“Prologue: Computing Kin.” My Mother was a Computer

    Katherine Hayles begins with the notion the stories and narratives people tell about themselves and what it means to be human or nonhuman, shape identities and societies. The stories currently being told are shifting toward computer terminology, processes and relationships and thus are influencing what it is to think of humanity and inhumanity. Stories are media and thus become part of the influential environment but humans are participatory in that framework and are not passive recipients of media messages. It is important for Hayles that human’s remember their material presence and influence in and on the environment and how the environment acts on people and society. Humans and computers have both material and virtual elements, literal and metaphorical components, influencing each other and participating in the grander biosphere.
     The continued evolution of humans with nonhuman machines is obvious in current computerized society. Thus it is in humanity’s interest to set up intelligent evolving patterns and ways of understanding humanity, and evolution, in relation to the environment. It would be counterproductive to become stuck in a feedback loop of disembodied society that runs away from reality and ecology to find itself stranded on an island/planet with no food and water.
     Although current reality has many virtual arenas, humans cannot be thought of as separate from the grander environment. The erroneously considered separate environment may not be manipulated blindly. For consequences in reality have human consequences too. Humans need to participate as both material and immaterial, managing both aspects and not be molded by media blindly. It is important what stories are used to think of being human and how those stories produce real humans with real human actions and consequences.
    Hayles supports her position by stating humans cannot exist without a measure of materiality, whether that be a society dependent on fossil fuels, the materials required for the Industrial Revolution or the energy required to make and power virtually everything. Computers are intelligent systems that have permeated many aspects of modern society that are made of physical substances and contain a vast virtual world of human enhancement, simulations, knowledge and communication. Computerized systems have come to permeate the very fabric of society and conceptions of what it is to be human versus nonhuman.
     One of the ways in which computerized ideas, modeling and terminology have made their way so deeply into the human narrative include using the metaphor of a computer for the workings of the human mind. Furthermore Hayles notes a shift away from stories involving the mythical character Mother Nature for computerized metaphors and complexity theories. The very processes with which children learn to read and understand narratives is being taught with the use of computers and educational computer programming in schools. The literal voice of a mother or teacher is replaced by computer sounds and interactions. Many day to day conversations in business, relationships, literacy and reading are based on computerized platforms and high tech communications technology.
     To illustrate the utility of using intelligent computerized systems Hayles notes how climate modeling requires the use of computers to understand as complex systems beyond the range of a human mind alone. To bring home the idea that even with the aid of intelligent systems humans are not the masters of the universe and not separate from the environment she mentions how climate change is beyond human control and has real life consequences.


     It is easy to see the saturation of computers and clever technology in everyday life and their role in education, sociality and business. Computer metaphors for human systems are encountered often enough to accept their role in the human narrative. Importantly humans must not allow their narratives to be overrun by uninterested entities evolved from virtually profitable enterprises isolated from reality. The consequences of such folly could be a materially depleted reality, and humans cannot so far exist without a measure of materiality.
    At first it seemed odd to me to be reminded of my materiality and its importance but then likened it to seeing a jumping deer road sign on a long trip and being reminded to be mindful of random deer approaches which at first are easily dismissed along the lines of of course a driver should be watching for deer but until that moment perhaps the driver was not. Like a driver experiencing a random deer encounter while unprepared daydreaming can experience a bad accident, a human swept away by entertaining comfort and intellectual interests online can lose sight of personal encounters that drive progress in a potentially harmful direction. I agree that it is important to be mindful of the environment and how it is important to be the change you want to see in the world.

     Hayles, N. Katherine. “Prologue: Computing Kin.” My Mother was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005. 1-7 and 245. (CanCopy Course Kit).


Questions to Consider:

1. Do you lose track of your materiality? Are some computer environments easier to become materially lost in? In what ways could losing track of materiality negatively influence the self (and the self in relation to the environment)?

 2. Do you have more virtual actions or material? Which has more consequences, the virtual or material actions? Good or bad, and why?



 Additional Resources:

How We Became Posthuman Prologue by Katherine Hayles
 YouTube interview with N. Katherine Hayles discussing questions regarding themes in her books.

Wikipedia article on N. Katherine Hayles
N. Katherine Hayles official UCLA website
Wikipedia article on Posthumanism

What Does it Mean to be Posthuman?

     In What Does it Mean to be Posthuman Katherine Hayles expounds an optimistic view of defining posthuman. Posthuman for Hayles does not end human but extend human. Humanity may be extended and enhanced through interactions with complex systems containing human and non-human components, smart tools and smart environments. Expanding the boundaries of agency to include varied and complex, evolving, adaptable, and self organizing systems could lead to more complete information and improved decisions. Including complex and varied systems in the terms of agency can pave the way to agency for human populations currently denied.
       It is important to accept an optimistic view of working with technology and complex adaptive systems because they are becoming a larger part of the average person’s life. The ability to accept and utilize the help of smart programs, systems and fellow humans can only aid in informed decision and policy making. Intelligent systems participate in such day to day activities as logging into voice mail services or using spell check. Current dominant political notions that would be passed in becoming post include specific types of humans having agency and control over environments. Unequal agency reflects unequal power distribution and the existence of humans who are denied said luxuries.
      Hayles supports her position by saying humans and human bodies do not exist nor have evolved in isolation. Historic, environmental and random forces have influenced human consciousness, politics, society and general development. Human beings exist as part of a complex system and not in positions isolated from the world and other humans. Acting as though the environment is separate from the self and may be manipulated and exploited for gain and not necessarily for good is an unfortunate consequence of isolated agency. Necessity of the best situations for the most people can be unexplored by the powerful in a system of autonomous isolation from the masses of individuals being acted upon.
      An enlightened humanism view of humanity is challenged. Trading in the ideas of dogmatic destinies and linear passed down stories, for consciousness derived from self organized phenomena in the context of complex relationships. Humans and specifically specific humans are not the sole engineers of their place in the universe, and interact and exist in networks of relationships of human and non-human components. “Meaning is not guaranteed by a coherent origin; rather, it is made possible (but not inevitable) by the blind force of evolution finding workable solutions within given parameters.” (p. 285)
      Recognizing complex self organizing systems emerging from randomness that contains nonhuman components can allow one to recognize the potential for pattern emergence with nonhuman elements and their assets for enhancing thought.
      The nonhuman elements with which we think and live are numerous and include the multimedia, clever colleague the computer and its great asset the internet. The computer, internet, mobile devices and computer enhanced locations join together to form an exceptionally intelligent environment to live and work in. Some of the smart systems we participate in are smarter than the average user, especially when connected to the vast stores of knowledge available on the internet. It is important to recognize how necessary the nonhuman elements are for human thought. Distributed systems and consciousness allow people to access information and relationships outside that of a single mind. Machines and the internet extend human capacities and ability to think and are not to be feared as other emerging complex systems wielding malicious intent. 
    

     Hayles enhances my ability to be positive about the prospect of becoming posthuman through emphasis on the natural interactions and evolution between humans and their environment. By using a larger body of distributed consciousness, and interacting with smart accurate machines and programs, humans have and continue to develop smart evolving systems. More thinkers, human, nonhuman and posthuman in the tank can lead to more accurate projections.
      Ending a version of human does not need to be frightening when the prospects are shiny. Casting a wider net and allowing the spread of one’s autonomy to move out through an intelligent network of systems can provide a more bountiful catch of possibilities and profit than fearing the dissolution of all agency with the opening of boundaries to control.This view of posthuman exalts an idea of human agency that is partially permeable like a living cell that respires, metabolizes and grows within a grander living organism and strives to be unlike a jail cell that is the rigid non-living container of thick boundaries holding a person.
     A positive view of posthuman is more about long range survival than immediate personal gains such as those associated with depleting a resource to pad personal accounts. Long range survival that includes utilizing the talents of all humans and not those in the narrow definition of human agents that are white wealthy men. Utilizing the enhancing faculties of smart environments is natural to and grafted already into the everyday lives of individuals. These faculties are necessary to continued social evolution and human enhancement within the current computerized environment.
      Hayles does not, however, alleviate the terror associated with smart machines outsmarting even the posthuman and eventually overtaking all of human agency and choice. Is it impossible to think intelligent programs and machinery are worse at telling us what to do than men interested in lining their pockets?


         Hayles, N. Katherine. “Conclusion: What Does it Mean to be Posthuman?” How we Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. 283-291 and 322-323. (CanCopy Course Kit).

Questions to consider:

1. Considering the importance of the environment and nonhuman aspects in the realm of everyday thought and decision making how is your life enhanced or limited by the ‘smart’ or ‘technological’ environment.


2. What consequences may there be in the hyper-smart evolution of a system of smart programs developed by people interested in power and profit?



Additional Resources:

Wikipedia article on Posthuman

Philosophical definition of Agency presented by Wikipedia


Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body by Kim Toffaletti: A link that promises a free download of this interesting book with similar themes.

War with the robots in the Animatrix : Video clip to illustrate type of terror that can come from losing agency to advanced machinery.

midterm: Internet and Revolution

    The internet has had a myriad of effects on individuals and society as a whole. A few avenues that suggest the internet will precipitate a wider cultural revolution include The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, and Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks by Mark Cote and Jennifer Pybus. It is argued here that new encompassing technologies such as the internet and wireless communications constitute a new dominant media form that has and will necessitate change in society and consciousness. The new order and organization of people and labour leads to the production of creative, problem solving individuals who generate biopower that may be harnessed.
    The Medium is the Massage asserts the media and it’s technology has grander influence than the contents of the message. This influence extends throughout society infiltrating areas such as entertainment, politics, education and organizations in general. Dominating media acts similar to the way the medium of language influences most aspects of society and consciousness to the extent it becomes an environment that structures and supports institutions and interactions. McLuhan is clear on saying the environment cannot be ignored. Modern wireless communications technologies such as computers and smartphones are ubiquitous in number and network access locations making the internet available everywhere and in a sense, physically all encompassing. A real virtual environment, dominating, ordering, extending, and sculpting users and networks. McLuhen endorses the artist rendered anti-environment meant to bring the environment to the fore and allow people to consider and interact with the structures that shape humanity that may be out of sight.  Revolution in the Medium is the Massage sense as related to the internet involves both the physical revolution of the environment of technology and wireless communication and the human generated. Revolutionaries must be aware of and engaging with the frameworks of their interactions whether it be television or web 2.0.
    McLuhan also discusses technologies as extensions and amplifications of human abilities such as electricity being an extension of the nervous system. This extension, along with the compressing of space and time that is allowed for by instant communication allows the internet to be a mega tool of communication and network building for those who have access to the system. Throw McLuhan’s idea of revolution based on the craving for, once exposed to, the luxury for sale in the media by have-nots and the pervasiveness of internet as a media source and there is a recipe for large groups of intercommunicating individuals to band together. An extension of unification and un-fragmentation combined with the now heard voices of minorities in the global village toward revolution.
    Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks by Mark Cote and Jennifer Pybus discusses notions of power structures that order and organize institutions and individuals toward efficiency in a capitalist network society. Using MySpace and Social networks as an example the authors show how individuals learn through affect and relationships how to produce immaterial labour during leisure time that is beneficial to the system of capitalism. Michel Foucault’s disciplinary and biopower concepts are used. Disciplinary power is related to efficiency of control and the panopticon. The panopticon is a type of prison with a central tower where a guard may or may not be watching the encircling wall of prisoners with cells open to observation by the tower. Being unable to know if one is being watched, everyone internalizes the idea of a behavioural guard and then behaves accordingly to the will of the guard. This type of power is based on segregation and individuation where everyone polices themselves and each other. Institutions throughout society reinforce the rules and ordering of the production of certain types of people, for example schools, the military and hospitals. It is important to note that through the internalization of a guard people produce themselves in certain ways to be beneficial to the dominant ideology. Biopower is exercised through the bodies of people and their relationships and networks. Power is imminent to the system and exists in the most mundane aspects of life. Power is the network between people and the networks they generate.
    Immaterial labour is now a common form of labour in society, including intellectual, problem solving, relational and service jobs. Immaterial labour 2.0 is the new lack of distinction between leisure and work time. Websites such as MySpace and the Web 2.0 phenomenon in general have users continually creating identities, interactions, relationships and networks based on user generated content. These continually becoming subjectivities are a goldmine of consumer and population information. This means when a labourer goes home and participates in social leisure activities they continue to provide and generate immaterial work. The networks and relationships generated are the value added product, both for capitalism and perhaps for revolution. To recall McLuhan’s revolution, the environment of web 2.0 where users generate content itself, shapes society and consciousness.
    The types of people producing themselves by the network of power in this modern social climate are those that thrive in a network of extension and relationship building, who can sell themselves as a product while also being sold to. These thrivers are creative, sociable, participatory problem solvers who create networks. The power that is extended through them in the network of society could be redirected and routed toward new goals, if the affinity rewards in the current system are not too magnetic. In the aspect of people being active toward producing themselves in the system toward the most efficient beneficial people, perhaps as a growingly interconnected unit of likes and dislikes a sort of utopia will emerge where people produce themselves as helpful, warless and useful.
    Recall again McLuhan’s anti-environment and a reminder to look at the framework in which interactions occur. Consider the biopower of Foucault that acts through bodies and relationships, and how people participate in self production. Using the power in numbers, and unity of increasing interconnection, people could interact with the frameworks of their production to produce the most beneficial people to humanity, or whatever is collectively decided, consciously and not blindly, through background environmental forces.



Bibliography

McLuhan, Marshall and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 1967 (2001).

Coté, Mark and Jennifer Pybus. 'Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks.' Ephemera. 7.1 (2007). 88-106.

Critical Response: The Ambiguous Panopticon: Foucault and the Codes of Cyberspace

Winokur, Mark. ‘The Ambiguous Panopticon: Foucault and the Codes of Cyberspace.’
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=371
   
    The article The Ambiguous Panopticon: Foucault and the Codes of Cyberspace by Mark Winokur describes the internet as having aspects both for and against being described as panoptic.  Winokur outlines some of the aspects of Michel Foucault’s Panopticism that are ambiguously displayed on the internet and the type of discourse that is allowed by codes to highlight the necessity for a new linguistics of cyberspace. The author does not think Foucault’s Panopticism can be mapped directly onto the internet as although subjects are monitored and to an extent segregated there is room for creation and alteration of space and discourse.  The issue is important as the virtual layer of reality becomes totalizing the arenas of becoming and personal production could be dominated by control from the central tower or perhaps elastic and recoded by evolving discourse.
    Panopticism as developed by Michel Foucault begins with allusion to Jeremy Bentham’s prison the Panopticon. A Panopticon has a central tower surrounded by cells in a circular wall that all face the central tower in interests of segregation and control. Each cell is open to observation by the tower and the tower is well lit and visible to each cell but it is impossible to know if there is a guard in the tower and if so, if that guard is currently observing any given cell. The uncertainty but constant potential of observation forces each individual to internalize a behavioural guard. This little bit of power internalized by each subject becomes a network of power relations that is economically cheaper than funding enforcement and infrastructure of external control. Panopticism is associated with the separation of individuals and internalization of power structures and behaviour guards that causes people to produce themselves as useful and efficient types of individuals. The system asserts control through the distribution of power throughout society and expectations of conformist behaviour.
    The author claims the internet has a similar structure to the Panopticon whereby information of increasingly spread networks all funnels it’s way back to webmasters and servers which act as the central tower that may control what content passes through them. The internet is discussed in relation to five aspects of Panopticism in the article: gaze, spaciality, totality and discourse. The gaze of the internet is considered bi-directional, both the economic internet overlords and the users gaze upon each other and the content of the internet. The spaciality of the internet is likewise ambiguous as users may connect from nearly any geographic location but many of the locations visited online are popular among different users and often revisited repeatedly by each user making them homogeneous. The author considers the internet as a usually monadic experience where individuals connect with the internet while alone or singularly interfaced with the computer. Further individual activities are often surveilled be it by spyware, advertisements or webmasters’ filters. This surveillance and segregation is similar to that of panopticism and the internalization of policing self and others for conformity and efficient control. The encompassing quality of modern technology makes virtuality or access to virtual reality totalizing. Society and bodies are enveloped in the framework and technology of the internet. Totality constructs the framework of what can be thought of or done by containing the apparati of information flows and relationships. The internet is totalizing as it is its own reality with constructs and apparati inherent to itself. For Foucault discourse is the driving structure of possibility. It is not possible, or very difficult, to think outside the framework for discourse similar to how it is difficult to think without using the framework of language.
    Winokur suggests the code language that makes up the internet is a type of discourse, and one that differs from regular language in that the commands it defines can create a (virtual)reality where words in day to day life represent an aspect of reality but do not create the thing that is described per say. There are multiple types of code language that can work together in the same virtual space that suggests a flexibility to such dialogue. Winikur would like to see a change in discourse and terminology to understand the internet that reflects the differences between a code language that may produce material meaning and general language of signifiers that does not. The ability to create through code offers up opportunity to participate in creation and dialogue of discourse online. As discourses (guards) work through subject’s corporeal bodies in the production of controlled and efficient selves, dialogue with discourse could produce different types of individuals.
    The argument is convincing to me in the sense that the internet is becoming totalizing and all encompassing and the networks of control on the digital body are carried into real life. Taboo behaviours in social networking sites that are not condoned by participants in the network of power can result in job loss and interpersonal backlash. The internet is also convincingly monadic as people seem to engage personally with their computers and have personal relationships with their profiles and connections. As far as discussing a new linguistics of cyberspace goes, specific terminology of modern and developing concepts is an ongoing and valuable endeavor. However I do not feel as though the general population of users engages with the coding of cyberspaces and perhaps that the relationships between users and how spaces are utilized would be a more relevant area of description.

Questions to Consider:
To what extent do users dialogue with discourse in everyday internet use and specifically with ‘Codes of Cyberspace'? Could a different or expanded definition of codes to include interpersonal behavioural schemes be useful?

To what extent do we monitor each other and ourselves as a distributed power network in CyberSpace?


Additional Resources:
Panopticon
Panopticism
Michel Foucault

Critical Response: Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks

 Coté, Mark and Jennifer Pybus. 'Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks.' Ephemera. 7.1
http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/7-1/7-1ephemera-feb07.pdf    pp.88-108


       Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and Social Networks by Mark Cote and Jennifer Pybus asserts that learning to labour immaterially is a major aspect of the web 2.0 experience using the example of social networks and in particular MySpace. Users learn to create and then participate in the very systems of organization and network connections that become the bonds of control imminent to the system of capitalism. The labour being described as immaterial is such due to the lack of material goods produced by the efforts of participants. Users toil by participation in the creation and extension of social networks during leisure time creating individual subjectivities interconnected with each other’s nodes in relation to tastes, opinions, affinities and of course commodities. Self-defined interests and affinities identify and offer up the user to targeted advertisements, and created subjectivities are mined for valuable market research. The myriad of routes of valorization and pleasure gained from participation maintain the good will of the user toward learning to create surplus value for the marketeers. Seemingly unwittingly through their leisure activities.
      Active participation in the network of capitalistic control, regardless of the opacity of the mechanisms which allow it, is important due to it’s ubiquity and fiscal clout. This system of participation in control and organization produces gains for both the network of subjectivities and the top-down interests of MegaCorp inc. The network society is inescapable and permeates the most mundane and everyday activities of modern living. It has become near impossible to exist outside at least some network relationship. Thus the activities and results of these relationships are relatable to nearly everybody. The products and power of the socially networked can be recognized for use by not only the management of capital but resistance as well.
       The authors make reference to Hardt and Negri’s framework of immaterial labour, referring to it as immaterial labour 1.0. Version 1.0 includes three types of immaterial labour: intellectual labour such as problem solving, emotional labour such as in the service and care industries, and the evolution of manufacturing in relation to new communication technologies in the sense that  an order to begin material manipulation may come from an office computer half a planet away from the factory. Immaterial Labour 2.0 surpasses 1.0 to include leisure time in the realm of productivity. Leisure time as represented by the types of activities engaged in during social networking that are mined by capital.
      The authors argue MySpace and in extention capital, harnesses immaterial labour through biopower as described by Michel Foucault.  Biopower is the extension of the evolution from sovereign to disciplinary power. Sovereign power extends from a sovereign directly to the body of an individual where a king could cause the torture or death of any person. Disciplinary power is associated with segregation and individualization where subjects have internalized a behavioural guard that monitors their activities whether a real guard is watching or not. The internalization of behavioural guards and participation in common institutions such as schools and hospitals reinforce the production of certain behaviours and thus certain types of people and associations. The types of people produced are those most productive and useful for capitalism. A person’s production of themselves as a subject within this network is key. “In other words, disciplinary societies were a matter of spatially and temporally ordering things in a discrete manner that composed bodies in a way that made them greater than the sum of their parts.” (p. 92). As society becomes increasingly interconnected and mobile the usual geographically fixed institutions are swapped for virtual relationships and social networks. Biopower exists as the entirety of society, regulated by itself in an interconnected and generative fashion where each individual polices themselves and each other with power embedded flexibly within the system and not through an external body. (Bio)Power relationships permeate all relationships and the very fabric of everyday life.
    Participation on MySpace is synonymous with attempts at extention of one’s social network and bids for valorization. Building larger networks enhances one’s cultural capital and by extrapolation marketability. The rewards of participating in something bigger than oneself and interpersonal triumphs of accumulation drive a natural desire to build networks and accumulate capital. The rewards, like dog biscuits reinforce profitable behaviour. Relationships that are built that can be monitored and/or packaged are the most valuable commodity to capital. Summarized on page 95: “...Not only socially ‘profitable’ for youth, it helps capital construct the foundations of a future of networked subjectivity and affect.” Capital currently consumes this cultural content by directly targeting for in-monitor advertisement words and topics used during real time network participation. The trade value of this information was worth $580 million to News Corp.
      The networks inherent to self organization during immaterial labour, though the delicious tender meat of capital niche-seeking is also a realm for resistance. The article asserts resistance comes first. A line is drawn to a soft revolution where social networks of positive respect and affinity are proliferated resulting in social change. The large musical segment within MySpace is an example of a body of individuals and works that circumvents the usual corporate boxing of art, participating in free trade. “So once again, there is always something within MySpace that remains a refuge, albeit one always being surveyed by capital for enclosure.” (p. 103).
      In conclusion biopower is non-coercive in that people use leisure activities they enjoy to produce work that is useful if not essential (within network society/ network based power structures) for capitalism to find and exploit. However people are active, and not passive audiences that are simply bought and sold. The activity of immaterially labouring may produce alternative solutions.

    The argument is convincing to me in that I can see and understand in an everyday way how aspects of any monitor-able activities such as those performed online, and particularly in an interactive medium such as a social network that any marketable reference is catered to. By extension I also understand a marketeer's interest in finding niches to exploit and what a goldmine social networks offer as a rich source of market information. I also enjoy the example of musicians on MySpace as resistance workers existing outside of the general corporate overlord scheme and the dreamy idea of soft revolution. I would like to continue an essence of resistance in the groups I participate in through ideas such as repair over renewed consumption and sustainable enjoyable areas of interest.
       I also feel it understandable that people are active in their own control and affix themselves representations and niches as dictated by their desired internal behaviour guards and immediate social influences. Opening the dialogue to being and active participant in one’s control may help design a system of product placement that is organic to people’s needs and desires. Along the lines of producing the self as a particular kind of individual perhaps through the right networks and enthusiasms tools and infrastructure could be put into place to assist humans in development and aspirations beyond current hopeful wildest dreams.


Questions to consider:
Given the construction and subsequent exploitation of niches is social networking more positive or more negative? Are niches that are created amenable to the positive advancement of society or are people pushed toward destructive consumption of commodities and subjectivities?

How likely is a soft revolution?





Additional Resources:
Web 2.0
MySpace
MySpace privacy policy
Subjectivity
Network Society
Immaterial Labour
Biopower

Stage One

Blog Preparations for Philosophy 2715: Philosophy and the Internet

Tinkered with image, Teal with it.
 
Considered title to be Stellarium Megafaunics: The Great Space Apes but thought more minimally of it.
Cheers