. (2008). Technoculture: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Oxford Berg Press.

Thinking about the unthinkable human

"[T]he concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is" (Shaw, 2008, p.81). Shaw (2008, pp.81-82) illustrates this by the understanding of the circulatory system. Before humans were aware of this it already functioned in the same way, but this understanding had actual consequences in the way people saw and used their bodies. This could be seen as an example of the "Thomas theorem" (Thomas, & Thomas, 1928, pp.571-572). In this way, technology, which is produced by our bodies, also effects our bodies (Shaw, 2008, pp.81-83).

In this chapter society is viewed as a machine of which the people are parts (Shaw, 2008, pp.83-87). This is a fitting metaphor, but it is just one way of looking at society. It could be argued that people have always adapted to their environments in a Neo-Darwinistic way and that societies already ran like machinery before the industrial revolution gave rise to machines. In other words, although the text uses modern concepts to describe being human, these processes already existed long before that.

It is argued that "[t]he body has become obsolete" (Shaw, 2008, p. 87) because advancements in technology make differences less important and even different 'species' can be mixed. Although there is a tendency in this direction, saying that these differences have already vanished could be considered problematic in an age where discrimination -for instance the glass ceiling- is still prevalent. However, advancements like transgenics make it clear that many divisions we use, are surpassed. These old concepts might still be useful in what we could see as Husserl's (1970, p. 127) Lebenswelt but in a slightly more scientific area new ways of distinction have to be found, for instance focussing more on genetic details.

Altogether, this holistic view of body and technology is said to "evade the opposing responses of technophobia and technophilia" (Shaw, 2008, p.91). In the light of this text one could say that these concepts show a misunderstanding of the interconnectedness of body and technology. However, following the Thomas theorem (Thomas, & Thomas, 1928, pp.571-572), it could be said that if people experience technology in this way, it might still be important to look at it like this.

Bibliography
Husserl, E. (1970). The Crises of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Northwestern University.
Shaw, D. (2008). Technoculture: The Key Concepts. Oxdord Berg Press
Thomas, D.S., & Thomas, W.I. (1928). The child in America: Behavior problems and programs. New York: Knopf.

A world without technology, could you manage?

Without today's technology's, as a society we would struggle to survive and evolve, we are dependent.  Stelarc notes the "idea of human evolution aided and determined by technology", such as within the last 100 years through technological advancements we have evolved more than the previous 1000 years (Shaw, 2008, pg.81). Although there is also an argument that "we may have 'made' these machines but now, in a very real sense, they make us" (Shaw, 2008, pg.88). Technologies which have allowed us to understand the human genome have changed our understanding of what it is to be human. Such as how we can sum up our attributes, our humanity into "Different combinations of 'code'", just as we understand computers through binary code (Shaw, 2008, pg.89).

Societal structures have also formed around the functionality of technology's , such as how Foucault identifies how "the solider is 'manipulated, shaped, trained' so that it 'obeys'", referring to how the functions of technology can be implanted into human behavior (Shaw, 2008, pg.82). This concept can be applied to how we are socialised into society, such as school children trained to move from class to class at the sound of a bell, to store required information, to obey, to become part of the "specialized machine"(Shaw, 2008, pg.82). We try and conform to the ideal, what society expects of us while also judging others who don't fit the mould, in order to "reconfirm what is 'I' by bringing close to us and then rejecting all that has been deemed 'Not-I'" (Shaw, 2008, pg.100).

Marxists argue further that "the worker's body is a commodity", labour to be bought and sold, body's that show "the marks of social status and social class"(Shaw, 2008, pg.83). That our physical appearance, class, gender and status can separate us from the "norm that is invisible and assumed", the perfect image projected by society (Shaw, 2008, pg.85). Our consumer culture permits us to consume products such as fake tan, make-up and fitness products to come closer to this ideal norm. A temporary means of achieving this goal is is that of the "bodiless exultation of cyberspace", leaving our flesh behind for a world where we can become unmarked (Shaw, 2008, pg.86). Explaining the popularity of social networks and online community's such as Pinterest, where we can create new identity's and be validated for technical skills which aren't as valued in real life.

Shaw, D, (2008) Technoculture: The key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

Technobodies

According to Debra Shaw "the concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology" (2008 pp.81). What she means by this, and what she sets out to explain, is that the whole concept and understanding of what it means to be 'human' could not have developed over the course of history without the use of technology. In addition to this she attempts to go further by arguing just how closely linked technology has been in understanding what is suggested by 'humanity', contending that "technology should not be considered an adjunct to the body or in opposition to it but as a determinant of its ontology" (ibid.)

To exemplify this assertion Shaw examines William Harvey's discovery of the circulatory system, and does well to exhibit that, not only is our understanding of the body "produced by technology in the simple sense that Harvey had necessarily to use tools to examine the workings of the heart" (2008 pp.82) but at the same how technology "produces the body because... increasingly complex and sophisticated technologies allow us to examine it in more detail" (ibid.). We can therefore argue that this example is effective in how it describes how our understanding the body is shaped by currently existing technology, and how the body in turn serves to evolve technological progression.

Bearing this in mind we can link this idea with Foucault's concept of the body as "an object of knowledge" (Shaw, 2008 pp.82) where bodies are likened to machines in that they are "crafted according to the dictates of certain requirements" (ibid).With this approach, it can be argued that these requirements represent the ideals and standards dictated in society to which we must conform. Added to this idea of the body as an object is the Marxist principle decreeing that "the worker's body is a commodity to be bought and whose value is determined by the fluctuations of the market" (Shaw, 2008 pp.83). This leads on to the rather bleak notion that the body having now become a tool, crafted in a certain way by set requirements, assuming its place in the overall machine of society to learn "the ritualised movements of factory production" (ibid.) and continuing the process.

Shaw, D (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

We are human, Aren't we?

"The concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is"
(Shaw, 2008: p.81)

Shaw opens the chapter with a paraphrase of the quote from Stiegler (1998) where he claims "The human [..] invents himself in the technical by inventing the tool - by becoming exteriorised techno-logically" (p.141)

Shaw is talking about the means which we find out for ourself that we are human. The technological advancements in departments such as health and sports, help us program, monitor and test out bodies to see if everything is running as it should be. The idea that there needs to be blood pumping around out bodies to be alive, only came about after Galem understanding of our veins and hearts. This was later proved to be incorrect, when William Harvey's findings, which were aided by technology, showed that blood came from and to the heart. 

We can also look at different objects which hold a similar principle. For example, gender, race, age, class. These are things which are highlighted in our society, more than what they should be. Of course, race and gender have their obvious technicalities, but society uses these to categorise humans into separate groups, as if to divide us. Shaw re-refences to the quote made ealier in the chapter, which said that "bodies are obsolete", (Shaw, 2008: 81) and pushes this even further, saying that the human body in society is "dependent on accepted differentiations" (Shaw, 2008:87)

Gender is the most prolific of this differentiation. As with the first 30 seconds of being born, a baby is judged on whether it is male or female. Its a baby, a human, but according to society, it has already been deemed as to which class it will be placed in.

I can never imagine a society without these classes. It will never happen.

Bibliography
Shaw, D. (2008), Technoculture: The Key Concepts, Oxford Press.
Stiegler, B. (Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Modernism and Post Modernism

Creeber defines old and new media, through two time periods, Modernism and Post Modernism. Post-modernism can partly be understood as "the inevitable by-product of a consumer society, where consumption and leisure now determine our experiences rather than work and production" (Creeber, 2009, p.15). The increase 'Participatory culture'  creating virtual communities allows participation from individuals and corporations "to become ‘producers’ as well as ‘receivers’ of the media" (Creeber, 2009, p.19).
Creebers ideas of participatory culture coincide with Henry Jenkins' three key terms of "convergence, collective intelligence and participation" (Jenkins, 2006, p.47).

The participatory culture are able to then take a image from another, using digital devices such as cameras and computers to create a image or other mediums with there own take of an image. Using virtual communities such as Facebook and Tumblr along with video and image platforms such as YouTube and 4chan to create these texts. Although, this did not just happen with the invention of digital media or just within New Media. Marcel Duchamp, an artist who took images like the Mona Lisa, adding a moustache to the piece of art and anchored with some text. This under Lev Manovich's classification of New media would be a variability and also wouldn't not be because nothing was digitized but would suggest that the idea of New Media began with the age of mass production. 

Like Manovich, who wants a new theory of authorship to help us to understand media, Creeber believes that there should be a "new theoretical framework which allows us to understand and appreciate both the positive and negative features of our current media age" (Creeber, 2009, p.21). With there being no set theoretical framework and no authorship to understand the concept of new media, there will be a growth in technology, to try and understand, more collective knowledge to try to comprehend what is and isn't new media and more shifts in cultural dynamics of media.


Bibliography

Creeber, G. (2009). DIGITAL THEORY: Theorizing New Media & Cubitt, D. (2009)  

Manovich, L. (2001). The Language of New Media. MIT Press.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide. revised version. NYU Press.
 

New Media/ Mass Culture

New Media is more readily available and more largely produced than ever before. It is created as quickly as we the audience can take it in and enjoy it. This mass culture that we are so use to and live by today was not favoured by some in its early days.

The Frankfurt School fled Germany during the Second World War to America and once there they were confronted with the mass culture that was engulfing America which was not to their tastes. The Frankfurt School was shocked when they arrived to discover how "... American mass culture shared many similarities with the products of mass production." (Creeber, 2009, p.12). They likened it to how Henry Ford was successful to produce his automobiles in mass quantities. They believed that as this culture was being mass produced it would have serious negative effects on the mass audiences who consumed this media.

Moreover on the belief that the Frankfurt School saw mass culture as being  negative influence on the mass audience that ingested it. The hypodermic needle theory was that, "...as wholly defenceless and constantly 'injected' by media messages, as if it were some form of mind-altering narcotic." (Creeber, 2009, p.13). Mass culture no matter what form it was packaged in was seen to be of no use or benefit to its audience but more of a nuisance.

Furthermore those who condemned mass culture were themselves consumers of high culture ans so therefore saw this new mass culture a threat to their way of life. The first direct General of the BBC, John Reith believed, "... Broacasting should be used to defend 'high culture' against the degrading nature and influence of mass culture." (Creeber, 2009, p.13). Even if mass culture is a threat to high culture or even if it is a negative influence on its audience the 'medium is the message' (Creeber quoting McLuhan, 2009, p.15) and therefore it should speak for itself on these issues and we can interrupt in our own way.

Bibliography

Creeber, G. and Martin R. (2009) Digital Cultures (Maidenhead:Open University Press)