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ARTS3061 – Week 3 Lapel Mike Exercise
‘Future Media Trends and Social Behavior’ – Final Assessment
Douglas Rushkoff explains in an online exert from his book ‘Present Shock,’ “our society has reoriented itself to the present moment, ” elaborating that the result of this is the, “diminishment of anything that isn’t happening now.”2 What is seemingly provoking this change is our ability to receive information live, John Haven’s explaining that, “the very nature of such technological immediacy will very quickly change human behaviour.”3
In particular, Augmented Reality (A.R,) has in recent years become one of the most trending mediums in the technology revolution. Two key factors contributing to the growth in A.R technology have been the accessibility to equipment compatible with the format, as well as an ever-increasing demand for autonomous and visceral technology. Using a variety of illustrations and theory’s this paper will attempt to examine the direction in which technology is progressing and the impacts that this is having on social order.
The term, ‘Moore’s Law,’ originated around 1970, the concept relating to George E. Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation. “The simplified version of this law states that processor speeds, or overall processing power for computers will double every two years.”3 While the theory has caused widespread discussion in regards to the accuracy of the formula, for the most part the law is valid, that is until transistors reach the size of atomic particles, which will leave no more room for the growth in CPU speeds.
Linking Moore’s Law to Rushkoff’s notion of acceleration, we begin to acknowledge how technology is influencing the break down between the present and the future. The most noticeable illustration as mentioned earlier is our ability to receive virtual information in real time. According to ‘Pew Research Centre,’ 56% of Americans now own some form of Smartphone, whilst 34% of the American adult population own a tablet computer, “such as an iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Google Nexus or Kindle Fire.”4 With this increasing amount of connectivity comes a new level of dependency on virtual content.
Whilst the illustration of American figures are palpably subjective in accordance to the rest of the world, as developing countries mature economically and the cost of production decreases these technologies are becoming increasingly available. China for example, whilst 41st on the list of countries with the highest percentage of Smartphone ownership in 2011 (6% of the population,) had 23.9 million phones sales, whilst America only had 23 million in the same year.5
So, what exactly are the effects of this new wave of virtual interaction, and how have certain mediums struggled? One of the more obvious impacts of technological immediacy has been felt in the publishing or print industry. There has been a steady decline the print readership thanks to the way in online news sources can provide a level of immediacy. Even though this race for output of information has debatably lowered the quality of journalism, this has only in truth made a marginal impact on the way the public interoperates the news. Internally though, or to quote Eric Burdon from the ‘inside looking out,’ print companies have been hit hard, Fairfax Media reporting a 39% profit loss in February 2013.6 Clay Shirky explains in ‘Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,’ “when someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution”7
On the one hand while, previously successful media outlets have been thwarted by the so called tech revolution, social media sites have in just under the past decade become in their own right means of news publication. With support coming in the form of a hyperlink or more recently the iconic ‘hashtag,’ sites such as Twitter and Facebook have spawned another dimension of news publication. What this relationship has triggered is a kind of hyper urgency for news websites in being the first to successfully upload a news story. Ultimately the frontrunner in this pseudo-journalistic race will win a succession of shares, likes, and hits leading to advertising revenue, Rushkoff labeling the time spent on these websites as “eyeball hours.” 2
Rushkoff observes that societies current relationship with the media, “is why blogs are being super-seeded by Twitter feeds.”2 Malcolm Turnbull was recently quoted at the Walkley Media Conference as saying, “if I write a blog, like I did yesterday complaining about you know the ABC’s reporting on the NBN, I can put that on my blog, post in on Twitter, and it is drawn to the attention of the possessors of 130 odd thousand devices. Now that is, that is vastly more than the readership of say the Fin Review…”8
Turnbull’s comment is tremendously symbolic of the growing attitudes towards the media cycle, as well as the weight of social forums such as Twitter. Turnbull’s statement while implicitly honest is also marginally warped. While the treasurer has ever right to boast such influence, it is undeniably worrying when someone in a political role, regardless of their political orientation has more communicative clout than some of the larger media organisations. Essentially we need a bipartisanship in terms of the journalism in order to mediate any story. Rushkoff cynically writes, “it’s how millions of young people can choose to embody a new activism based in patient consensus instead of a contentious debate.”2
Evidently there are far worse people in the world who could maintain such uncensored following, such as a certain Kardashian. Jokes aside though, it is astonishing to witness and be involved with such an intricate social change.
Not only has the expediency of information improved but also the depth of content has reached an uncharted level. Bernard Stiegler writes in ‘The Global Mnemotechnical System,’ “humans die but their histories remain – this is the big difference between mankind and other forms.”9 What Stiegler continues to claim is that, “technics is always a memory aid.” 9 By this, it can be presumed that the writer means all forms of technology right from cave paintings to the non-linear existence of the internet have in some way provided a platform for mankind to store information.
On ABC’s Radio National Podcast – The Philosopher’s Zone, Joe Gelonesi interviews both John Sutton and Prof. Richard Menary, who expand on their thesis entitled, ‘The Extended Mind Theory.’ Prof. Clarke explains that not only can, “the world be part of the mind,” but also technologies ranging from notepads to iPhones “can be constituents of our mental and cognitive resources.”10 To some extent this notion is applicable and undeniably intriguing, although if our smart-phone or iPad is kind of metallic cognitive appendage could we then be arguing that we should be allowed to use such devices in exam conditions or furthermore in any situation?
In a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Youth Skim Surface of Life With Constant Use of Social Media,’ Kelsey Munro makes the observation that, “today’s under 30’s live their lives, “mile wide and an inch deep,”11 due to the constant desire to check social media feeds. Challenging the ‘Extended Mind Theory,’ Munro argues that even though the amount of online content is there as well as the ability to surface information at any moment, technologies that were designed to reduce time spent processing content have instead done the reverse.
Rushkoff continues this examination in his novel ‘Present Shock,’ writing that, “Instead of having the opportunity to extract ourselves from the industrial ‘time is money paradigm,’ we founds ways to extend that obsolete agenda into the digital age.” 2
Ultimately instead of being able to have more time to communicate in more of an asynchronous form, we shaped these new technologies into consistently on, “value and time extractive technologies,” 2 ultimately designing for ourselves an attentive economy, which links back to the idea of eyeball hours and so on.
So how has all of this lead to the Augmented realm, and what are the effects of these changes on society? As touched on earlier John Haven explains in ‘The Impending Social Consequences of Augmented Reality,’ “Augmented Reality is not just a technology, it’s a shortcut. Whether we interact with date through a pair of glasses or contact lenses, the very nature of such technological immediacy will quickly change human behaviour.”3
The reason why it feels as though Haven mentions human behaviour is because of the way in which technology is moving and how certain products are being designed and marketed. Earlier examples in this essay support this notion, the decline in language heavy debate regarding newspaper articles and the popularity of short and precise information highlighting the decreasing attention span of the online community. It is not the public that have demanded that we receive information in this way, realistically the infinite space for content has meant that we really have less time to give to one website or application in particular. The most successful mediums in the last year have ultimately been ones such as Tumblr and Instagram, purely for the fact that they are visually pleasing and extremely simple and precise.
Following on, an algorithm and technology designed by 17-year old Nick D’Aloisio was picked up by Yahoo for $30 million. The iPhone app, ‘Summly,’ is designed to take the most important parts of news articles, edit and re-contextualised them, so that people essentially have to read less.
AR companies such as Metaio, Bauer Media, Google and CacheTown are just some of the many organisations trying to tap into this visual AR realm, and so far the results have been quite inconceivable. An example of this is as Haven’s explains, “CacheTown, an AR technology initially being used to help retailers project offers for products or services in the virtual arena.” 3 On their website they describe themselves as, “a marketing tool that allows brands to create GPS location-based AR promotions, as well as n AR scavenger hunt game for consumers, allowing customers to win branded real-world prizes or offers by collecting virtual tokens.”12
Augmented eyewear also seems to foreshadow the direction of communicative technologies. Vint Cerf, recognised as one of the supposed fathers of the Internet, believes that, “there are consequences to the technology we’re using that we cannot predict.”3 Paralleling these consequences to Rushkoff’s idea of ‘Present Shock,’ the media theorist continues to describe the notion of “overwinding” 2 using the example of the derivative stock exchange, which is now grossly larger than the New York stock exchange. Under all of this, what is so fascinating is the way in which the human race relies on future growth and development. Cerf adds that, “we’re moving into a time we’ve never quite been in before, continuing to say that, “the information explosion has been with us for a long time, but the ability to process it has been les available to us.”3
Google Glass is another example of the revolutionary and wearable Augmented software that is coming to life. An article in Tech Radar titled, ‘Google Glass; Everything You Need to Know,’ explains that the device, “uses display technology instead to put date in front of your vision, directions become more intuitive and you can view real-time translations or transcriptions of what is being said – all on the fly.”14 Though Vint Cerf wrote that we couldn’t predict exactly where the future of technology was going, to some extent an assumption or argument could definitely be made that digital technologies are becoming more and more a part of our construct.
So, the question is really how are we holding up against this inescapable barrage of technology being filtrated into our social environment? If there is one key notion that has hopefully sits atop this essay, it hopefully would be that society is impressively flexible and malleable when it comes to learning and understanding new methods of communication. While it can be alarming to analyse the rate in which media patterns are shifting, this was essentially part of the contract that we somewhat blindly signed when entering from the industrial into the information era. Ultimately we must persist in questioning future social impacts of these technologies, and whether our relationship with them is a healthy one.
2 [online] Rushkoff, Douglas (2013) ‘Present Shock,’ http://www.rushkoff.com/present
3 [online] Drell, Lauren (2012) ‘7 Ways Augmented Reality Will Improve Your Life’, Mashable, December 20, http://mashable.com/2012/12/19/augmented-reality-city/
4 [online] Smith, Aaron (2013) ‘Smartphone Ownership 2013,’ http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Smartphone-Ownership-2013/Findings.aspx
5 [online] (2012) ‘What if smartphones were as popular in China as they are in the USA?’http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/01/23/what-if-smartphones-were-as-popular-in-china-as-they-are-in-the-usa/
6[online] Ahmed, Sim (2013) ‘Job cuts on the horizon for Fairfax, company looks towards paywalls,’ http://www.stoppress.co.nz/blog/2013/05/job-cuts-horizon-fairfax-company-looks-towards-paywalls
7[online] Shirky, Clay (2009) ‘Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,’http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
8[online] Media Watch (2009) ‘Bypassing the Gatekeepers,’ http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3742728.htm
9[online] Stiegler, Bernard (2003) ‘Our Ailing Educational Institutions,’ http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/viewArticle/258/243
10 [online podcast] Gelonesi, Joe (2010) ‘The Extended Mind,’ http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/the-extended-mind/2986780
11 [online] Munro, Kelsey (2013) ‘Youth Skim Surface of Life With Constant Use of Social Media,’ http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/youth-skim-surface-of-life-with-constant-use-of-social-media-20130419-2i5lr.html
12 [online] CacheTown (2013) ‘Location-Based Augmented Reality,’ http://candylab.com/cachetown/
14 [online] Rivington, James (2013) ‘Google Glass; What You Need to Know,’ http://www.techradar.com/au/news/video/google-glass-what-you-need-to-know-1078114
Open Science
“The scientific method is not one uniform ‘method.’ It is a collection of scores of techniques and processes that has evolved over centuries (and continues to evolve). Each method is one small step that incrementally increases the unity of knowledge in society.” – http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/29382/title/Evolving-the-Scientific-Method/
‘Open science,’ refers to the idea where by findings and information may be accessible to anyone. The format of this means that there is a more lucid and progressive work flow for those involved with researching similar content. In my general opinion it is a fantastic notion as dissolves the ability for companies to privatise research that could otherwise help the wider populous. Of course this idea needs to be filtered to some extent, much like wikipedia ect, although generally speaking freedom of information is important in order to create a more equal society.
Social Organisation
In the past few years it has been interesting to witness the growth of social media and the impact this has had on political activism and organisation whether this be positive or negative.
The most current and to an extent attractive example of this would be the protests in Istanbul, the governments plan to demolish Gezi Park triggering mass rioting in Turkey’s most populous city. I was particularly intrigued to hear reports of bloggers and ‘tweeters’ being arrested for publicising content that according to the government was considered to be “misinformation.” Some of the tweets allegedly revealed locations of police and was being used to direct protestors.
Blogs such as, ‘What is Happening In Istanbul,’ (http://defnesumanblogs.com/2013/06/01/what-is-happenning-in-istanbul/) are particularly interesting as they are able to generate a huge amount of hits, (if successful,) and act as an medium between society and the mainstream media. Essentially this is one of the key conflicting issues within the Turkish protests, that being the media is ignoring many of the injustices carried out by police. An article from Russia Today explains, “many in Turkey believe strongly that there is a responsibility that comes with being a news provider, and that Turkish media have failed in that responsibility.” http://rt.com/news/turkey-media-poor-coverage-245/
What is particularly strange about this dichotomy is that prior to the internet these mainstream media sources were the ones in charge of regulating content and creating a balanced depiction of events. The article, ‘How Egypt’s Uprising Is Helping Redefine the Idea of a Media Event,’ touches on this notion explaining, “mainstream television came to the party only after a few other factors in the media ecology — namely, social media and online streaming — arrived. Social media was to some extent a way for people to organize in Egypt, and it was a way to get the word about the unrest out to a wider audience.” http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/02/how-egypts-uprising-is-helping-redefine-the-idea-of-a-media-event/
I mean it is impossible to even scratch the surface of how these new technologies are influencing the greater social movement. From my point of view as a student and some might say a socialist, this is a great tool and in the wise words of Don Chipp it’s just another way to, “keep the bastards honest.”
And now for something completely different….
Transversality
I found this interesting video earlier in the week via a friend/ musician Dylan (Royalston,) which caught my attention. Andrew Murphy writes in ‘The Fibreculture Journal, “simply put a transversal is a line that cuts across other lines, perhaps across entire fields – bringing the fields together in a new way, recreating fields as something else.”
I suppose my interpretation of the idea ‘transversality,’ in relation to a notion of media content, is something that is for lack of a better word multidimensional or could be interpreted in more than one way. Expanding this idea, the line may connect two institutions or completely separate fields altogether, (in a very broad sense.)
One of the key questions in this weeks lecture was ‘how are the issues involved usually framed?’ The example given in the outline was The Pirate Bay, which is an online website operated and founded in Sweden, where there are fewer restrictions in regards to the sharing of data. My understanding of ‘framing,’ is really how content can be engaged with and interacted with according to who is using it.
Isia Hashimoto’s comments on his video ‘1945-1988,’ “this piece of work is a bird’s eye view of the history by scaling down a month length of time into one second. No letter is used for equal messaging to all viewers without language barrier. The blinking light, sound and the numbers on the world map show when, where and how many experiments each country have conducted. I created this work for the means of an interface to the people who are yet to know of the extremely grave, but present problem of the world.”
Hashimoto frames the 50 year period in the format of a minimal animation, using sound to create a beautiful yet haunting depiction of the incidences. I found my reaction to the video quite conflicting, which i’m sure was intended by the artist. While the format of the video was stunning and quite interesting, the subject was extremely dark and horrifying. Maybe Hashimoto’s idea behind the video was to create something beautiful out of something so awful.
Ultimately the idea of ‘transversality’ is quite complex but really just refers to the way in which content can be linked and understood.
Data
The first thing that came to mind when we began discussing data/ information collection, was the John Snow investigation. In Soho, London, 1854 there was a mass cholera outbreak which was at the time was commonly linked to the popular miasma theory, which stated that that the disease was brought on by bad air and pollution. Snow, skeptical of this notion published two essays, the first titled ‘On the Mode of Communication of Cholera,’ in 1849 and a second edition in 1949 highlighting the connection between the disease and poor water quality. Essentially Snow used the technique of data collection, linking areas of higher cholera numbers to those of water pollution. Snow’s illustration ultimately convinced the council at the time to shut down the faulty water pump, thus lowering the cholera outbreak significantly.
John Snow – Cholera Map
This instance of data collection is quite a clear cut example of how data can be used to improve our condition. Latour’s, ‘Actor Network Theory,’ illuminates the agency or connection between human and non-human actants. This seems to be a good starting point for all data collection as the theory simply breaks down the relationship between things and aims to capture the details of their interactivity.
Quilty-Harper’s article from The Telegraph, ’10 Ways Data Is Changing How We Live,’ explains how data is changing our lives currently. In relation to shopping the article explains how, “Dunnhumby operates the Tesco Clubcard scheme: using data collected from the scheme, Tesco can predict when people will shop, how they’ll pay for their items and even how many calories they will consume. Dunnhumby recently reported a 32 per cent rise in operating profits to £53.4 million, and has grown from300 employees at the start of 2007 to nearly 1,250 this year.”
It is not just companies that are able to successfully compile information to generate a better idea of assemblage. Unlike twenty odd years ago, a large percentage of humans are now able to access applications that are designed to help collect and manage personal data. ‘The Data Driven Life,’ explains how “Foursquare, a geo-tracking application with about one million users, keeps a running tally of how many times players “check in” at every locale, automatically building a detailed diary of movements and habits; many users publish these data widely. Nintendo’s Wii Fit, a device that allows players to stand on a platform, play physical games, measure their body weight and compare their stats, has sold more than 28 million units.”
While all this data collection can be seen as a positive step towards a more fluid global society, there are still various privacy issues that many people are unaware of. Where is the line drawn in relation to advertising firms and business’ collecting personal data for their own gain, and what is our responsibility as individuals in questioning what information is divulged to these companies? Personally I am quite skeptical and protective when it comes to giving out information, although the way we communicate in the 21st century and the nature of the internet means that no matter how private material is, no data can fully be deleted or removed from the web.
‘Augmented’
I found this weeks readings to be the most interesting and progressive so far in the course. While the whole ‘virtual reality’ concept has been around for quite a substantial period, sadly the technologies available to the wider population have never really been suitable for a successful measure of virtuality. I suppose the only real taste that most of us have had of virtual reality is through cheesy nineties Sci-Fi films and fairy flimsy Wii sports games/ arcade games such as this now highly amusing short doco – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP8wSw4bBuA.
A few weeks back I started thinking how incredible it was that such a large percentage of this generation are carrying around devices (smart-phones,) which could be so suitable for virtual applications. With such amazing clarity and quite a high res camera it seems like the perfect time for a new digital wave of virtual/ augmented reality applications. The article, ‘7 Ways Augmented Reality Will Improve Your Life,’ explains how, “it’s a way to use technology to redefine space, and it places a virtual layer over the world with geographic specificity ensuring a good fit.”
The article ‘Monkey’s move and feel Virtual Objects Using Only Their Brians’ from Science Daily, explains the “two-way interaction between a primate brain and a virtual body,” highlighting the notion that in the near future quadriplegic patients may be able to use this style of augmented technology to recreate movement lost.
‘Experience’
I found this weeks course material to be particularly interesting as it focused on the notion of the ‘extended mind,’ or ‘consciousness.’ To start, I found that the video of Alan Kay teaching tennis fascinating and it seemed to sum up the notion of experience quite well.
Alva Noe spoke of consciousness and movement in his video, ‘dance as a way of knowing. I interpreted his theory as, without movement we would not understand or be conscious or aware. Alva Noe explains, “experience is something we do, that we achieve actively.” If we move back to Kay’s video on tennis it is interesting first of to hear this idea that, “anyone is able to learn how to have a decent game of tennis in under half an hour.” The immediate response that I had was that this is a ridiculous notion, simply because everyone is different and a large percentage of people would not have the co-ordination, movement or understanding to play the game in that short amount of time. What was interesting about the lesson though was the focus Kay had on movement and contact. Rather than analysing the specific actions in the game the instructor just asked the woman who was selected to watch the ball and say “bounce” when the ball hit the ground and “hit” when she thinks she would make contact with racquet and ball. The same went for her serve, Kay making her sing “da-da-dum” to the motion of a serve. Whilst her first few attempts were fairly basic, after a while you began to see the theory working the action of swinging at the ball being controlled by the body rather than the brain.
Looking at Dalton S’ video ‘E Sense,’ we begin to see a connection between all three readings thus far, in the sense that all theorists had a strong idea about the nature of movement and experience. The video documents a new technology aimed at those who are visually impaired. The invention acts as a sensory guide, using pads wrapped around the stomach and waist, vibrations on different areas of the device providing a spacial guide to where objects may be in relation to the participant. This means when a ball is rolled towards the person using the device vibrations are able to guide them towards where the ball is.
Ultimately these theorists highlight the importance of the relationship between movement and the human consciousness, illuminating the idea that our experience is reliant on a combination of these two elements.
Metacommunication
What Levinsen seems to allude to in, ‘The Alphabet and Rise of Monotheism,’ using the example of the Pheonician phonetic alphabet is the idea that humans function in a very autonomous and forward thinking way. Levinsen writes that, “the advantage of this atomization, as in instant coffee and digitized information in the twentieth century, is an enormous boost in transportability and preservability.” This parallels to his statement earlier which suggests that we are “indeed an alphabetic culture.”
Connecting this idea to the likes of Monotheism, Levinsen explains how Christianity the most popular Monotheistic religion to date is also the most iconic, emphasising the, “primacy of words in the Good Book.” What the author is suggesting in this sense is the possible redundancy of visual imagery in relation to other less popular religions, a little like the hieroglyphic system. It is this Pheonician system that can be credited for is role in the growth of literacy and language.
Levinsen writes how, “democracy was defined in ancient Athens in terms of the number of people who could hear the speaker’s voice, even as the alphabet created an intellectual structure that millennia later would allow democracy on a national scale.” Though literacy at first created a greater social divide, as we have discussed in earlier years of media technologies such as the Gutenberg press as well as earlier mediums such as parchment thoroughly improved forms of accessibility for the greater social circuit.
“The coupling of biology and technology, which, of course, has longer roots beyond digital culture, finds alive and kicking within the media ecology of digital culture. These types of couplings can also provide vectors of becoming for a novel understanding of digital culture. Life does not remain a mere metaphor but also becomes an implication of autopoiesis, of self-moving, of acting and force.” (Parikka 2007:26)
I take this quote from Thomas Rawlings, ‘Games as a happening, as a Service.’ Implicitly we can use this notion of ‘autopoiesis,’ where we are in some way still using technologies or mediums in the same way that the alphabet was originally designed for which is to create a stronger relationship in society through media relationships or media ecologies. Linking this back to the idea of ‘metacommunication,’ I guess the key idea is at the core of the human structure is something that keeps us wanting to update and improve our networking abilities and be able to connect and relate to the community around us, which is essentially why tools such as print journalism, social networks, smartphones ect. are so darn popular.
angusmills91 