Kickstarter, Pledgeme, Indiegogo - if cyberlibertarians ever wanted a poster-child for the new millennium, surely this is it: direct interaction between producers and consumers of goods with no government interference, all done online. When the myth of the free internet is invoked, it is crowd-funding models like these that are often paraded out as examples of how we're already there, the house of tomorrow, today.
Whether the infamous potato salad Kickstarter is a stealthy satirical social experiment or simply somebody seeing an opportunity and taking it, it may point to some kind of chronic illness within our society that this Kickstarter project could even exist. But we can still interrogate the idea of "freedom" using it as an example. Yes, we are indeed free to fund the creation of a potato salad (the goal was $10; the amount raised at the time of posting is $55,492), but what kind of freedom is that? It is a distinctly libertarian freedom, because supposedly this is the kind of thing that a (decent) government would prohibit people from funding, and perhaps even from offering up as a good to begin with, because it is, as the old expression goes, daylight robbery.
If this is the kind of freedom we can look forward to in the coming media-made utopia, it is also important to note that these crowdfunding platforms are not self-sufficient, which is to say that without our particular economic system (capitalism) and market as conditions, they could not work. They work because they fill an operational niche, not because they necessarily represent a new paradigm that can stand on its own. In this sense, it is perhaps comforting to think that potato salad Kickstarters will not become the new normal, although at least in cyberlibertarian terms, this may also mean that utopia is something the likes of which we will never truly know.
Sunday 24 August 2014
Sunday 17 August 2014
Society does not contain human beings. In other news, Facebook owns your soul.
Today, while engaging in an act of hyper-reading while finishing the 10 pages of Moeller I had left over from yesterday, I came across a petition to stop facebook's messenger app from doing ... something. Accessing photos and making calls on your behalf or something insidious like that. I signed the petition like a good little sheep, and was immediately challenged by someone on facebook.
After a refreshingly rational mini-debate, I reflected upon my decision and reasoned that, since I'm still using facebook and have been for the past five-ish years, and have known about privacy issues all that time, it's a bit rich of me in some ways to be protesting the very functionality that I am happy enough to be complicit in the legitimising process of.
The idea that "only communication can communicate", paired with the concept of society no longer containing human beings, goes hand-in-hand with this sort of tension over ubiquity. Yes, we know that our apps and email accounts don't technically belong to us and that by their very design they infiltrate as much of our "private lives" as possible, that even if in practice the majority of people who use said media are not having their private lives constantly ravaged by the NSA, Illuminati or church of Scientology, the potential for it is very much real. We also know that we have very little insight as to the mechanics of Facebook or Gmail, unless we're involved in the field of web design or can write code. We know that we, humans, are not a part of this communication. And knowing that, we use it anyway.
Systems theory may bring a gut reaction of "begone vile misanthrope" at first glance, but perhaps the concept of a society without human beings is one that we accepted quite some time ago, and are (happily or not) content to see the continued autopoiesis of indefinitely.
After a refreshingly rational mini-debate, I reflected upon my decision and reasoned that, since I'm still using facebook and have been for the past five-ish years, and have known about privacy issues all that time, it's a bit rich of me in some ways to be protesting the very functionality that I am happy enough to be complicit in the legitimising process of.
The idea that "only communication can communicate", paired with the concept of society no longer containing human beings, goes hand-in-hand with this sort of tension over ubiquity. Yes, we know that our apps and email accounts don't technically belong to us and that by their very design they infiltrate as much of our "private lives" as possible, that even if in practice the majority of people who use said media are not having their private lives constantly ravaged by the NSA, Illuminati or church of Scientology, the potential for it is very much real. We also know that we have very little insight as to the mechanics of Facebook or Gmail, unless we're involved in the field of web design or can write code. We know that we, humans, are not a part of this communication. And knowing that, we use it anyway.
Systems theory may bring a gut reaction of "begone vile misanthrope" at first glance, but perhaps the concept of a society without human beings is one that we accepted quite some time ago, and are (happily or not) content to see the continued autopoiesis of indefinitely.
Monday 11 August 2014
Heidegger follow-up: Desein for living (in ignorance)
If Desein is "a being whose being is an issue for them", and therefore the way we become Desein is by being concerned with ourselves and the world around us ...
What does this have to do with making media ready-to-hand?
I mean aside from the obvious: if we're not concerned with how/whether the media we're using works, we can shift our concern to what we want to get done with it instead. The idea of a seamless media experience is appealing on the grounds of being unobtrusive in our pursuit of performing tasks with media as our equipment. Take the example of the lumberjack who wants to cut down a tree, very reasonably so: if their axe is in working condition then they can concern themselves with tree-cutting, rather than the axe. If the axe is not in working condition, or if it's missing when they need it for cutting trees with, then their concern shifts to the axe. And that's not convenient.
Here is the issue: we're not using axes. We're using electronic media. We aren't using "crude" technology; we're using technology so sophisticated that we don't know (most of us) how it works, how to fix it if it breaks, or how to make it. Therefore, we rely on other people making it for us. (We probably rely on other people to make axes for us as well, but bear with me here.)
And who's making it? Microsoft are making it. Apple are making it. Google are making it. Billion-dollar multinational conglomerates are not only in charge of producing this equipment; they also own it.
Which is the issue with using Heidegger to inform a design philosophy for ubiquitous media: Desein is all about being concerned with ourselves and the world, but the impetus behind ubiquity seems to create an experience of non-concern, like the people here:
None of these people give two expletives about how any of this stuff works, or where it comes from - or who it belongs to. The Microsoft Windows logo is nowhere to be seen on any of these interfaces they're using, and that is the embodiment of my concern here: that by employing Heidegger's theory of Desein to inform the design of a seamless and invisible ubiquity, it is also a design that makes ownership - or lack thereof - of this media ready-to-hand, invisible, none of our concern. Which is fine, until something goes wrong and suddenly our subscriptions and terms of use and allotted installations per device become present-to-hand, and we realise that ignorance is anything but bliss.
Just some paranoia for us to chew on while working on that book review.
(Basically I'm saying that it's incredibly suspicious that while the designers of ubiquity like Heidegger for his whole Desein thing they also seem to be trying to engineer a world in which nobody is actually Desein. Just to clear that up.)
What does this have to do with making media ready-to-hand?
I mean aside from the obvious: if we're not concerned with how/whether the media we're using works, we can shift our concern to what we want to get done with it instead. The idea of a seamless media experience is appealing on the grounds of being unobtrusive in our pursuit of performing tasks with media as our equipment. Take the example of the lumberjack who wants to cut down a tree, very reasonably so: if their axe is in working condition then they can concern themselves with tree-cutting, rather than the axe. If the axe is not in working condition, or if it's missing when they need it for cutting trees with, then their concern shifts to the axe. And that's not convenient.
Here is the issue: we're not using axes. We're using electronic media. We aren't using "crude" technology; we're using technology so sophisticated that we don't know (most of us) how it works, how to fix it if it breaks, or how to make it. Therefore, we rely on other people making it for us. (We probably rely on other people to make axes for us as well, but bear with me here.)
And who's making it? Microsoft are making it. Apple are making it. Google are making it. Billion-dollar multinational conglomerates are not only in charge of producing this equipment; they also own it.
Which is the issue with using Heidegger to inform a design philosophy for ubiquitous media: Desein is all about being concerned with ourselves and the world, but the impetus behind ubiquity seems to create an experience of non-concern, like the people here:
None of these people give two expletives about how any of this stuff works, or where it comes from - or who it belongs to. The Microsoft Windows logo is nowhere to be seen on any of these interfaces they're using, and that is the embodiment of my concern here: that by employing Heidegger's theory of Desein to inform the design of a seamless and invisible ubiquity, it is also a design that makes ownership - or lack thereof - of this media ready-to-hand, invisible, none of our concern. Which is fine, until something goes wrong and suddenly our subscriptions and terms of use and allotted installations per device become present-to-hand, and we realise that ignorance is anything but bliss.
Just some paranoia for us to chew on while working on that book review.
(Basically I'm saying that it's incredibly suspicious that while the designers of ubiquity like Heidegger for his whole Desein thing they also seem to be trying to engineer a world in which nobody is actually Desein. Just to clear that up.)
Sunday 10 August 2014
Heidegger and tools: a tertiary-educated guess
I have spent the last four hours reading Heidegger on tools and "worldhood". Did I understand any of it? You be the judge.
Let's say I am one of those soulless drones in the Visa Paywave ad and I "want" to buy lunch, insofar as mindless automatons can be said to "want" anything. But this very mindlessness, while exaggerated, represents the world as seen from the position of Desein, an identity defined by the execution of behaviour in an environment - or, in Heidegger's terminology, Being.
Equipment is required for Desein to have meaning, because meaning is function, and function is founded on invisibility. Here, what is ready-to-hand (invisible) is my Visa Paywave card: I need it to perform my action of buying lunch that defines me as Desein. The equipment (card, Eftpos machine) is invisible, and Desein is therefore stable.
But then some mouth-breathing plebeian tries to buy their lunch with cash.
This act of blasphemy destroys the social order and plunges the Western World into anomic chaos.
More importantly: Desein (still me) recognises the cash, and as such the cash that is to the other Desein (gangster rapper Obama) ready-to-hand is to me and every other Visa Paywave-reliant Desein present-to-hand, because it has become visible in its lack of functionality, exposing the relational network of functionality assigned to all equipment in this scenario. The spell is broken, and equipment is now obvious rather than ubiquitous.
And the implications for ubiquitous media? Our interaction with the environment comes from an a-priori understanding that we can and do interact with it, in specific ways, for specific reasons, and through specific media. The concept of Desein rests on the assumption that we do what we do without "noticing" - if we notice, then both Desein and design are ruined by being made obvious (present-at-hand), and we are thrown into chaos because we are our functioning-ness.
Let's say I am one of those soulless drones in the Visa Paywave ad and I "want" to buy lunch, insofar as mindless automatons can be said to "want" anything. But this very mindlessness, while exaggerated, represents the world as seen from the position of Desein, an identity defined by the execution of behaviour in an environment - or, in Heidegger's terminology, Being.
Equipment is required for Desein to have meaning, because meaning is function, and function is founded on invisibility. Here, what is ready-to-hand (invisible) is my Visa Paywave card: I need it to perform my action of buying lunch that defines me as Desein. The equipment (card, Eftpos machine) is invisible, and Desein is therefore stable.
But then some mouth-breathing plebeian tries to buy their lunch with cash.
This act of blasphemy destroys the social order and plunges the Western World into anomic chaos.
More importantly: Desein (still me) recognises the cash, and as such the cash that is to the other Desein (gangster rapper Obama) ready-to-hand is to me and every other Visa Paywave-reliant Desein present-to-hand, because it has become visible in its lack of functionality, exposing the relational network of functionality assigned to all equipment in this scenario. The spell is broken, and equipment is now obvious rather than ubiquitous.
And the implications for ubiquitous media? Our interaction with the environment comes from an a-priori understanding that we can and do interact with it, in specific ways, for specific reasons, and through specific media. The concept of Desein rests on the assumption that we do what we do without "noticing" - if we notice, then both Desein and design are ruined by being made obvious (present-at-hand), and we are thrown into chaos because we are our functioning-ness.
Saturday 9 August 2014
Heidegg(er) what you're saying
Sunday 3 August 2014
Interfassbender
I'll just get this out of the way: this week's readings went more or less totally over my head.
Then I found the best part of Prometheus:
Are advertisements a kind of interface? Indirect promotional "advertisements" such as this do exist in order to "provoke activities and behaviours probabilistically, rather than mechanically" (7-8). It is not a sure thing that we will go and see Prometheus after watching this clip, but I'll admit, it's fairly likely. It's a good ad/interface for Prometheus.
Except that Prometheus is not what's being advertised. Not really.
Here, Prometheus is not represented directly, only hinted at - Nusselder's talk of metaphors and digital information travels fairly well in this scenario, in that this ad can "help us to imagine and represent the information" (16) without actually showing it to us or giving us direct access to it. But why? One might assume it's a matter of technical limitations; surely if digital information could connect us to artifacts in "the real world" we'd want that. I certainly want the film being "advertised" rather than the actual film, because the actual film was an inferior carbon-copy of Alien.
But Nusselder argues that interface design is all about desire, and specifically desire for things that aren't real: "The purpose of a technological medium is hence to obfusticate itself as a medium and to claim a real presence" (28) - in other words, the metaphorical claims to be literal: The David 8 claims to be not an ad for Prometheus, but a thing in and of itself.
Or perhaps an "experience" as opposed to a "thing" (Drucker, 10). Perhaps The David 8 is less of an "interface" for Prometheus than it is an interface for itself, in which "interface and medium quickly collapse into one and the same thing" (Galloway, 31).
Or perhaps it's just false advertising.
Then I found the best part of Prometheus:
Are advertisements a kind of interface? Indirect promotional "advertisements" such as this do exist in order to "provoke activities and behaviours probabilistically, rather than mechanically" (7-8). It is not a sure thing that we will go and see Prometheus after watching this clip, but I'll admit, it's fairly likely. It's a good ad/interface for Prometheus.
Except that Prometheus is not what's being advertised. Not really.
Here, Prometheus is not represented directly, only hinted at - Nusselder's talk of metaphors and digital information travels fairly well in this scenario, in that this ad can "help us to imagine and represent the information" (16) without actually showing it to us or giving us direct access to it. But why? One might assume it's a matter of technical limitations; surely if digital information could connect us to artifacts in "the real world" we'd want that. I certainly want the film being "advertised" rather than the actual film, because the actual film was an inferior carbon-copy of Alien.
But Nusselder argues that interface design is all about desire, and specifically desire for things that aren't real: "The purpose of a technological medium is hence to obfusticate itself as a medium and to claim a real presence" (28) - in other words, the metaphorical claims to be literal: The David 8 claims to be not an ad for Prometheus, but a thing in and of itself.
Or perhaps an "experience" as opposed to a "thing" (Drucker, 10). Perhaps The David 8 is less of an "interface" for Prometheus than it is an interface for itself, in which "interface and medium quickly collapse into one and the same thing" (Galloway, 31).
Or perhaps it's just false advertising.
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