Virilio - Open Sky

In Paul Virilio's Open Sky, a great deal of the book made sense and confused me at the same time.  The rhythm that he writes in is tough to follow, but I was able to grasp a lot of his ideas when I separated many of the quotes and analyzed them individually.  Reading this book towards the end of the semester was very beneficial for me.  I was able to draw comparisons to other books such as Alone Together.  Virilio and Turkle seem to be weary of the same issues that can arise from increasing technology, but Virilio goes in a different direction that is very interesting to think about.

I was able to grasp three main concepts from the book, though at times I wasn't sure what point he was actually trying to make with some of his examples.  The emergence of technology is actually changing nature, the internet is pulling us farther away from the "real world," and future technologies will eventually make us unable to determine the real world from the digital.

"Having been first mobile, then motorized, man will thus become motile, deliberately limiting his body's area of influence to a few gestures, a few impulses, like channel-surfing," permitting himself only the most restricted of views (p.17)."

I found this quote to be interesting because Virilio is suggesting that technology will do the exact opposite of what the claimed advantages of it are.  The purpose of the internet and electronic media in general is to provide more exposure of information to larger groups of people.  Ideally this process would create a broader perspective within the people using it, but Virilio believes that technology will begin to serve as a crutch for its users and they will stop thinking for themselves and instead just use a small amount of information that is presented to them.

Throughout the book he seems to relate this problem to the world both mentally and physically.  Not only will we limit our individual thoughts, but we will become more immobile and become unaware of the environment that we actually exist in.

"If the possibility of acting instantaneously without having to move about physically to open the blinds, switch on the light, or adjust the heating has partly removed the practical value of space and time intervals to the sole benefit of the speed interval of remote control, what will happen when this capacity for . . . instantaneous interaction migrates from the thickness of the walls or floors of the wired apartment and settles not on, but inside, the body of the inhabitants, introducing itself, lodging itself inside their bodies, in the closed circuits of their vital systems (p.54)?"

This idea was very significant to me due to the way that I was raised during my childhood.  I was not allowed to watch television during the week, and I spent nearly every summer in sports camps.  I am certainly glad that I developed athletic ability, and I developed a lot of social skills through interacting with different people in different sports.  However, I do feel like I missed out on a lot of skills that have been more difficult for me to develop now.  Not being around computers at home or being exposed to a great deal of technology has created a steep learning curve for me now that I am in a graduate program.  I certainly understand Virilio's thought of the pendulum swinging too far in one direction, but I believe a balance can be attained between our environment and existing technologies.

He uses the term "stereoscopy" to describe the simultaneous existence of the real and virtual worlds.  His argument is that the networked telecommunications do not actually exist, and are actually pulling us away from what is real life, therefore taking away from the human experience.  This leads into the idea of living in the moment, which is one of the areas in the book where I agree with him completely.  As the world speeds up and becomes more intense, we have a natural inclination to look into the future without processing the present.  I have experienced this personally as I have gotten older.  During high school, I was able to really enjoy a lot of experiences that I had.  As I have become older and moved through my career, responsibilities mount up and I often find myself doing enjoyable activities that I do not fully process while I am doing them.  It is difficult to enjoy meeting up with friends for dinner knowing that there is a laundry list waiting for me as soon as I walk out of the restaurant.  While some of this is self-induced, I do think that technology plays a role in how we live on a daily basis.  Communication happens at a much faster rate, and we as a society seem to feel the need to push ourselves constantly without ever decompressing.

The idea of mindfulness (being aware of the present) is something that I believe we could all benefit from.  This is a meditation practice that has been used in Buddhism for centuries, and Virilio makes very solid connections to this concept.  While I don't think that technology needs the dark cloud Virilio constructs through this text, I can relate to a lot of his ideas and how technology can create a negative impact on our daily lives.

Ulmer - Electronic Monuments Part Four

I really enjoyed reading Ulmer's explanation of Mind over Machine.  Throughout all of the readings we have done in this course, the constant question regarding developing technology is the ability to make a "gut" decision.

"For a network to be intelligent it must be able to generalize; given sufficient examples of inputs associated with one particular output, it should associate further inputs of the same type with that same output. (Dreyfus, 10)."

This quote leads into the question of how technology can simulate expertise, such as the situation Dreyfus mentions earlier about purchasing a car with one's instincts.  This reminded me of a car buying decision I was faced with just before I was accepted into this program.  A dealership in south Charlotte had an RX-8, which is the exact sports car I was looking for.  It was silver, the Grand Touring Model, and had every single option that I was looking for.  I drove it several times and even kept it over night when trying to make a buying decision.  To this day, it is the smoothest and best handling car I have ever driven.  For some reason, I felt like it would be a bad idea to purchase the car.  Ultimately, I kept my car and the RX-8 was gone from the lot the very next week.  One month later, the buyer returned the vehicle under North Carolina's lemon law.  It did not pass the state's safety inspection and had a rebuilt rear axle that was considered unsafe.  My gut instinct prevented me from buying the car, but can that feeling be duplicated?

It was also interesting to read about the effect that TV and media had on how law enforcement works at the ground level.  Certain images regarding the Miranda rights have been portrayed negatively to the public which has made law enforcement officials approach their jobs differently than they may otherwise operate.

"The authors warn the trainees to avoid performing scenarios made familiar by the media, such as the good cop/bad cop routine."

"The handbook adds that, because of TV, people expect interviewers to take notes.  To be credible, therefore, one should at least have the props of writing available, unless the situation becomes accusatory, in which case such props should be hidden, so as not to remind the suspects that what is said could be used against them."

To me, these quotes basically say to tailor the law to the situation in a manner that will be the most effective in convicting a suspect.  After reading this, I can think of dozens of different television shows that I have seen that portray law enforcement in this same light.

In chapter 8, Ulmer further explains the peripheral of MEmorials and their significance.  I liked that he listed the individual components of the Y Collaboration and expanded on them.

Questions:

1. Derrida's "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Science" describes the center of a structure and the idea of the center existing outside of it.  Do you see emerging technology as a potential center of our society?


2. I enjoyed the reference to the Enron scandal being the "internal equivalent" to the 9/11 terrorist attack.  When banks fail and/or merge, who should the MEmorial be constructed toward?  Should it be the people losing their jobs, the people losing their investments, or the general public that is effected by the swing in the economy?