This is a fantastic bit of writing Patrick, it's been in my head all weekend. Me too, I feel I'm a slave to the machine.
I've avoided a cell phone as I also hate being contactable all the time, yet I can see myself not keeping up with technological change. I'm the only one on the train who isn't checking mail, doing Facebook, reading a kindle, and I'm glad! Then again, sometimes it would be useful ... Work wise I do css/ web development, which has really lost it's allure, now it's production line stuff. I hate it I have to say. But I still have this love-hate thing with it, I can't give it up, but often I'd love to just walk away. cheers, dave On 17 July 2011 14:35, mark cooley <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm right there with you Patrick. I feel the same way. If I didn't feel > compelled to keep up with technoculture because of the classes I teach, I > would happily give up most of my computer use. It took me years to kick my > Television habit and finally I can sit in a quite room without a tv blaring > in the background. I've resisted using a cell phone and only take one with > me on trips. I really resent the fact that people think they should have > constant contact with me. In terms of academics, I see little reason that > New Media is almost automatically defined in terms of digital technologies. > I've begun teaching an "agriArt" class as part of the new media curriculum > where I teach. The reaction has been positive - just one way to redefine new > media art away from the assumption that it has to be about gadgets. > ...anyway, thanks for the post and sorry for my half witted response. > > ...off to feed the chickens! > > > Message: 3 > Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:30:25 -0500 > > From: "Lichty, Patrick" > <[email protected]<http://mc/[email protected]> > > > Subject: [NetBehaviour] Against Machinic Slavery > To: > "[email protected]<http://mc/[email protected]>" > <[email protected]<http://mc/[email protected]> > > > Message-ID: > < > d5ba7903f469284d8f95ef6e2b83552801a594d6c...@exch07mailbox.admin.colum.edu<http://mc/compose?to=d5ba7903f469284d8f95ef6e2b83552801a594d6c...@exch07mailbox.admin.colum.edu> > > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" > > > On networks and control > > I received my first computer in 1978 from my parent. That means that I > have been in front of a screen for 32 years as of this writing. > > And I've had it. Or at least I'm having severe problems with this > practice. You see, I'm a digital native, or at least a technological one, > with Star Trek before my eyes (the ORIGINAL ONE) before kindergarten, and > electronics in my hand before puberty. I have been before a computer > screen, or a television screen all of my life, but I am not alone. Let me > begin that I feel like a unit of livestock in a Web 2.0, or (3.0, or 4.0 by > now) carrel, tethered by instrumental fear and social panopticism and > workplace Taylorism, as well as seductive playbourism to keep me immobile. > > The Building of the Borg-machine > Marshall McLuhan wrote on privacy in the electric networks regarding > ubiquitous interpersonal involvement - > > ?Electronic media bring us in touch with everyone, everywhere, > instantaneously. Whereas the book extended the eye, electronic circuitry > extends the central nervous system.. Constant contact with the world becomes > a daily reality. All-at-oneness is our state of being. Closed human systems > no longer exist. For us, the first postliterate generation, privacy is > either a luxury or a curse of the past. The planet is like a general store > where nosy people keep track of everyone else?s business ? a twelve-party > line or a ?Dear Abby? column writ large. ?The new tribalism is one where > everyone?s business is everyone else?s and where we are all somewhat testy?. > [] > > The key phrase here is ?Constant contact with the world becomes a daily > reality.? I believe that McLuhan was dealing with more of the Orwell/Huxley > milieu of constant broadcast to a passive audience as a measure of > pacification and control, but this is not the case of the fin de millennium > culture. The individual is in constant contact with the world, the virtual, > and all of its inhabitants. Facebook has over 500 Million subscribers[], > constituting 1 in every 12 people alive. Add Twitter, academia.edu, > Google Wave, LinkedIn, Friendster, Ning, Second Life, and you have a milieu > what beckons for the individual to go online, work at the computer, shop at > the computer, play at the computer, and fall asleep while the computer plays > your favorite music or plays your favorite news. In many ways, this echoes > the utopian ideals of 1960's futuristic ephemeral videos of the ?House of > the Future? > > Control > Paul Virilio, in his essay, ?The Third Interval? described the lack of > differentiation between the technologically accelerated disabled body, and > the technologically accelerated able body. His assertion is that the one > becomes accelerated in its ability to engage in the discourse of the able in > virtual space while the able becomes paralyzed in its enmeshing in the > virtual. In short, under virtual acceleration, the body becomes inert and > the virtual gesture takes on lines of flight. The paralysis is the > problem. As in Postman's Technopoly, the tool becomes a platform which > becomes a societal underpinning, then becomes its own mythology. The shape > of society becomes such that the indivdual is chaped to fit the machine. > Although this may sound like Englebart's ideas of human-computer coevolution > in which the development of the computer drives the human to adapt and then > build the next improvement, this is not so. It is the shaping of the > individual by the nation-state in its complicity with the corporate > oligarchy to create desiring-machines and labor-generators in service to the > cybernetic systems of control of the increasing Fordist/Taylorist regime of > First World capital. > In many ways, social media are almost akin to Temple Grandin's approach to > slaughterhouses in which she has designed devices that calm the cattle by > giving them a gentle squeeze, or her colleague Wendy Jacobs' squeeze chair. > This calming effect of the squeeze is the feeling of togetherness the > Facebook user feels to see their friends or the receipt of a heart of smiley > on Skype. The reality is that this is not a hug, or a kiss, or anything of > the sort ? it is an empty signifier of breath and flesh. And embodied > socialization. Secondly, the network is a conduit of information that can > be quantified and tracked. The networked individual is placing the > keystroke and lexial quantum into he net, where the > governmental/military/corporate superstructure that runs the Internet can > track our movements, our consumptions, our desires. > > In the age of the Global economic crisis, there is the implication of the > loss of ability to support oneself for lack of employment or for that > matter, productivity. The fear of falling behind in any technological > proficiency is replaced by the fear of not being available when an > opportunity appears. This can be anything from a potential employer or > client. Or, there is also the existential terror of the potential family > member, friend, or lover in distress. It is almost as the broadcast > insurance ads goad us into purchasing their product - ?What if you weren't > there to help them?? It is widely known that advertising is driven by fear > and desire, and this is the constant ratcheting of the machinic enslavement > to the screen. > > In the grip of machinic enslavement, the body becomes assimilated into the > collective mass of labor, fear and desire, much like the hive like organisms > called The Borg from the television series, ?Star Trek: The Next > Generation? These are fragmentary being who have been literally woven into > a collective whole of a cybernetic milieu and drained of all individuality. > In the neo-McLuhanist network, the individuality is intact but the > continuous interlock to the machine remains. One response is merely to get > out of the cubicle and get on one's feet. > > Tethering > The transparent evil of the electric net is that walking away is no longer > enough. Our mobile devices, iPhones, and iPads still engage in the act of > machinic enslavement in terms of the net-corp apparatus by merely > miniaturizing the cubicle and having us hold it before us in our hands. > Amazon.com still beckons, our friends tweet us and Facebook us (don't you > think that Facebook can be a verb?); everything is open season. These are > the invisible silver cords that ties us to the net.collective, not the human > network that would be far more beneficial. But the individual is torn > between the possibility of the contact that can reverse the pull of control > through resistive communication and the enslavement of being beholden to it > if they use the net.corp system. > > Solution? > In writing this tirade against the screen behind I and so many have been > enslaved, I am resolved to, I am challenged to provide strategies for > resistance, a revolt against the network. Unfortunately, all I can do is > offer an ambivalence, as this is my work, this is my milieu, this is my > home. The best I have been able to do is to go to places on the earth where > there have been little contact with the Grid, such as the Western Aleutian > Islands. We cannot, as Postman suggests in a future post-Technopolic > society, abandon all technology to return to a Classical education. This is > akin to us simply trying to unhook and go to a pre-technological way of > life, or even the technologically-enabled protoindustrial net of communes > outlined in the Invisible Committee?s ?The Coming Insurrection?. Unless we > are truly prepared to abandon the superstructure and ride horseback on the > post-Capital apocalyptic landscape, we have the tendrils of techne grown > into us like a planter's wart. So we are driven to resistance through > intentionality and perhaps developing an aloofness to the network. Develop > strategies in which one only uses it for necessary functions, for > information, to organize resistance against it, and to facilitate the > embodied presence that is necessary to human existence. > > My problem is, I have been woven into the Matrix, and even when I am > removed from it, I realize it is still my home and my point of resistance > and cannot totally remove myself from it. Therefore, I have to either > attack it discursively, stand aloof physically, or drop the carrier > completely at times. I can no longer live with it, nor can I live without > it. I an a reluctant symbiote of the electric net. > > > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour >
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