Baudrillard claims that desire does not come up in Foucault's work because its place is already occupied by power; thus, Deleuze and Lyotard's theories of the schizoid and libidinal are analogous to Foucault's power-systems -> they are rhizomes, openings-up, continuities, etc.
Isn't it interesting (though this is one of Baudrillard's critiques) that the three take up different themes in similar ways, as if suggesting that the intensities and rhizomatic structures of the earth are ideas that have been teased and teased until their tangents emerge, their connections light up, and their systems channel information to and fro continuously.
Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Simulation/Madness
"The first Gulf War was the first "live" war. World War Two was a world war in space. It spread from Europe to Japan, to the Soviet Union, etc. World War Two was quite different from World War One which was geographically limited to Europe. But in the case of the Gulf War, we are dealing with a war which is extremely local in space, but global in time, since it is the first "live" war. And to those, like my friend Baudrillard, who say that this war did not actually occur, I reply: this war may not have occurred in the actual global space, but it did occur in global time. And this thans to CNN and The Pentagon. This is a new form of war, and all future wares, all future accidents will be live wars and live accidents.
(Wilson: How will this removal affect people?)
Firstly, a de-realization, the accident of the real. It's not one, two, hundreds or thousands of people who are being killed, but the whole reality itself. In a way, everybody is wounded from the wound of the real. This phenomenon is similar to madness. The mad person is wounded by his or her distorted relationship to the real. Imagine that all of a sudden I am convinced that I am Napoleon: I am no longer Virilio, but Napoleon. My reality is wounded. Virtual reality leads to a similar de-realization. However, it no longer works only at the scale of individuals, as in madness, but at the scale of the world.
By the way, this might sound like drama, but it is not the end of the world: it is both sad and happy, nasty and kind. It is a lot of contradictory things at the same time. And it is complex."
--Virilio, Cyberwar, God and Television: An Interview with Paul Virilio
Conducted by Louise Wilson, from Digital Delerium
Virilio's comparison of madness with simulation is really interesting because if we've been taught as liberal academics to treat madness as an interesting singularity in personality, simulation must be able to divulge similarly interesting points. Of course, we may not seek out madness, but we do seem to seek out simulation, at least on some level. Taking, for example, Massive-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs), the real player can become Napoleon consciously and willingly, interact with others as Napoleon. But perhaps the previous example is "active" simulation, whereas something like television and CNN is "passive" simulation because one does not choose the way in which it overtakes the body.
(Wilson: How will this removal affect people?)
Firstly, a de-realization, the accident of the real. It's not one, two, hundreds or thousands of people who are being killed, but the whole reality itself. In a way, everybody is wounded from the wound of the real. This phenomenon is similar to madness. The mad person is wounded by his or her distorted relationship to the real. Imagine that all of a sudden I am convinced that I am Napoleon: I am no longer Virilio, but Napoleon. My reality is wounded. Virtual reality leads to a similar de-realization. However, it no longer works only at the scale of individuals, as in madness, but at the scale of the world.
By the way, this might sound like drama, but it is not the end of the world: it is both sad and happy, nasty and kind. It is a lot of contradictory things at the same time. And it is complex."
--Virilio, Cyberwar, God and Television: An Interview with Paul Virilio
Conducted by Louise Wilson, from Digital Delerium
Virilio's comparison of madness with simulation is really interesting because if we've been taught as liberal academics to treat madness as an interesting singularity in personality, simulation must be able to divulge similarly interesting points. Of course, we may not seek out madness, but we do seem to seek out simulation, at least on some level. Taking, for example, Massive-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs), the real player can become Napoleon consciously and willingly, interact with others as Napoleon. But perhaps the previous example is "active" simulation, whereas something like television and CNN is "passive" simulation because one does not choose the way in which it overtakes the body.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Beginning Life on the Screen
I've just begun Sherry Turkle's book Life on the Screen: Identity and the Age of the Internet, finish the introduction and the first chapter. Turkle begins her book, which is mostly about MUD-based interactions (think self-designable chatrooms, for now), with an interesting distinction between Modernist and Postmodernist of computer technology. The modernist defines the computer in the sense of an enlarged, more powerful calculator, capable of "computation" in the very literal sense. Postmodernist views, which she obviously prefers and embraces for the book thus far, see computer technology and the internet as an embodiment of itself; computers decentralize and fragment themselves, link (or hyperlink) between objects in infinite number of ways, and allow individual or unique creations in both hardware configurations and representation of the self (MUD chat rooms are her example).
Briefly summarizing the latter, a user can enter a chatroom and become who they want to be. They can become someone of a different gender, sexual orientation, cultural background, etc. and design a world and a simulated life around this persona that they've chosen to adopt. She asserts that some of these users feel more Real in their simulated environment, as if they've final constructed the life they were always meant to have had. Turkle moves on to lay out a history of computer-culture before the internet, while maintaining her modernist/postmodernist binary. What becomes most interesting for me is when she moves into the subsection "objects-to-think-with"...
Computers have become objects of orientation, of remembering, and of life processing. Much like what Sontag says of the photograph at a wedding re-membering the experience, the computer creates a tension between the user and their input and the way it is re-received. But, like photographs, they have become a part of remembrance, so much that we can often rely on photographs (now digital) to recall an event or experience. (Virilio talks about this too, in The Information Bomb in a totally different light). Further than that, like the way certain knowledges are appropriated by the masses and become a part of the way we think about the world (such as Freudian Slips or Dream Analysis from Freud), computers shape ours:
"Today, life on the computer screen carries theory. Here is how it happens. People decide that they want to buy an easy-to-use computer. They are attracted by a consumer product -- say, a computer with a Macintosh-style interface [note, Turkle is writing 11 years ago]. They think they are getting an instrumentally useful product, and there is little question that they are. But now it is in their home and they interact with it every day. And it turns out they are also getting an object that teaches them a new way of thinking and encourages them to develop new expectations about the kinds of relationships they and their children will have with machines. People decide that they want to interact with others on a computer network. They get an account on a commercial service. They think that this will provide them with new access to people and information, and of course it does. But it does more. When they log on, they may find themselves playing multiple roles, they may find themselves playing characters of the opposite sex. In this way they are swept up by the experiences that enable them to explore previously unexamined aspects of their sexuality or that challenge their ideas about a unitary self."
-- Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity and the Age of the Internet
...
My apologies for the vague and overlong summary. My purpose was to get down exactly what I liked about the introduction and the first chapter. The book is extremely pro-digital technology and has done little to complicate that thus far. But it is very informative in drawing a map of the sort of subjectivity-grounded-in-postmodernism. By far the biggest problem with the book is that it is 11 years old and a considerable amount of technological advancements have happened since then.
My main concern at the moment comes from the idea of computer technology (and, more related to the present moment, cyber- or internet technology) as an extension of the self. I hope Turkle goes into more depth here, because she rejects the equation of the computer with the human mind, so the usage of the computer for the mind doesn't quite connect. Virilio and Baudrillard (and Lyotard?) seem to address this from the other point of view. It will be interesting to dive deeper into both sides.
Briefly summarizing the latter, a user can enter a chatroom and become who they want to be. They can become someone of a different gender, sexual orientation, cultural background, etc. and design a world and a simulated life around this persona that they've chosen to adopt. She asserts that some of these users feel more Real in their simulated environment, as if they've final constructed the life they were always meant to have had. Turkle moves on to lay out a history of computer-culture before the internet, while maintaining her modernist/postmodernist binary. What becomes most interesting for me is when she moves into the subsection "objects-to-think-with"...
Computers have become objects of orientation, of remembering, and of life processing. Much like what Sontag says of the photograph at a wedding re-membering the experience, the computer creates a tension between the user and their input and the way it is re-received. But, like photographs, they have become a part of remembrance, so much that we can often rely on photographs (now digital) to recall an event or experience. (Virilio talks about this too, in The Information Bomb in a totally different light). Further than that, like the way certain knowledges are appropriated by the masses and become a part of the way we think about the world (such as Freudian Slips or Dream Analysis from Freud), computers shape ours:
"Today, life on the computer screen carries theory. Here is how it happens. People decide that they want to buy an easy-to-use computer. They are attracted by a consumer product -- say, a computer with a Macintosh-style interface [note, Turkle is writing 11 years ago]. They think they are getting an instrumentally useful product, and there is little question that they are. But now it is in their home and they interact with it every day. And it turns out they are also getting an object that teaches them a new way of thinking and encourages them to develop new expectations about the kinds of relationships they and their children will have with machines. People decide that they want to interact with others on a computer network. They get an account on a commercial service. They think that this will provide them with new access to people and information, and of course it does. But it does more. When they log on, they may find themselves playing multiple roles, they may find themselves playing characters of the opposite sex. In this way they are swept up by the experiences that enable them to explore previously unexamined aspects of their sexuality or that challenge their ideas about a unitary self."
-- Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity and the Age of the Internet
...
My apologies for the vague and overlong summary. My purpose was to get down exactly what I liked about the introduction and the first chapter. The book is extremely pro-digital technology and has done little to complicate that thus far. But it is very informative in drawing a map of the sort of subjectivity-grounded-in-postmodernism. By far the biggest problem with the book is that it is 11 years old and a considerable amount of technological advancements have happened since then.
My main concern at the moment comes from the idea of computer technology (and, more related to the present moment, cyber- or internet technology) as an extension of the self. I hope Turkle goes into more depth here, because she rejects the equation of the computer with the human mind, so the usage of the computer for the mind doesn't quite connect. Virilio and Baudrillard (and Lyotard?) seem to address this from the other point of view. It will be interesting to dive deeper into both sides.
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