• Aug 04, 2010 link notes tagged: art design poster repetition sameness technology network social Internet content medium message culture meme mainstream conformism
About Steven Smith;
“Hatched in the distant galaxy, Long Island, Steve used to bullseye womp rats in his T-16. Steve traveled to Central New York where he studied illustration. After receiving his Associates degree from MVCC, Steve departed to the island of Manhattan where he is now being trained under the high council of the School of Visual Arts. Awaiting battle Steve has sharpened his knowledge in the force and can finish the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, and grows stronger by the day. That’s no moon. That’s Steven Smith.”
• Jun 27, 2010 link notes tagged: art artist illustration baby network wire connexion distopia utopia science science fiction
 | The things that made him who he was could hardly be identified much less converted to data, the things that lived and milled in his body, everywhere, random, riotous, billions of trillions, in the neurons and peptides, the throbbing temple vein, in the veer of his libidinous intellect. So much come and gone, this is who he was, the lost taste of milk licked from his mother’s breast, the stuff he sneezes when he sneezes, this is him, and how a person becomes the reflections he sees in a dusty window when he walks by. He’d come to know himself, untranslatably, through his pain. He felt so tired now. His hard-gotten grip on the world, material things, great things, his memories true and false, the vague malaise of winter twilights, untransferable, the pale nights when his identity flattens for lack of sleep, the small wart he feels on his thigh every time he showers, all him, and how the soap he uses, the smell and feel of the concave bar make him who he is because he names the fragrance, amandine, and the hang of his cock, untransferable, and his strangely achy knee, the click in his knee when he bends it, all him, and so much else that’s not convertible to some high sublime, the technology of mind-without-end. |
Let’s say for the moment that this quote relate to the general problem of the representation of the self: of the innumerable and diverse experiences I had, in my lifetime, how and under which conditions am I able to elaborate a stable representation of myself. Or, to put it in other words : How did I came up with a sense of my own identity?
Compare it with David Hume’s thoughts on mankind, Derrida’s view on the grammar of dreams (after Freud), who Pablo Neruda think he is (along with an excerpt from Paul Valery’s Mr. Teste), Quadrophenia, and finally the problem of translation from the perspective of media theorist Friedrich A. Kittler.
Previously on Skandalon: Don DeLillo
• Jun 18, 2010 link notes tagged: author book novel art technology communication translation computer machine DeLillo Cosmopolis identity self network event effect reality life subject subjectivity apparatus node
“These are not maps in any conventional sense, but rather diagramatic representations of the interconnected space of technology, capital, instrumental value, exchange value, social and environmental impact that surround the device. The first diagram focuses primarily on the physical device, and the existence of the device as an object in our world. The second examines the placement of the device with respect to the individual and society.” (more)
About Ben Millen:
“Ben Millen is a Canadian industrial designer and engineer. He is a graduate of the Environmental Design/ Industrial Design master’s program at the University of Calgary and holds a degree in Systems Engineering from the University of Guelph.” (more)
First spotted via Kottke
• Jun 07, 2010 link notes tagged: technology communication iPhone object node network ecosystem ecology industry apparatus data vizualisation diagram representation
| Dans le passage conclusif de sa thèse, consacré à la recherche d’une définition de l’acte éthique, Simondon évoque ce qui en serait le revers, et qu’il nomme « l’acte fou ». L’acte fou est l’acte monadique, qui consiste en lui-même, incapable de réticuler, incapable d’étalement transductif. « L’acte en lequel il n’y a plus [un] indice de la totalité et de la possibilité des autres actes […], l’acte qui ne reçoit pas cette mesure à la fois activante et inhibitrice venant du réseau des autres actes est l’acte fou, en un certain sens identique à l’acte parfait. […] Cet acte fou n’a plus qu’une normativité interne ; il consiste en lui-même et s’entretient dans le vertige de son existence itérative » (IGPB, 247). L’acte éthique, à l’inverse, est celui qui, fondamentalement, inconsiste, c’est-à-dire est à même de faire réseau avec d’autres actes. « L’acte qui est plus qu’unité, qui ne peut résider et consister seulement en lui-même, mais qui réside aussi et s’accomplit en une infinité d’autres actes, est celui dont la relation aux autres est signification, possède valeur d’information » |
Muriel Combes wrote Simondon. Individu et collectivité. Pour une philosophie du transindividuel in 1999. You can read it online (French only). Learn more about Gilbert Simondon on Wikipedia.
• May 17, 2010 link notes reblogged from leftoverfest [via] tagged: technology philosophy lost loser ethic network others self destruction end mean Simondon
“Facebook’s Privacy Policy is 5,830 words long; the United States Constitution, without any of its amendments, is a concise 4,543 words. […] To manage your privacy on Facebook, you will need to navigate through 50 settings with more than 170 options. Facebook says it wants to offer precise controls for sharing on the Internet.”
Read the related article by Nick Bilton : “Price of Facebook Privacy? Start Clicking”
• May 14, 2010 link notes reblogged from fuckyeahinfo [via] tagged: technology communication data visualization chart privacy social network Facebook
“A visualisation of the northern European airspace returning to use after being closed due to volcanic ash. Due to varying ash density across Europe, the first flights can be seen in some areas on the 18th and by the 20th everywhere is open.
The flight data is courtesy of flightradar24.com and covers a large fraction of Europe. There are a few gaps (most noticeably France) and no coverage over the Atlantic, but the picture is still clear.
The map data is CC-by-SA openstreetmap.org and contributors.
This CC-by-SA visualisation was produced by itoworld.com with support from ideasintransit.org
Previously on Skandalon : ITO World visualization.
• Apr 29, 2010 link notes tagged: art communication technology catastroph natural catastroph nature data visualization map network plane circulation vehicule Europe
| The importance of hubs may have been overstated, say Kitsak and pals. “In contrast to common belief, the most influential spreaders in a social network do not correspond to the best connected people or to the most central people,” they say. At first glance this seems somewhat counterintuitive but on reflection it makes perfect sense. Kitsak and co point out that there are various sceanrios in which well connected hubs have little influence over the spread of infromation. “For example, if a hub exists at the end of a branch at the periphery of a network, it will have a minimal impact in the spreading process through the core of the network.” By contrast, “a less connected person who is strategically placed in the core of the network will have a significant effect that leads to dissemination through a large fraction of the population.” |
Read the original study conducted by Maksim Kitsak, Lazaros K. Gallos, Shlomo Havlin, Fredrik Liljeros, Lev Muchnik, H. Eugene Stanley and Hernan A. Makse : “Identifying influential spreaders in complex networks” (submited to Physics and Society on Jann 28, 2010).
• Apr 01, 2010 link notes tagged: communication network diffusion dissemination population innovation information virus leader study connexion
| Let us now consider what happens when you make the epistemological error of choosing the wrong unit: you end up with the species versus the other species around it or versus the environment in which it operates. Man against nature. You end up, in fact, with Kaneohe Bay polluted, Lake Erie a slimy green mess, and “Let’s build bigger atom bombs to kill off the next-door neighbors.” There is an ecology of bad ideas, just as there is an ecology of weeds, and it is characteristic of the system that basic error propagates itself. It branches out like a rooted parasite through the tissues of life, and everything get into a rather peculiar mess. When you narrow down your epistemology and act on the premise “What interests me is me, or my organization, or my species,” you chop off consideration of other loops of the loop structure. You decide that you want to get rid of the by-products of human life and that Lake Erie will be a good place to put them. You forget that the eco-mental system called Lake Erie is part of your wider eco-mental system - and that if Lake Erie is driven insane, its insanity is incorporated in the larger system of your thought and experience. |
• Mar 24, 2010 link notes tagged: communication technology mind book author ecology network loser lost diffusion contagion junk waste
| TWO centuries after Gutenberg invented movable type in the mid-1400s there were plenty of books around, but they were expensive and poorly made. In Britain a cartel had a lock on classic works such as Shakespeare’s and Milton’s. The first copyright law, enacted in the early 1700s in the Bard’s home country, was designed to free knowledge by putting books in the public domain after a short period of exclusivity, around 14 years. Laws protecting free speech did not emerge until the late 18th century. Before print became widespread the need was limited. Now the information flows in an era of abundant data are changing the relationship between technology and the role of the state once again. Many of today’s rules look increasingly archaic. Privacy laws were not designed for networks. Rules for document retention presume paper records. And since all the information is interconnected, it needs global rules. New principles for an age of big data sets will need to cover six broad areas: privacy, security, retention, processing, ownership and the integrity of information. |
• Mar 21, 2010 link notes [via] tagged: technology communication rules law regulation privacy copyright data network Internet security ownership
| In the morning I walked to the bank. I went to the automated teller machine to check my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request. The figure on the screen roughly corresponded to my independent estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval. The system hardware, the mainframe sitting in a locked room in some distant city. What a pleasing interaction. I sensed something of deep personal value, but not money, not that at all, had been authenticated and confirmed. A deranged person was escorted from the bank by two armed guards. The system was invisible, which made it all the more impressive, all the more disquieting to deal with. But we were in accord, at least for now. The networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies. |
White Noise won the National Book Award in 1985. Learn more about it on Wikipedia.
• Mar 17, 2010 link notes reblogged from circuitry [via] tagged: art communication technology machine computer network interaction design user interface money ATM DeLillo author book lost system
The Boing Boing post links back to Susannah Breslin’s personal blog which is not very informative. More information can be found about this phenomenon under the term “haul video”, “haul videos”, “mall haul” or “makeup haul”:
“Haul videos are the democratization of the home shopping network. They typically feature teen girls just back from the mall, shopping bag in hand, gushing over their purchases (or “haul”) to their webcam to be uploaded to YouTube for the world to see. […]A search for Haul at YouTube returns 105,000 videos. A spot check reveals that surprisingly few of these videos are for U-Haul or another unrelated topic. What more could a retailer ask for that enthusiastic, peer-to-peer endorsements of their shopping experiences? Retailers should be cultivating if not deliberately encouraging the creation of these videos.” (read more over at David Erikson’s blog)
Have the consumer buy form you, have the consumer work for you:
“On YouTube, there are a new set of viral videos called “Haul” videos. These are videos posted by everyday people talking about the stuff they bought on their most recent shopping spree. Some name each items with cost, some are just showing off the items they bought. Some people are showing off how much they saved. There are a few videos that get more then 200,000 viewers them. This could be a treasure trove for local businesses.” (A Guide to Haul Viral Videos)
A “haul” is a cargo. Thus “haul vloggers” could be understand as human carriers, loaded with objects, speaking about those things (or literaly through them, as in the screen capture above), existentialy concerned by all this equipment. Now two things about that :
1) In its general form, it’s not a new phenomenon. Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” back in 1899 in his book The Theory of the Leisure Classe. Veblen was a major inspiration for Baudrillard’s The Consumer Society (1970);
2) It will be a mistake to associate this phenomenon strictly with teen girls. We all brag to a certain degree about what we buy, may it be books, DVDs, CDs, tools, wine, etc. We may not do it in front of a camera, but we speak about it, we post about it, we tell friends about it (Marco Arment, the lead developer of Tumblr, is currently buying a new BMW). That may be why some are thinking Blippy ―a kind of Twitter where you post about items you just bought― could become the next big thing (it launched last December).
• Mar 14, 2010 link notes tagged: Consumption Heidegger blog communication consumer haul haul vlogger junk lost makeup haul mall haul network object product social technology trash Veblen Baudrillard Blippy
The New York Times: “Hey, ‘Friend,’ Do You ‘Like’ My Sad Story?” by Nick Bilton, March 8, 2010
“I called up an expert on language for some insight into this issue: Jesse Sheidlower, lexicographer and editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Mr. Sheidlower said the evolution of meaning and interpretation is natural for language. He considers it entirely possible that a younger generation growing up online might understand “like” to mean something different than older folks do.
“People are posting very heartfelt feelings on these social sites, and the option is to either like it or comment,” he said. “I don’t think it changes the meaning of the word, but there is a disjunct that is happening here, and it forces you to think of the word that is pointing to a story and not necessarily the content within it.”
“Like” clearly isn’t the only word that is seeing a change to its context or understanding. We are starting to perceive the word “friend” differently, too, thanks to social networking services.
“There’s a point when these friends are really just people I have in common with others, or people I’ve only met once, but ‘friend’ is the only word available to say you know this person, even though they are simply connections,” Mr. Sheidlower said.” (more)
• Mar 09, 2010 link notes reblogged from infoneer-pulse [via] tagged: communication technology word meaning evolution social friend friendship network generation semantic
