So this week im writing about the dollhouse series, where the individuals identify themselves via tattoos that say who they are. These tattoos are still a form of technology used for self identification and as proof that the individuals in question are true biological humans. In fact the film calls these tattoos birthmarks. It is quite interesting to believe that these tattoos, that is the technology of putting a permanent mark under the skin, as a form of identification. I believe that many of the articles, such as the manifesto for cyborgs, or the works of Jason Sperb could be applied here. These indivduals, who are biologically human, use a form of technology which in theory makes them a cyborg according to most of the readings from this course, to maintain their human-ness. Or in the very least to identify eachother as biological humans and keep their true identity, or name...
So in theory, am I a cyborg? with this technology beneath my skin? or is it not enough? In theory, if someone were to have their entire body tattooed, their would be an entire layer seperating their internal organs and bodily parts such as the brain and heart ( necessary to allow the body to survive) and their skin and the outer world. And even more importantly this layer is entirely permanent. While it does not allow for any form of defense (it cannot stop bullets, or knives, or protect from disease and chemicals), it still exists and seperates the individuals internal body from the external world. Could this be a slightly altered seperation, or early stages of what we saw in Surrogates? (2009, Jonathan Mostow)
In conclusion I believe that the concept of tattoos as birthmarks, brought to light by Dollhouse, are important and should be included in the manifesto for cyborgs, or at least included in what helps define, or seperate biological humans from cyborgs, and the hypocrisy of the television shows use of these technological pieces to define the antithesis of the cyborgs, or technological beings is very important to the construction of what defines biological and cyborg individuals.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
So while reading this article (Smith-Windsor) this week I couldnt help to ignore the main arguments mainly in curiosity of what happens in the end to the baby. However my thoughts on that are irrelevant. What is relevant howere is the concept and descriptive nature of the mother when discussing her experience with giving birth to a premature infant.
The article is essentially a summation of her dicscussing the feelings and perceptions she had in the delivery process. While she claims to have a horrible feeling during the procedures to save the life of her child I believe that in that situation I would not be so much concerned about the process (unless it were painful) but moreso about the preservation of life. While discussing the feelings of the mother-child relationship, she claims that technology has severed the symbiosis, however again I would argue this to be essentially a poor argument, mainly due to the fact that just like an older post I wrote, we need technology...and it needs us. By this I mean that technology needs that baby to have a purpose and without technology the infant would cease to exist. Smith-Windsor should be grateful for that technology and realize that the use of the technology to save her childs life does not sever the simbiosis but instead allows for it to exist at all.
Smith-Windsor may have teh upper hand in that she has experienced all of this and I have not (mainly due to my inability to have a child.....yeah). Anyway, I still stand my ground. The technology is not an enemy or something to fear or think of negatively, but it is instead something that we as humans should appreciate so as to enhance (such as in film) or in this case preserve...life.
Finally, I would like to mention her argument that technology is a third party. While technology may be a third party it most definately does not create our identity on its own, in fact technology merely mediates and supervises our creation of our own identity. Facebook mediates how the world sees an individual. In the same sense, prosthetics, pacemakers, ventilators, incubators, wheelchairs, glasses, etc do not contgrol or create our identity but merely mediate how we create it ourselves. If an individual with a prosthetic arm refuses to try to be active anymore, then they have created their own identity as a stubborn, unmotivated, and most likely cold and sad individual. The technology did not create this identity as the individual had free choice. It is with this concept that I argue the logic of Smith-Windsor, not claiming that technology is not a third party, but merely to argue that the third party of technology only mediates, it does not control.
The article is essentially a summation of her dicscussing the feelings and perceptions she had in the delivery process. While she claims to have a horrible feeling during the procedures to save the life of her child I believe that in that situation I would not be so much concerned about the process (unless it were painful) but moreso about the preservation of life. While discussing the feelings of the mother-child relationship, she claims that technology has severed the symbiosis, however again I would argue this to be essentially a poor argument, mainly due to the fact that just like an older post I wrote, we need technology...and it needs us. By this I mean that technology needs that baby to have a purpose and without technology the infant would cease to exist. Smith-Windsor should be grateful for that technology and realize that the use of the technology to save her childs life does not sever the simbiosis but instead allows for it to exist at all.
Smith-Windsor may have teh upper hand in that she has experienced all of this and I have not (mainly due to my inability to have a child.....yeah). Anyway, I still stand my ground. The technology is not an enemy or something to fear or think of negatively, but it is instead something that we as humans should appreciate so as to enhance (such as in film) or in this case preserve...life.
Finally, I would like to mention her argument that technology is a third party. While technology may be a third party it most definately does not create our identity on its own, in fact technology merely mediates and supervises our creation of our own identity. Facebook mediates how the world sees an individual. In the same sense, prosthetics, pacemakers, ventilators, incubators, wheelchairs, glasses, etc do not contgrol or create our identity but merely mediate how we create it ourselves. If an individual with a prosthetic arm refuses to try to be active anymore, then they have created their own identity as a stubborn, unmotivated, and most likely cold and sad individual. The technology did not create this identity as the individual had free choice. It is with this concept that I argue the logic of Smith-Windsor, not claiming that technology is not a third party, but merely to argue that the third party of technology only mediates, it does not control.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
SO MANY BINARIES!
So....Binaries and the destruction of binaries. Donna Haraway's Manifesto for Cyborgs essentially discusses the concept of the cyborg versus the human, that is....go figure...another binary. Or is it? Donna Haraway's claims that a cyborg is a combination of a human and organism and therefore cybernetic organism. However that is not to say that all humans with a prosthetic limb, or a pacemaker, steel hip replacement or any other form of non-biological body part, consider themselves a cyborg, or half human half computer...In fact compared to where they would be without those non-biological parts, (i.e. dead, handicapped, physically impaired etc.) they are even more human and more able to perform daily tasks and live their lives normally.
And back to the binaries. The article put forth by Haraway completely discusses binaries but not as objects that are completely untouchable, but more so as binaries that are to be broken down, subverted into one another and eventually broken. It is in this way that the cyborg human binary has been blended, and the possibilities for binaries that can be blurred are long listed. Chaos can be seen in order, rich lifestyles in financially poor individuals, the old 'happy to be leaving but sad to go" feeling and so on and so forth. This blending of polarities and blurring of the lines can also be applied to a male-female binary that controls everything in the world. In a male dominated world, we are slowly seeing an advance of female power, growth and hopefully eventual equality.
With the growth and increased female power the male female binary is slowly being blurred and blended and may eventually lead to equality. There are women working in male dominated industries and vice versa, and men and women are becoming more respectful and understanding of one another. Is it the case where women are the cyborgs and men are the humans? Where we realize that women are becoming more and more like men and they are encroaching on the forefront of manhood? If that is what Haraway is saying then it is quite a scary thought. She compares cyborgs and humans, that they were once a 'caricature of the masculinist productive dream'. Why has it never been that women are the humans and men are the cyborgs? We (that is males like myself) are always trying to understand what women are thinking, how they tick, how to make them happy, etc. And physically, men are becoming better groomed personally, with chest waxing, hair removal, tanning, and being more sensitive (even in drastic cases being what has been coined 'metrosexual' and essentially being feminine but not homosexual. It could be possible that it is not a movement of one binary trying to become more like another but more so a mutual shift into a closer unity with contributions on the part of both sides. While 30-60 years ago I would argue that it is mainly a women becoming more like men, I now think we are in a time where men and women are both trying to be more autonomous and more like one another.
So is Donna right? wrong? or neither? She could be both? While she may be right in her definition and discussion of cyborgs, her comparison to cyborgs as the other, that is as females versus the human males, may be wrong. While there are other 'other' comparisons in her article there isn't enough room on this blog (or time in my Saturday night) to discuss them all. However it is important to consider that perhaps there is not other? perhaps there are simply two sides of this binary that are encroaching on one another and may eventually blend and blur so far that there it becomes impossible to differentiate between machines and humanity insofar as the cyborg is concerned.
And back to the binaries. The article put forth by Haraway completely discusses binaries but not as objects that are completely untouchable, but more so as binaries that are to be broken down, subverted into one another and eventually broken. It is in this way that the cyborg human binary has been blended, and the possibilities for binaries that can be blurred are long listed. Chaos can be seen in order, rich lifestyles in financially poor individuals, the old 'happy to be leaving but sad to go" feeling and so on and so forth. This blending of polarities and blurring of the lines can also be applied to a male-female binary that controls everything in the world. In a male dominated world, we are slowly seeing an advance of female power, growth and hopefully eventual equality.
With the growth and increased female power the male female binary is slowly being blurred and blended and may eventually lead to equality. There are women working in male dominated industries and vice versa, and men and women are becoming more respectful and understanding of one another. Is it the case where women are the cyborgs and men are the humans? Where we realize that women are becoming more and more like men and they are encroaching on the forefront of manhood? If that is what Haraway is saying then it is quite a scary thought. She compares cyborgs and humans, that they were once a 'caricature of the masculinist productive dream'. Why has it never been that women are the humans and men are the cyborgs? We (that is males like myself) are always trying to understand what women are thinking, how they tick, how to make them happy, etc. And physically, men are becoming better groomed personally, with chest waxing, hair removal, tanning, and being more sensitive (even in drastic cases being what has been coined 'metrosexual' and essentially being feminine but not homosexual. It could be possible that it is not a movement of one binary trying to become more like another but more so a mutual shift into a closer unity with contributions on the part of both sides. While 30-60 years ago I would argue that it is mainly a women becoming more like men, I now think we are in a time where men and women are both trying to be more autonomous and more like one another.
So is Donna right? wrong? or neither? She could be both? While she may be right in her definition and discussion of cyborgs, her comparison to cyborgs as the other, that is as females versus the human males, may be wrong. While there are other 'other' comparisons in her article there isn't enough room on this blog (or time in my Saturday night) to discuss them all. However it is important to consider that perhaps there is not other? perhaps there are simply two sides of this binary that are encroaching on one another and may eventually blend and blur so far that there it becomes impossible to differentiate between machines and humanity insofar as the cyborg is concerned.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
We need technology and it needs us
So David Cronenberg's film eXistenZ (1999), another of the cyberpunk films of the 1990s, which like most, expresses "Great ambivalence over the transformation of human experience". (Hotchkiss, 18) The films express both an interest in the new technologies available and new forms of communication however they also fear them. Yes, its the same old matrix theme again...'so we need the machines and they need us...we could smash them to pieces but then Zion would not survive.' (The Matrix Reloaded, Wachowski Brothers 2003) While these films are based in sci-fi, the concept still holds true today. Technology requires humans to develop, grow, expand and function and on the same scale, humans require technology for everything from electricity to medicine, and even for pleasure (such as the pleasure of playing videogames, or for some people, writing a film blog online).
But while we need machines we must also be wary of seperating the real from the uncanny world of VR, gaming, and even television; the 2 former being the most problematic. It is ridiculous how individuals become lost in the gaming and Vr worlds of today, especially with role playing online games such as Diablo, World of Warcraft, and even the smalltime 'mafia wars' available to us on facebook, individuals become obsessive with their characters. This leads me to wonder how humans shifted and transgressed from the real world into the world of the Matrix? Or in the case of eXistenZ, how Allegra and Ted were able to decifer the difference between the game, the game within the game, and reality.
Back to the gaming. There has not been enough psychological academia or research to define what the possible negative effects gaming has on an individual who spends upwards of 10-12 hours per day playing video games, simply due to the fact that the technology is still relatively new to us. However what is scary and concerning ihow much the games begin to control individuals lives. Family 'board game night' like I had as a child is now being marketed as family 'videogame night' such as the xbox commercial we saw in class.
Other videos, such as the one below, depict the devastating effects that removing the game entirely from an individuals life can affect them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc
While it may be a hoax, I can also understand the effects that removing or failure at the game can affect an individual from personal experiences with friends.
Will it eventually come to a point where instead of the commercials telling us to help our friends who are addicted to online gambling become commercials telling us to help friends addicted to video games? I would have to say yes with the numerous problems gaming is having on our social lives. Watching people play on their laptops in lecture, the library, people (including my roommates) staying in to play xBox instead of coming out for dinner or to the pub and so on.
So technolgy needs us to grow and develop and function however their may soon come a time when there are technologies we do not need, that only cause us harm and control our everyday lives. And while there is not threat of a Matrix or Terminator, machine ruled world, there still is a threat of a machine ruled life, which impacts numerous individuals of all ages around the globe.
But while we need machines we must also be wary of seperating the real from the uncanny world of VR, gaming, and even television; the 2 former being the most problematic. It is ridiculous how individuals become lost in the gaming and Vr worlds of today, especially with role playing online games such as Diablo, World of Warcraft, and even the smalltime 'mafia wars' available to us on facebook, individuals become obsessive with their characters. This leads me to wonder how humans shifted and transgressed from the real world into the world of the Matrix? Or in the case of eXistenZ, how Allegra and Ted were able to decifer the difference between the game, the game within the game, and reality.
Back to the gaming. There has not been enough psychological academia or research to define what the possible negative effects gaming has on an individual who spends upwards of 10-12 hours per day playing video games, simply due to the fact that the technology is still relatively new to us. However what is scary and concerning ihow much the games begin to control individuals lives. Family 'board game night' like I had as a child is now being marketed as family 'videogame night' such as the xbox commercial we saw in class.
Other videos, such as the one below, depict the devastating effects that removing the game entirely from an individuals life can affect them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc
While it may be a hoax, I can also understand the effects that removing or failure at the game can affect an individual from personal experiences with friends.
Will it eventually come to a point where instead of the commercials telling us to help our friends who are addicted to online gambling become commercials telling us to help friends addicted to video games? I would have to say yes with the numerous problems gaming is having on our social lives. Watching people play on their laptops in lecture, the library, people (including my roommates) staying in to play xBox instead of coming out for dinner or to the pub and so on.
So technolgy needs us to grow and develop and function however their may soon come a time when there are technologies we do not need, that only cause us harm and control our everyday lives. And while there is not threat of a Matrix or Terminator, machine ruled world, there still is a threat of a machine ruled life, which impacts numerous individuals of all ages around the globe.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Technology today
So here is where things get interesting....I am supposed to describe the uses of technology and the importance of new technology and technological developments today, including how technology is important to school work, individual careers and daily life, through technology (that is the use of my laptop). Then on top of that I will publish this information, and my opinions through one of the greatest technological developments of the century....the internet.
So, technology today...Well where have we come from? I can still recall my parents talking about taking 'typing' in school and learning how to use a typewriter, now my mother (a teacher) is completely computer savvy and my father (a film technician) can't spell his name on microsoft word. So what does that mean? nothing. But realistically we need to recognize the growing importance of technology in our every day lives. According to Stats Canada, from 1989 to 1994, a 5 year term, computer literacy went up 9% among Canadian employees and 9% as well among students in Canada. At just under 2% per year, one can assume that following that trend today almost all Canadians, employed and students alike, are in some way computer literate or can at least do the simplest computer oriented tasks. Even Hewlitt-Packard has launched a new marketing campaign which boasts children claiming "I am (blank) years old and I work a PC". Technology and it's developments are continually expanding and breaking into the workplace and the academic worlds.
What about other technologies? as they grow, humans move from being the builders, constructors, office administrators, and other simple jobs to the developers, operators and maintenance staff of these new technologies. This new shift, begs the question how far will this go? When will humans no longer be needed at all? When we have technology to maintain and operate other technology (cyborgs for instance)? When we have nothing else to develop and can finally just enjoy the world around us? To quote one of my all time favorite films 'The world went and got itself in a big hurry'. The world has grown quickly and is developing and changing almost faster than we can as humans. It will no doubt be interesting to see the developments and changes the future holds, yet it is equally scary to think what the world will be like for my children if I ever have any, or even for me as an elderly person, if I make it that long.
Stats Canada source:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/studies-etudes/75-001/archive/e-pdf/3072-eng.pdf
Film:
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
So, technology today...Well where have we come from? I can still recall my parents talking about taking 'typing' in school and learning how to use a typewriter, now my mother (a teacher) is completely computer savvy and my father (a film technician) can't spell his name on microsoft word. So what does that mean? nothing. But realistically we need to recognize the growing importance of technology in our every day lives. According to Stats Canada, from 1989 to 1994, a 5 year term, computer literacy went up 9% among Canadian employees and 9% as well among students in Canada. At just under 2% per year, one can assume that following that trend today almost all Canadians, employed and students alike, are in some way computer literate or can at least do the simplest computer oriented tasks. Even Hewlitt-Packard has launched a new marketing campaign which boasts children claiming "I am (blank) years old and I work a PC". Technology and it's developments are continually expanding and breaking into the workplace and the academic worlds.
What about other technologies? as they grow, humans move from being the builders, constructors, office administrators, and other simple jobs to the developers, operators and maintenance staff of these new technologies. This new shift, begs the question how far will this go? When will humans no longer be needed at all? When we have technology to maintain and operate other technology (cyborgs for instance)? When we have nothing else to develop and can finally just enjoy the world around us? To quote one of my all time favorite films 'The world went and got itself in a big hurry'. The world has grown quickly and is developing and changing almost faster than we can as humans. It will no doubt be interesting to see the developments and changes the future holds, yet it is equally scary to think what the world will be like for my children if I ever have any, or even for me as an elderly person, if I make it that long.
Stats Canada source:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/studies-etudes/75-001/archive/e-pdf/3072-eng.pdf
Film:
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Technology and the future of actors
Steve Aronowitz's article Technology and the Future of Work discusses the future of technology in the everyday working and labour world, and the advances of technology replacing human labourers. He has even been quoted as claiming that "the second phase of automatic production - computerization - is merely a wrinkle of disempowerment" (p.140)
Throughout history, many new technological advances have been created to aid human labour, and most have ended up nearly if not entirely replacing human labour. From the machines used to produce vehicles replacing labourers at the Ford plant, for instance, up to the creation of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and computerized businesses online, advancing technology has been a threat to all forms of labour. The reason? Most would argue the decrease in business costs.
How you may ask? First, certain Banks in Canada will charge much less for a Bank account if you agree to only use the ATMs as opposed to the human bank tellers. This in turn requires the bank to hire (and therefor pay) fewer employees. As a consequence to that, bank branches can rent smaller offices and operating facilities, cutting down rent/lease costs.
Now on to the relevant issues for film students. ( I assure you this isn't a business of banking blog). With the increasing developments of film animation, Computer Generated Imaging (CGI), cyborgs, avatars, and all other forms of non-human actors is becoming a threat to all actors in the film industry. Films such as Hironobu Sakaguchi's Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), which was entirely computer generated avatars, require no biological actors. Certain genres especially, such as sci-fi, thrillers, and children's films (animated), are using much fewer actors. Most of the characters in these types of films are animated, avatars, or computer generated images. The Hulk in Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk (2008), Optimus Prime in Michael Bay's Transformers (2007), The mummy is Stephen Sommers' The Mummy series (1999, 2001, 2008), the 'monster' in Matt Reeves' Cloverfield 2008); all generated with digital technology and each replacing the role that could possibly be played by biological human actors. There are also numerous entirely animated films, such as Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) and numerous other Disney films require no biological human actors.
What about the individuals paid to do the voices for these characters, or the individuals who work to create these characters? While this does open the job market to more employees in these fields in still decreases the use of biological actors, and in some circumstances most likely costs the film production more money, simply because the production may require numerous individuals per character they create technologically.
What does the future hold for the future of actors and actresses in film? Will we eventually reach a point where actors are few and far between and the majority of films will use digitally engineered characters? Only time will tell, but history seems to be telling us, it doesn't look good.
Throughout history, many new technological advances have been created to aid human labour, and most have ended up nearly if not entirely replacing human labour. From the machines used to produce vehicles replacing labourers at the Ford plant, for instance, up to the creation of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and computerized businesses online, advancing technology has been a threat to all forms of labour. The reason? Most would argue the decrease in business costs.
How you may ask? First, certain Banks in Canada will charge much less for a Bank account if you agree to only use the ATMs as opposed to the human bank tellers. This in turn requires the bank to hire (and therefor pay) fewer employees. As a consequence to that, bank branches can rent smaller offices and operating facilities, cutting down rent/lease costs.
Now on to the relevant issues for film students. ( I assure you this isn't a business of banking blog). With the increasing developments of film animation, Computer Generated Imaging (CGI), cyborgs, avatars, and all other forms of non-human actors is becoming a threat to all actors in the film industry. Films such as Hironobu Sakaguchi's Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), which was entirely computer generated avatars, require no biological actors. Certain genres especially, such as sci-fi, thrillers, and children's films (animated), are using much fewer actors. Most of the characters in these types of films are animated, avatars, or computer generated images. The Hulk in Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk (2008), Optimus Prime in Michael Bay's Transformers (2007), The mummy is Stephen Sommers' The Mummy series (1999, 2001, 2008), the 'monster' in Matt Reeves' Cloverfield 2008); all generated with digital technology and each replacing the role that could possibly be played by biological human actors. There are also numerous entirely animated films, such as Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) and numerous other Disney films require no biological human actors.
What about the individuals paid to do the voices for these characters, or the individuals who work to create these characters? While this does open the job market to more employees in these fields in still decreases the use of biological actors, and in some circumstances most likely costs the film production more money, simply because the production may require numerous individuals per character they create technologically.
What does the future hold for the future of actors and actresses in film? Will we eventually reach a point where actors are few and far between and the majority of films will use digitally engineered characters? Only time will tell, but history seems to be telling us, it doesn't look good.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Caprica and visual media
So last week we watched Caprica (2009), and were asked to read the introduction to Nicholas Mirzoeff's book, "An Introduction to Visual Culture". The combination of the reading and the film forced me (despite attempts at avoiding it) to think about the numerous ways that individuals in the world today interact with technology unknowingly or at least without realizing it. Everyday we as individuals are videotaped when we use ATM bank machines, enter stores with surveillance, go to the drive through at most fast food restaurants, walk the halls of University or even drive our cars (traffic cameras). Our culture is becoming increasingly visual and I feel like we are slowly losing power over that technology. 10 years ago it would be considered awkward, perverted, voyeuristic (in a negative sense), and in some cases illegal to be videotaped without giving consent. A second example of technology becoming overly powerful and expanding too rapidly is the very medium I am using to convey these thoughts. Thats right folks, im talking about the internet. With unlimited numbers of wesites from pornography to facebook, to search engines and online stores the internet has without a doubt become to large for us to control or censor. Even google has created technology on cellular phones which can track our friends location and tell the individual searching where their friends are at that exact moment. Is that not a horrific invasion of privacy and personal space? I ask all of you readers to comment about wether you think this could become a real threat or just call me out as a nerd who has seen too many sci-fi thriller movies and is now paranoid of an AI attack.
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