Saying Words

And so, the illustrious mediastudentlyf draws to a close as the final entry begins its appearance. Having tackled the future, we now come to another undying question: what. is. art?

We already know what art is. It's paintings of horses. So, to this question, I ask: Who gives a shit?

To that question, I answer: Balletlab dancers, apparently.

I like this piece because it rustled many a jimmy when it jumped from facebook friend to facebook friend. To them, art must be beautiful and sanitised. Paintings of horses.

OH&S was also very concerned about sanitation, apparently.

But rendering of our equine friends is hardly the limit to art, really, is it? Does art have a lot of energy to expend on safety concerns? Art is individual, it is meaning, it is quite literally in the eye of the beholder. It's the moment you're led to realise something you always subsconsciously knew, or suspected, or felt, or hoped. It's a name to a feeling, a face to an idea, a front for a thought, an answer to a question we should have asked.

Art opens up fundamental questions about the objectivity of meaning and the subjectivity of experience. Throw in sensation and the discussion broadens considerably. Is art any stimulus perceived? Does it have to be perceived? 

My answer to these exciting questions (and more!) is, probably. An author can imbue a meaning but it's interpretation hinges on the audience member; when perception is the key, the interpreted reality is subjective, undefinable, and has no real boundaries beyond its foundation. Technologies aren't limits or ends, but functionaries, allowing human desire to arrange patterns of information into meanings. Or into paintings of horses.

References

Hauntology (2013) as a concept is a way of describing how neurological information processing structures are reflected in the content and evaluation of information that is processed and stored. Information is learned in light of what we already know; it is categorised in light of the links that can be created between the new information and that information which has already been categorised in memory. 

(This seems like an appropriate point to reiterate my aversion to dealing with theory when we could be dealing with fact, originally brought up in my third blog).

It reflects the way the past informs and, in so informing, defines the limits of the ways we can conceive of the future. We can only know things in terms of knowledge we already know, and what that can be extended to show us when new information that is integrated into our knowledge structures. It reminds me more of Freud than of Marx in some ways.

Conceptually this can be paralleled against the way we think of the future. We cannot conceive of the future, save in terms of the past. We can know tomorrow only in terms of how it is the same or different to today, and yesterdays. Predictions about the future are shackled by present realities and, unfortunately, this can lead to absurdities. 

Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and other science fiction novels, in his discussion of scientific rigour (with particular reference to climate science) in relation to public policy (2003), highlights the orthodoxies of process which strangle innovation by institutionalising bias in analytical frameworks. 

The quoted section below really highlights the foundational nature of technologies in innovation and the futility of much of the despair directed towards the future. What it also suggests is that while our conception of the past and future is limited by the concerns of the present and past, there is a quality that advances us beyond these limits - innovation, the ability to take past and present information and use it to discover new information or synthesise new knowledge. Fifty years ago we could imagine a flying car, but we didn't predict an internet that brought information to individuals, denecessitating advancement in taking individuals to information. We can't effectively reconcile future innovation into our existing knowledge categories, not until it happens; put simply, there's a limit to our powers of conception and it is okay.

But hey, surely we could all use a few more Marxist theory offshoots in our lives. Who's the who living with a pastward focus?

“Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was. They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS? None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.

Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future.

They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it.

I remind you that in the lifetime of most scientists now living, we have already had an example of dire predictions set aside by new technology. I refer to the green revolution. In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, “The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn’t ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure.”

'Aliens cause global warming', Michael Chrichton (2003)

References

n.d., (2013), 'Hauntology', Wikipedia, viewed 23.5.2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauntology>

Chrichton, M., (2003), 'Aliens cause global warming', James Michelin Distinguished Visitor's Lecture presented at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, 17 December <http://www.burtonsys.com/climate/Aliens_Cause_Global_Warming_by_Michael_Crichton.html>

Social media has been hailed as the democratization of communication, but I'd love to know when democracy became synonymous with unchaining and empowering the individual.

The development of meaningful two-way symmetrical communication technologies represents a step away from representative (outsourced) decision-making, the cornerstone of functional modern democracies. Power is relocated, if not entirely then to an unprecedented extent, in words and their ideas rather than in the preexisting power hierarchies of mass and/or material wealth. 

Yet when you look at social media applied practically, it's easy to see the  soft power structures that translate directly from world to screen - the assumptions about the default internet user, and the vitriol directed at people who are found not to meet that ideal. Instead of liberating people from all arbitrary barriers to access, as I think we hoped the internet would, lingering non-virtual social power heirarchies are very capable of flourishing online, giving the mob a way to control yet again. In this way I think democratization is the right descriptor for the achievements of social media in the communicative realm.

What we have seen is the liberation of the individual from tyrannies of space, time, and place, but not from themselves or society. That may well be beyond the scope of social media, and while it is certainly beyond its actuality, it's not beyond its ability.

The only other system that has opened up unbelievable possibilities for individuals as sum in themselves rather than components of social assemblages beyond their power to control is capitalism. P2P's review (Bauwens, 2011) of Umair Haque's book leaves me unsure as to whether Haque should be hailed as a theoretical innovator who has found a way to retell the story of free market self-interest in the terms of the opposing discourse of altruism to rehabilitate the capitalist brand, or just another academic who thinks of money as a mystical symbol for selfishness that steals something from consumers in the zero-sum game of trade, rather than a simple metric for value. Given his branding choices I'm hoping for the former. Why else would you spin original capitalist theory as though it were a modern and innovative idea? (Apart from gaining attention and making money - the market at its finest).

Unfortunately, he sounds like the new Keynes. When Haque looks at his cornerstones of capitalism he attributes protectionism to capitalism and sees the ideal efficient allocation of resources in democracy, which might make sense in the context of theoretically aligning capitalism and altruism (without going to the logical conclusion of aligning self-interest and altruism) but, in Bauwen's review at least, fails to take into consideration the role of government.

Rushkoff (2011) flirts with the idea of negative government intervention in society and technology in a way that would be incredibly beneficial in economic discourse. What is the difference between a world where only one kind of phone answering machine is approved by the state for consumer's use (England, pre-Thatcher), where entire billion dollar markets exist solely by the power of government subsidy (such as the present US sugar/HFCS export market), and governments can turn off a nation's information and communication supply to strike blows at change (Egypt)? Nothing. All democracy, all the time, all imposing arbitrary limits on change and advancement to benefit pre-existing power.

Innovation is a threat to the status quo and those who hold power in the status quo. Innovation is also, of course, the heart of capitalism and projects like CONTACT (Rushkoff, 2011) represent the best of it because it lays waste to the great fear of individualism and capitalism - isolation. Forums for building connections - be they conferences, online technologies, or otherwise - are the best hope of the individual, and the only system that has ever improved the lives of individuals. Even if those improvements are primarily incremental so far.

References

Bauwens, M (2011) 'Book of the week: Umair Haque's new capitalist manifesto', P2P Foundation, viewed 10/5/2013 at <http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/book-of-the-week-umair-haques-new-capitalist-manifesto/2011/02/13>

I miss my old blog. I liked the pressure of knowing people I know would see my work, as opposed to the faceless, arbitrary internet. And also Kyle.

I see enormous value for transparency precisely in it's power to shame and to obfuscate when I see it targeted at bodies I want to see forced to account for themselves, and in this way I am sympathetic to Brandeis. I love markets. I love choices. For these reasons, I don't love government, but I love government transparency. I love the Zuckerberg conception of privacy: that you have none when you are in public, beyond the boundaries of your body. The government is, literally, public.

If, however, I saw the same power targeted at bodies I don't think are a waste of time and money, I would find my level of sympathy dropping rather rapidly. Nonetheless, my perspective as a PR student is that you can hide only that which is in your power to hide. Anything more is a waste of effort, and the way it is presented is key to the way it is perceived. 

This is where my problem with Lessig's  (2009) apology to privacy occurs. I simply can't agree that the drive for transparency is detrimental because the public cannot decipher data accurately enough to know what it means. There are assumptions about our political culture, and this is one we can do without. The justification that people are not smart enough for x does not belong in the domain of the commentator, and moreover is no reason to obscure information.  That is reason to challenge the bodies that present information - governments, corporations, media, non profits, individuals, and whatnot - to do so accurately; to hold them to account. His rejection of the free marketplace of ideas and its method of self-correction is bizarre in the face of modern fact-checking. A rumour can still take off before the truth gets its boots on, but it won't make it half way around the world.

Accordingly, the ideas Brafman & Beckstrom (2010) traffic in sit much better with me: decentralization and open access as strength, the potential for meaningful contribution valued over the potential for misinterpretation. I suppose we're dealing with a bit of chaos theory here, but equilibrium will out. That's what it does.

So it follows, then that Style's (2009) optimism for Government 2.0 sparkles, but doesn't seem to take into account the political reality that governments do not willingly give up power, whatever potential technology can create. Her enthusiasm for open, non-hierarchical engagement with policy ill fits a policy which, as best as I can tell (this caveat is important), has done little except consolidate government power over citizen's data and funded some projects that went nowhere. However, her conception of visible government highlights the mystery that allows state inefficiency to flourish.

So, while I think a to-the-letter visualisation of what government does is off the cards, I do know what the interim step is - and it's fantastic. Welcome to http://www.texastransparency.org. It is a place of hope and wonder, of joy, of potential, of what transparency is meant to mean. It is every dollar, down to the penny, of Texas state government revenue and expenditure. It is accountability as its finest - and hopefully it is the forebear of things to come. 

References:

Lessig, Lawrence (2009) 'Against transparency: The perils of openness in government', New Republic, viewed 2/5/13 <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/against-transparency?page=0,2&id=vvTJ3x9U6J9EVdt4kyilqJUpPqhRlYmSwRWiWG3mYZgCPHVxDywIMV1o1U6ff9Ji>

Styles, Catherine (2009), 'A government 2.0 idea - first, make all the functions visible', Making Manifest, viewed 2/5/13 <http://catherinestyles.com/2009/06/28/a-government-2-0-idea/>