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. 

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)

Computerization

Computing and Media Technologies begin as two separate entities converging together overtime through, film, photography and binary information. These technologies are developing through experimentation and the format in which the cultural collective forms for the needs of mass.
New media can be broken down into two distinct layers, Cultural Layer and Computer layer. The understanding of the cultural layer is to be known as the input information (user generated), whereas the computer layer is generated from the input information through automation and variations of the same. This transition from the user generated information to the media form and the transcoding for computer or digital information.

During the text of 'Language of New Media' as Manovich speaks of transcoding he states that "computerization turns media into computer data"  (Manovich, 2002, p.63). The computer storing and re distributing the media that it has been given. "In new media lingo, to “transcode” something is to translate it into another form." (Manovich, 2002 p.64)


Transcoding doesn't happen without another 4 principles of new media such as numerical representation, modulation, automation, variability. Each of which cross one path or another. Computerization requires numerical or coded information, binary or otherwise, Modulation through mixed mediums being digitized, automation, the process of creating the binary and coding into a visual or piece of spectral information. Variability the changing of the medium e.g. photograph into a video format. Although suggesting that all within the cultural layer has to be of human origin Manovich states a database "originally a computer technology to organize and access data, is becoming a new cultural form of its own" (Manovich, 2002 p.64), can be consequence of the principle transcoding. 

Manovich suggests that the "computer layer and media/culture layer influence each other" (Manovich, 2002 p.64) rather than have computer layer overpowering the cultural layer, they converge to develop each other further. With the development of computer and digital technology, new media continues to grow along side rather than being the technology. Is it suggestible that transcoding is changing the development of software and the skills required?


Bibliography

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

New Media and the Computerization of Culture

In his book 'The Language of New Media', Lev Manovich (2001, p.43) states that:“(…) today we are in the middle of a new media revolution—the shift of all of our culture to computer-mediated forms of production, distribution and communication.”. This new media revolution can be seen as the junction of the history of computing and the history of media technologies. According to Manovich, five main principles can be identified in order to distinguish New Media from old media: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and transcoding.

Although Manovich acknowledges that the principles of automation, variability and transcoding are predominantly dependent on the basic principles of numerical representation and modularity, he also acknowledges that transcoding is “(…) the most substantial consequence of media’s computerization.” (Manovich, 2001, p.63).  In technological terms, transcoding can be defined as the transformation from one format to another. However, when we define transcoding in more general terms, it can be understood as the computerization of culture.

In this respect, we have to think about New Media as comprising two layers. On the one hand, there is the cultural layer which reflects the perspective of the human mind. On the other hand, there is the computer layer which represents digital data or numeric codes. Given that computers are used to create and distribute New Media, it is anticipated that the computer layer will influence the cultural layer.  In this way, the representation of culture by the computer affects culture itself. An example of this would be the evolution from old web communities to social networks, which have a significant social impact on our daily lives. Moreover, this influence can be seen in both directions, resulting in the merger of computer and culture. It is a merger of how human beings see the world and how the computer represents it.  Nevertheless, the question remains to what extent this effect is substantially different from the impact of more traditional media.

Bibliography
Manovich, L. (2001). The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press.