Mensajeros de la Paz

59 W 12th Street . December 19, 2007 . 12:35 am .


Jubilee is an orphan and he lives in Terra Firme.
His only possessions are a box, some newspapers and a sign.
I've never seen him but have recently read a lot about him.

Jubilee is the avatar for Mensajeros de la Paz, a Spanish NGO that creates foster homes for poor children and old people in Real Life. Jubilee's objective is not exclusively to go after people's money (Linden or other) but to reach out to an audience that's very hard to get to... henceforth he just talks to people, makes friends, sits in strategic locations e.g., the NBC Christmas Tree (very PR of him), and tries to get as much exposure as any other homeless person would. The kid's presence has in fact made many Second Life residents uncomfortable and probably more socially aware.

I'm not sure that I would ever talk to a Manhattan homeless person as I would here if I ever find Jubilee... probably not (the pictures I've seen of him make me want to go out and hug him) but Mensajeros de la Paz in a strange way is achieving its objective and building a whole new layer over the mere concept of fundraising.

Ho, ho, ho!

T

Icaria - Flying in Second Life

59 W 12th Street . December 4, 2007 . 3:55 pm .


Flying in Second Life is one of the very few magical elements within a virtual world that, according to some users, has become almost too realistic. In the words of Randall B. Smith, animated environments are physical-world metaphors that spring from the tension between literalism and magic. Actions that violate this metaphor (like human flight) and provide “enhanced functionality” are considered magical.

Flying in Second Life had practical purposes when it was first invented: to get to things quicker, to cut corners... I, however, am trapped by the sensuality and efficiency of this technology. When we lift our avatar bodies from the ground we detach ourselves from “reality”; we self-objectify to either analyze the territory better, travel faster or simply disappear. This, for me, has the potential to go beyond merely dodging obstacles.

Human beings have dreamt about flying for thousands of years. I will present a brief historical review of our archaic desire to fly (from Icarus and Leonardo Da Vinci to the ancient Chinese) to contextualize some autoethnographic observations and in-world research and images.

T

And...

59 W 12th Street . November 30, 2007 . 7:01 pm .


As I re-read Stewart's Cultural Poesis in class yesterday I came across a phrase that I had underlined and want to share:

The personal
is political.

Our teacher also made a remark to one of my classmates that I thought was important as well:

Never be
too confident.

T

Response to the readings - Ordinary Affects by Kathleen Stewart

59 W 12th Street . November 28, 2007 . 9:56 pm .

"The ordinary throws itself together out of forms, flows, powers, pleasures, encounters, distractions, drudgery, denials, practical solutions, shape-shifting forms of violence, daydreams, and opportunities lost or found."

Kathleen Stewart

New York City is a place constructed upon little pockets of beauty. It's not like Paris where, in my opinion, everywhere you look is beautiful. Here you turn a corner and may find a park - cross the street and get unexpectedly blinded by the sun - glimpse at a couple kissing - remember something important - come across a lonely saxophone player - get caught in a wind tunnel. You can also be woken up by screaming sirens in the middle of the night - witness random public arguments - see (by accident of course) how fellow citizens pick up after their dogs.

These very distracting but nonetheless memorable "Ordinary Affects" make it special because these "Ordinary Affects" are precisely what make it New York.

It was easy to relate to this text as it made me reflect upon the infinite layers of connections and stimulus we're submerged in. My days oftentimes feel like joyrides through landmine fields. Things "erupt" in my face all the time like Stewart describes (I'm almost used to it by now.) More stuff than ever before interests me and at the same time five-minute long conversations are sometimes a challenge. We're being distracted constantly and are masters in wasting time.

She says we're busy if we're lucky,
I say we're lucky if we're busy.

All these correlative and circulating occurrences however -insignificant like a hiccup or politically charged like a flash mob- are our lives. They're everyone's lives. Terms as ample as "capitalism" have become intimate and ordinary enough to have direct impacts on our bodies (Got Milk?) Normality indeed may not be normal anymore but I don't think anyone is to say what was "normal" in the first place.

Great book.

T

Caché

59 W 12th Street . November 23, 2007 . 10:18 am .

I think that the underlying message of Michael Haneke's Caché is that paranoia and guilt are the essence behind every surveillance camera: there is no worst prison than ourselves. One must only suggest the idea that someone 'out there' might be watching, to trigger an infinite number of human apprehensions.

The principal quandaries behind technology are still moral in nature. At the end of the day humans continue to be scared little creatures and their fear is the rye that feed the mills. (I indulged in a movie marathon last night and randomly saw the documentary Jesus Camp after Caché... talk about rye that feeds the mills.)

Caché is welded and tightly-packed. It delivers. Every scene is meticulously assembled and for very specific reasons. It's the kind of film that makes me think "yeah, I should do films like that." Its parallel stories and antagonist characters come into play only to strengthen and feed the main narrative. They speak only when necessary and almost never raise their voice. I've always been a fan of discrete editing as it allows movies to happen and Caché henceforth successfully unwinds on its own.

There's a scene in the film that I found particularly interesting. The main characters, Georges and Anne, are leaving the police station and Georges is almost run over by a man on a bicycle. This enrages him. The man is black and, somehow, almost had to be black. Their encounter is a treat that only feeds the layers of ideological tension already felt throughout. Most importantly though, it messes with Georges' accumulating guilt.

We never know who sent the videos. We never know who made the drawings and the calls. We never know if Majid was even aware of them or if Anne was having an affair with Pierre. We never know why their relationship worked in the first place but it did. We never know who was 'out there' watching and don't really need to: Georges was already scared.

Cameras don't destroy our lives, we destroy them ourselves.

Gobble, gobble.

T

Response to the readings - Connected by Steven Shaviro

59 W 12th Street . November 14, 2007 . 10:23 pm .

"What separates a man from a wolf if it is not that a man wants to make a profit?"
Jane Bowl
(Connected, p. 214)

So I ended up being pleasantly surprised by the book Connected. I also enjoyed the order in which we read it - first middle, then start, then end... very hypertextual of us.

In this section Shaviro goes into great detail about extravagance. He argues that the principal forces behind capitalist agglomeration are waves of massive, uncontrolled spending, and the financial speculations (which he accurately refers to as manic) that also whirl around consumption. He makes very interesting points when comparing and contrasting evolutionary biology and free-market economies: their replication, expenditure, utility, equilibrium... and the idea for example that without scarcity there would be no competition and henceforth no efficiency.

(I can't help thinking about the fast approaching 2007 Black Friday. The sole idea of getting up and going to the mall at 4 am seems beyond berserk to me. In any case I applaud the creation of Cyber Monday.)

Something else that I found very interesting this time around was Shaviro's analysis of the science fiction novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Salt (love the title.) He mentions that the web is becoming a 'new topography upon the cosmos', a scenery which I for some reason envision as a very heterogeneous and jelly-like cloud, sparkling with flashes of data and information. It is yet uneven but pretends to wrap us all around with the same intensity one day. What an overwhelming system of universal equivalences this would be... similar again to Castells' network society... globalization feeding off local affirmations of identity and viceversa.

It seems like an ambitious and rather splashy objective to accustom oneself to such an infinite spectrum of realities, practices, fields, desires (Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Salt mentions 6200 different worlds.) We can traverse the network but do we have to become it as well? Have we really moved out of time and into space? Is art imitating nature or is nature imitating art?

Anyway... just some ideas.

T

New Media Research Tool - Cuca

59 W 12th Street . November 7, 2007 . 1:44 pm .

The idea behind Cuca was inspired by two things: the book I'm reading right now, The Rise of the Network Society by Manuel Castells, and a conversation I recently had with my friend Anaid (Anaid studies Interactive Telecommunications at NYU and is developing a similar project for one of her classes.)

Just as Hallnas and Redstrom do in their article From Use to Presence, I also wonder how best to evaluate, construct and design a new computational artifact in the midst of fast and never ending technological developments. The easiest way to start I suppose could be to ask what this tool exactly is and what it does, followed by the specific goals it aims to reach. We must also consider the importance of its context and its time.

Nowadays initiatives like One Laptop per Child demonstrate that even in third world countries, computers are coming to be part of people's lives from a very early age (and will increasingly continue to do so.) If done correctly, this can yield to the solution of real global issues and to the decrease of certain social disparities from within the same communities. Education provides major economic empowerment and, in the words of Nicholas Negroponte, computers have now become tools to think with. Children's capabilities, skills, senses and intellects should never, never be underestimated.

Thus...

Cuca is a research tool for children. It's an application that can be downloaded for free (always for free) from the Internet. It has the shape of a small magnifying glass and it works hand-in-hand with a map of the user's community that will automatically download with the package. When one places the cursor over the different points marked on the map, Cuca displays a small pop-up window with important information about the location: from its exact address to the services provided there (public bathrooms, transportation, telephones, wireless connection, police, etc.) and the activities taking place at that moment. I use a map of Dallas and its suburbs as a visual example:




Allowing my imagination to run loose here, a more advanced version of Cuca could allow kids to ask questions or post comments about/on the specific places and henceforth make it an interactive experience. This could also be helpful to adults who at times are less knowledgeable about these things. In a rural environment for example, one might need to walk miles to buy milk or eggs. If a child has a laptop at home he or she can "ask" those at the grocery store via Cuca if they have the goods, prior to making the trip (businesses would have to register somehow in order to be included in the system.)

I was raised in a mega-city and I think that a research tool like Cuca could be very helpful in binding the discontinuities -social, cultural, economic, etc.- encountered in spaces like Mexico City. Something like this would allow both children and adults to bypass the impartialities and bureaucratic faults that oftentimes isolate us from one another within our own milieu. We would connect withing the gaps of the Network Society and be the nods of other nods constructing upon us.

And for you Second Life fans out there, I found something that again can remind us never to underestimate kids: www.webkinz.com

T

Aleph

59 W 12th Street . November 2, 2007 . 2:02 pm .

Far beyond Leibniz, Heim, Zizek and Shaviro there's Borges...

On the back part of the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brilliance. At first I thought it was revolving; then I realized that this movement was an illusion created by the dizzying world it bounded. The Aleph's diameter was probably little more than an inch, but all space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror's face, let us say) was infinite things, since I distinctly saw it from every angle of the universe. I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I saw the multitudes of America; I saw a silvery cobweb in the center of a black pyramid; I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London); I saw, close up, unending eyes watching themselves in me as in a mirror; I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me; I saw in a backyard of Soler Street the same tiles that thirty years before I'd seen in the entrance of a house in Fray Bentos; I saw bunches of grapes, snow, tobacco, lodes of metal, steam; I saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of their grains of sand; I saw a woman in Inverness whom I shall never forget; I saw her tangled hair, her tall figure, I saw the cancer in her breast; I saw a ring of baked mud in a sidewalk, where before there had been a tree; I saw a summer house in Adrogué and a copy of the first English translation of Pliny - Philemon Holland's - and all at the same time saw each letter on each page (as a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight); I saw a sunset in Querétaro that seemed to reflect the color of a rose in Bengal; I saw my empty bedroom; I saw in a closet in Alkmaar a terrestrial globe between two mirrors that multiplied it endlessly; I saw horses with flowing manes on a shore of the Caspian Sea at dawn; I saw the delicate bone structure of a hand; I saw the survivors of a battle sending out picture postcards; I saw in a showcase in Mirzapur a pack of Spanish playing cards; I saw the slanting shadows of ferns on a greenhouse floor; I saw tigers, pistons, bison, tides, and armies; I saw all the ants on the planet; I saw a Persian astrolabe; I saw in the drawer of a writing table (and the handwriting made me tremble) unbelievable, obscene, detailed letters, which Beatriz had written to Carlos Argentino; I saw a monument I worshiped in the Chacarita cemetery; I saw the rotted dust and bones that had once deliciously been Beatriz Viterbo; I saw the circulation of my own dark blood; I saw the coupling of love and the modification of death; I saw the Aleph from every point and angle, and in the Aleph I saw the earth and in the earth the Aleph and in the Aleph the earth; I saw my own face and my own bowels; I saw your face; and I felt dizzy and wept, for my eyes had seen that secret and conjectured object whose name is common to all men but which no man has looked upon - the unimaginable universe.

El Aleph, 1945. Translation by Norman Thomas Di Giovanni in collaboration with the author.

T

Response to the readings - Friction by Anne Lowenhaupt Tsing

59 W 12th Street . October 31, 2007 . 11:36 pm .

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea and the music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more."

Lord Byron


The wilderness has had an extraordinary allure on people's imagination since the beginning of time... the mere illusion of it, the risks, the faith it implies, the mystery, the fantasy, the possibilities. It's been interesting to observe how for a lot of us in the course, Second Life has proved to be as wild and foreign as a vast patch of Real Life land.

I went to see Into The Wild last week. I really thought I was over my Second Life 'high' but the Lord Byron quote that opened it brought me straight back again. I ended up thinking about Second Life all throughout the movie. Alex's eagerness to explore unknown grounds reminded me of my avatar overlooking the immensity and beauty of the landscape. Even in virtual worlds we continue to inspect our lifeworlds outwardly, but at the same time we almost never cease to travel inward.

I thought of the film a lot as I read the book Friction, particularly when the author discusses the powerful dichotomy of God and Nature. According to her "many things are said to be universal: freedom, money, love. But the two most historically successful universal claims -which continue to form exemplars for all universality- are still God and Nature." (Friction, p. 88) Our bonds to God and to Nature, as individual as they may be, also profoundly link us to one another.

The book is very precise in its descriptions. For example the semiotic analysis of a/the globe as a unit, logo, dynamic, expression, very clearly depicts what many refer to when speaking of universality. Anne Lowenhaupt Tsing talks about it as a "dream space" that we can all access through modernity, political freedom and science. It all really does sound cozy and prosperous when you read it here but then she precedes to point out to us, amongst other things, that the majority of the world's population are minorities and that corporate growth destroys its own resources.

Friction is all around.

Friction is quite an ample term but yet so well accommodated within her theories. "As a metaphorical image, friction reminds us that heterogeneous and unequal encounters can lead to new arrangements of culture and power" (Friction, p. 5) As I read I kept thinking about the fact that my laptop computer picks up about 20 different wireless networks within a block's radius but all of them are weak; I remembered my past relationships and how the most complicated ones have also been the most significative; I thought about the ITTO and the idea of having a global management regime for the use of the world's forests (!)

World transition and evolution will be awkward. Global interconnection is mediated -both positively and negatively- precisely by these lags in the flow of knowledge, goods, supplies, even people. From a late bus to the discrepancies in 'political ecology', where human interactions and the environment "respond to social and political coercions - not just the pressure of numbers." (Friction, p. 173) The ethnographic deconstruction of the Indonesian case serves as a great example of the clash of capitalist interests and the diversity of the rainforest... another great analogy in itself.

Even though I am yet to be done reading, I highly recommend this book.

T

Float

59 W 12th Street . October 31, 2007 . 1:24 pm .

Response to Friction will be posted soon.

In the meantime
cheers from my favorite place in Second Life thus far,
the Botanical Gardens -
where I most serenely...
float.


T

Simon, my friend

11 W 81st Street . October 22, 2007 . 3:20 pm .

Learning about Simon Stevens first got me interested in Second Life. Simon Stevens was featured in the Newsweek article I've mentioned more than once. Simon Stevens somehow found me, read this blog and offered to be my friend.


[17:28] Simon Walsh: hi, i am simon stevens from the newsweek article and i read your blog. this is a fansatic story and so happy to be part od your journey

Thanks Simon!

T

Brief Discourse Analysis

59 W 12th Street . October 17, 2007 . 12:16 am .

I chose the following dialogue for analysis simply because I enjoy watching people type in Japanese. It soon posed a dilemma however (and got a bit frustrating) because I do not speak or read Japanese. In the midst of it nonetheless I managed to engage in a very basic conversation (in English) with tommy7 Voom from Osaka.

In virtual worlds like Second Life computer screens appoint such a sharp separation between individuals that it complicates the interpretation of paralinguistic systems. I -at least- find that typed messages come across very differently than spoken ones. I often don’t “get” jokes or suggested connotations regardless of the use of emoticons and various fonts or colors. All capitals for example, consistently give me the impression that people are yelling at me.

I’ve come across avatars from Italy, France, Japan, Portugal, England, etc. thus far (speaking of paralinguistics, the other day I recognized a Mexican avatar the minute I saw her... just like it often happens to me in Real Life.) For the most part people use English to speak although my first conversation ever in Second Life was actually in French. I don’t type as fast or accurately in French as I do in English or Spanish so I remember it being very slow.

But with some patience and wit, language discrepancies can somewhat cease to be obstacle per one's adventures in Terra Firme. When they don’t though we must rely on people like Yossarian Seattle to come up with great ideas like this one:

http://eightbar.co.uk/2006/08/03/yossarian-breaks-the-language-barrier/

10-07

[23:00] Kou Fimicoloud: またねー
[23:00] kazusa Noel: うん、またね＾＾
[23:01] Message from Japan Resort: Thank you for requesting this information
[23:01] Goro Koba: ビールありがとう、こうすけ君
[23:01] kousuke Watanabe: いえいえ
[23:02] Goro Koba: 遅いけど。。
[23:02] JacobNeo Rowlands: 常連の方々ですか？
[23:02] kousuke Watanabe: ｗｗ
[23:02] You: Do you speak English?
[23:02] tommy7 Voom: ふふw
[23:02] kousuke Watanabe: ジェーコブさんどうぞ、座って＾＾
[23:02] tommy7 Voom: im japanese
[23:02] JacobNeo Rowlands: litte bit
[23:02] tommy7 Voom: little bit
[23:02] You: From Tokyo?
[23:03] tommy7 Voom: From JAPAN :)
[23:03] Goro Koba: i am Osaka
[23:03] tommy7 Voom: From Osaka
[23:03] kousuke Watanabe: ゴローさんのスキンって・・・
[23:03] kousuke Watanabe: 自作です？
[23:03] Goro Koba: なんだね＾＾
[23:03] Goro Koba: いえ、お買い上げです
[23:03] kousuke Watanabe: あはは
[23:03] kousuke Watanabe: なかなか、いませんぜ
[23:03] zokei Proto shouts: なぜ　答えてくれないの？
[23:04] JacobNeo Rowlands: Ainat Where are you from?
[23:04] Goro Koba: 間違って買ったことにしてるんだ
[23:04] kousuke Watanabe: あはは
[23:04] You: Mexico but I live in New York
[23:04] Miller whispers: Mmm... Ice-cold fine beer!
[23:04] kousuke Watanabe: 一度見たら、忘れません
[23:04] Goro Koba: コウスケ君、ちょっと教えてくれないかね
[23:04] kousuke Watanabe: どうぞ
[23:04] kousuke Watanabe: いらっしゃいませ、ひまりさん
[23:05] himari Forcella: こんにちは
[23:05] Goro Koba: えっとねーあのねーー
[23:05] kousuke Watanabe: ＾＾
[23:05] Goro Koba: こんにちは
[23:05] JacobNeo Rowlands: You usually trabelinng in several sites?
[23:05] * ZUMA sunset cocktail * whispers: Courtesy of ZUMA SURF RESORT
[23:05] kousuke Watanabe: あ・・・
[23:05] kousuke Watanabe: AZのモデルさん？
[23:05] You: Yes...
[23:05] kousuke Watanabe: じゃなく・・・
[23:06] JacobNeo Rowlands: Which site are better?
[23:06] Goro Koba: バーなどでチップって書いてる場合、きちんとチップを支払うのが礼儀かね、やっぱり。
[23:06] kousuke Watanabe: あはは
[23:06] himari Forcella: モデル目指してるけどｗ
[23:06] You: New York!
[23:06] kousuke Watanabe: いえいえ、払ってくれたら嬉しいですけど
[23:06] kousuke Watanabe: ほとんど、払わないですよ＾＾
[23:06] Goro Koba: そうですか
[23:06] tommy7 Voom: その。スキンとシェイプはモデルになれますよw
[23:06] JacobNeo Rowlands: Great! Your pendant is cute.
[23:06] kousuke Watanabe: あはは
[23:07] kousuke Watanabe: そうだね＾＾
[23:07] kousuke Watanabe: 綺麗ですよ
[23:07] Goro Koba: 綺麗です
[23:07] You: Thanks!

Arigato.

T

Response to the readings - Smith, Dourish, Hallnas and Redstrom

59 W 12th Street . October 10, 2007 . 9:37 pm .

Technology is becoming not just our connection to the world but the world as we know it. Marshall McLuhan wrote in 1970's Culture is Our Business that "fish don't know water exists till beached" meaning that, in other words, media effects and new environments are as imperceptible as water is to a fish.

Indeed, as I read through Dourish's What we talk about when we talk about context I couldn't stop thinking, not about fish necessarily, but about that chicken and egg paradox we've all discussed at least once in our lives.

We're already wrapped around ubiquitous computing as it is and it appears that its presence is a) in itself and b) almost beyond us. There are unending, invisible and virtually omnipresent networks all around us already - from economic markets to transnational cellular wirings.

Contexts are unstable precisely because they're so dynamic. Not only do they respond to the needs of those within them (McLuhan's fish) but they too mold accordingly. Context is occasioned by activity and activity is at the same time induced by context. This represents the so-called embodied interaction mentioned by the authors.

So...

Chicken or egg?
Use or presence?

Following this same chain of thought, Experiences with the Alternate Reality Kit points out that the ones who give meaning and enhance the content of new technologies are just so the users and not the designers. They do it literally by following a physical metaphor, or magically, by acquiring the knowledge to do so otherwise.

The expression of computational artifacts, as Hallnas and Redstrom would argue in their own text, creates identities that nowadays construct our lifeworlds. Lifeworld is actually a great word to use here. Luckily enough though, human-computer correspondence still goes both ways.

T

PS: And for those of you interested in more about ARK.

Andromeda

Bernardo Quintana 405 . October 4, 2007 . 11:27 pm

I haven't posted anything lately related to my Second Life rendezvous and it's been on purpose. I have consciously taken some time off as it suddenly became too overwhelming.

Two weeks ago I saw Evo Morales give a speech at Cooper Union and the man was amazing. That night I dreamt that I met Evo in Second Life and taught his avatar how to fly. Yes... our avatars were friends. On another occasion not long ago, I found myself having more fun at Club Heaven than at a Real Life bar and to make matters worse, I think I'm starting to develop a crush on a colleague's avatar.

For all these reasons plus the fact that I can't stop thinking or talking about Second Life, I decided to take breather. My brain has always been adept at handling large amounts of visual information but then again I do not want it to fry on me so soon.

This week though my 'vacation' was interrupted because our class had two online meetings. Luckily they were great meetings. It's a different experience to hang out and explore Terra Firme with people you know from the real world. We visited very interesting places (will go back to that later) and met a tattoo artist, Gothotta Zander, who had met his Real Life wife, Jinger Curie, in Second Life. They lived on a beautiful piece of land by the water and had a barn with cows, dogs, chickens, etc.




I have decided that if I ever have a pet in Second Life it will most definitely be a cow... I will name her Andromeda.

Now back to my vacation.

T

Response to the readings - Autobiography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity

Bernardo Quintana 405 . October 3, 2007 . 10:18 pm

Few things drive me crazier than people telling me "hey, don't take it personally." I have never been able to not take things personally: things are personal because life is personal.

Everything we do is strictly related and intertwined with our innermost emotions, thoughts and desires. I at least self-question myself all the time as I try to understand the spirals of the world around me. Whatever answers we give ourselves are more profound and genuine than any institutionalized one.

I applaud Ellis and Bochner's approach and willingness to present individual life experiences as means of uncovering wider group scenarios, being these academic or not. Because this type of work has been vastly criticized in the past I find it a very brave proposal. "... If these personal voices can be silenced, then perhaps they can return to business as usual in the social sciences." Well, apparently not anymore.

Let us observe the observer, instigate compassion, exposure, tolerance, value, courage and allow what's in our hearts to dictate what's in our agendas.

Autoethnography seems to be the ticket out.

T

Response to the readings - Connected by Steven Shaviro

59 W 12th Street . October 1, 2007 . 11:41 pm .

I suspected that I wasn't going to enjoy Steven Shaviro's Connected from the moment I first opened the book. In the Preface he manifests his desire for his work to be "as radical as reality itself." Apart from reality being radical or not, in my opinion his compendium proves to be more of a personal literary exercise than anything else.

Shaviro throws out tremendous amounts of information fast and quotes other authors and artists up to five or six times a paragraph. For this reason in particular, a lack of cohesiveness and direction pervade throughout the text. The countless mini-essays he arranges are interesting and rich with data, but in my opinion cultural theory and science fiction are not the same thing and shouldn't be articulated as one.

It was great to learn about the JenniCam; his analysis of sexuality versus reproduction per Chris Cunningham's (wonderful) video for Bjork, All is Full of Love; his thoughts on The Matrix; the cyberpunk short story New Rose Hotel; the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, etc. But much to my surprise the reading was labyrinthine and in itself very disconnected.

I gather that reality and science fiction are overlapping one another in crescendo. They have always been mutually dependent and coexistent (for example, our idea of zombies originates back in the days of Haitian Voudoun.) But there is still a thin line between one concept and the other and it has to do with our humanity. We might already be making a living out of manipulating space and time, but they aren't ours and probably never will be.

Shaviro might, on the other hand, be doing all this on purpose. His sole intention while crafting Connected could have been (an actually probably was) to resonate on hypertext and the ways our brains function these days... in the midst of the network society and ambitious technological advancements galore. If this is the case though, I would much rather spend the afternoon surfing the web.

His weblog: http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/

T

Mann as Cyborg

59 W 12th Street . September 28, 2007 . 10:27 pm .


Steve Mann... my new best friend!

http://wearcam.org/index.html

T

Response to the readings - The Cell Phone, Hayles and Rheingold

59 W 12th Street . September 26, 2007 . 2:49 pm .

"The real promise of connecting computers is to free people, by embedding the means to solve problems in the things around us."

Neil Gershenfeld

New technology developments tend to emerge from very specific and circumstantial needs and desires, so it's not coincidental that they would flourish more powerfully in some environments than in others. Their impact might certainly be disruptive (even violent in some cases) but the implementation of new technologies also conveys a whole new realm of liberties and reaches for entire communities and/or social networks.

The lack of a cell phone in Jamaica became a sign of "individual deficiency" almost as quickly as its own consumption spread throughout the entire island. The momentum wasn't necessarily a result of the physical mobility cell phones enhanced, but about the empowerment they gave to the established social stratifications. These stratifications were already what basically kept the country together and for many more important than food or water.

There are no roads to your home, you are without electricity, isolated, hungry... now with a cell phone you are free to call your sister and ask her for money or check up on your sick friend without having to walk for days.

One of Steve Mann's (the first online cyborg) priorities, apart from webcasting everything he sees, is to coordinate a "defense strategy against technological tyranny." I think that if we are indeed going to build intelligent cities it need be with the sole purpose of complementing the lives we already lead, the people we already are and solidifying existing infrastructures. It should be inclusive, yes, but not intrusive.

Hayles presents us in her texts the possibilities and almost archaic fears of machines "taking over the world", but luckily the turnout will not be as dramatic. Human and computer interaction should (and most definitely will) continue to escalate and I believe Rheingold defends it more accurately: what should be exalted alongside technology is the dignity of the individual and not its disappearance from the equation.

Just as love increases in value when it is shared, new mediums and technologies will do the same.

T

I Like Your Tattoos

11 W 81st Street . September 22, 2007 . 9:19 pm .

My Second Life adventures have given me a good number of interesting friends thus far. Five days ago I met Iruma Kamachi at Japan Resort. Iruma Kamachi had a lot of tattoos and was wearing a diving helmet. It was late at night and I had had a couple of pathetic conversations elsewhere that evening. To my surprise though Japan Resort was a beautiful hill, by the water and full of cherry blossom trees.

I sat on a bench to people-watch. There were 5 or 6 others sitting around me in complete silence ("camping" I was told.) It got awkward but Iruma suddenly came out of the blue to say hello. He was very friendly and full of energy which, given the circumstances, I appreciated. He was from Portugal and our conversation evolved so naturally that soon my mute bench mate, Ng Auer, asked us to join in.

We talked a lot about Second Life and how it broadens our view about ourselves. He told me that 25,000 Linden dollars equal about 60 euros. He explained that people usually build things from scratch and sell them to make money. Iruma himself had created some of his tattoos which had already been bought for up to 100 Linden dollars a piece.

I said "I like your tattoos..." and he gave me one for free.

Most importantly though, Iruma and Ng told me for the first time about Freebie Planet. I could not believe I knew nothing of the place and suddenly understood many a thing - like my boring outfit! (Boring but now that I lost it though I miss it terribly.)

I suddenly had no time to lose, thanked them both and immediately teleported myself on a shopping spree.

T

The Dance That Wouldn't Stop

59 W 12th Street . 8:47 pm . September 13, 2007 .

Aw... Second Life was a new world today!

Today I shared it with people I know from Real Life and it was twice as fun and much more interesting than before. Just like any newbie would feel when strolling down the streets of Manhattan for the first time, it is very hard not to be intimidated by Second Life. It's big. It can get quiet and lonely. It has a fair amount of scary people walking around who talk funny, are maybe naked and/or wearing wings. You see avatars having panic attacks but can also encounter those with the confident poise of thee who knows exactly what thee's doing. And those, my friends, are the scariest of all.

Going back to the readings from class... Internet Research Ethics suggests that the "Internet is not simply a virtual space in which human actors can be observed: it is a medium through which a wide variety of statements are produced." So by creating Ainat I've produced a person. As virtual as she is -or as much as I may have solely authored her- I see Ainat as a separate entity from me. I don't necessarily act like myself when operating her and, although she functions through me, she is independent. She's makings friends, experiencing new places and arriving at conclusions on her own.

This thought however seems to be completely against some of the ideas in the readings which state that in the case of Internet supported texts at least, they are not objects distinct from those who write them nor virtual. Because of this it's been of invaluable importance for me to be engaged in active academic discussion on these subjects as I experience them for the first time.

And for the record... it is definitely not the same thing to stand quietly by the dance floor at Club Heaven than to dance with my friends Centurion Bikcin and Kamran Talaj (whose Real Life identities I'm tempted to reveal but won't.)

T

Miami and Yeah

59 W 12th Street . 12:12 am . September 12, 2007 .

"In our time of social and environmental disintegration... today's proselytizers of cyberspace proffer their domain as an idealized realm 'above' and 'beyond' the problems of the troubled material world."

Margaret Whortheim

My best friend and I fantasize about our future kids getting married. He's having a daughter and calling her Yeah; I'm having a son and calling him Miami. Miami and Yeah will grow up, fall madly in love and live happily ever after.

This summer I started reading a book called The Ecology of Commerce which, tragically, made me question the mere idea of ever having kids. Dear readers... I've wanted kids all my life. So I quickly told my friend about it (along with some ideas from the book) to which he responded that he wouldn't have kids either. What for? We had arrived to the chilling and crystal clear conclusion that humans should really stop having children altogether.

I found this Margaret Whortheim quote in one of the readings for class and I was very relieved by it: I can still have kids if I just have them live, breathe and breed in Second Life... yay! It shocked me to the core though, particularly because one of the things I noticed in Second Life last night was that people -or the ones I interacted with on this occasion at least- are genuinely happy there. By happy I mean enraptured and by enraptured I mean every single one of them.

I couldn't ask for anything else for Miami and Yeah other than some of that bliss and glee.

T

Club Heaven

59 W 12th Street . 9:35 pm . September 11, 2007 .

Last night I went to a Second Life nightclub called Heaven. The scene was very 80s -disco balls, jukeboxes galore- and Ainat learned how to break dance. Everyone was very friendly and cordial to everyone else and the music was great. It was interesting to observe how Ainat went through the same basic process of familiarization that anyone else would when entering a new club by themselves in Real Life. She observed, walked around, figured things out, was approached by someone, started talking, dancing... and dancing some more!

A little while later I was greeted by the club owner. He gave me an Animation so that I could repeat his moves on the dance floor. The space was huge and people were just dancing the night away. Time went by fast (I must have stayed for half an hour or so) and I had a blast. Ainat was grooving like a pro.

I hadn't had this much fun in a real club in a very long time and just the though of me acknowledging that is very scary. I want to refrain from using the word liberating but can't... Second Life is very liberating in many different levels.

Before leaving I was invited to join my first Second Life group and became an official Club Heaven VIP. I landmarked it and am now constantly receiving invitations to parties, events, etc. via email.

This last one was interesting...

Group Notice From: Adele Larsson

HEY GUYS WE ARE HAVING OUR 911 REMEMBRANCE PARTY RIGHT NOW.... $500 BEST IN UNIFORM AND QWARKY ON THE DECKS.
AFTER THE PARTY WE INTEND TO GO TO THE 911 MEMORIAL SITE HERE ON SL TO PAY OUR RESPECTS.
JOIN US
LOVE ALWAYS
ADELE

T

RL vs SL

59 W 12th Street . 7:23 pm . September 8, 2007 .

I've been visiting Second Life daily since I first started "playing" on Thursday. I've been in my apartment on both occasions and by myself. I feel very inclined to shut off Real Life completely the minute I log in, but it's extremely hard to focus my attention solely on one of my two worlds. It gets complicated (and a tad schizophrenic) with things like conversations. Ainat starts talking to someone and then my phone rings, people IM me, etc. I'm aware that I have to make a bigger effort to disconnect from things around me as I Second Live the Second Life.

I wanted to state the fact sooner rather than later that this blog will be mainly about my Second Life experiences. Other New School tales and endeavors will be included eventually but for now zarat228 is about Ainat. It's funny how I talk about her as if she was someone else. I guess she is someone else or, in any case, I want her to be.

I think about this a lot during the day. The words Ainat Lunasea have been stuck in my head all weekend. I'm starting to care about her well being greatly. It's a very motherly feeling. I get nervous when other avatars approach her, feel weird when they turn and walk away, always make her walk slowly, read all the instructions carefully. I want her to be the best she can be and actually take this very seriously. I don't perceive it as a game even when others consider it so. I want to be the best navigator, dominate all the tricks and rules and functions in order for Ainat to have a prosperous life in Second Life.

Ainat Lunasea

59 W 12th Street . 6:47 pm . September 7, 2007 .

I chose the name Ainat Lunasea for my avatar. Ainat is Tania spelled backwards and Lunasea seemed like the perfect last name for her. So, briefly after downloading the Second Life application, Ainat Lunasea and her purple sweater appeared in front of my eyes.

Ainat is a "girl next door." Of all the options I identified with this one the most. She however seemed very naive -but was very alert- when she first landed on Orientation Island. The first two people she saw, Mitchelle Lykin and Jain Benazzi, were both naked. Mitchelle came over right away and openly asked for sex. He then preceded to "hump" her and said "i humped u." Ainat felt a little bit threatened by this but managed to pay close attention to the situation and also to Mitchelle's other conversations.

I went through Orientation thoroughly and practiced. Ainat played around with a torch. Drove a car. Ran over a rat. Suddenly a guy called DHM Akina approached her and started a conversation in French. Mais oui... trés interesant. He spoke no English but I know a little French so we managed to get through the basics. He was very friendly and started asking questions like name, age, etc. Instinctively I answered the truth: Tania, 27. He was David and 26. The real vs the non-real posses a big dilemma for me in Second Life. Is my name Ainat or Tania? Is Ainat Tania? David asked for my MSN nickname and again I didn't know what to reply. The hesitation however was making me lose time -and friends- so I quickly got online a created a completely new MSN account for Ainat: lunasea27@hotmail.com.

We kept on talking until he asked if I was "celibataire". I freaked out and said that I wouldn't answer (thinking of course he was asking me if I was celibate.) He suddenly apologized for "offending" me, perceived that something was wrong, turned around and left. So I got out a dictionary and realized he had just asked if I was single... not celibate. Voilá. I had somehow managed to also scare men off in Second Life! I (or Ainat?) got on MSN to find him and spoke to him some more. His MSN nickname was Dada and his email malaga22@hotmail.fr.

By this point I was very tired. We said we would talk later and he would look me up today. I had started to get frustrated by the language barrier which proved to be deeper than the real, physical distance. I logged off... I don't type in French as fast as I do in English (or Spanish) anyway. But regardless of language or geography I made my first Second Life friend.

I am already loving it!

Probando, probando...

59 W 12th Street . 8:58 pm . September 6, 2007 .

This here, dearest friends, is my first blog post ever and I humbly admit to thee that I'm learning as I go. Technology makes me feel clumsy... and clumsy is something I'm usually not.

I've taken on the name zarat228 (my New School NetID) to portray a surprisingly powerful and vibrant alter ego that came to life the day I registered for classes. I'm very happy to be here and ecstatic about engaging in the great endeavour that this program is... and the wonders -and headaches- it will bring along with it.

Everybody, zarat228 here;
zarat228, this is everybody.



"And there came a time when to remain tight in a bud
was more painful
than the courage it took to bloom."

Anais Nin

T