Today cyberspace is a well-known and widely used term. Millions of people are logged on to cyberspace every day interacting. The idea of cyberspace has inspired many films and books. The one of the most famous films “Ghost in the Shell” and “Matrix”. These films are from the 90tese, but the term cyberspace emerged ten years earlier, in the 80ties, with William Gibson. Gibson has become one of the best know science-fiction writers, with works like Neuromancer and Count Zero.
In 1984 was Neuromancer published. This book had n huge impact on the science-fiction ganger. Neuromancer is about a Case, a cyber-space hacker that has damage to his nervous system, which makes it impossible to enter cyberspace. He gets an offer to hack for a person, in exchange for his hacking abilities. Do we see a similarity from Gibson’s world in Neuromancer, and into today’s society with the World Wide Web?
The ganger is called “cyberpunk”. Cyberpunk explore the cyberspace and its possibilities in the years to come, the possibilities in a technological universe that has no earthly boundaries. Here lies a key factor in science fiction and cyberpunk, to free your self from the normal life and entering a new world of virtual reality. In the 1990these Gibson’s cyberspace was on the verge to become a reality with the World Wide Web.
For many this has come as a relief, it becomes an option to their “failed life”, a second chance to make it right. In The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, Martha Wertheim writes about the eagre to look for a better life in a better world. For many, cyberspace is such a tool. Like religion is for others. Looking at today’s society, most of the users of cyberspace (World Wide Web) us it for information and social interactions. Not as a new world, where you become another person.
But today we see some persons live another life in cyberspace in a way we see in Gibson’s Neuromacer. They want to live their whole life in cyberspace. The idea of cyberspace has probably also influenced many musicians. Cyberpunk and electronic music has strong links. A young hacker from England said in an interview to NRK that he and his buddies always listened to the same music when they were hacking. He mentioned Underworld as one groups. This croup play intensive electronic music that makes you float into your own world, in a way like rave music at rave parties. The music is used as a tool to close out the world when being in cyberspace.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Machines and Humans
In ”The Aesthetics of Disappearance” Paul Virilio look at how our perception of the world and the society has being changed by machines and technology. A key term is speed. Virilio means that speed is essential to understand our world. Do we look at today’s society is it all about time. “Time is money” is one of the most famous quotes known. This gives a description of what drives us and what’s important. The earlier machines had one task, that was to increase the in transport and in the factories. Today we have countless technical devises to help us through the day.
Virilio says that we are victims for the machines speed. We see today that the world shrinks and becomes smaller as a result of the increasing speed through communication and transport. Also called globalisation.
Further Vrilio say that there is no stable fundament left in the society because information is speed and duration does not exist any more. In this post modern world destabilize the know time and space terms, like: present/past, real/unreal and close/distant. The basic know terms become outdated.
Virilio has a pessimistic view on the evolution of machines and its place in the world today. Without the machines our society would probably be light-years from were we are now. It would be harder to live and we would also not live as long as we do now. But his criticism is more about how dependent we has become of the machines and we have integrated them into our lives. This makes us vulnerable and it creates a whole new view on life. I agree with Virilio. Looking forward in time I look at a world where the machines/technology totally controls us. We live through the machines, not with the like we do today. The machines potential blind us. Technology and machines are not in it self, dangerous but uncritical use of is unfortunate.
Virilio says that we are victims for the machines speed. We see today that the world shrinks and becomes smaller as a result of the increasing speed through communication and transport. Also called globalisation.
Further Vrilio say that there is no stable fundament left in the society because information is speed and duration does not exist any more. In this post modern world destabilize the know time and space terms, like: present/past, real/unreal and close/distant. The basic know terms become outdated.
Virilio has a pessimistic view on the evolution of machines and its place in the world today. Without the machines our society would probably be light-years from were we are now. It would be harder to live and we would also not live as long as we do now. But his criticism is more about how dependent we has become of the machines and we have integrated them into our lives. This makes us vulnerable and it creates a whole new view on life. I agree with Virilio. Looking forward in time I look at a world where the machines/technology totally controls us. We live through the machines, not with the like we do today. The machines potential blind us. Technology and machines are not in it self, dangerous but uncritical use of is unfortunate.
The ‘Memex’ machine and ‘hypertext’
Hypertext is highlighted words or images on the Internet, that when clicked on opens a trail of linked information. Hypertext is images, text and music.
Vannevar Bush created the idea of hypertext in 1945. In the book ”As We May Think” he described a machine that used hypertext. We see that hypertext is not a new term, when looking at how long the World Wide Web has existed.
The hypertext machine was called ‘Memex’. This was a machine that you could store information. Like a library, and link the information you wanted together, creating a new collection of information. So could the ‘Memex’ machine be called a computer?
When creating the ‘Memex’ machine he took inspiration from how the human brain functioned. You could say that the brain is the world’s first computer. He wanted to create a more logical way to store information. In ‘As we may think’ Bush describe the machine like this, “A memex is a device in witch an individual stores all his books, records and communications, and which an individual mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory”.
So there are strong lings between Bush’s ‘Memex’ machine and today’s modern computers. It is a place to store information and that hypertext is an important tool in that to read on the World Wide Web. Thanks to hypertext it has become more easily to retrieve information. The use of hypertext is still developing making the web more effective.
Vannevar Bush created the idea of hypertext in 1945. In the book ”As We May Think” he described a machine that used hypertext. We see that hypertext is not a new term, when looking at how long the World Wide Web has existed.
The hypertext machine was called ‘Memex’. This was a machine that you could store information. Like a library, and link the information you wanted together, creating a new collection of information. So could the ‘Memex’ machine be called a computer?
When creating the ‘Memex’ machine he took inspiration from how the human brain functioned. You could say that the brain is the world’s first computer. He wanted to create a more logical way to store information. In ‘As we may think’ Bush describe the machine like this, “A memex is a device in witch an individual stores all his books, records and communications, and which an individual mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory”.
So there are strong lings between Bush’s ‘Memex’ machine and today’s modern computers. It is a place to store information and that hypertext is an important tool in that to read on the World Wide Web. Thanks to hypertext it has become more easily to retrieve information. The use of hypertext is still developing making the web more effective.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The Matrix
Which similarity does the thoughts of Descartes and The Matrix has?
The Matrix is about Thomas Anderson (Neo), which lives a secret life as a hacker, searching for an answer: What is the Matrix? He gets in contact with Morpheus, which offers to give the answer. I agree on the terms and join Morpheus and his crew. Neo wakes up in a tub with wires all other him. Around him he sees fields of humans lying just like him. The other pick him up in a hovercraft, and tells him the situation.
The thing is that it is really year 2199 and the humans are fighting a loosing battle against intelligent machines, created in the early 21st century. In the fight the humans has burned the sky, to cut the energy for the machine. Searching for other energy sources, they found humans. They started to grow humans and extract the energy, using huge fields of humans lying in a sate of coma. Connected to the Matrix, what we see as the “real world”. The fight for freedom begins.
The Matrix is obvious influenced by cyberpunk and the hacker culture, films like “Hackers” and “Ghost in the Shell”. There are also similarities to William Gibson’s “Neuromancer”.
There are also strong links to Descartes “scepticism”. The film asks the same questions as Decartes does, when Morpheus must explains when Neo refuses to believe what he sees; “What is real? How do you define, ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” (http://www.janushead.org/7-2/Garza.pdf, 22/3-07)
How can you be sure that what you see and feel is real? “Everything I can be sure of, I question” (Descartes)
Descartes means that information can’t be trusted, how do you know it is real? The same goes with what you see and what you feel, it can betray you. We can be sure that our senses are true. We can’t either trust our mind, it can be affected of unknown stimuli, drugs, or we can be mentally ill and hallucinate. So question everything that you don’t know. “Descartes peels away the layers of beliefs and opinions that clouded his view of the truth” (http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/descarte.htm, 22/3-07). And the only thing you know for sure is that you are alive, in some way. “I think, therefore I am” (Descartes). This way of thinking is called “scepticism”.
Matrix is highly influenced by this way of thinking. We live in our own world without setting any questions to the world around us. When we in fact are bread by machines contained in a computer program. We should have asked the questions Descartes asked, because the world we live in is in fact not real! The conscious world “res cogitans” is in the Matrix, while the body’s world “res extenca” is in the real world. The body and the mind are divided.
The Matrix is about Thomas Anderson (Neo), which lives a secret life as a hacker, searching for an answer: What is the Matrix? He gets in contact with Morpheus, which offers to give the answer. I agree on the terms and join Morpheus and his crew. Neo wakes up in a tub with wires all other him. Around him he sees fields of humans lying just like him. The other pick him up in a hovercraft, and tells him the situation.
The thing is that it is really year 2199 and the humans are fighting a loosing battle against intelligent machines, created in the early 21st century. In the fight the humans has burned the sky, to cut the energy for the machine. Searching for other energy sources, they found humans. They started to grow humans and extract the energy, using huge fields of humans lying in a sate of coma. Connected to the Matrix, what we see as the “real world”. The fight for freedom begins.
The Matrix is obvious influenced by cyberpunk and the hacker culture, films like “Hackers” and “Ghost in the Shell”. There are also similarities to William Gibson’s “Neuromancer”.
There are also strong links to Descartes “scepticism”. The film asks the same questions as Decartes does, when Morpheus must explains when Neo refuses to believe what he sees; “What is real? How do you define, ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” (http://www.janushead.org/7-2/Garza.pdf, 22/3-07)
How can you be sure that what you see and feel is real? “Everything I can be sure of, I question” (Descartes)
Descartes means that information can’t be trusted, how do you know it is real? The same goes with what you see and what you feel, it can betray you. We can be sure that our senses are true. We can’t either trust our mind, it can be affected of unknown stimuli, drugs, or we can be mentally ill and hallucinate. So question everything that you don’t know. “Descartes peels away the layers of beliefs and opinions that clouded his view of the truth” (http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/descarte.htm, 22/3-07). And the only thing you know for sure is that you are alive, in some way. “I think, therefore I am” (Descartes). This way of thinking is called “scepticism”.
Matrix is highly influenced by this way of thinking. We live in our own world without setting any questions to the world around us. When we in fact are bread by machines contained in a computer program. We should have asked the questions Descartes asked, because the world we live in is in fact not real! The conscious world “res cogitans” is in the Matrix, while the body’s world “res extenca” is in the real world. The body and the mind are divided.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The Better Life
The idea of being some one else has existed to all time. We have all had ideas like that, but that is briefly. Most of us are pleased with their self and life. But there are some that feel life isn’t too good. It is a way to escape from your self into another world, where you can become the person that you always wanted to be. There are role-plays and virtual worlds on the Internet.
The predecessors to the virtual worlds are role-plays. Role-plays there are no simple escapes from the real to the unreal. It operates between the non-real life and the real life. The virtual worlds, also called MUD’s (Multi-User Dungeons), builds on the same principles but are more intense in a way. The game never stops, continuing around the clock. You can decent into another and better world.
For many people this can become a rescue from a cruel and hard world. But is this all good? It can become an obsession, which they do not want to log out from the virtual world. Then you give up your real world and emerge completely to a face world that does not exist. By using all you time in a virtual game you may loose the grip on the real social world. By using all your time in the cyber world I see it as giving up the real world. “Virtual worlds provide environments for experiences that may be hard to come by in the real”. (Turkle 1994)
But on another hand, if you are able to control the use it can be a good way to build you self up. Becoming more confident on your self or working on different problems. It can be seen as an alternative therapy.
Herman
(Sherry Turkle_ Construction and Reconstructions of the Self in Virtual Reality_ 1994)
The predecessors to the virtual worlds are role-plays. Role-plays there are no simple escapes from the real to the unreal. It operates between the non-real life and the real life. The virtual worlds, also called MUD’s (Multi-User Dungeons), builds on the same principles but are more intense in a way. The game never stops, continuing around the clock. You can decent into another and better world.
For many people this can become a rescue from a cruel and hard world. But is this all good? It can become an obsession, which they do not want to log out from the virtual world. Then you give up your real world and emerge completely to a face world that does not exist. By using all you time in a virtual game you may loose the grip on the real social world. By using all your time in the cyber world I see it as giving up the real world. “Virtual worlds provide environments for experiences that may be hard to come by in the real”. (Turkle 1994)
But on another hand, if you are able to control the use it can be a good way to build you self up. Becoming more confident on your self or working on different problems. It can be seen as an alternative therapy.
Herman
(Sherry Turkle_ Construction and Reconstructions of the Self in Virtual Reality_ 1994)
Friday, March 2, 2007
A Cyborg Manifesto
In A Cyborg Manifesto Donna Harraway wrights about the extend and importance of rearrangements, in the global social relations, which is tied to science and technology. She looks at the change we have seen from old hierarchical dominations to what she calls “scary” new networks. i.e.:
Old hierarchical dominations - New networks
Representation Simulation
Reproduction Simulation
Family/Factory Women in the integrated circuit
Sex Genetic engineering
Labour Robotics
Second World War Star Wars
This gives a good insight in Harraways thinking by comparing the old and the describing what the different things are going to become in the future.
Cyborg has a central role in her work. A cyborg is a person that is partly machine, partly human. She looks at the new times with the new technology as a tool to work for feminism.
Old hierarchical dominations - New networks
Representation Simulation
Reproduction Simulation
Family/Factory Women in the integrated circuit
Sex Genetic engineering
Labour Robotics
Second World War Star Wars
This gives a good insight in Harraways thinking by comparing the old and the describing what the different things are going to become in the future.
Cyborg has a central role in her work. A cyborg is a person that is partly machine, partly human. She looks at the new times with the new technology as a tool to work for feminism.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Can we handle it?
This text is about Marshall McLuhan and his work on the connection between humans and machines, how the machines affect us. He describes how us humans has been affected of the machines. His is talking about a state of numbness. To illustrate this is uses the Greek myth of Narcissus.
All the technical devices have become an extension of the humans. These extensions has become a part of our every day life, it has become natural. If we take a step back and look at all the technical devices we use every day, we see it is in almost any action we carry out. We have become totally dependent to the technical devices.
McLuhan uses the Narcissus myth to illustrate how a technological extension of the self can create a state of numbness.
Like our car is our extension of the foot, almost every technical device is an extension of us. When we first have the technical devices we get addicted. If you by a fancy care you feel more pressure to drive it, because now you have the opportunity. We see the same with television. We look at programs that it is not necessary, just pure entertaining. Time that you had planed to do other things is cancelled. Maybe we did not get more time by buying the car, or become more enlighten or more happy by buying that television. “Such amplification is bearable by the nervous system only through numbness or blocking of perception”.
Mc Luhan looks at the central nervous system like an electric network that coordinates the various media of senses. In general he compare the human body with a machine.
The humans have become a tool for the machines to reproduce Mc Luhan says.
An interesting fact is that during war times we have seen the greatest advances in technology.
Is it in the interest of the machines that we go to war so they can is powerful enough to start reproduce them selves. (Matrix)
All the technical devices have become an extension of the humans. These extensions has become a part of our every day life, it has become natural. If we take a step back and look at all the technical devices we use every day, we see it is in almost any action we carry out. We have become totally dependent to the technical devices.
McLuhan uses the Narcissus myth to illustrate how a technological extension of the self can create a state of numbness.
Like our car is our extension of the foot, almost every technical device is an extension of us. When we first have the technical devices we get addicted. If you by a fancy care you feel more pressure to drive it, because now you have the opportunity. We see the same with television. We look at programs that it is not necessary, just pure entertaining. Time that you had planed to do other things is cancelled. Maybe we did not get more time by buying the car, or become more enlighten or more happy by buying that television. “Such amplification is bearable by the nervous system only through numbness or blocking of perception”.
Mc Luhan looks at the central nervous system like an electric network that coordinates the various media of senses. In general he compare the human body with a machine.
The humans have become a tool for the machines to reproduce Mc Luhan says.
An interesting fact is that during war times we have seen the greatest advances in technology.
Is it in the interest of the machines that we go to war so they can is powerful enough to start reproduce them selves. (Matrix)
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