The Body Electrate
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Ulmer’s work is certainly interesting. I’ll give him that. In truth, as I’ve noted before, I rather resistant to some of the concepts as they are articulated in Internet Invention – to what I see as an ironically reductive psychoanalytic collage of the auto-biographical (non)self. Now, it may likely be the case that I disagree more with Internet-Invention-Ulmer than I do say Object-of-PostCriticism-Ulmer or Electronic-Monuments Ulmer or even Ulmer-Ulmer. I had some qualms about ReasoNeon, it’s true… but for this post, I am going to choose to focus on one of the elements in this portion of reading (Entertainment Discourse) that I have less up-and-down issues with. I have expended a decent amount of energy disagreeing, so I want to be sure to keep an open mind that allows me to see the material that I do agree with as well.
A thread that I find quite interesting in this section is the reference to the Body – to the corporeal self. This is something that is obviously very important in our individual/collective lives, and is certainly important in the Entertainment industry (in myriad ways)… and is something that should be important in electracy.
Ulmer writes that “the documentation procedure for each installment of the mystory should develop as many sensory signifiers as possible that are relevant to the memory” (129). This is something that storytellers have latched onto since the early oral traditions, and it is something that our entertainment industry is still exploring. While Smell-O-Vision may not be a reality any time soon, the 3-D Technology employed is bringing the body closer to the story than ever before, confounding our senses, and giving new meaning to the theater “experience” (even the HOME Theater Experience(Here’s an ARTICLE that I find interesting regarding the “real” and “not-so-real” 3-D production techniques, and here’s ONE on the 3-D Home Theater coming to a Living Room near you).
The Body has been an important tool in the modern Entertainment industry since its filmic origins a century ago:
And Bodies have been used in intriguing ways to convey movement in multi-layered ways. Take, for instance, the unique vocal and kinetic delivery given (by Frank Oz) to this piece of Entertainment legend:
And here is the trailer for a film I just came across and purchased --- it is my Entertainment Discourse plan for this coming weekend:
So how might/should/is this influence(ing) electracy? Ulmer gives us pretty good cues, for instance, referencing Richard Bolt of MIT who “demonstrated his point [about dealing with computers conversationally] by means of a computer program that responded to VOICE COMMAND, GESTURE, and GAZE” (139) – the components of classical rhetoric’s Bodily DELIVERY canon.
A simple, but important, element in electracy-generation is the need to keep an openmind. We have been given glimpses of what the electrate future might look like, and we should continually allow ourselves to imagine:
Now, I am not fully on board with all that Ulmer is saying in this pages about the bodily self (… shocking, I know). The mystorical value in gestural imitation, material fetishizings, and the detachedness claim that “when you go online, even if your body is in Kansas, your spirit is not in Kansas anymore” (178) are all troubling to me. But alas, I’d prefer to end on a high note:
A thread that I find quite interesting in this section is the reference to the Body – to the corporeal self. This is something that is obviously very important in our individual/collective lives, and is certainly important in the Entertainment industry (in myriad ways)… and is something that should be important in electracy.
Ulmer writes that “the documentation procedure for each installment of the mystory should develop as many sensory signifiers as possible that are relevant to the memory” (129). This is something that storytellers have latched onto since the early oral traditions, and it is something that our entertainment industry is still exploring. While Smell-O-Vision may not be a reality any time soon, the 3-D Technology employed is bringing the body closer to the story than ever before, confounding our senses, and giving new meaning to the theater “experience” (even the HOME Theater Experience(Here’s an ARTICLE that I find interesting regarding the “real” and “not-so-real” 3-D production techniques, and here’s ONE on the 3-D Home Theater coming to a Living Room near you).
The Body has been an important tool in the modern Entertainment industry since its filmic origins a century ago:
“Note how the actors in the scene […] performed their role. How […] they use their bodies to convey meaning” (130).
And Bodies have been used in intriguing ways to convey movement in multi-layered ways. Take, for instance, the unique vocal and kinetic delivery given (by Frank Oz) to this piece of Entertainment legend:
“The wise one: a mentor gives guidance and support to the subject” (126).
So how might/should/is this influence(ing) electracy? Ulmer gives us pretty good cues, for instance, referencing Richard Bolt of MIT who “demonstrated his point [about dealing with computers conversationally] by means of a computer program that responded to VOICE COMMAND, GESTURE, and GAZE” (139) – the components of classical rhetoric’s Bodily DELIVERY canon.
A simple, but important, element in electracy-generation is the need to keep an openmind. We have been given glimpses of what the electrate future might look like, and we should continually allow ourselves to imagine:
Now, I am not fully on board with all that Ulmer is saying in this pages about the bodily self (… shocking, I know). The mystorical value in gestural imitation, material fetishizings, and the detachedness claim that “when you go online, even if your body is in Kansas, your spirit is not in Kansas anymore” (178) are all troubling to me. But alas, I’d prefer to end on a high note:
We'll be okay... right?
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It won't fully happen. We will not reach a total general accident similar to The Flood via technology, "the waning importance of the time zones soon reproducing the disappearance of land above water level" (125) and all. It won't happen for a number of reasons. One of them is the good ole dollar sign.
There are still too many impoverished people in this world to think that we will fully bathe the earth in this form of time-light that will destroy the physical, the local. There are folks struggling to pay their mortgages... struggling to pay for their DIAL-UP INTERNET. We are not quite to Virilio's Doomsday.
Then again, I suppose even Noah survived with his family... as did some animals (some in 2s, some in 7s...). The Flood forced a reBoot, but it did so amidst much pain. Perhaps Virilio is warning us to try NOT take the hard route.
Though I really question the degree of the Virtual/Digital's reach. Virilio writes that "just as the astronaut broke free of the reality of his native world in landing on the moon, the cybernaut momentarily leaves the reality of mundane space-time and inserts himself into the cybernetic strait-jacket of the virtual-reality environment control programme" (131). But how many of us are astronauts??? Not many. Virilio might say "That's the point - because you're not an astronaut but everyone has become a cybernaut - what an exponential increase in risk!" But are we really all cybernauts? One generation from now, will we be? Or will the pendulum swing the other direction for some unforeseen reason? Might Ulmer AND Virilio BOTH be wrong? Could there be an upswing in the desire for the natural/organic/physical?
OR maybe that's not possible. Virilio seems to connect appreciation for the physical with a reliance on the local. If there's no need for the local, the desire to maintain the physical (natural environment) goes away. Hmmm... Bummer... maybe there goes my hope for that return swing in the pendulum...
THIS IS ALL TO SAY THAT THIS IS REALLY DIFFICULT TO "PREDICT." As such, perhaps lessons from Virlio and Ulmer are both necesarry in concert with one another. A healthy skepticism and challenging of teletech, always keeping our hands on the plugs, while simultaneously working feverishly and profoundly creatively with the other hand to invent new and wondrous things out of the electrate world of possibilities before us.
Then again... maybe we don't have enough hands.
There are still too many impoverished people in this world to think that we will fully bathe the earth in this form of time-light that will destroy the physical, the local. There are folks struggling to pay their mortgages... struggling to pay for their DIAL-UP INTERNET. We are not quite to Virilio's Doomsday.
Then again, I suppose even Noah survived with his family... as did some animals (some in 2s, some in 7s...). The Flood forced a reBoot, but it did so amidst much pain. Perhaps Virilio is warning us to try NOT take the hard route.
Though I really question the degree of the Virtual/Digital's reach. Virilio writes that "just as the astronaut broke free of the reality of his native world in landing on the moon, the cybernaut momentarily leaves the reality of mundane space-time and inserts himself into the cybernetic strait-jacket of the virtual-reality environment control programme" (131). But how many of us are astronauts??? Not many. Virilio might say "That's the point - because you're not an astronaut but everyone has become a cybernaut - what an exponential increase in risk!" But are we really all cybernauts? One generation from now, will we be? Or will the pendulum swing the other direction for some unforeseen reason? Might Ulmer AND Virilio BOTH be wrong? Could there be an upswing in the desire for the natural/organic/physical?
OR maybe that's not possible. Virilio seems to connect appreciation for the physical with a reliance on the local. If there's no need for the local, the desire to maintain the physical (natural environment) goes away. Hmmm... Bummer... maybe there goes my hope for that return swing in the pendulum...
THIS IS ALL TO SAY THAT THIS IS REALLY DIFFICULT TO "PREDICT." As such, perhaps lessons from Virlio and Ulmer are both necesarry in concert with one another. A healthy skepticism and challenging of teletech, always keeping our hands on the plugs, while simultaneously working feverishly and profoundly creatively with the other hand to invent new and wondrous things out of the electrate world of possibilities before us.
Then again... maybe we don't have enough hands.
"hegemonic influence of technological culture"
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Boy oh boy... the more I read Virlio ("Open Sky"), the more I find him persuasive. Sure, he's a bit "out there" in terms of the way he utilizes light-speed, etc., but the core ideas he proposes seem to have solid nuggets of truth in them.
In what ways does the "hegemonic influence of technological culture" (32) actually confine our way of thinking? Have we been programmed to only operate pseudo-satisfiedly through instantaneous "real-time" prosthetic tech? In what ways is our creativity being channeled only through those avenues?
This is a very important question for our culture at large, but also for the RCID program in particular. I have heard a couple different faculty members raise the question recently, asking whether or not RCID prompts us to be truly creative, or whether or not it is reinscribing certain institutional constraints of "flexibility" within the system.
In a 2007 TED Talk, Sir Ken Robinson raised this very issue, asking whether or not schools actually kill creativity. He demonstrated the importance of this question, saying, "Children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue, despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days, what the world will look like in five years' time, and yet we're meant to be educating them for it." (YouTube video HERE)
In what ways are we as a culture, we here in RCID, succumbing to the dromological culture of hegemonic technology? Virilio forces us to ask some Serious Questions.
Let's think of the possible negative ramifications beyond a controlling of creativity (an oxymoron?) --- for instance, pollution. Virilio writes, "At the end of the century, there will not be much left of the expanse of a planet that is not only polluted but also shrunk" (21). This shrinking occurs through our light-speed real-time telepresence that transports us anywhere in less than an instant. In that world, we are plugged in to the natural resources stripped from the earth, but are physically connected to manufactured prosthetics, not the earth itself. Why care about the pollution of the world if we're not actually experiencing the physical world?
Some would say that the Virtual spaces are just as "Real" as the Physical ones. While that may have SOME truth on a social level (though one should remember that while it may be "real," it is not the SAME as the physical social world), it does not mean that is has the same ramifications. Constructing a beautiful world in SL does not require maintenance of the beauty of the physical world. At least not in the short run ---- and that's all one cares about in this light-speed dromological world. There is no future. Only the instantaneous now. Future requires waiting. Who would want to wait?
And what of the relationships? What will society look like 30 years from now, having experienced so much telepresence? What will happen to our notions of service (18)? What will happen to our physical interpersonal relationships? Virilio boldly states, "getting closer to the 'distant' takes you away proportionally from the 'near' (and dear) - the friend, the relative, the neighbour - thus making strangers, if not actual enemies, of all who are close at hand" (20).
.... And before I leave this post....... what of our telepresence via military drones?
There's so much Virilio has gotten me thinking about. Perhaps I should take some time to mull it over.
In what ways does the "hegemonic influence of technological culture" (32) actually confine our way of thinking? Have we been programmed to only operate pseudo-satisfiedly through instantaneous "real-time" prosthetic tech? In what ways is our creativity being channeled only through those avenues?
This is a very important question for our culture at large, but also for the RCID program in particular. I have heard a couple different faculty members raise the question recently, asking whether or not RCID prompts us to be truly creative, or whether or not it is reinscribing certain institutional constraints of "flexibility" within the system.
In a 2007 TED Talk, Sir Ken Robinson raised this very issue, asking whether or not schools actually kill creativity. He demonstrated the importance of this question, saying, "Children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue, despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days, what the world will look like in five years' time, and yet we're meant to be educating them for it." (YouTube video HERE)
In what ways are we as a culture, we here in RCID, succumbing to the dromological culture of hegemonic technology? Virilio forces us to ask some Serious Questions.
Let's think of the possible negative ramifications beyond a controlling of creativity (an oxymoron?) --- for instance, pollution. Virilio writes, "At the end of the century, there will not be much left of the expanse of a planet that is not only polluted but also shrunk" (21). This shrinking occurs through our light-speed real-time telepresence that transports us anywhere in less than an instant. In that world, we are plugged in to the natural resources stripped from the earth, but are physically connected to manufactured prosthetics, not the earth itself. Why care about the pollution of the world if we're not actually experiencing the physical world?
Some would say that the Virtual spaces are just as "Real" as the Physical ones. While that may have SOME truth on a social level (though one should remember that while it may be "real," it is not the SAME as the physical social world), it does not mean that is has the same ramifications. Constructing a beautiful world in SL does not require maintenance of the beauty of the physical world. At least not in the short run ---- and that's all one cares about in this light-speed dromological world. There is no future. Only the instantaneous now. Future requires waiting. Who would want to wait?
And what of the relationships? What will society look like 30 years from now, having experienced so much telepresence? What will happen to our notions of service (18)? What will happen to our physical interpersonal relationships? Virilio boldly states, "getting closer to the 'distant' takes you away proportionally from the 'near' (and dear) - the friend, the relative, the neighbour - thus making strangers, if not actual enemies, of all who are close at hand" (20).
.... And before I leave this post....... what of our telepresence via military drones?
There's so much Virilio has gotten me thinking about. Perhaps I should take some time to mull it over.
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