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2024-03-28T23:17:05Z
User contributions
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http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Talk:Mutoscope&diff=12614
Talk:Mutoscope
2010-11-24T10:23:27Z
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&quot;The popularity of the Kinetoscope was astounding. Not only did hundreds of Kinetoscope parlors (see Figure 21) open up across the country within the next three years, but as in all true business stories, success invited competition. The Mutoscope, although constructed in 1894, probably by Dickson himself, did not really become popular until 1897 when another machine from the Edison factory was laying the Kinetoscope to rest.<br />
The Mutoscope (Figure 22) did not use film to provide the spectator with the illusion of motion. Within the body of the machine, still photographs were mounted on individual cards in succession on one cylinder. When a penny or nickel (the price fluctuated) was deposited in the slot, each card in turn was flipped by the peephole and the illusion of motion was obtained. Slight variations of this machine still exist in penny arcades and at community fairs. Although the Mutoscope has had a longer life than its competitor, it is the Kinetoscope that is more important in the growth of motion pictures because it used film.<br />
The Mutoscope and the Kinetoscope shared one large problem. Each was a peep show, and only one person could be an audience at a time.&quot; (Kardish 21-22)</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Furies&diff=12613
Furies
2010-11-24T10:22:30Z
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http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Iris&diff=12612
Iris
2010-11-24T10:22:12Z
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http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Teddy_Ruxpin&diff=12611
Teddy Ruxpin
2010-11-24T09:09:53Z
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Teddy Ruxpin, an animatronic cassette tape playing toy of the mid-1980s, is a hybrid remediation of the teddy bear and the phonograph. Like earlier attempts by Edison and other inventors such as Francis and James Criswell (phonographic raven[http://www.google.com/patents?id=VlJvAAAAEBAJ&amp;pg=PA1&amp;dq=criswell+no.+470,477&amp;source=gbs_selected_pages&amp;cad=1#v=onepage&amp;q=criswell%20no.%20470%2C477&amp;f=false]) and George Willbur Spencer and Alvah Lynde (“Speaking Figure[http://www.google.com/patents?id=iddaAAAAEBAJ&amp;pg=PA1&amp;dq=spencer+and+lynde&amp;source=gbs_selected_pages&amp;cad=2#v=onepage&amp;q=spencer%20and%20lynde&amp;f=false]”), Teddy Ruxpin is an attempt at reconciling the estrangement between the sound and body of sonic recording (Gitelman, 173). [[Image:Teddy_Ruxpin.jpg|thumb|right]]<br />
<br />
''* It should be noted that Teddy Ruxpin, though the most iconic, is only one example of a series of animatronic cassette tape playing toys released in 1980s America. All such devices performed essentially the same functions, but took different forms, including Mother Goose and “Grubby,” a mythical caterpillar from the Ruxpin stories.''<br />
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<br />
== Form and Aura ==<br />
<br />
Though the teddy bear form may seem arbitrary, it is significant--a clear example of functional non-sense. The familiar form of the bear made a new and potentially frightening technology appealing to young children; the cartoonish, mammalian body was humanoid enough to be anthropomorphized and accepted as a companion but novel enough to maintain an aura of play and fantasy; the size and shape was ideal for concealing a tape-player; and the stuffed animal format provided a cushion and softness to the hard metal and plastic ‘guts’ of the apparatus. Similarly, Teddy Ruxpin is a relatively black-boxed device. Other than the ability to change the batteries and cassette tape, the inner workings of the toy are entirely inaccessible to the user. Even the battery pack and tape deck are hidden from sight, secured beneath a patch of Teddy’s Velcro fur and vest. The purpose of the black boxing is to maintain the aura of the device, to preserve the illusion of the magical talking toy. However, this aura is often betrayed by the ‘pops and hisses’ of the machine. For example, the jerky movements of the device or the accidental de-synchronization of movement and recording are a reminder that the voice reading the story is not that of the Teddy Ruxpin.<br />
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<br />
== Diversion or Science? ==<br />
<br />
Teddy Ruxpin also grapples with the same diversion/science dialectic with which Edison struggled in his early phonographic inventions. As Gitelman points out, &quot;Realism had the several affects of play, prurience and ribaldry. Not surprisingly, phonographs…possess early histories that figure them doubly as toys and as scientific instruments&quot; (171). Is Teddy Ruxpin a toy, scientific progress or is it both? The fact that Teddy Ruxpin is a device in the form of an affable cartoon character constructed to ‘read’ fairy tales to pre-school aged children suggests that it is a toy, intended for diversion only. But the fact that is was meant to be used as a learning device with books and marketed as a scientific advancement in toys, suggests that Teddy Ruxpin was also conceived of as a tool of mechanized education. The physicality of Teddy Ruxpin also alludes to this apparent paradox; it is made to look like a stuffed animal, ready for snuggling and companionship, but its heft and hardness reveal a device unsuitable for intimacy.<br />
<br />
(Watch original television advertisements for Teddy Ruxpin which illustrate the science/diversion paradox here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kc2HvjO8z4] and here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EshrR-xk2E&amp;feature=related])<br />
<br />
== Labor and the New Factory ==<br />
<br />
When considering the 'cake mix effect' of Teddy Ruxpin, one notices the extent to which labor plays a role its use. At first glance, one may observe that all you have to do is insert batteries and a tape, press play, and Teddy Ruxpin does the rest for you. But what is “the rest” in this scenario? For the parent, &quot;the rest&quot; might mean child care; occupying the child's attention with a story for an hour or so while the adult is free to take care of other things. For a teacher, this may mean taking over the task of teaching a child to read; the child just follows along in the companion book and learns to read as Teddy 'tells' the story. As Benjamin points out in ''A Cultural History of Toys'', &quot;…it is a great mistake to believe that it is simply children’s need that determine what is to be a toy&quot; (118). <br />
<br />
For a child, 'the rest' might mean relief from the mental and physical work of reading and using their imagination to give the story life. It is not even necessary for the child to follow along in the book, he may be a completely passive receptor of the automated reading. In this sense, there is an example of the social construction of, as Gitelmen phrases is, &quot;the next experience of listening to recorded sounds&quot; (150). In many ways, Teddy Ruxpin standardized the way reading 'sounded' to an entire generation of children. &quot;Like language itself, there is some level at which media help 'wire' people for the thinking they do&quot; (Gitelman, 150). <br />
<br />
In the 1980s, rather than a need for skilled physical laborers, the emerging information marketplace was increasing the demand for skilled mental laborers. In this way, Teddy Ruxpin can be seen as a mode of production, training a future generation of workers, transforming the play room into a factory floor. “Factories are places in which new kinds of human beings are always being produced: first the hand-man, then the tool-man, then the machine-man, and finally the robot-man” (Flusser, 44-5). Teddy Ruxpin is an answer to Flusser's question of what the factories of the future will look like. <br />
<br />
''…robots are neuro-physiological and biological. It is a question of turning’ more and more deceptively accurate simulations of genetic, inherited information into things…the factory of the future will be much more adaptable than those of today, and it will be sure to redefine the relationship between human being and tool in a totally new way.'' (Flusser, 46)<br />
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== Teddy Ruxpin as a &quot;Non-Thing&quot; ==<br />
<br />
Teddy Ruxpin can also be understood in terms of Flusser's concept of the 'non-thing.' The physical form of the toy is not the essence of Teddy Ruxpin. The essence of Teddy Ruxpin is in the digital information which it stores and plays back to the user, the encoded life force of the talking bear. &quot;The new human being is not a man of action anymore but a player,&quot; a person who, instead of reading, is read to—on that is rather playing with an information toy. (Flusser, 89)<br />
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== Works Cited ==<br />
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- Benjamin, Walter. “The Cultural History of Toys,” in ''Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 2, part 1, 1927-1930''. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2005.<br />
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- Gitelman, Lisa. ''Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technolgy in the Edison Era''. Stanford University Press, 1999.<br />
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- Flusser, Vilem. ''The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design''. Reakton Books Ltd., 1999.<br />
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[[Category:Sound]]<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Start_a_New_Dossier&diff=12610
Start a New Dossier
2010-11-24T09:09:38Z
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= Step 1: Create the Dossier =<br />
<br />
=== Using the URL ===<br />
You can use the wiki's URL for creating a new page. The URL to an article of the wiki is usually something like this:<br />
:&lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/&lt;/nowiki&gt;'''Article_Name'''&lt;/code&gt; <br />
<br />
If you replace &lt;code&gt;'''Article_Name'''&lt;/code&gt; with the name of the page you wish to create, you will be taken to a blank page which indicates that no article of that name exists yet. Clicking the &quot;{{int:edit}}&quot; [[Help:Navigation#Page Tabs|page tab]] at the top of the page will take you to the edit page for that article, where you can create the new page by typing your text, and clicking submit.<br />
<br />
=== From the search page ===<br />
If you search for a page that doesn't exist (using the search box and “{{int:go}}” button on the left of the page) then you will be provided with a link to create the new page. (Note that this technique doesn't work if you use the “{{int:search}}” button).<br />
<br />
===Styling===<br />
<br />
The dossiers are all composed in the MediaWiki markup for styling the text -- if you've ever edited a page on Wikipedia you already know how this works. Please feel free to copy the text out of the Dead Media [[Template|template page]], or see the much more detailed [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting MediaWiki formatting guide] or the basic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet Wikipedia markup cheatsheet], which is pretty close to ours.<br />
<br />
= Step 2: Add Category Tags =<br />
<br />
In order for your dossier to show up correctly in the table of contents you must tag it under the &quot;Dossier&quot; category and give it a date for the current semester. Do this by adding the following two lines to the bottom of your dossier:<br />
<br />
:&lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;[[Category:Dossier]]&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt; <br />
:&lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;[[Category:Fall 2010]]&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;<br />
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You should also tag your dossier using approximately 2-5 thematic category tags. So if the dossier concerns the visual writing of sound, you would add the following three lines: <br />
<br />
:&lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;[[Category:Writing]]&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;<br />
:&lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;[[Category:Visuality]] &lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;<br />
:&lt;code&gt;&lt;nowiki&gt;[[Category:Sound]]&lt;/nowiki&gt;&lt;/code&gt;<br />
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Be conservative in how you select your thematic categories. Try to use [[Special:Categories|categories that already exist]]. If you need to invent a new category, pick a term that is generic and will likely be encountered by others in the future.</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Smell-O-Vision&diff=12609
Smell-O-Vision
2010-11-24T09:09:29Z
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Looking for new ways to appeal to audiences after the popularization of television, Smell-O-Vision attempted to introduce a third sense into the film viewing process by piping scents related to the on-screen images into the movie theater through small vents in the back of each theater seat. The novelty did not catch on and due to various complications brought on by the endeavor, only one film, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scent_of_mystery ''Scent of Mystery''], was ever released with the technology.<br />
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<br />
==Technology==<br />
<br />
There were a few small attempts to involve the sense of smell in the film-going experience throughout the early days of cinema, but Smell-O-Vision technologized the idea in a way that had never been done before. The process, developed by Hans Laube and implemented with the support of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Todd,_Jr. Michael Todd, Jr.], the son of a successful film producer, involved adding a high frequency sound into the soundtrack that would direct the Smell-O-Vision machine to release one of the scents stored on a rotating drum (Gould).<br />
<br />
Unlike other attempts to involve the olfactory sensation in visual entertainment, Smell-O-Vision required converting the entire theater to suit the technology. To release the scent, a machine unseen by theater patrons would send a small bit of the selected scent, in liquid form, with a high amount of pressure into metal pipes that wrapped around each row in the theater. At each seat there was a small perforation in the tube, allowing the scent to escape for the intended enjoyment of the audience member. The scents themselves were chemically manufactured (Gould). Due to the complex process and the great amount of actual machinery involved to produce the effect, Smell-O-Vision cost anywhere from $24,000 to $50,000 per theater to implement (Nason, Malabre).<br />
<br />
==Analysis==<br />
<br />
[[Image:ScentOfMystery.jpg|right|frame|Ad for the only movie ever released with Smell-O-Vision]]As a failed technology, it is almost too easy to look back on Smell-O-Vision and understand why it failed to have the impression its creators had hoped, although clearly not all of these issues were apparent during the development of the novelty.<br />
<br />
One major problem comes from the nature of smells. They are rather ephemeral. Depending on various environmental factors within the theater, such as airflow and ventilation, as well as the strength of the smell itself, the smell may linger longer or disappear more quickly than intended which may cause some film-goers to miss out on some of the scents and lead others to experience an unfavorable mixing of unrelated aromas. Additionally, the technology works under the assumption that there would be no other scents in the theater to get in the way. However, if someone had a big bucket of buttery popcorn, or someone was wearing very strong perfume it would intrude on the experience and muddy the scents released.<br />
<br />
Another major problem with Smell-O-Vision is the limited access it provided people to produce and use the technology. The technology was not readily available. Not only did it require the actual machine (or instructions on how to build it), it also required the expensive process of reformatting a theater to suit the technology. Additionally, not everyone had the time, energy, or knowledge, to mix different chemicals together to produce the desired odors. Although it would be possible for others to learn the required skills, the costs associated with training and the extra work involved made it unappealing.<br />
<br />
Having the ability to access and use the technology is also only one small part of the equation, however. There also needs to be a need. The novelty of an odorous film would only last so long before audience members would grow tiresome. Unless the technology could be used to accent the visual there would be no reason for the medium to continue to be used. In the case of ''Scent of Mystery'', the scents released into the theater were in some small way pertinent to the solving of the murder presented in the film, however not many films involve aromas as a major part of the story. For the average movie-going experience it seems the smells would more likely detract from the experience. It would be impossible to recreate every scent encountered in the film, and by emitting only certain odors, the attention given to them might distract viewers or affect people's perceptions of the story in unintended ways.<br />
<br />
While all of these are legitimate reasons for the failure of the technology, it is also important to consider the role of the observer, or in this case, the smell-er in this new technology. In his book ''Techniques of the Observer'', Jonathan Crary discusses the way in which observers need to be trained to accept and read certain new types of visual media and content. Speaking of this he argues &quot;an observer is more importantly one who sees within a prescribed set of possibilities, one who is embedded in a system of conventions and limitations&quot; (6). Due to the relatively unexplored world of communicating with aromas, audiences lack a set of conventions for understanding how to experience the medium. If, as Crary suggests, an observer needs to be invented just as the technology does, perhaps the failure of Smell-O-Vision has as much to blame on the lack of a trained and invented observer as it does on the limitations imposed by the technology itself.<br />
<br />
==Is Smell-O-Vision Dead?==<br />
<br />
Smell-O-Vision was not the only attempt in its time to introduce smells into film, and it hasn't been the only attempt since. From Scratch-n-Sniff cards handed out before movies (or occasionally TV shows) to the use of single scents being dispersed through the ventilation systems, introducing smell into the viewing of motion pictures will likely be a novelty people will continue to play with, but due to the failure of Smell-O-Vision, it is unlikely it will ever be attempted on such a broad scale anytime soon. <br />
<br />
While there may have potentially been (and still would be) a number of uses for this technology (advertising is a good example) it was only used once for an entertainment film. In the case of Smell-O-Vision, the medium really was the message. The specific scents released and their relationship with the film text were rather extraneous. Smell-O-Vision was a novelty, intended to bring people into the theater for the sheer fun of experiencing this new technology. Perhaps had the media lasted longer and developed into a legitimate aspect of filmic storytelling the content would have become more relevant, but as is we will never know.<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<br />
Crary, Jonathan. ''Techniques of the Observer''. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992. Print.<br />
<br />
Gould, Gordon. &quot;Now, Movies You Can Smell!&quot; ''Chicago Daily Tribune'' 1 Nov. 1959: G20. PDF file.<br />
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Malabre, Alfred L. &quot;Scented Movies Use Hundreds of Chemicals In An Effort to Lure Fans Back by Nose.&quot; ''Wall Street Journal'' 6 Jan. 1960.PDF file.<br />
<br />
Nason, Richard. &quot;Smell-O-Vision to Get Film Test.&quot; ''New York Times'' 19 Aug. 1959: 35. PDF file.<br />
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[[Category:Visuality]]<br />
[[Category:Smell]]<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Marine_Chronometer&diff=12608
Marine Chronometer
2010-11-24T09:08:05Z
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''&quot;The fundamental event of the modern age is the conquest of the world as picture.&quot;'' —Heidegger, &quot;The Age of the World Picture&quot;<br />
<br />
[[Image:Chronometer.jpg|thumb|right|John Harrison's 1714 H1 Marine Chronometer]]<br />
<br />
Although it is widely considered John Harrison's invention of the Marine Chronometer in 1714<br />
<br />
==Historical Context==<br />
<br />
===Sundials: The Original Real-Time Display===<br />
<br />
Signified by the presence of light and dark, the division of day and night is our most fundamental reference for marking the passage of time. The sundial, from its most primitive beginnings, made it possible to subdivide time further. Day was transformed from the general presence of sunlight into the increments of time's passage that the sundial codified.<br />
<br />
===Ptolemy: Projecting the Grid===<br />
[[image:PtolemyWorldMap.jpg|thumb|right|Ptolemy's World Map from Geographia circa 150 A.D.]]<br />
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The origin of latitude and longitude, and notion that space could be made legible through the system of a grid.<br />
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===The Shape of the Earth: Toward a More Precise Map===<br />
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<br />
==Longitude and the World-Picture==<br />
<br />
[[image:gmap.jpg|thumb|left|Henricus Hondius' 1633 World Map. Note the distortion of the Mediterranean Sea and the necessity of two seperate hemispheres.]]<br />
===Greenwich and the Longitude Prize===<br />
<br />
==Timekeeping, Synchronicity, and Nodal Representation==<br />
[[image:metrosm.gif|thumb|right|A Moscow Subway Map:Knowledge of the transportation system makes the city's geographic distribution less important than the internal logic of nodal distribution.]]<br />
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''&quot; . . . In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the college of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigors of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.&quot;'' —Jorge Luis Borges, ''Of Exactitude in Science''<br />
<br />
Although the art of map-making could be perfected once accurate measurement of Longitude was made possible by Harrison's Chronometer, the ability to measure both longitude and latitude given a clear sky had the peculiar impact of establishing a grid off which one could never travel - Although much of the globe remained to be explored and charted, the perfection of Longitude had the peculiar outcome of making perfect Geography less important than perfect coordinates. Rather than a map, an entire voyage could be assigned bearings and coordinates that would enable any location to be reached by ship.<br />
<br />
As a result, the perfection of longitude is really a story of the successful projection of a grid upon the globe with which one could never be truly lost. In perfecting this system, the literal constraints referenced by the notion of &quot;foggy weather&quot; were overcome.<br />
<br />
==Legacies of the flat representation of Curvilinear Space==<br />
<br />
==Staying Tuned: Towards a Distributed Nomadic Standard==<br />
<br />
[[image:gps.jpg|thumb|left|GPS has enabled unprecedented precision in mapping and navigation]]<br />
[[image:plugincity.jpg|thumb|left|Archigram's Plug-in City imagined a networked megastructure that could support &quot;plugged-in&quot; interchangeable spaces]]<br />
<br />
Although the cartographic achievements that proliferated in the wake of Harrison's chronometer heralded in an era of unprecedented accuracy in Cartography, perhaps its greater legacy was its<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]] [[Category:Navigation]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Reverse_Polish_Notation&diff=12607
Reverse Polish Notation
2010-11-24T09:08:03Z
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[[Image:HP-12c.jpg|thumb|An HP-12c, a financial calculator popular for financial mathematic operations]]Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) is a programing code for ordering and performing mathematic operations. Unlike algebraic notation it has no grouping symbols or equals signs. This simplifies the order of operations for imputing calculations into computers and calculators. While RPN was popular for both scientific and business calculations, its value as an input notation has become diminished thanks to the creation of higher powered calculators and spreadsheet software. While many of the principles behind RPN are still used in some programing languages, the use of RPN as a human input method is likely to remain esoteric.<br />
<br />
=History=<br />
Around 1920 Jan Łukasiewicz developed Polish notation. This idea was then taken in 1957 and modified to place the operators, or process symbols, after the operands, or numbers. RPN then used the idea of recursive stacks which allowed for more efficient memory usage in computers (Burks).<br />
<br />
Soon after, commercially available computers that used RPN were developed. In 1968 Hewlett-Packard (HP) released the 9100A Desktop Calculator which used RPN. Then in 1972 the handheld scientific calculator, the HP-35 was released and used RPN. While HP solely used RPN for many of its early calculators, it has expanded to many calculators that use algebraic notation instead. While these calculators are much more dominate in the marketplace now, there is still a low level demand for RPN enabled calculators (HP.com). This demand is decreasing as algebraic notation calculators, such as the TI-84, are becoming the standard in schools and many universities.<br />
<br />
=How to Use=<br />
While writing out equations in RPN is possible in working with equations with variables, RPN is primarily used for telling machines how to calculate numbers. Because of this, all RPN notation is actually a line of command code. Values are input into a sequence and operations are inserted to be performed on the two preceding values. “2 + 2 =” is translated as “2 2 +.” For more complicated sets of data in which the order of operation must be considered RPN becomes less obvious: “4 - 3 * 9 + 1 =” can become “3 9 * 4 - 1 +” or “1 4 3 9 * - +.” With practice RPN can become easily readable, but is not often explicitly written out. Instead the raw data or equation is meant to be translated by the calculator’s user as he or she is inputting the data. This transparent nature of RPN is actually a part of the cause for its being pushed into obscurity. The above examples of RPN are not really equations but the process for solving the math problem. RPN serves not to carry some message, but becomes the medium of the mathematic process itself. RPN’s content becomes unimportant in its use and instead is most interesting for not what it tells us, but how.<br />
<br />
RPN calculators are then actually requiring their users to not just input numbers, but to actually program a very basic computer code into the calculator. Doing this then makes RPN users less passive compared to those with common calculators. The calculator may be performing the mathematic operations, but the user is wholly aware of exactly what steps the machine is taking with each keystroke. This produces a required level of mathematic understanding in the RPN user. RPN then becomes a tool to protect against inaccuracy in number crunching, but refuses to allow the process of solving equations to become black boxed. Algebraic notation calculators are guilty of this because they internalize the order of operations turing calculator inputs from a dictation of process into a transferring of symbols. Mathematic processes then seem to happen without any kind of deep understanding of the process of math. Because of this RPN needs to be implemented into use throughout educational systems all over the world.<br />
<br />
=As Thought=<br />
RPN is an explicit expression of the way we think. For example if we are looking at how long it took to get somewhere we would look at the time we left our starting point and the time we arrived at our destination '''''then''''' take the difference. To put this in simpler RPN terms it is “leaving time, arriving time, subtract.” Thus, RPN is actually directly related to the ways in which we think. A calculator then would simply perform the operation of subtraction (which is a slightly more abstract process in some ways). While this turns our thoughts into nothing more than inputs and outputs for our consciousness in many cases this metaphor functions quite well. To use RPN is to record our thoughts as discrete pieces of information which when strung together show the way in which decisions and other actions are decided. Unlike many of other kinds of choice theory which focus on operations used to form new thoughts from old ones, RPN actually charts thoughts out as pieces of larger process. This luminous can easily be ignored, but it often serves as the way through which we see the whole of the world. A discussion on this way of processing seems to be missing from within the field of economics.<br />
<br />
This process shifts all of our awareness onto only the very specific parts of something we deem important. In a math problem we are able to simply edit out all of the relationships between the numbers accept for the straight line of needed to put them together into one number. Likewise, in a situation such as travel we only concern ourselves with ideas like “New York, Boston, bus” and not at all in the way the road turns along the way. In both cases we loose something of the process, but we do so in the name of getting to our destinations with ease. Efficiency achieved we must make sure to look beyond our RPN-like thought processes and recognize that there is, in fact, more in between each input than what we often see.<br />
<br />
In dealing with numbers the calculator becomes a part of our brain. It externalizes the work of the mathematic process that we once had to do in our heads. The way we think then becomes directly related to the way in which we use the calculator. While using RPN the steps we take to produce new thoughts become explicit to the user. Thus while the actual doing of the mathematic operation has been outsourced from the brain to the calculator an awareness of the mathematic thought process comes into being. This awareness of the process is not created in the use of algebraic notation calculators. Instead these calculators remove the need for any consideration of how to perform a process from the user, giving it entirely over to the machine. This becomes sort of the reverse of the way technology has influenced the way we understand vision, as Jonathan Crary describes. For him, vision went from something externally created to something that was deeply rooted in the individual eye. RPN allowed us to deeply entrench the mathematic process into our minds, while algebraic notation input turns math and by extension the act of process entirely into the world outside oneself. This has produced a generation of people, unlike their parents who were forced to think about math as a process, who cannot dissect the steps needed to achieve what they want.<br />
<br />
=References=<br />
*Crary, Jonathan. ''Techniques of the Observer''. MIT Press: Cambridge (1990).<br />
*Burks, Arthur W., et. al. “An Analysis of a Logical Machine Using Parenthesis-Free Notation,” in ''Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation''. Vol 8, No 46: 53-57 (April 1954).<br />
*”[http://h20331.www2.hp.com/hpsub/us/en/rpn-calculator.html What is RPN?]” HP.com, 2010 (accessed March 24, 2010).<br />
*Łukasiewicz, Jan, &quot;Philosophische Bemerkungen zu mehrwertigen Systemen des Aussagenkalküls&quot;, ''Comptes rendus des séances de la Société des Sciences et des Lettres de Varsovie'', Vol 23: 51-77 (1930). Translated by H. Weber as &quot;Philosophical Remarks on Many-Valued Systems of Propositional Logics,&quot; in Storrs McCall, Polish Logic 1920-1939, Clarendon Press: Oxford (1967).<br />
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[[Category:Writing]]<br />
[[Category:Computation]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Scopitone&diff=12606
Scopitone
2010-11-24T08:48:50Z
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[[File:color6.jpg|thumb|right|Scopitone]] “Before music videos and MTV there was their great-granddaddy, Scopitone.”<br />
<br />
(San Francisco Chronicle, Mar 19, 1992)<br />
<br />
== Brief Description ==<br />
<br />
[[File:S_1_1963Canada.jpg|thumb|left|Scopitone]] <br />
<br />
<br />
Today we take music videos on MTV and VH1 for granted. But did you know these musical cinematic gems have roots dating back to the start of World War II? And then they developed out of a &quot;visual jukebox&quot; called a Scopitone which was fashionable in the early 1960's.<br />
<br />
Invented in France right after World War Ⅱ, Scopitone were short 16mm films named after the modified jukeboxes they used to be player on. The first Scopitones were made in France in 1960. The ancestors of music videos, they hit their golden age in the early ‘60s, neatly concinciding with the explosion of teen-driven pop music in both France and the United States, the two main purveyors of the genre.<br />
<br />
Judging by this selection of almost 30 short films, there were two basic schools of Scopitones: the one where the singers were surrounded by bikini-clad, buxom vixens frantically twisting on location, and the one where you dropped the same indefatigable dancers into ostentatiously fake-looking sets. They run the gamut, from the Exciters singing “Tell Him” to the Kessler Sisters, blond twins who were regulars on European variety shows and whose Scopitone is a grandiose exercise in Teutonic kitsch.<br />
<br />
== How it works ==<br />
<br />
In 1939, a device called a &quot;Panoram&quot; was invented by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago. The Panoram played eight three-minute musical shorts in a wooden jukebox fitted with a 17 x 22.5 inch translucent screen. The image was projected in a rear-screen manner via 16mm black and white film. These shorts became known as &quot;soundies&quot; and starred many of the most well-known jazz acts of the day. When World War II erupted, production halted and by war's end, the craze that had captured the public's attention so much in 1939 and 1940 was totally over. <br />
<br />
After the war ended in Europe, two French technicians saw all the tons of war surplus and military spare parts lying around and decided to use some of it to recreate the soundie experience and, hopefully, improve upon it. Using a 16mm camera that had been used by the French Air Force for reconnaissance flights, they converted it into a 16mm projector.<br />
<br />
[[File:s_2_CarouselOfStars.jpg|thumb|Right|Scopitone]]<br />
<br />
Mastering the problems of providing enough light and devising reliable mechanisms for threading and rewinding the films cost them lots of time and it wasn't until the late '50s that the invention was ready for the public. The resultant machine was the size of a refrigerator and was dubbed &quot;Scopitone.&quot; Much improved from the 1939 version, the Scopitone played color films and, like a conventional jukebox, the customer was able to choose which video to watch, instead of whatever was conveniently loaded on the machine.<br />
<br />
== The demystification of audio-visual hegemony ==<br />
<br />
=== Towards an audio-visual hegemony: Remediation and the “obvious” ===<br />
<br />
The recording industry is quite interested in the laser scan system, because of the durability factor and greater possible quality and range of audio information. We can look forward to a unification of TV, hi-fi, and video-disc components in a single system. The audio quality of TV would finally be raised to stereophonic high-fidelity, improving the level and range of broadcast material. If the same unit could play back music and video, and also display printed pages, it is hard to see how there would be many homes without the system.<br />
<br />
There is already talking about the adding of a vision track to future record releases. The first form these visuals take will no doubt resemble concert film footage and what we have seen on the Scopitone Super-8 cartridge juke boxes. If you decide to buy a record of Sonny and Cher’s songs, you will jolly well see the pair doing their things, much as on the TV show.<br />
It is a cross between a jukebox and TV. For $.25 a throw, Scopitone projects any one of 36 musical movies on a 26 inch screen, flooding the premises with delicious color and hi-fi scooby-ooby-doo for three whole minutes. It makes a sobering combination.&quot; <br />
<br />
But more exciting and profound possibilities are opened up by this additional audio-visual flood gate. Media-technological differentiations opened up the possibility for media links. After the storage capacities for optics, acoustics, and writing had been separated, mechanized, and extensively utilized, their distinct data flows could also be reunited. Sound film combined the storage of acoustics and optics; shortly thereafter, television combined their transmission. (Kittler, 170)<br />
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[[File:s_3color1.jpg|thumb|left]]<br />
<br />
The innovative rock groups will no doubt take the lead with dazzling optical trips. The widened opportunity for creative filmmakers for work will find a legion of compatible collaborations, just as many independent films have long used existing music tracks.<br />
<br />
The art of abstract vision will be furthered by the work of light-show artists, videographic experimenters, and computer graphics. A more limited, but no less interesting probability, is the availability of optical-effects generator components to be added to your color TV. With random sequencing, chroma-keving and phasing, etc., it would translate audio signals into visual patterns much as a cybernetic color organ. The more you and I can shape and form our own developing imagery on the screen, the more valuable the new technology will be. At the least, it can remain but mindless electric wallpaper. (Reveaux, 1973;49)<br />
<br />
== Where do media go die ==<br />
<br />
By 1969, Scopitone had closed its doors for good. What had seemed like a sure thing only five years before, faded away in a sea of accusations and murky accounting practices. So what was the appeal of the Scopitone videos? In 1964, with the big introduction to the clubs and restaurants, new American films needed to come faster than ever. The previous dependence on French videos and storytelling simply could not last to maintain interest here. <br />
<br />
Harmon-ee Productions, a subsidiary of a company owned by Debbie Reynolds, became the main supplier of American films. Debbie herself starred in the first American Scopitone video, singing &quot;If I Had a Hammer,&quot; the Trini Lopez hit. Later, she covered Gale Garnett's &quot;We'll Sing in the Sunshine.&quot; <br />
<br />
In keeping with the strategy of keeping teenagers out of the mix, the artists viewed on the Scopitone tended toward the lounge acts of the day- Vic Damone, Julie London- only occasionally a Bobby Vee or Petula Clark might surface. But in spite of the seemingly static nature of these artists, the resulting videos were visually stunning, if not mystifying with their direction. <br />
<br />
If anything set the Scopitone films apart from anything else, it was their use of eye-popping colors, wild scenery and wilder enthusiastic girls dancing the Twist, usually in bikinis, in the backgrounds as the singers performed in the craziest of places- on trains, in the woods, in cars, on carnival rides.<br />
<br />
In many cases, what was filmed didn't seem to make sense in the context of the song- for example, Dion singing &quot;Ruby Baby&quot; while seated in the cockpit of an obviously stationary airplane on a runway or Dionne Warwick singing &quot;Walk on By&quot; while lying seductively on a white bear rug. <br />
<br />
Some of these films have been described as risque, even by our standards today, not surprising, considering their French lineage and their appeal to cocktail lounges and clubs where &quot;sophisticated&quot; gentlemen could be found. In an age when Playboy magazine was redefining the American male, is it any wonder then that certain Scopitones would gravitate towards a more permissive point of view? <br />
<br />
Jack Stevenson, who wrote a definitive article on Scopitones, stated, &quot;...people were reduced to decoration. They were lip-synchers, gyrating dolls and puppets and mannequins.&quot; It was a hypnotic effect and for those three minutes, it was riveting. <br />
<br />
The Scopitone may have gone the way of the dinosaur but many remain safely in collectors' hands. And you can still find one out there, though you may have to travel a bit to find it. The Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, Tennessee has what they've termed &quot;the last public Scopitone in America&quot; in its lobby. <br />
<br />
It has embraced the Scopitone so much that it recently held a Scopitone-themed membership drive, complete with &quot;fashion contests, nonstop Scopitones and '60s-themed food and drink.&quot; Just the thing if you're in a groovy mood.[http://www.loti.com/fifties_jukebox/Scoptione_The_Visual_Jukebox.htm]<br />
<br />
== Reference ==<br />
<br />
* Kittler, Friedrich. ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.<br />
* Stanley,John. ''Scopitones on View--Pre-MTV Era Music Film Loops''. San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco, Calif.: Mar 19, 1992. pg. E.3<br />
* Reveaux, Anthony. ''New Technologies for the Demystification of Cinema'', Film Quarterly, 27(1). 1973.42-51.<br />
* Vincentelli, Elisabeth. ''Scopitone-a-Go-Go'', The village voice,Apr 22,1997, 42,16; Proquest Newsstand. 86.<br />
<br />
== External Links ==<br />
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* Scoptione - The Visual Jukebox[http://http://www.loti.com/fifties_jukebox/Scoptione_The_Visual_Jukebox.htm] <br />
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* History of Scopitone [http://http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/9.4/scopitone/scopitone-09.4.html]<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Broadcasting&diff=12605
Broadcasting
2010-11-24T08:48:42Z
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[[Image:The Story of Television.JPG|thumb|300px|right|alt=RCA's ''The Story of Television''|[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A7MN4TjC2Qfeature=player_embedded &quot;Metal fingers beckoning to the invisible.&quot; Both instructional and self-promoting RCA's The Story of Television provides a background on the technical development of television broadcasting. (1956)]]]<br />
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Broadcasting refers to a technical model of content distribution, a business model, and the industry that implements the two. In ''NBC: America's Network'', Michele Hilmes illustrates how the naming of NBC, the National Broadcasting Company, contains the core characteristics that broadcasting would take on in America. &quot;First, ''national'': when RCA announced the formation of its new radio &quot;chain&quot; in 1926, it introduced the first medium that could, through its local stations, connect the scattered and disparate communities of a vast nation ''simultaneously'' and address the nation as a whole...Second, ''broadcasting'': this word was coined to denote a new form of communication that emerged in the early 1920s, one that emanated invisibly from a central source and passed with ease though not only physical but social and cultural barriers to reach listeners as private individuals in their homes...Third, ''company'': In the United States, unlike most of the rest of the world, broadcasting would develop as a primarily private owned enterprise, a business responding to market conditions rather than an organ of the state or a public service institution&quot; (Hilmes 7, Italics original). &quot;The word broadcast, in the electronic sense of the term, stems from early United States naval reference to the &quot;broadcast&quot; of orders to the fleet (Hillard 3).<br />
<br />
Hilmes' analysis concentrates on the American broadcast system: this dossier focuses on the central distribution characteristics of the model: transmission over a distance from a central source to multiple receivers, simultaneous consumption by a mass audience, and identical content. This &quot;obvious&quot; modus operandi emerged during a worldwide paradigm shift toward nation stabilization as a result of the horror of World War I and entering World War II on all sides of the ideological spectrum. Mussolini was quoted as saying that without radio he would not have been able to achieve the solidification of and power over the Italian people that he did, and the Fireside Chat over radio is frequently thought of as having vastly strengthened President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s popularity and influence with the American people (Hillard 1). <br />
<br />
Substantial technical moves away from these key characteristics have effectively rendered the broadcasting mentality dead. <br />
<br />
==Development==<br />
<br />
===The Broadcasting Model===<br />
<br />
Human speech can be considered proto-broadcasting. From the funeral oration of Pericles to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, any moment of human performance with multiple listeners involves a single origin transmitting media content simultaneously to external recipients. But in this live format, the recipients have agency equal to the speaker to affect the content of the media, i.e. audience members can shout out at a live speech and companions contribute to dialogue.<br />
<br />
Electronic broadcasting removes the human sensorium from the direct act of transmission and reception, integrating technical apparatus into the system, and removing the opportunity for recipients to impact content. The wireless model took on multiple forms in the United States, before settling in to the current one in which stations broadcast radio or television signals, which can be received by mechanisms dedicated to that purpose. The signal may originate from that station or may be a part of a chain broadcast originating from a further distance with the local station acting as intermediary. “The network concept [is] of a single origination point for programs distributed by wire and radio links to hundreds of stations for national audience consumption” (Wallace 12). The receiver has a dedicated range of frequencies available, and can only be tuned to access one at anytime. The broadcast model does not allow for serial reception of multiple transmissions. The formal qualities of the transmission model were largely duplicated in the industrial infrastructure.<br />
<br />
But the shape of this infrastructure was not inevitable. Early experimentation in broadcasting involved both amateurs and professionals, sending and receiving, and a community in which feedback was an integral part of the experience. However, the frequency spectrum for broadcast transmissions is limited, and many early transmissions interfered with the clear reception of each other. &quot;The lack of regulations...resulted in chaos over the airwaves, with the new medium virtually choking itself to death. By the mid-1920s it was clear that federal intervention was necessary if radio was to survive&quot; (Hillard 5). In order for both the broadcast mindset and the broadcast industry to succeed, transmissions needed to reach receivers clearly. A succession of federal regulations--the 1910 Wireless Ship Act, Radio Act of 1912, Radio Act of 1927, Communications Act of 1934--shaped the industry, favoring the more powerful conglomerates such as RCA over the individual, amateur wireless operators. With federal licenses dedicating specific frequencies to specific broadcast stations, the technical format could now function. <br />
<br />
This one-to-many distribution model was attractive to marketers for its efficiency. Advertising agencies and the companies they represented became a major source of income for the burgeoning industry. &quot;As one FRC commissioner, Harold A. LaFount stated, &quot;Commercialism is the heart of broadcasting in the United States. What has education contributed to radio? not one thing. What has commercialism contributed? Everything --the life blood of the industry&quot; (Hillard 9). This distribution model also changed political messaging. Using radio, “national and state candidates reach more voters directly and almost personally in a few minutes than they could shake hands in a lifetime.” (Wallace 41).<br />
<br />
===Remediation===<br />
<br />
The defining characteristics of broadcasting--simultaneous remote reception of identical content--existed individually or in combination in a variety of mediums long before the first commercial broadcasting experiments (Kompare 19). The innovation of broadcasting was to unite them in a single medium.<br />
<br />
==Institutionalization==<br />
<br />
With increased regulation and standardization, the formal prohibitions regarding each side of the broadcasting model could do fell into place. &quot;From 1922 to 1927 sets in use increased sixteenfold--and radio households some 25-fold, from 260,000 to 6.5 million&quot; (Balk 42) By 1950 about 95% of households had radios. Participation in content creation on the part of the audience was eliminated as radio become conceptualized no longer as a boy's sport, but as &quot;a genteel domestic amusement to be consumed passively by the entire family&quot; (Spigel 29). <br />
<br />
===Formal Prohibitions/Affordances===<br />
<br />
[[Image:1930-1940.JPG|thumb|left|alt=LA Times 1930| Through out the 1930s, the ''Los Angeles Times'' used the iconography of the radio apparatus to mark its listings of programming content, equating the physical radio with the ephemeral broadcast.]]<br />
<br />
The formal probibitions of institutionalized broadcasting were distinct from, but not independent of the legal prohibitions, because &quot;from the beginning radio was recognized as a public resource. There was and is a limited amount of airwave space, and the federal government from the early 1920s on decided to protect this space for citizens&quot; (Hillard 30). The asymmetry in the power structure between the speaking-one and the listening-many greatly influenced how each could interact with the content. Stations dictated the length of programming, gradually standardized to quarter-, half-and full hour, and the availability of programming from morning to evening, and were limited by the reach of their towers and by physical hazards(Wallace 12). Early receivers were constructed by their listeners, thus had the flexibility to be altered at will. But receivers became black boxes. &quot;By 1926, there were substantial alterations in receiver design. Technical controls had been simplified down to two knobs (tuning and volume) so that practical know-how was no longer needed&quot; (Spiegel 29). Audiences had no agency for content expression or to influence any receiver but their own. They could not mechanically influence the operations of the station. The audience did have agency to shape the flow of programs to suit personal taste. This customization was not expression so much as a choice in participation. Still, the seeds of the shift away from the broadcasting model are rooted in this small affordance.<br />
<br />
Initially, broadcasting stations sold time rather than programming, making the airwaves available for anyone who could afford it. But this haphazard structure afforded the stations little control over flow to maximize listeners, resulting in a paradigm shift from ad agency sponsored programming to deficit financing by the networks and independent producers. Although Friedrich Kittler suggests that “broadcasting of weightless material came about for the purpose of the mass transmission of records&quot; this recorded material came to be looked at unfavorably (Kittler 94). &quot;The largest commercial threat to the industry emerged with the widespread production of transcribed, or electronically recorded, programs...Between late 1929 and 1932, several NBC affiliates began rejecting chain offerings in favor of these recorded programs...To counter transcriptions, executives of both chains[NBC and CBS] defined and aggressively promoted live, wireless distributed programming as the only authentic system for national broadcasting&quot; (Socolow 34}. The shift from sponsorship to deficit programming, was also a shift away from [[liveness]]. “Storing, erasing, sampling, fast-forwarding, rewinding, editing—inserting tapes into the signal path leading from the microphone to the master disc made manipulation itself possible. Ever since combat reports of Nazi radio, even live broadcasts have not been live.” (Kittler 108). Repetition and syndication became the space for economic success, but these new technical abilities called into question the simultaneity of the broadcast model.<br />
<br />
===Legal Prohibitions/Affordances===<br />
<br />
Two regulatory bodies were consecutively established to monitor this public resource. &quot;The FRC [Federal radio Commission] was given the authority to issue station licenses, allocate frequency bands to various radio services (including broadcasting), assign and require individual stations to operate on specific frequencies, and limit power...The FCC [Federal Communications Commission] major areas of control over radio are in issuing licenses and renewals. The FCC allocates the use of spectrum space, determining what frequencies are to go to nonbroadcast as well as broadcast services&quot; (Hillard 8-9). Because the frequency spectrum is limited and the early chaos over the airwaves was undesirable, these legal restrictions impacted formal operation. Additionally, the FCC would occasionally interfere with technical innovation in order to protect the public interest and monetary investment, such as delaying the release of color television until guaranteed that color programming technology would be equally receivable on both color and black-and-white sets. The FCC is largely a retroactive regulatory body rather than a proactive one. Licenses can be revoked and fines issued after inappropriate station action, not before.<br />
<br />
==Heterogeneous Audiences==<br />
<br />
In ''Techniques of the Observer'', Jonathan Crary tracks a shift in the observer from representation by the camera obscura—“the observer who is nominally a free sovereign individual and a privatized subject confined in a quasi-domestic space, cut off from a public exterior world”—to representation by the stereoscope—“the decentered observer” who when coupled with an apparatus sees visual representation not “subordinated to an exterior image of the true or the right” (Crary 39, 128, 138). This concept of the visual observer was applied to the listener as well in the late 1900s. Lisa Gitelman explains, &quot;Thus was the phonograph oddly considered a “witness” even though it is not an optical device&quot; (Gitelman 87). Broadcasting, both audio and televisual, altered the observer yet again.<br />
<br />
[[Image:1956_NBC_logo.svg.png|thumb|277px|right|alt=alt| Thus Argus lies a victim, cold and pale, &lt;br /&gt;And thus all hundred of his eyes, with all their light, &lt;br /&gt;Are closed at once in one perpetual night. &lt;br /&gt;These Juno takes, that they no more may fail, &lt;br /&gt;And spreads them in her peacock's gaudy tail. &lt;br /&gt;-- Ovid, ''Metamorphosis''&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBC_logos NBC adopted the peacock as its logo in 1956.]]]<br />
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This new observer remediated the quasi-domestic reception space of the earlier version as well as the subjective representation of the latter. But the new mass audience was not mono-optic or bi-optic, it was now an Argus Panoptes. This collective experience began with the listeners watching the phonograph, as portrayed in the advertisements of the 1890s to the 1920s. &quot;Listeners stare vacantly at unseen and newly reracialized performers, as if by some collective premonition, keeping their gaze steady for radio then television. The gaze itself is oddly communal, fraught with unlikely assumptions about the democratic power of mass media even as it dampens participation” (Gitelman 137). The communal cultural experience of the 20th century was no lingered rooted in proximity as was that of the 19th. A 1923 commentary on radio broadcasts marks this change. “Station WGY has reversed Shakespeare's portrayal that &quot;all the world's a stage.&quot; Broadcasting of drama through the [[ether]] is making all the world the audience and the radio studio the stage.&quot; The individual observer becomes part of a geographically dispersed reception crowd.“The mass-produced sound storage medium only needed mass-produced communication and recording media to gain global ascendancy“ (Kittler 94).<br />
<br />
===Pops and Hisses===<br />
<br />
But the heterogeneous nature of taste created cracks in the broadcasting model. The broadcast model depends on a single central figure, the station, sending out content to multiple receivers, the audience. A Pennsylvania man expressed the new paradigm of the broadcast-united United States, following a 1924 broadcast which linked 18 stations and an estimated 20,000,000 people. &quot;I felt that these great United States of ours were never before so small as they were last evening.&quot; <br />
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However, this unification model was also problemitized geographically dispersed taste. A freeze on television station licensing from 1948-1952 led to the strengthening of programming geared toward audience of the North East, as the majority of stations and receivers were located in this area. With the lifting of the freeze, stations proliferated across the country. This industrial growth coincided with growth in rating measurement and sophistication. &quot;One result of these tumultuous years of transition in the early 1950s was that the vaudeo star and variety format began to decline in popularity&quot; (Murray 93). The development of metrics to quantitatively measure the audience created a new space of agency for the audience. Opting in-or-out of a station, became an opening for expressing feedback, an expression that only existed previously through anecdotal letter writing. This small change in the flow of information, upstream from receivers to stations, is the beginning of the breakdown of the model. The audience could no longer be viewed as a blank slate to be imprinted upon. Yet, this measured audience did not shape future expression; it only expressed approval or disapproval of past station choices. <br />
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===Encoding/Decoding===<br />
<br />
[[Image:Hall_Encoding-Decoding.JPG|thumb|350px|left|alt=Encoding/Decoding| Stuart Hall's model of the encoding/decoding process.]]<br />
<br />
In his seminal work &quot;Encoding, Decoding,&quot; Stuart Hall questions the linear &quot;sender/message/receiver&quot; model of mass communication research. This model presupposes a complete transfer of information from the sender to the receiver., a &quot;cake-mix&quot; model in which the recipient contributes only attention. He comes to the conclusion that &quot;Production and reception of the television message are not, therefore, identical, but they are related: they are differentiated moments within the totality formed by the social relations of the communicative process as a whole&quot; (Hall 93). Different degrees of symmetry between the encoder-producer and the decoder-receiver result in three different possible decoding positions: dominant or preferred, negotiated, and oppositional. This process upsets the broadcasting model, because it highlights the previously disregarded spaces--the moments of human interface with the technical apparatus. Although stations may perfectly transmit the electronic signals to the radio and television receivers, the receivers do not perfectly transmit messages to their audiences. Thus the human-decoded interpretation is itself a crack in the broadcast model.<br />
<br />
==Narrowcasting, Interactivity, and the Transitional Paradigm==<br />
<br />
Lisa Gitelman suggests that, “Like language itself, there is some level at which media help “wire” people for the thinking they do” (Gitelman 150) If this shaping is true, then people wired to be broadcast recipients are being replaced with two other overlapping audiences--the narrowcast audience and the interactive audience. Both choices upset the tradition model of broadcasting and both are steadily gaining strength. In his 2005 book, Rerun Nation, Derek Kompare concludes, &quot;it is clear that the centralized, mass-disseminated, &quot;one-way&quot; cultural institution that has held sway since the middle of the twentieth century is largely ceding to a regime premised instead upon individual consumer choice, and marked by highly diversified content, atomized reception, and customizable interfaces&quot; (Kompare 198).<br />
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The narrowcasting, named as such to be deliberately oppositional to broadcasting, is the the practice of targeting specific demographics, rather than the mass. The concept of local programming engages with this idea, defining demographic by geography, and sprang up in many incarnations of broadcast regulation. But narrowcasting by taste grew with the rise of cable programming in the 1980s and has led us to a paradigm, &quot;whereby media become more centralized on the one hand and audiences become more fragmented and niche marketing becomes narrower on the other&quot; (Banet-Weiser, Chris, and Freitas 257). Standard &amp; Poor's 2010 Broadcasting, Satellite, and Industry Survey reports &quot;continuing audience fragmentation&quot; and the growth of targeted cable stations, such as Lifetime (for women) supports that finding. Currently, marketers are exploring narrowcasting beyond representative demographics in order to target actual customers rather than supposed ones.<br />
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Since 2000 the top rated telecasts have all been singular sporting events such as the Superbowl rather than serial attractions, and even these events do not break 50% of households. It is difficult to claim a unity of content when not even half of American households watch any particular event. Changing economies of scale call into question the &quot;mass&quot; of mass audience and the &quot;broad&quot; of broadcasting. Not only is the broadcast model disrupted, but Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding model may be as well. When consumers experience media targeted and designed for their demographic niche, does the oppositional mode of decoding fade out?<br />
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The simultaneity of reception has also been overturned by technological developments. The crack that first began with recorded programming, syndication, and reruns, had been driven ever wider by time-shifting technologies such as VCRs, DVRs, mobile and computer downloads, and mobile and computer streaming. Rather than being defined by industrial programming schedules, audiences have begun to participate in creating their own programming schedules and programming flow. <br />
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[[Image:Dr._Horrible.jpg|thumb||left|alt=Encoding/Decoding| A Non-Broadcast media product.]]<br />
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Finally the linear transmission of culture from the centralized source to remote receivers is being questioned by interactive and participatory audiences and user generated content. &quot;If, as some have argued, the emergence of modern mass media spelled the doom for the vital folk traditions that thrived in nineteenth-century America, the current moment of media change is reaffirming the right of everyday people to actively contribute to their culture&quot; (Jenkins 136). Although the quality of user generated content greatly varies, and much does not challenge professional productions, quality is not an integral component of broadcasting. Joss Whedon experimented with a non-broadcasting distribution model for his ''Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog'', and found great success with online viewing and DVD distribution. Many broadcasters are now encouraging audience participation in inter-mediac and inter-textual properties, such as games based on shows, and in some cases allowing audience feedback to drive content choices, such as the choosing of a new character on ''Heroes'' by audience vote. This type of circular communication between producers and receivers cannot be accounted for in the broadcasting model.<br />
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==References==<br />
<br />
*Balk, Alfred. ''The Rise of Radio, from Marconi through the Golden Age''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &amp; Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006. Print.<br />
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*Crary, Jonathan. ''Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990. Print.<br />
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*Gitelman, Lisa. ''Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999. Print.<br />
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*Hall, Stuart. &quot;Encoding, Decoding.&quot; Ed. Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe, and Paul Willis. ''Culture, Media, and Language''. Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005. Web. April 25, 2010<br />
<br />
*Hilliard, Robert L. &quot;History and Regulation.&quot; Ed. Robert L. Hillard. ''Radio Broadcasting: An Introduction to the Sound Medium''. New York: Longman Inc., 1985. Print<br />
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*Hilmes, Michele. &quot;NBC and the Network Idea: Defining the &quot;American System.&quot; Ed. Michele Hilmes. ''NBC: America's Network''. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2007. Print.<br />
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*Jenkins, Henry. ''Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide''. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Print.<br />
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*Kittler, Friedrich A. ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999. Print.<br />
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*Kolb, Erik B.. “Broadcasting, Cable, and Satellite.” Standard &amp; Poor’s Industry Surveys. (February 18, 2010). Web. April 24, 2010.<br />
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*Kompare, Derek. ''Rerun Nation: How Repeats Invented American Television''. New York: Routledge, 2005.<br />
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*Murray, Susan. ''Hitch Your Antenna to the Stars: Early Television and Broadcast Stardom''. New York: Routledge, 2005. PDF.<br />
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*&quot;RADIO PUBLIC ENJOYS INVISIBLE ACTORS. &quot; New York Times (1923-Current file) 26 Aug. 1923,ProQuest Historical Newspapers New York Times (1851-2006) w/ Index (1851-1993), ProQuest. Web. 24 Apr. 2010.<br />
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*&quot;SINGLE VOICE REACHES VAST AUDIENCE :Listeners Puzzled When Same Voice Is Heard From Several Different Cities. &quot; New York Times (1923-Current file) 28 Sep. 1924,ProQuest Historical Newspapers New York Times (1851-2006) w/ Index (1851-1993), ProQuest. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. <br />
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*Socolow, Michael J. &quot;&quot;Always in Friendly Competition&quot;: NBC and CBS in the First Decade of National Broadcasting.&quot; Ed. Michele Hilmes. ''NBC: America's Network''. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2007. Print.<br />
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*Spiegel, Lynn. ''Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America''. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print.<br />
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*Wallace, Wesley H. &quot;Growth, Organization, and Impact&quot; Ed. Robert L. Hilliard. ''Understanding Television: An Introduction to Broadcasting''. New York: Hastings House, Publishers, 1964. Print.<br />
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<br />
[[Category:Dossier]] <br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]<br />
[[Category:Visuality]]<br />
[[Category:Temporality]]<br />
[[Category:Spatiality]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Liveness&diff=12604
Liveness
2010-11-24T08:48:05Z
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&lt;div style=&quot;text-align:center;&quot;&gt;'''''Liveness:''' The quality or condition (of an event, performance, etc.) of being heard, watched, or broadcast at the time of occurrence.''&lt;/div&gt;<br />
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There are two aspects of liveness: temporal and spatial, i.e. experiencing something as it happens vs. being in a location where something happens. Liveness can thus apply to the concept of being seated in the same theater as a production of a play, or watching a sporting event taking place on the other side of the country. The definition above, offered by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', focuses more on the temporal, however the two are in many ways intertwined. The idea of being in the same place at the same time as the production of a communication message is growing increasingly antiquated. While it could be argued that day-to-day interactions are also losing their liveness (consider self check-out lines and the ease of ordering things on the internet), it is constructed, performance-oriented activities that are most affected.<br />
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==Attributes &amp; Characteristics==<br />
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&lt;div style=&quot;text-align:center;&quot;&gt;''&quot;At the level of cultural economy, theatre (and live performance generally) and the mass media are rivals, not partners. Neither are they equal rivals: it is absolutely clear that our current cultural formation is saturated with, and dominated by, mass media representations in general, and television in particular (though television is admittedly locked in combat for cultural and economic dominance with the Internet and telecommunications).&quot; - '''Phillip Auslander''' (1)''&lt;/div&gt;<br />
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<br />
{| style=&quot;width: 30%; float: right&quot; border=&quot;1&quot; cellpadding=&quot;2&quot;<br />
|+ '''''Types of Liveness and Examples'''''<br />
! !! Spatially Live !! Spatially Not Live<br />
|-<br />
! Temporally Live<br />
| Attending a concert, sporting event, theater || Watching sporting events on TV<br />
|-<br />
! Temporally Not Live<br />
| Pilgrimages to Holy Site<br />
| A recorded television episode<br />
|}<br />
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Liveness dates back to the beginning of human interaction. It includes everything from conversations between two people to 50,000 spectators watching gladiatorial battles at the Colosseum. Despite its prevalence throughout history, however, it is difficult to discuss liveness without looking at what it is not.<br />
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Liveness is the absence of writing. It is encoding and decoding happening simultaneously. Another attribute of liveness is difference. One could see the same play with the same cast three nights in a row and see a different show each time. Unlike recorded or written work which contains the same words or images each time one looks at it, liveness offers a unique presentation each time. Compared to other modes of mediation, liveness is less controllable. A performance one night may be longer than the next; a performer can make a mistake or intentionally cause problems; and technological failure or other forces outside the performers can interfere with the intent of the representation. There is an uncertainty to liveness that disappears when one begins recording events and making them more easily manipulable. This variation on pops and hisses gives liveness a certain ethereal, magical quality. When viewing something, the spectator becomes a part of the experience in a way consumers of recorded, more static content cannot. Of course, liveness also brings with it a risk. If things are different enough in a live performance from what is intended it can change the message or cause other problems.<br />
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[[Image:BoweryTheater.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Bowery Theater|These theater-goers are in the same time and space as the performance they are watching.]]<br />
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Compared to other forms of mediation, liveness is, essentially, unmediated. Whereas cinema is &quot;the manipulation of optic nerves and their time,&quot; and acoustic recording uses &quot;sound tricks, montage, and cuts&quot; (Kittler 115), liveness is free of such interference. It is the senses working on their own to experience that which can only be constructed and articulated by a message sender in the presence of a receiving individual. This does not mean that everything live is not lacking in artificiality, rather that the extent to which it can be constructed is restricted by the capabilities of technology and sleight-of-hand style trickery that can be applied instantaneously. <br />
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Liveness is experiencing a long and slow death that began with the written word and has continued into broadcast technologies and internet communications. In fact, the very acknowledgement of liveness as a mode of mediation is suggestive of its dying nature. Until an alternative to liveness developed there was no concept of live. It just was. It was the only way to communicate. With the introduction of other modes of mediation, live is now often used as a retronym of sorts, made necessary to distinguish it from the alternatives that have developed. The problem here is not so much arguing the deadness of liveness, it is rather to justify liveness as a mode of mediation as in many respects it is the lack of mediation that is being displaced by new and creative ways to mediate all forms of communication.<br />
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As mentioned, however, time and space are two different aspects of liveness. The development and evolution of broadcast technologies serve as an example of the way these two attributes have become disconnected and how both have fallen away.<br />
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==Broadcasting: A Case Study in the Death of Liveness==<br />
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The introduction of [[broadcasting]] was not the beginning of the demise of liveness, but it has been the nail in the coffin, so to speak. Broadcasting is, by nature, a medium based on spatial distance between those who are encoding and the (larger) group involved in decoding. In some respects this was the first step away from liveness in that it disconnected viewers from the concert hall or theater but allowed them to see and/or hear entertainment across great distances as the events were happening. [[Image:Youneednotbethere.JPG|thumb|alt=Old TV Ad|An ad for a television set stressing the perk of seeing things live without being there in person.]] There was a lot of rhetoric promoting this spatial distanciation as an admirable aspect of broadcasting. It allowed greater proliferation of &quot;great art&quot; and could introduce such work to people who might not otherwise ever know about it. Although lack of spatial liveness is intrinsic to the mediums of radio and television, broadcast's relationship with temporal liveness has altered greatly throughout history. <br />
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From the dawn of radio through the early days of television, liveness was considered a marker of quality. It was considered to be the thing that set radio and television apart from film or recorded music and thus was highly praised. The stress placed on liveness is evident in early advertisements and discussions of television, and many lamented the shift to more recorded programming. As the Ford Foundation said in 1966, &quot;the greatest assets of television are liveness and immediacy. Much of the vitality has been drained out of television with the increasing use of tape&quot; (Lederberg). Part of this appraisal of liveness is tied to notions of authenticity. Live programming is more real. It is coming directly from the sources, whether they be sporting events or theatrical productions or musical performances. It was real, uncensored, unmediated content.<br />
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Of course, despite the enthusiasm for live programming, from very early on much of the programming was recorded and as time passed it became the norm. There were a number of reasons for the eventual transition to recorded programming, including financial, industrial, and technological factors, however all of the reasons pertain to certain aspects of liveness.<br />
<br />
For one, if something is live it is only visible once. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but it limits those who can see it, and it is difficult (or impossible) to view it again. Also, as mentioned earlier, there is a risk inherent in liveness. Anything can happen which can be good. Exciting things can happen, particularly in live sporting events, which give people a sense of being in community together having experienced it at the same time. But liveness can also facilitate less ideal material. For broadcasting this has led to most programming, even live programs, being delayed for a few seconds to allow producers to censor material if need be. It also becomes difficult to standardize things in live television. It is difficult to insure time will be regulated properly. Participating in live performances can also be very tiring, making it more difficult to repeat events or perform repeatedly in different functions without adequate breaks. <br />
<br />
[[Image:watchChuckLive.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Chuck|By &quot;live,&quot; this ad is referring to when it is broadcast, although the construction and performance of the episode are both temporally and spatially separate from the audience.]]<br />
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Today on television and radio there is very little that is live. Recorded music fills radio time and scripted, recorded and edited work fill the TV schedule, and even that is beginning to be removed one more level from temporal and spatial liveness. Often now people discuss &quot;watching something live&quot; when they mean to say &quot;watch as it is being broadcast&quot; rather than recording it for later viewing or accessing the material online or through some other avenue. Also, many things that were once broadcast live are being recorded and played back a more financially lucrative time. NBC's decision to tape-delay popular Olympic events is an example of the failure of liveness' role as the dominant paradigm of the day.<br />
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==Reappropriation==<br />
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Although once the only conceivable way to communicate with other individuals, liveness has become a novelty of sorts. People can still attend concerts and theater events, but many of those things are increasingly being shown, recorded, in movie theaters, or broadcast on television. <br />
In many ways, liveness today is a remediation of recordings. As Auslander says in ''Liveness'', &quot;Initially, mediatized events were modeled on live ones. The subsequent cultural dominance of mediatization has had the ironic result that live events now frequently are modeled on the very mediatized representations that once took the self-same live events as their models&quot; (10). The electronic nature of the sounds are constructed in a recording studio and then reconstructed on a stage. While there are still live concerts, they are often live re-enactments of recorded content. <br />
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[[Image:MilliVanilli.jpg|thumb|alt=Milli Vanilli|Milli Vanilli, seen here accepting Grammy Awards, were &quot;performing&quot; music they did not record themselves.]]<br />
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The issue of authenticity arises here again and is elaborated on by Auslander in his discussion of Milli Vanilli and the controversy erupting around the discovery the public performers were not those singing on the album. Suddenly, liveness is no longer trustworthy. Where once it was the only way to communicate, and later was seen as a more real or ideal form of mediation, it has now become another form of construction to be viewed skeptically. Liveness as the world once knew it is gone. In its place is remediated representation of recorded content. While it was once just how people exchanged ideas, it has now become something to be named; it has become a mode of mediation because it is in opposition to the new mediation paradigm of perfected recordings of text, sound, and visual images.<br />
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==References==<br />
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* Auslander, Phillip. ''Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture.'' New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.<br />
* Kittler, Frederich A. ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.'' Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Print.<br />
* Lederberg, Joshua. &quot;Innovation Throws Us.&quot; ''The Washington Post'' 4 Dec. 1966: E7. PDF. <br />
* &quot;Live, ''adj''., ''n''., and ''adv.''&quot; ''OED Online''. March 2010. Oxford University Press. 26 April 2010 &lt;http://dictionary.oed.com/&gt;.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]<br />
[[Category:Spatiality]]<br />
[[Category:Temporality]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Stock_Ticker_Machine&diff=12603
Stock Ticker Machine
2010-11-24T08:48:04Z
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The stock-ticker machine was a device very much like the present-day digital stock ticker. It was a ticker-tape machine that would continuously send updates on stock prices to traders not physically on the Stock Exchange floor. This version/use of the ticker-tape machine helped to close the gap between time and space in the business world, helping to improve the economy. The introduction of this device completely revolutionized the way the stock market would operate because information now became more easily and readily accessible. What would the stock market be like today if the stock ticker had not been implemented? Would it still have been multiple local markets or would we have consolidated it into a larger one eventually? How did this machine influence current inventions today?<br />
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==INVENTION AND INCEPTION==<br />
The Stock Exchange floor was a hectic place to be. Gold was traded against paper money, or &quot;greenbacks&quot; as they were called. &quot;Messengers would rush to and from the exchange to bring news of prices to customers, and the tidings would be sent by telegraph throughout the country.&quot; The original stock-ticker claims to be invented by different people, as inventions tend to be. One was Frank Pope, then the general manager of the Gold &amp; Stock Reporting Telegraph Co. Samuel Laws's ticker, put into use in 1866 in order to reduce floor traffic, was a battery powered clock-like device that printed out ticker tape with updated gold prices. He would have it placed in the exchange's window for all traders to see. Eventually, his ticker updated prices on commodities as well. The other was Edward A. Calahan, whose version fronted the Gold Stock Telegraph Co. Calahan's in 1867. The two rival companies sued each other over copyright infringements, but to no avail (Sobel). Thomas Edison made major adjustments to the ticker. One day on Wall Street in the New York Stock Exchange, one of the stock tickers broke down and know one knew how to fix it. Edison came in, fiddled with it for a few minutes, and had it working again. He then took the design and made some alterations, creating a new and improved version of the machine in the early 1870s (Reville). His version didn't require a local battery and was capable of being used over longer lines. He then sold his patent to obtain funds (Sobel).<br />
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[[Image:pqdweb.jpeg|thumb|right|Edison's Improved Stock Ticker Machine (Sobel). ]]<br />
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==THE STOCK TICKER MACHINE AND THE NYSE==<br />
===EFFECTS ON TRADING STOCKS===<br />
The stock ticker machine, beginning with Laws's gold-price indicator, had major effects on securities trades and the New York Stock Exchange. As explained above, before the new technology, messengers were sent back and forth to execute trades and having someone on the Exchange floor was a necessity to stay informed of prices. What the stock ticker machines were able to do was allow traders on Wall Street to stay up-to-date from their offices. &quot;Now they could remain in their offices, watching the ticker, and send messengers to the floor to relay orders to their trading partners.&quot; Even those not located near New York could still obtain price information and telegraph in trades (Sobel). The stock ticker machine, as well as other ticker-tape technologies, was yet another communication invention that helped close the gap between space and time, allowing more instantaneous business transactions from greater distances, especially with Edison's version which could carry over greater distances. Ticker machines also could provide a nearly continuous update on stock prices with nearly no time delay, with new prices updating about every twenty minutes (as it still tends to in today's Stock Exchange) (Garbade &amp; Silber). Because brokers outside of New York were able to trade on Wall Street with the advent of the new technology, localized markets became more and more obsolete. The country lost at least 40 different markets once all brokers had access to the New York Stock Exchange (Sobel).<br />
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[[Image:sch_632630720243_img0083.fpx.jpeg|thumb|right|Ticker Tape Parade (ArtStor). ]]<br />
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===TICKER MACHINE'S FLAWS===<br />
The stock ticker's different inceptions had their own flaws, however. Laws's original gold price-indicator was not able to travel very long distances and required a local battery to operate. Calahan and Edison improved on these issues, but still faced the same problem of two-way communication. The mass mediated message of stock prices were only one way and the machine was not capable of sending trades back to the Exchange floor. Therefore, brokers had to receive the new prices on the ticker and then either send a messenger back down to the floor with their trades or telegraph them in. The delay between the two actions sometimes caused brokers to miss out on the prices that they may have received on their ticker tape (Garbade &amp; Silber). There was still a need for a two-way printing telegraph type of communication technology.<br />
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[[Image:dtc.17.tif.gif|thumb|left|Edison's Sketches of a Printing Telegraph (Usselman). ]]<br />
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==THE STOCK TICKER TODAY ==<br />
===FACSIMILE===<br />
The two-way printing telegraphy soon turned into what we consider today the facsimile machine, or more commonly known as a &quot;fax machine&quot;. Edison's work with telegraphy, and the stock ticker machine, soon led to his work on a printing telegraph, where two-way instantaneous communication was now possible (Usselman). This was the ultimate precursor to today's fax machine. A technology such as this could make sending stock prices and stock trades back and forth much easier for someone without an office on Wall Street.<br />
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===DIGITAL STOCK TICKER===<br />
Today, the stock ticker machine has been replaced by a digital ticker with a lot less limitations than the ticker tape counterpart. Nearly every stock quote flies across the screen, updating about every twenty minutes with the latest price. Any online brokering site such as ETrade (www.etrade.com) have a live ticker that you can open up on your computer so you can stay continuously updated so as to make more accurate online stock trades. There are large public live quotes that can be seen from tickers in public places such as Times Square. The digital stock ticker is faster, reaches all around the world, and is at no extra expense, whereas with the ticker machine a broker needed to invest in buying one and having the lines set up.<br />
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==WORKS CITED==<br />
*Du Boff, Richard B. &quot;The Telegraph in Nineteenth-Century America: Technology and Monopoly.&quot; Comparative Studies in Society and History 26 (1984): 571-86.<br />
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*Edison, Thomas A. Improvement In Printing-Telegraph Apparatus. Samuel S. Laws, assignee. Patent 96,567. 1869.<br />
<br />
*Garbade, Kenneth D., and William L. Silber. &quot;Structural Organization of Secondary Markets: Clearing Frequency, Dealer Activity and Liquidity Risk.&quot; The Journal of Finance 34 (1979): 577-93.<br />
<br />
*Reville, Willaim. &quot;Edison Saw the Light with Just a Little Genius.&quot; Irish Times 15 July 2004: 13.<br />
<br />
*Robert Sobel (1997, December). Inventing the NYSE. Barron's, 77(50), 56. Retrieved November 5, 2008, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 23860092).<br />
<br />
*Ticker-tape parade down Broadway to City Hall to welcome Earhart. She rides in the car to the left. 20 June 1932. The Schlesinger History of Women in America Collection, Daily News, New York. ArtStor. Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. 3 Dec. 2008 &lt;http://library.artstor.org/library/welcome.html#3|search|1|ticker20tape|multiple20collection20<br />
<br />
*Usselman, Steven W. &quot;From Novelty to Utility: George Westinghouse and the Business of Innovation During the Age of Edison.&quot; The Business History Review 66 (1992): 251-304.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&diff=12602
Talk:Main Page
2010-11-24T08:47:54Z
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== Meeting September 21, 2006 ==<br />
<br />
Barbara, Siva, Alex, Stacy, Ben, Mandy, and Ted met on Thursday, September 21st at 12 pm. <br />
<br />
A number of issues were discussed including<br />
<br />
* the degree to which the wiki should be public or private<br />
<br />
* whether anyone can edit/add to the wiki, or if a subset of all users (example: NYU students) would be the primary editors<br />
<br />
* the various phases of development of the project<br />
<br />
* if the project is appropriate for use in History of Comm, and/or what needs to be modified to make it appropriate for classroom use <br />
<br />
* more points that people want to add such as:<br />
<br />
* the site / and research could very much be driven by the interface....... I therefore would suggest collaborating with Max and creating a choice of potential opening pages<br />
<br />
== split into two initiatives? ==<br />
<br />
my hunch is we really have two projects in mind here: (1) some sort of innovative learning tool for &quot;history of comm&quot; which may or may not be wiki-based, and (2) a wiki-based public archive of dead media. in my roll on the tech committee i think i can commit to working on #2, but i dont think it is appropriate for me to work on a web tool for a specific course. perhaps a viable solution would be for the two initiatives to move forward in parallel this spring, #1 relying on appropriate existing technologies such as Blackboard or Wikipedia, and #2 following the public wiki model? then in May 2007 we can reassess and perhaps modify or merge the two initiatives? --AG<br />
<br />
== using wikipedia instead ==<br />
<br />
wikipedia also has the concept of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject WikiProject] which is a sort of caucus within the encyclopedia devoted to a specific theme (example: the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history military history WikiProject]). there is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Media &quot;Media&quot; WikiProject] we could theoretically work within or start our own WikiProject on Dead media (although it might be conceptually difficult to explain or defend its existence). --AG<br />
<br />
<br />
I think that both initiatives could be combined – <br />
1) by giving specific assignments in regards to “Dead Media” <br />
2) then posting them on the WikiProject.<br />
At least it will get the initiative started ….from my experience all projects take a long time to develop – would should start with the student contributions ( around 50 per semester ??) – to create a buzz of sorts around the project<br />
<br />
The class papers can always be posted and archived on a separate site / if hosting the research on a public Wicki should be a problem. BRH<br />
<br />
== varieties of Wiki ==<br />
Take a look at these public Wiki offshoots, may be useful <br />
<br />
http://en.wikiversity.org<br />
and its multilingual counterpart,<br />
http://beta.wikiversity.org/wiki/Help:FAQ/En<br />
<br />
also<br />
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:FAQ<br />
<br />
and<br />
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects<br />
<br />
ME</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Homosexual_Closet&diff=12601
Homosexual Closet
2010-11-24T08:36:25Z
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[[Image: closet01.jpg|550px|thumb| Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) gazes into the childhood closet of his dead lover, Jack Twist, in ''Brokeback Mountain.]]<br />
[[Image: closet04.jpg|350px|thumb| Ennis &quot;discovers a pair of bloody shirts--one his, one Jack's--long thought lost, hidden behind a panel: the tell-tale hearts of Jack's closet.&quot;]]<br />
[[Image: closet06.jpg|350px|thumb| Ennis and Jack's shirts hang in Ennis closet during the final shot.]]<br />
[[Image: closet07.jpg|350px|thumb| Ennis closes his closet door; this is the final scene before the cut to credits.]]<br />
[[Image: closet08.jpg|350px|thumb| A scene from earlier in the film depicting the lynching of Jack Twist.]]<br />
<br />
Declared the &quot;defining structure for gay oppression in [the 20th] century,&quot; the image of the closet has come to be the structure most acutely identified with the grief, silence and loss of the modern homosexual subject (Sedgwick 71). The idea of being &quot;closeted&quot; or a &quot;closet-case&quot; emerged in mid-20th century America with the increased policing of sexuality related to Cold War conspiracy, the McCarthy trials, and the White Flight to the suburbs. The mechanics of the phrase are often used to describe any hidden secret (a &quot;closet misogynist&quot;) or a surprise unveiling or announcement (&quot;coming out as a liberal&quot;), although the overtones of &quot;the closet&quot; remain most strongly tied to the homosexual experience. <br />
<br />
The closet is generally understood as a figure of speech for the self-imposed (but often necessary) silence someone adopts regarding personal sexuality; individuals are &quot;in the closet&quot; when they either do not announce their homosexuality (allowing their silence to be ambiguous) or actively hide their sexuality (posing as heterosexual). Such distinctions are inevitably mutable--an individual may be &quot;out of the closet&quot; with friends yet &quot;in the closet&quot; with employers or parents; similarly, silence regarding one's sexual orientation or activity may not prevent anyone from presuming an individual is homosexual, especially if one's appearance is not gendernormative. <br />
<br />
Perhaps no image offers so poignant a representation of the closet than the scene of Ennis del Mar sitting in his dead lover's childhood bedroom in Ang Lee's 2005 ''Brokeback Mountain''. Framed from ''within'' Jack Twist's closet, the stark realism of this shot places the viewer in the position of the closeted observer. From within Jack's closet we bear witness to Ennis' own unbearable silence, as he dwells in the traumatic aphasia of loss. Ennis approaches the camera and the next cut turns us within the closet, residing there with Ennis as he discovers a pair of bloody shirts--one his, one Jack's--long thought lost, hidden behind a panel: the tell-tale hearts of Jack's closet. These lonely remnants are taken away by Ennis, only to re-emerge in the film's final moment, hanging in Ennis' own closet. The moment lingers before Ennis shuts his closet door, the final mis-en-scene juxtaposing the chamber of feeling that is closed within Ennis' closet against the green field out the open window--a field whose verdancy is matched only by the field in which we witnessed Jack's silent and brutal death only minutes before. Within the closet, Ennis and Jack's feelings were protected, although unspoken. Outside the closet, however, Jack's discovered homosexual activities result in his demise--the land outside the closet, outside the window, is not enough, even in its vastness, to preserve Jack from death.<br />
<br />
In what has be critically read as yet another crushing expression of queer tragedy (along the lines of ''Boys Don't Cry'', ''The Well of Loneliness'', ''Stone Butch Blues''), ''Brokeback Mountain'''s implementation of the closet makes manifest the realities of silence versus speech on which the closet door literally hinges. The relations of the closet are &quot;the relations of the known and the unknown, the explicit and the inexplicit&quot; as it relies, on the surface, in a distinction between the hetero- and homosexual that emerged at the end of the 19th-century as a condensation of all sexual practices in the form of one's gender-object choice<br />
(Sedgwick 3).<br />
<br />
==The Closet as a Mode of Mediation==<br />
[[Image: closet.jpg|400px|left|thumb|Floorplans diagram the relationship between a room and its closet.]]<br />
<br />
The metaphor of the closet involves the relationship between two spaces--one in, one out, one closed, one open, one announced and one shuttered. The complexity of the closet, however, lies in the fact that both of its spaces are simultaneously in and out, closed and open, announced and shuttered. It is fundamentally a psychic structure, a set of relations between interior/exterior, knowledge/ignorance, with the bar operating as sacred threshold through which one may hide in or come out. The closet, as a mental device for conceptualizing one's relationship to society, ''mediates'' a relationship between queer knowledge and social ignorance.<br />
<br />
Closets are repositories built off main rooms, and are thus obviously peripheral and marginal. Yet to be &quot;in the closet&quot; means participating or passing (at least on the surface) among the majority. Thus the emotional dyslexia of the closet: being &quot;in the closet&quot; suggests that the closeted individual participates in the larger &quot;room&quot; of heterosexual relations, although one's own occupation of that space is psychically smaller as every covert speech act forces the homosexual to brush up against the enclosing walls of institutionalized language. The notion of the closet is held fast upon the homosexual's ability to live a &quot;dual life&quot; insofar as she must be aware that she ''is indeed in the closet in order to be in the closet''. To be &quot;in the closet&quot; is to be at once gay and not-gay; it is a microcosm of an internal relationship between shame and pronouncement in which one recognizes oneself as deviant and understands the necessity to be read as normative. It requires self-knowledge and yet a denial of that self-knowledge as a truth that must be expressed; as such, the closet is a secret within a secret. <br />
<br />
===The Epistemology of the Closet as a Logic of Privacy vs. Risk===<br />
<br />
It is perhaps unexceptional, in some ways, that the notion of the homosexual closet arises during the same cultural moment as post-WWII McCarthyism. According to law professor William Eskridge: &quot;Prior to the 1940s, same-sex intimacy was literally unspeakable, as the homosexual and society conspired to keep the matter secret. By the 1940s, however, the edges separating the two halves of the double life were eroding, as greater numbers of homosexuals transgressed the lines separating public and private spheres and more heterosexuals became curious about the secret life, either to condemn it, to explore it, or both. The erosion required the homosexual to decide whether to openly admit homosexuality or to keep the private life closeted and separate from the public one for fear that exposure of the former could destroy the latter&quot; (2). According to Eve Sedgwick, the &quot;damaging contradictions of this compromised metaphor of in and out of the closet of privacy&quot; are simply siphoned from a larger topology of privacy and secrecy that emerges in the late 19th century (72). In such a political and epistemological climate, the closet comes to invert the traditional logics of secret intelligence that dominated the World Wars and post-War era. The enemy, in this sense, becomes the self as well as the other, as it is the homosexual's own desire that threatens to pry them from the closet. The homosexual attempts to render herself as a deceptive object, an object whose &quot;appearance is never more than intentionally misleading&quot; (Horn 67). There is indeed produced a &quot;dynamic of bottomless mistrust and violence-prone paranoia&quot; but this dynamic is entirely internalized in a violent self-navigation of spy-vs-spy. The homosexual in the closet embodies a Cold War-style logic of mistrust, which Eva Horn defines as &quot;the logic of one's own will to deceive&quot; (67).<br />
<br />
The metaphor of the closet creates a situation in which one is psychically and physically constrained by the risk of discovery. In this sense, the epistemological equivalent for the post-WWII closeted homosexual may be the double agent, except one lacking the teleology of knowledge gathering. If the purpose of the spy is to &quot;penetrate into the forbidden and protected space, cross borders, and investigate the enemy's territory [...] Physically setting foot on enemy soil to spy out hidden locations [...] His disguise is important: he mimics the enemy&quot;, then the homosexual executes a perverse reversal of this role (Horn 73). From within the closet, the homosexual mimics the straight world, but with the sole purpose of survival. The activities of the closeted homosexual are to keep the knowledge secret rather than process it into &quot;information.&quot; The homosexual mimics the straight world not to garner intelligence about the enemy but to disguise intelligence about herself; enmity is always simultaneously &quot;out there&quot; and &quot;in here.&quot; The closet and the room become jointly theatening spaces of potential discovery. The purpose of the closet is to contain risk, but likewise one must recognize the possibility of risk to be in the closet. In doing so, the closet becomes a secret space of internalized alienation (the much-touted notion of &quot;gay shame&quot;); the closet is a place of covert expression, producing an aesthetic of desire based in silences and ignorances both public and personal. The closet is never a black box, because the tension of the closet resides in the awareness that the world is just beyond; when in the closet the only light comes from the outside, ''underneath the door''.<br />
<br />
===Coming Out===<br />
<br />
There is a structural reversal inherent to the conceptual interface of closeting, for what the closet encloses it also offers the potential to reveal. &quot;Coming out of the closet&quot; involves making oneself known as homosexual, either to a homosexual or heterosexual audience. It may result in a range of responses, including devastating violence, celebratory self-identification, or institutional refusal to acknowledge the speech act, a refusal Eve Sedgwick summarizes an the oft-noted heterosexual response, &quot;That's fine, but why did you think I'd want to know about it?&quot;<br />
<br />
&quot;Coming out&quot; is an image curiously poised in exclusive relation to the closet--indeed, if the closet is based in &quot;fits and starts&quot; of silence, then there is no closet without the speech act of coming out (Sedgwick 71). As Sedgwick writes, &quot;the image of coming out regularly interfaces the image of the closet, and its seeming unambivalent public siting can be counterposed as a salvational epistemologic certainty against the very equivocal privacy afforded by the closet&quot; (71). If the closet is the homosexual's cruel destiny, then coming out produces a fantasy of acceptance in which the homosexual's ''secret knowledge becomes public information'', the disguise is given up, and she ceases to be a spy against herself. The celebration of announcement is precisely the throbbing heart of gay pride; gay pride operates ''in response to'' the closet and, indeed, requires the closet so as to have any emotional efficacy. <br />
<br />
If closeting allows the homosexual entrance to the master room as straight, coming out reverses the dynamic of the room: it dispenses with the closet, ''rendering the closet ultimately straight''. Eve Sedgwick draws from the story of Esther to propose the radical potential of &quot;coming out&quot; to create the opportunity to produce a different flow of power by producing straight ignorance in the face of queer knowledge. In this Old Testament story, Esther, a disguised Jew, must unveil herself to her anti-Semetic husband and King, Assuerus, in an attempt to prevent the slaughter of her people. In the face of her revelation, Assuerus can do nothing but articulate his unknowing, and is left speechless. Sedgwick writes: &quot;Only with the uttering of these blank syllables, making the weight of Assuerus's powerful ignorance suddenly audible—-not least to him—-in the same register as the weight of Esther's and Mardochee's private knowledge, can any open flow of power become possible. […] Just so with coming out: it can bring about the revelation of a powerful unknowing as unknowing, not as a vacuum or as the blank it can pretend to be but as a weighty and occupied and consequential epistemological space&quot; (77). This revelation, however, can be as easily fraught with danger as suffused with potential. Coming out renders the double agent no longer double, and in doing so makes the door between the closet and room burn away and the closet itself walled up. Once uncloseted with another individual, the closet can never be rebuilt--this secret knowledge never becomes outdated.<br />
<br />
==The Closet as a Dying Mode of Mediation: The Dances of Two Justins==<br />
[[Image: QAFjustin.jpg|400px|thumb| Brian and Justin at the prom in Season 1 ''Queer as Folk'']]<br />
[[Image: justinQAF01.jpg|550px|thumb|]]<br />
[[Image: justinQAF02.jpg|550px|thumb| Justin after his post-prom gay-bashing]]<br />
[[Image: justinUB01.jpg|400px|thumb| The Suarez family prepares a coming out party for their gay son Justin in ''Ugly Betty'']]<br />
[[Image: justinUB02.jpg|400px|thumb| Marc shuts down the party, declaring it offensive to gays]]<br />
[[Image: justinUB03.jpg|400px|thumb| Justin &quot;outs&quot; himself by dancing with his boyfriend at his mother's wedding]]<br />
<br />
While the closet may be the &quot;defining structure&quot; of the homosexual experience in the 20th-century, its influence as an architectural-mental imaginary is waning in a Western world increasingly posited as &quot;gay friendly&quot;. The closet is becoming a historical artifact, as its cultural weight is based on the institutional, legal and linguistic refusal to acknowledge homosexual subjectivity. As Heather Love notes: <br />
<br />
'''Advances' such as gay marriage and increasing media visibility of well-heeled gays and lesbians threaten to obscure the continuing denigration and dismissal of queer existence. One may enter the mainstream on the condition that one breaks ties with all those who cannot make it--the nonwhite and the nonmonogamous, the poor and the genderdeviant, the fat, the disabled, the unemployed, the infected, and a host of unmentionable others. Social negativity clings not only to these figures but also to those who lived before the common era of gay liberation--the abject multitude against whose experience we define our own liberation&quot;'' (10). <br />
<br />
Coming out involves leaving someone behind, even if that someone is a historical subject. If the closet is constructed to protect the homosexual from the risk of discovery, then the closet ceases to exist once assimilation, rather than discovery, becomes the guiding practice extended toward homosexuality. As the homosexual is increasingly invited into the practices of monogamy and matrimony (mediations themselves based in the nuclear-family-based accumulation and condensation of economic and physical property), the opportunity to recognize a radical potentiality to queerness wanes. Without the homosexual closet, gay pride simply becomes a celebration of a corporate-sponsored, watered-down liberal elasticity: ''being just like everyone else''. <br />
<br />
The texture of this transition can be clearly illustrated by through an isolated comparison of two mainstream television representations of queer youths. One the one hand there is Justin Taylor, the blonde, underage twink in Showtime's ''Queer as Folk'', which aired 2000-2005. In opposition to Taylor's charming promiscuity is Justin Suarez, a Latino with an affected flair for fashion who discovers his desire for boys during the final episodes of ABC's 2010 run of ''Ugly Betty''. While both these boys struggle with the pressures and impossibilities of gay identity, Taylor's &quot;coming out story&quot; harkens back to an almost Stonewall-sensibility of rage in the face of violence, whereas Suarez's narrative is ultimately one of gay assimilation.<br />
<br />
When 17-year-old Justin Taylor announces his homosexuality to his parents, he is thrown out of his home, denied his college fund, and moves in with his 30-year-old, non-monogamous man-whore boyfriend, Brian. This is a tale of &quot;coming out told straight&quot;--rejection by family, denial of intended financial investments, and the crafting of alternative familial ties. In the final episode of Season 1, Brian arrives unexpectedly at Justin's high school prom; their ensuing dance recalls pederastic anxieties on the part of adult homosexual men toward adolescent boys. After prom, another senior bashes Justin's head with a baseball bat. This bashing serves as the violent reminder of the price of gay pride: ''a price always paid in blood''.<br />
<br />
Justin Suarez, in contrast, is never under any such threat of violence. While he does try to hide his homosexuality, and is scared about how his mother might react, the timbre of his time in the closet is relatively mundane. The presumption was always that Justin ''was already gay''--for Justin to come out is no secret at all (almost identical circumstances exist for ''United States of Tara'''s gay teen Marshall). Thus, when his family discovers that he is romantically involved with another boy, they plan a surprise coming out party for him, replete with rainbow flags, balloons, cookies, and other decor. These plans are cut short by Marc, the adult gay man Justin confides in. Marc responds to the party as an appalling disaster; his queer aesthetic is fundamentally offended by the garish rainbow decorations. He rips down a gay pride flag and demands the family remove everything so Justin may reveal himself to them in his own time. This scene operates as a refusal of a traditional representation of gay pride, for the rainbow flag is to gay pride what the closet is to gay shame. By ripping down the gay pride flag, Marc makes a curious political statement: he is rejecting the very politics of speech that have allowed him to carve a space for himself as a successful gay man to begin with. His act speaks for itself: ''&quot;We're beyond this.&quot;'' When Justin does &quot;come out&quot;, he does so not through speech, but through action--he asks his boyfriend to dance with him at his mother's wedding. Unlike Brian and Justin's dance, this is not an act of defiance done ''in spite of heterosexual norms'' but an act of integration done ''because of heterosexual norms''. Announcing his sexual orientation at a wedding foreshadows his very future as a homosexual man: one based in participation, not opposition, to the foreclosing standards of straight customs.<br />
<br />
These dual narratives, divided by a decade and dissenting in emotional tenor, summon a specter of queer history that rests upon a narrow axis. In the spectrum of queer representation, the urge to depict queer suffering is held in orbit only by the equally suggestive yet contrary desire to &quot;affirm queer existence&quot; (Love 3). Homosexual identity, Heather Love argues, &quot;continues to be understood as a form of damaged or compromised subjectivity; on the other hand, the characteristic forms of gay freedom are produced in response to this history. Pride and visibility offer antidotes to shame and the legacy of the closet; they are made in the image of specific forms of denigration. Queerness is structured by this central turn; it is both abject and exalted, a 'mixture of delicious and freak'&quot; (2-3). As homosexuals gain increasing civic and legal protections, the inevitability of a doomed existence loosens its hold on the gay psyche. Yet marching toward a progressive future for homosexuals requires a certain refusal of what is coherently queer about the closet: the deviance that requires the closet to begin with. As Heather Love writes: <br />
<br />
&quot;[...]'' moving into that future is conditional: one must leave the past behind. [...] Given the new opportunities available to some gays and lesbians, the temptation to forget--to forget the outrages and humiliations of gay and lesbian history and to ignore the ongoing suffering of those not borne up by the rising tide of gay normalization--is stronger than ever''&quot; (9-10).<br />
<br />
If &quot;the rising tide of gay normalization&quot; ensures that the homosexual secret no longer need remain secret, it does so only because the knowledge of the homosexual is no longer the sexual knowledge theorized by Foucault as ''the'' knowledge of society. This is the distinction between the erotic spectacle of Justin Taylor and the adolescent adorableness of Justin Suarez--a distinction between queer self-knowledge and homosexual self-ignorance. The de-sexualization of homosexuality brought on through social normalization in many ways neuters any capacity for homosexuality to function as effectively disruptive as it did from within the closet, for once the closet is nailed shut there is no periphery from which to displace the center. Justin Suarez moves forward by not looking backward, not being called to remember a history of his own oppression; Marc ensures the Justin need not be embraced by the very flag sewn at the behest of Harvey Milk in 1978. The evaporation of the closet presents a sweat test for contemporary queer radical politics, as its loss signals a very different kind of ''straight''jacket proffered to the queer--that of heternormativity.<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<br />
Eskridge, William N. &quot;Privacy Jurisprudence and the Apartheid of the Closet, 1946-1961.&quot; ''Florida State University Law Review.'' Summer, 1997.<br />
<br />
Horn, Eva. &quot;Knowing the Enemy: The Epistemology of Secret Intelligence.&quot; ''Grey Room.'' (11) Spring 2003. pp. 58-85.<br />
<br />
Love, Heather. ''Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History.'' Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2007.<br />
<br />
Sedgwick, Eve. ''Epistemology of the Closet.'' Berkeley: U of California Press, 1990.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]] [[Category:Sexuality]] [[Category:Homosexuality]] [[Category:Closet]] [[Category:Secrecy]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Steenbeck&diff=12600
Steenbeck
2010-11-24T08:36:19Z
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[[Image:Steenbeck.png|thumb|Steenbeck Editing machine as advertised by the Steenbeck Company]]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=History=<br />
<br />
The '''Steenbeck''' refers to the flatbed, multi-dialed, film-editing table invented and manufactured by Wilhelm Steenbeck in Hamburg, Germany. The Steenbeck machine was patented on March 7, 1934, and it soon became the dominant piece of equipment used to edit film throughout Germany. Likewise, by the 1950s and 60s, “it began to be successfully imported into Britain and America” (Fairservice 333-34), becoming the most advanced and internationally established machine of its kind. <br />
<br />
Prior to its near-ubiquitous presence, up-right editing machines like the Moviola were predominately used. However, as noted in a New York Times article from 1970, this changed significantly as Steenbeck editing tables [made] “the standard Moviola film-editing machines seem as outdated as a pinhole camera” (Gussow 1). The Steenbeck surpassed its vertical predecessor in speed, sound quality, and it operated more quietly, with larger viewing monitors (''Encyclopedia Britannica''). And while the American-manufactured KEM editing table posed some competition within the flatbed market, the high engineering standards of the Steenbeck allowed it to excel as the principle-editing tool employed for nearly forty years. <br />
<br />
[[Image:Moviola Machine.png|thumb|left|Moviola]]<br />
<br />
According to an edition of Variety Magazine, Francis Ford Coppola was one of the first people in America to realize the superior ability of flatbed editing equipment, and as “His longtime collaborator Walter Murch recall[ed]: ‘The Rain People' was edited on a Steenbeck,” and “the ground we broke creatively and technically with 'The Rain People' was continued with 'THX' (1970) and 'American Graffiti' (1973)” (Wolf 2001).<br />
<br />
=How It Works=<br />
<br />
The Steenbeck is a flat, table-based machine on which film and soundtracks lie on their sides on flat rotating plates (Fairservice 333). There is a take-up plate for each supply plate, and each pair is responsible for transporting one image or soundtrack. Via a series of mirrors, the film is then clearly projected onto a screen after passing in front of a multi-sided, “rotating prism illuminated from behind” (Fairservice 333). The picture could be paused, or played forward and backward at any speed to allow for very close and precise examination of each frame. <br />
<br />
The Steenbeck was built to handle both 16mm and 35mm film of which hundreds of thousands of feet were used for each production. The editor would make his/her desired cuts in grease pencil, and splice with cement or tape. But it was generally the assistants to the editor who were responsible for “manually enter[ing] scene numbers, take numbers, and roll numbers into notebooks” (''Encyclopedia Britannica'').<br />
<br />
=Analog vs. Digial=<br />
<br />
==Pro-Analog: The Steenbeck Still Breathes==<br />
<br />
The Steenbeck is an analog film-editing machine, meaning it works with continuously variable elements (light and sound waves), inscribed in a durable object (film), and despite advancements that have been made with film-editing technology, there are certain filmmakers that continue to stand by this process. As we see in the case of an editor by the name of Tom Rolf, “‘The physical handling of film is a tactile pleasure lacking in the digital process…who at first missed ‘having the film in [his] hands, around [his] neck, in [his] mouth’” (Weiner 26). Similarly, due to the direct contact with actual film when editing with an analog machine like the Steenbeck, many believe that one is able to grasp the concept of editing film more astutely and can therefore produce better results. “The editor literally cuts up a print of the film, then tapes selected pieces back together in a new order. The entire process is very physical and easy to grasp” (Argy 92). <br />
<br />
Other positive claims of analog-based editing on the Steenbeck over digital-editing on a computer involves a more precise product, because as editor Doreen Matthews says: “It is a more direct route&quot;(Argy 92), an opinion that centers around the fact that <br />
&quot;Human beings are incapable of observing digital information in the same way that they observe continuous analog information&quot; (Goodell 183). Therefore, &quot;an image or sound that has been translated into digital information must be translated back into analog for us to hear or see it&quot; (Goodell 183). Moreover, with the Steenbeck, one has the ability to have a print to look at as it’s projected on a large screen, whereas on a computer screen, according to film editor Lewis Schoenbrun, “‘Something can be slightly soft (out of focus), and you won’t know’” (Argy 92). Also, working with film allows one to see much closer to the real colors; but “When working on a computer, ‘You can’t make a lot of calls on color. It’s a whole different medium, so the colors don’t correlate’” (Matthews as qtd by Argy 92). <br />
<br />
However, as we will see from proponents of digital editing systems below, there is some discrepancy as to which method actually produces more exact results.<br />
<br />
==Pro-Digital: The Steenbeck is Officially Obsolete==<br />
<br />
When the technology of digital editing systems entered the scene in the early 1990s, it brought the near, if not complete end to the Steenbeck’s forty-year rein over the world of film editing. To edit film digitally meant a move away from the physicality of analog editing, towards a more abstract and computer-driven system. “The big advantage of this [shift] is that once footage has been digitized [(made into discrete entities or ‘states’ in the form of binary numbers -zeros and ones-)] and loaded into a non-linear editing system, any number of edit decisions and effects can be tried out, modified and changed without the commitment of having to either record them on videotape or physically cut the original celluloid” (Creative Review Magazine 57), both of which can result in lost or distorted information. Because each increment of digital media is comprised of a specific address made up of zeros and ones, the clip of information at hand can be located and duplicated with extreme exactness without causing any such damage. Furthermore, with digital computer systems comes an increase in the amount of optical effects one can employ in their editing, as well as gaining the ability to “see how a particular cut or effect works immediately instead of waiting days for their work to return from the opticals house” (Creative Review Magazine 57).<br />
<br />
=''Steenbeckett''= <br />
<br />
In 2001, a film-maker by the name of Atom Egoyan created a very interesting art installation in London at the former Museum of Mankind. Highlighting the disparity between the analog and digital world, Egoyan’s ''Steenbeckett'' was a film of Samuel Beckett’s play: ''Krapp’s Last Tape'', “in which the 69-year-old Krapp listens to a 30-year-old recording of his younger self recounting a love affair he has long forgotten.” (Thorson 8). As Thorton described in his article, “Egoyan Mounts an Ode to Analogue”, the art installation started: <br />
In one small room [where] the viewer [was] overwhelmed with a huge projection of the film <br />
from a digital source. In the next room, analogue [took] over and the film [was] shown on a <br />
computer-sized Steenbeck screen. But that screen [was] positioned beyond our reach. Between <br />
the Steenbeck and the viewer Egoyan [had] spun out all 2,000 feet of the film. It [hung] like <br />
a spider web from roof to ceiling, but the web was] actually the film we [were] watching, <br />
spinning through spools around the room until it [was] projected on the Steenbeck (8). <br />
Therefore, in ''Steenbeckett'', we see that Egoyan attempted to tackle and really demonstrate the uniquely human experience and tangibility attached to analog editing. Whereas digital technology is abstract and detached from a person’s physical interaction with the medium, “the idea of time and the recording of time taking up a certain amount of physical space” (Egoyan as qtd by Romney 7) is specifically characteristic of analog media, as demonstrated with the display of all 2,000 feet of film in ''Steenbeckett''. But in the same regard, we are told that the 2,000 feet of film resembled a spider web, indicating analog's tendency toward degradation and decay, an issue that appears absent in the room with the digital source display.<br />
<br />
=Works Cited=<br />
<br />
Argy, Stephanie. “Cutting on Film Remains Strong.” ''Daily Variety''. 92. July 16, 1998.<br />
<br />
Perry, George. “Focusing on Film in a Small-Screen Frame.” ''The Sunday Times''. June 3, 1990.<br />
<br />
&quot;Electric Motor&quot; Wilhelm Steenbeck; U.S. Patent 2,092,339; Patented Sept. 7, 1937; Application March 2, 1935; Google Patent Search.<br />
<br />
Fairservice, Don. ''Film Editing: History, Theory and Practice''. 333-334. Manchester <br />
University Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
“Finding the Edge.” ''Creative Review Magazine''. 57-58. August 25, 1995. Centaur Communications Ltd. <br />
Load-Date: November 21, 1995. [author unlisted]. <br />
<br />
Goodell, Gregory. ''Independent Feature Film Production: A Complete Guide From Concept Through Distribution''. 182-183. St. Martin's Press, 1998. <br />
<br />
Grimm, Charles. &quot;Carl Louis Gregory: Life through a Lens Film History.&quot; ''Film History.'' Vol. 13, No. 2, 183. 2001. &lt;JStor&gt;<br />
<br />
Gussow, Mel. &quot;Movies Leaving ‘Hollywood Behind: Studio System Passe – Film Forges Ahead.&quot; ''The New York Times.'' May 27, 1970.<br />
<br />
&quot;motion-picture technology.&quot; Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 29 Oct. <br />
2007 &lt;http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-52203&gt;<br />
<br />
Thorson, Bruce. “Egoyan Mounts an Ode to Analog.“ ''The Globe and Mail''. February 16, 2002. Weekend Review; pg 8. Newspaper. Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc., 2002.<br />
<br />
Weiner, Rex. “The Cutting Edge Finds Converts.” ''Variety''. 26. June 27, 1994 - July 3, 1994. Reed Elsevier Inc., 1994. <br />
<br />
Wolff, Ellen. &quot;Back to the Future.&quot; ''Variety Magazine.'' 42. August 6, 2001 - August 12. 2001<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Mood_Ring&diff=12599
Mood Ring
2010-11-24T08:36:08Z
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== Brief History ==<br />
The mood ring was created in the 1970s by Josh Reynolds and Maris Ambats and was used to communicate the current emotional state of the wearer based on the temperature of their skin. The mood ring is now worn as something of a toy, but in the seventies was taken as a serious piece of jewelry. In 1975, when the rings were becoming popular, a silver mood ring was approximately sold for $45 and a gold mood ring for up to $250. (Knoblauch) <br />
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== How They Work ==<br />
Mood rings depend on liquid crystals, a &quot; state of matter that is intermediate between the solid crystalline and the ordinary liquid phases&quot; (Ericksen 1). Thermotropic--meaning changed by temperature, basically--liquid crystals are the primary technology involved in 'thermochromic' and 'thermochromatic' media, and the basis for &quot;mood jewelry&quot; (Ericksen 131).<br />
<br />
The basic premise of thermotropic liquid crystals is that the crystals change shape and color according to a change in temperature. &quot;Because of their unique color properties, cholesteric liquid crystals can be employed to indicate temperature field patterns and for color picture screens&quot; (Ericksen 85). An object comes into contact with the liquid crystal, and the crystals make the temperature diagram of the object visible (Ericksen 88). <br />
<br />
The technology has practical functions in medicine. It can be used to measure temperature fluctuations on specific body parts in order to locate blood clots, find cancer cells, localize placenta, and test pharmalogical drugs (Ericksen 84). This fits in to how the mood ring can vaguely determine mood: &quot;The basic idea is that areas of the body in which circulation is poor will have lower temperatures than areas with good circulation&quot; (Ericksen 84). When a person is excited or stimulated in some way, a common reaction is blushing, which is when capillaries move closer to the surface of the skin and heat it up. In this way, the mood ring is accurate in that it senses a rise in heat which is related to happiness and arousal.<br />
<br />
The process has limitations, however. It is delicate; like most temperature-measuring devices, liquid crystals are most accurate when the context of the measurement is not changing. &quot;[L]iquid crystals can be used to measure the absolute temperature of a process provided proper calibration can be performed. [...] Perhaps the most obvious is to keep the system temperature constant&quot; (Ericksen 90). One of the problems with mood ring technology is that the color displayed on the ring is more affected by external temperature than body temperature. Furthermore, &quot;to make the color change clearly visible, the surface to which the liquid crystal film is applied must be black or first dyed black&quot; (Ericksen 89). This is why mood rings are black when not in use.<br />
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== Patents ==<br />
Although the actual mood ring was not patented, many related objects were. Some were precursors to the mood ring and others were successors. <br />
<br />
===Heat Sensitive Novelty Device===<br />
<br />
[[Image:HeatSensitiveNoveltyPic.jpg|thumb|left|A ring and bracelet as shown in the &quot;Heat Sensitive&quot; patent.]]<br />
<br />
The Heat Sensitive Novelty Device was patented by Bill James in 1974. The abstract of the patent states that it is “a novelty device which utilizes the iridescing qualities of liquid crystalline material to effect variations in colorations of the device upon application of different temperatures.” The multiple devices used are demonstrated as rings, bracelets, tie pins, earrings and necklaces. The devices as ways of showing the wearer’s mood were not touched upon. They were merely to be used as amusing accessories that changed colors when body temperature fluctuated. (James) <br />
<br />
===Skin Jewelry===<br />
<br />
[[Image:SkinJewelryPic.jpg|thumb|right|Side view of Skin Jewelry device.]]<br />
<br />
<br />
Rita Frenger invented a type of jewelry that could be attached to the skin by an adhesive underside. She claims that this color changing piece was more advanced than the mood ring in that it could be attached to the skin anywhere and in its lower price. The device would contain a precious or artificial stone, a back plate, a layer of adhesive, “a sheet of flexible and resilient material,” and a second layer of adhesive for the skin all within a retaining object. All of the components of the jewel would be capable of transferring heat to the stone which is made of “heat sensitive, color-changing material.” <br />
Depending on the temperature of the wearer ranging from 80oF to 90oF, the jewel would change colors. Frenger is careful not to legitimately call her invention out on its ability to display its wearer’s mood. “It is alleged that the colors reflect the mood of the person wearing the jewelry,” she states in the patent’s descriptions. She does however, provide a list of what the changing colors are supposed to mean:<br />
<br />
&lt;br&gt;<br />
Black: Frigid &lt;br&gt;<br />
Grey: Irritable &lt;br&gt;<br />
Yellow: Melancholy &lt;br&gt;<br />
Green: Cuddly &lt;br&gt;<br />
Blue Green: Amorous &lt;br&gt;<br />
Blue: Sensuous &lt;br&gt;<br />
Dark Blue: Passionate &lt;br&gt;<br />
When the temperature of the wearer is 80o the stone will be black and as temperature slowly increases, it will makes its way toward dark blue. (Frenger)<br />
<br />
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===Mood Collar for Pets===<br />
<br />
[[Image:MoodCollarPic.jpg|thumb|left|Illustration of collar from patent.]]<br />
In 2004, a collar for determining a pet’s mood was patented by Michele Levan. The collar contains one or more mood stones composed of liquid crystals and as with the heat sensitive novelty devices and skin jewelry, uses body temperature to express the animal’s mood. <br />
Levan articulates the need for her pet mood collar because of the increase in Animal Separation Disorder and emotional problems with pets today. The animal’s owner would therefore be able to determine when their pet was in a tense state, for whatever reason. “The ‘mood stones’ are exposed to the body of the pet on the interior side of the collar and attached to the collar by metal component of other suitable means. The collar is made of any suitable material currently being marketed and secured by a buckle type fastener.” The collar was made in various sizes to be suitable for both cats and dogs. (Levan)<br />
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==Symbol of Control for a Shifting Culture==<br />
<br />
The mood ring allows its wearers to see their own emotional state, and thus allows them an attempt to control or moderate themselves. This possible interaction establishes the mood ring as a technology of increased self-awareness. This promise of the mood ring reveals the needs of the culture that it is consumed by. Thus it can be deduced that the culture itself is in a state of chaos and uncertainty. This chaos and need for introspection can best be understood in the context of history. <br />
Although invented in the 1960’s, the mood ring did not reach its peak of popularity until the mid 1970’s, a time during which America was experiencing a cultural shift. This cultural shift was the end of hippie culture, and the beginning of environmentalism and the economic recession due to the oil crisis. <br />
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==A Medium of Therapy==<br />
<br />
The ideal use of the mood ring displayed and expanded aspects of group therapy and self-help.<br />
The mood ring allows for its wearers to communicate their emotional state to other individuals they come into contact with; giving strangers insight into their mental state. This aspect of the mood ring reflects the growth in popularity of group psychotherapy during the 1960’s and 1970’s. It also reflects the beginning of a more casual and everyday relationship with therapy. <br />
The 1960’s witnessed a rapid expansion of a variety of alternative healthcare social movements, the most well known of which was self-help: member-designed psychotherapeutic support groups. The real-time emotional monitoring abilities promised by the mood ring reflect this cultural interest of the era. (Archibald)<br />
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==Stress Indicators==<br />
<br />
Mood rings were accompanied by keys that indicated what colors corresponded to what emotional states. There are some slight variations on these keys depending on the manufacturer of the ring, yet they generally coincide. <br />
Below are some examples. &lt;br&gt;<br />
<br />
[[Image:Ad1.jpg|thumb|left]] [[Image:Ad2.jpg|thumb|right]]<br />
<br />
&lt;br&gt;<br />
The range of emotional states, which the keys indicate, reflects an emphasis on relaxation and stress. Terms such as “tense”, “overworked”, “strained”, “anxious” and “in a stress situation” appear for the black and brown colors, while “relaxed”, “easy spirit”, “non-stressful”, “tranquility”, “free”, “in-touch” and “aware” appear for the blue and green colors. According to a search on medical subject headings, stress (psychological) was introduced in 1973. This means that stress became a subject of discussion and interest at the same time as the peak in popularity of the mood ring. <br />
A precursor to the mood ring as an emotional stress indicator was the Psycho Galvanometer, which was patented in 1941. “The method consists in initiating a controlled flow of direct current through the body under test and maintaining the current constant while measuring variations in potential due to changes in body resistance resulting from emotional or physical stresses.” (psycho galvanometer patent)<br />
The StressEraser is a modern day device with comparable stress monitoring abilities. “A handheld, portable biofeedback device for reducing stress in a human subject.” (StressEraser patent) This device works by monitoring your breathing through RSA waves. <br />
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[[Image:Ad4.jpg|thumb|center]] <br />
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==Mood Rings in Literature==<br />
<br />
===Judy Moody Predicts the Future===<br />
<br />
A 2003 book for children ages 6-10 by Megan McDonald presents a young girl who finds a mood ring as the prize in a cereal box. A series of events in which the ring’s color accurately expresses the feelings of the wearer, leads Judy to believe that she has the ability to foretell future happenings. When she asks her teacher, for example, to put on the ring, it turns red for “romantic.” This propels Judy into a search for the woman Mr. Todd is in love with. <br />
The mood ring in the end however, proves to be obsolete as Judy comes to the conclusion that it was not necessary to predict the future. Her teacher’s outward mood and liveliness were entirely indicative of his current state. She then stopped using the mood ring and decided to “take the future into her own hands.” (McDonald)<br />
<br />
===Rick Kogan’s Article: In Search of Historic Mood Rings===<br />
<br />
In a short column in the Chicago Tribune in 1991, Rick Kogan wrote about the mood ring and the 70s. He creates a story of a journey around a small town looking for a mood ring with a young girl named Robin who wishes to purchase a mood ring solely because all of her friends have them. The child has no idea how the rings work or what the changing colors mean until she buys both a ring and an amulet to obtain a guide.<br />
As the narrator, Robin and an unidentified third party sit down to talk after the day of shopping, the 1970s fashion piece is explained and related to Muhammad Ali wearing one around the boxing ring. It shows, along with Judy Moody’s mother mentioning her having a mood ring when she was younger, that the mood ring is an emblem of the 70s. Much like Muhammad Ali in the article, a reminiscent talk about the seventies from anyone who lived during the time, will automatically include a reference to the mood ring. It provides an aspect of nostalgia. Perhaps this is why they are re-created today as toys, so adults can purchase them for their children and explain all about how they grew up as Kogan does. (Kogan)<br />
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==Re-Mediation==<br />
<br />
===Medical Mood Ring===<br />
[[Image:MedicalMoodRingPic.jpg|thumb|left|Medical Mood Ring]]<br />
In April 2004, an article in Technology Review gave a preview to a “medical” mood ring to come out possibly around 2009. The ring monitors the temperature, heart rate and blood oxygen levels of patients with the aid of “two light emitting diodes.” Beams of infrared light are given off by the diodes and transmitted to the other side of the ring through the user’s finger. On the opposite side of the ring, a detector measures the “intensity” of this light by the volume of the blood and oxygen levels. The ring is intended to be used in emergency rooms and at home. (Medical Mood Ring)<br />
<br />
===Mood Lamp and Phone===<br />
<br />
In Psychology Today, Dawn Stanton mocks the accuracy of mood rings and some of its successors, like the Japanese made “Shoji Mood Lamp” and “Mobile Mood Phone.” <br />
The mood lamp measures the room’s mood by “analyzing environmental data.” Temperature, humidity, and the movement of the body heat and people in the room are evaluated through a microphone and several sensors. The lamp then changes colors according to the information. An LED light on the back of the mobile mood phone adjusts colors based on the speaker’s tone of voice. <br />
“In my dreams,” Stanton says, “A monitor that suggests how to improve a room’s mood… a phone that tells me the caller’s mood before I answer.” (Stanton)<br />
<br />
===Sun Jewelry===<br />
<br />
Spafinder.com now sells “Melanoma Bracelets.” When exposed to harmful UV rays, the bracelets color turns from white to purple. The bracelet’s goal is “to raise awareness about early melanoma detection &amp; prevention.” (Melanoma)<br />
<br />
===Toilet Seat===<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:thermotoilet.jpg|thumb|left]]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Thermochromatic technology can be used for toilet seats. Plusminus, the originator of the design, explains, “Being able to identify a public toilet seat that has just been sat upon (and is thus still warm) is of particular concern to a significant number of the population. Without warning, one can easily sit upon a seat and be instantly repulsed by the trace evidence of a previous user. Conversely, if one is looking for intimate contact with an anonymous stranger without the associated awkwardness of verbal discourse, one could seek out the warm toilet seat. The decision to sit or not to sit is facilitated by the colour change of the seat: orange=cool, yellow=hot. The object retains the heat memory of a previous user and displays it as a visual marker for the next user to assess” (Ryan).<br />
<br />
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===Fantasy Uses===<br />
<br />
This spoof of mood rings takes aim at emotion-altering pharmaceuticals. It reverses the thermochromatic framework of the original Mood Ring; in this instance, the chosen hue dictates the user's mood, rather than the mood dictating the color. The concept of this 'ad' plays off of color psychology theory (seeing red increases appetite, etc.). <br />
<br />
[[Image:future.jpg|thumb|right]]<br />
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==References==<br />
<br />
Archibald, Mathew. The Evolution of Self-Help. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.<br />
<br />
Ericksen, J.L. and D. Kinderlehrer, eds. Theory and Applications of Liquid Crystals. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1987.<br />
<br />
Fergason, James. &quot;The Chameleon Chemical&quot; Life Magazine, 1968.<br />
<br />
Frenger, Rita K. Skin Jewelry. http://www.google.com/patents?id=_fwxAAAAEBAJ&amp;dq=skin+jewelry<br />
<br />
James, Bill G. Heat Sensitive Novelty Device. http://www.google.com/patents?id=wIx9AAAAEBAJ&amp;dq=heat+sensitive+novelty+device<br />
<br />
Knoblauch, Mary. October 8, 1975. “Mood Ring monitors your state of mind” Chicago Tribune<br />
<br />
Kogan, Rick. January 13, 1991. “In search of historic mood rings” Chicago Tribune<br />
<br />
Levan, Michele. Mood Collar for Pets. http://www.google.com/patents?id=BCkQAAAAEBAJ<br />
<br />
McDonald, Megan. 2003. Judy Moody Predicts the Future. Cambridge: Candlewick.<br />
<br />
“Medical Mood Ring” Technology Review; Apr2004, Vol. 107 Issue 3, p18-18, 1p, 1c<br />
<br />
“Melanoma Bracelet” http://www.spafinder.com/Catalog/product_page.jsp?pId=275<br />
<br />
Moorhead, Laura. &quot;Found: Artifacts from the Future.&quot; Wired Jan 2006: 160.<br />
<br />
Raesler, John L. Psychogalvanometer. http://www.google.com/patents?id=9EJcAAAAEBAJ&amp;dq=psycho+galvanometer<br />
<br />
“Ring-a-mod” Newsweek, Oct. 27, 1975, US Edition, Business pg 82<br />
<br />
Ryan, John. &quot;Thermochromic Toilet Seat.&quot; The Canadian Design Resource. http://www.canadiandesignresource.ca/officialgallery/?p=2195<br />
<br />
Stanton, Dawn. Psychology Today; Mar/Apr2007, Vol. 40 Issue 2, p19-19, 2/3p<br />
<br />
Wood et al. Methods and Devices for Relieving Stress. http://www.google.com/patents?id=4EObAAAAEBAJ<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Animal_Magnetism&diff=12598
Animal Magnetism
2010-11-24T08:34:23Z
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[[Image: mesmer.jpg|200px|thumb| A sketch of Franz Anton Mesmer.]] Animal magnetism was a system of healing theorized by the Austrian physician and astrologist Franz Mesmer in the late 18th century. While discredited as a medical technique even within Mesmer's lifetime, Mesmer's students used the practice to explore the psychosymptomatic relationship between mind and body, eventually giving rise to practices of somnambulitic sleep, hypnosis, and psychotherapy. <br />
<br />
== Animal Magnetism: A System of Healing ==<br />
<br />
Mesmer began generalizing a salutatory relationship between celestial bodies and human wellness in his 1766 ''Dissertation upon the Influence of the Stars on the Human Body''. In this text, Mesmer used Newtonian physics to argue that the gravity of the planets influenced the human body and illness (Tinterow 31). Mesmer took up work as a physician, only to be dismayed by standard--and often painful--medical practices such as bleeding and blistering (Pintar and Lynn 13). Seeking gentler forms of treatment, Mesmer began experimenting with magnets, hoping to bring about an “artificial tide” in his patients. <br />
<br />
===''Dissertation on the Discovery of Animal Magnetism''===<br />
Mesmer elaborated upon these ideas in his 1779 dissertation, ''Mémoire sur la Découverte du Magnétisme Animal'' or ''Dissertation on the Discovery of Animal Magnetism'', in which he asserts a fully formed concept of animal magnetism: <br />
<br />
''I maintained that just as the alternate effects, in respect of gravity, produce in the sea the appreciable phenomenon which we term ebb and flow, so the INTENSIFICATION AND REMISSION of the said properties, being subject to the action of the same principle, cause in animate bodies alternate effects similar to those sustained by the sea. By these considerations I established that the animal body, being subjected to the same action, likewise underwent a kind of ebb and flow. I supported this theory with different examples of periodic revolutions. I named the property of the animal body that renders it liable to the action of heavenly bodies and of the earth ANIMAL MAGNETISM. I explained by this magnetism the periodical changes which we observe in sex, and in a general way those which physicians of all ages and in all countries have observed during illnesses'' (Mesmer 35)<br />
<br />
According to Mesmer, the healing system of animal magnetism is founded on one essential truth: &quot;that nature affords a universal means of healing and preserving men&quot; (Mesmer 33). Mesmer details the mutual influence between the Heavenly Bodies, the Earth and Animate Bodies, suggesting a field of &quot;universally distributed and continuous fluid&quot; motivating organic life itself. This universal fluid was a fundamental apparatus of animal magnetism, and Mesmer theorized it as &quot;quite without vacuum and of an incomparably rarefied nature, and which by its nature is capable of receiving, propagating and communicating all the impressions of movement&quot; (Mesmer 54). Ebb and flow massaged this movement between the magnetic poles of human, organic and celestial bodies. Bodies possess both negative and positive poles, which may be &quot;communicated, propagated, stored, concentrated and transported, reflected by mirrors and propagated by sound&quot; (Mesmer 55). Given these properties, it seems the “fluid” of animal magnetism not only operated like a liquid, but also maintained some elements of light, air and electricity, all of which were being more formally theorized in the late 18th century.<br />
<br />
=== Animal Magnetism as Mediation ===<br />
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As a force theorized as both naturally abundant and uninhibitedly available, Mesmer's &quot;all-penetrating fluid&quot; was a means of transfer in the macro-mediation of universal harmony dubbed &quot;animal magnetism&quot;. Mesmer himself played no small role in this process of mediation; he functioned as its human operator, bestowed with the unique (but not sole) capacity to direct universal fluid into others through his own immensely potent animal magnetism. Illness, as understood by Mesmer, was a disruption of an individual's inner harmony and fluid flow, and he believed that he could, mentally and physiologically, self-produce enough magnetic force to artificially imitate celestial forces and reset the magnetic direction of a patient.<br />
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In many ways, Mesmer's process of healing patients through the application of animal magnetism was a mediation based in the equilateral harmonization of all organic nodes in the network of existence. Mesmer's theorization of the fluid as universal and equally present in all places at all times suggests a cosmic refutation of the classical model of the Great Chain of Being. Rather than understanding animal magnetism as a force from above spreading downward (like the natural ladder--''scala naturae''--of the Medieval period), Mesmer envisions a rhizomatic constellation of forces in which any two bodies may operate or manipulate the influence of magnetic fluid. Animal magnetism, in this sense, is practiced through a decentralized--rather than hierarchical--network, although this should not suggest a level field of access to Mesmer's universal fluid (Mesmer guarded his secrets religiously for fear that those untrained would pollute his theories). <br />
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The analogy of the ocean could not be more apropos: Mesmer's universal fluid lacked discrete streams, routes or channels--it was diffuse rather than vectoral, indiscriminate rather than intentional. However, ''animal magnetism'' was able to pass between any two or more bodies, via said fluid. Different bodies had different natural charges, and different capacities to retain or manage their own charge. Thus, while universal fluid itself may reflect a decentralized ''wet''work, the harmonization of the universal fluid via the practice of animal magnetism still required a secondary apparatus to secure the direct application of said harmonization: Mesmer himself. Mesmer functioned as the operator of a unique process of protocols that opened the human gateways for freely moving magnetic fluid. His first step was to locate the &quot;blockage&quot; in his patient, then apply correct measures of magnetic fluid to the patient. Finally, a blockage had to be pushed out through the &quot;crisis&quot;, which often mirrored a seizure or hysterical fit.<br />
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In animal magnetism, the harmonization of the body becomes the balanced universe writ small, even as it operates as a physiological foreshadowing of the unconcentrated theories of power to be proposed by Foucault and Deleuze. However, animal magnetism is not without its archaic throwbacks; the practice is fundamentally based in unknowable conditions of the human body that could not be rationalized within the scientific framework of Newtonism, empiricism, and the increasing regulation of bodily acts, or practices of biopower. It is at once undifferentiated in its access to bodies, yet it cannot produce knowledge about said bodies. As will be further explored, animal magnetism exemplified a unique tension saddling late 18th and early 19th century medical, therapeutic and physiological thought.<br />
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== The Blockage ==<br />
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The practice of animal magnetism sought the ideally harmonized body, a body in which magnetic ebbs and flows pass unobstructed through the patient. The expression of physical symptoms of illness, then, were merely bodily testaments to a cosmic imbalance; illness had no specific relationship to the organs or systems of the body. The body was thus a barometer of its own celestial harmony. Mesmer addressed illnesses as “blockage”, an interruption of the flow of magnetic action that created an unnatural impediment in the patient’s body. Mesmer's goal was to clear the blockage and restore the body to harmony, at which point the work of animal magnetism was complete—Mesmer believed only ill bodies were sensitive to magnetism (Crabtree 6-7). As far as Mesmer was concerned, physicians could aid the sick, but not through cures or medicine; if any improvement occurred, it was through sheer accident that the physician had brought animal magnetism to bear on the patient. What precisely was “blocked” in the patient is somewhat ambiguous in Mesmer's own accounts; nonetheless, it was clear to him that blockage prevented the harmonious “ebb and flow” of human magnetic properties.<br />
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==== Blockage as a Crossroad for Classical vs. Modern Ideas of Perception ====<br />
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In 1776, Maria-Theresa Paradis, a blind and well-known pianist, was brought into Mesmer’s home for treatment (Tinterow 48). Paradis’ case was noteworthy in that she experienced blockage in more ways than one: first in the physical and medical form of her blindness, second in the limitations that arose from conflicting views of visual perception that were imposed upon her after the treatment. Mesmer's efforts to &quot;cure&quot; her blindness illustrate unexpected discoveries regarding animal magnetism as a mediation hovering at the crossroads of classical and modern concepts of perception. After strenuous treatment, Paradis regained a modicum of sight, “although with some reported distortion and limited understanding of what she saw” (Lanska and Lanska 304). Paradis was upset by this partial restoration to sight: light aggravated her, but when her eyes were covered, she was unable to move without guidance, whereas prior to the treatment she had been able to navigate space with complete confidence (Crabtree 304). She found great difficulty in learning to touch what she saw and combine the two faculties, and to conceptualize depth and distance. Thus, after the treatment there was a lingering sense that there was something sub-par about Paradis’ restored sight. <br />
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After providing a solution for her blindness, one of the perceived shortcomings of animal magnetism was that it did not in fact restore the balance that Mesmer had desired. This is one of the many criticisms he faced with the Paradis case, but Mesmer noted that there was a critical distinction between the fact that Paradis’ eyes were working and the ability to cognitively and perceptually see as knowledge of one’s surroundings. The assumptions the scientific community and patient herself had placed on her recovery reveal conflicting notions of vision and proper perceptive functionality. What was the restoration of harmonious magnetic balance supposed to entail? What sort of changes was this reinstated magnetic harmony supposed to inscribe on the body of the patient? Mesmer himself did not foresee or equip himself with the necessary measures to deal with the aftermath of a case like Paradis’. Although he could intercede on the behalf of patients and channel magnetic fluid to clear a blockage, he could not replace a blockage with the proper sense of perception. <br />
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From analyzing what animal magnetism both succeeded and failed to realize with the body of the patient, we may witness how Mesmer’s mode of mediation was caught in the midst of conflicting beliefs of his time, snared as it was between lingering assumptions of the classical model of sight as a passive, receptive faculty and a burgeoning modern model where vision was enmeshed within the “unstable physiology and temporality of the human body” (Crary 70). The classical model of vision as perception was “a form of immediate knowing”, in which there was an assumed transparency of the subject-as-observer (Crary 70). Foucault had expressed that “Natural history [in the 18th century] is nothing more than the nomination of the visible” (Crary 70), hence, the expectation that, upon restoring Paradis’ sight, she would not only be able to see, but to perceive as if she had never been blind before. The modern perception of sight, foreshadowed in the tension that Paradis’ case had raised, signaled “an interrogation of the physiological makeup of the human subject”, where “both the viewer’s sensory organs and their activity are now inextricably mixed with whatever object they behold” (Crary 72). This would entail that Paradis indeed could not look upon objects and things before her without experiencing confusion, because visual perception was also wrapped up in the lived-in experience of her body in relation to such outside objects. This was the point Mesmer raised as an objection to the criticism he had faced from his skeptics, that they were “confusing the necessary inability of those blind from birth or at a very tender age with the knowledge acquired by blind persons operated on for cataract” (Tinterow 48). The effect of re-established magnetic harmony, he therefore argued, was that of removing the blockage that obstructed Paradis’ ability to see, not to affect what or how she went about making use of her visual faculties.<br />
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== Magnetic Poles, Magnetic Passes, and Mesmer as Magnetic Arbitrator ==<br />
[[Image: magneticpass.jpg|250px|thumb| A mesmerist passing magnetic fluid out one hand, into a patient, and back into the opposite hand.]]<br />
Once Mesmer determined a blockage existed, he set out to provoke its clearance through techniques of the magnetic pass. For Mesmer, the body functioned like a compass, replete with all the magnetic properties therein. As he writes in his 1779 Dissertation: ''A non-magnetized needle, when set in motion, will only take a determined direction by chance, whereas a magnetized needle, having been given the same impulse, after various oscillations proportional to the impulse and magnetism received, will regain its initial position and stay there'' (Mesmer 36). Unmagnetized, the body could fall prey to the direction of &quot;chance&quot;, failing to find its true and harmonious direction. Properly magnetized, however, the body had the capacity to not only be restored to its true direction, but to ''retain its direction''. Like a magnet, the body also had magnetic poles, for which he claimed, &quot;different and opposite poles may likewise be distinguished, which can be changed, communicated, destroyed and strengthened&quot; (Mesmer 55). He considered his hands to be a north and south magnetic pole in which he would send a current of magnetic fluid through one hand, into the patient, and back through his opposite hand. Despite the implications of a feedback loop, Mesmer never considered the possibility for the quality of the magnetic current to change in relation to the patient's inner blockage or harmony. <br />
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Mesmer made some use of magnets in his early practice, but discontinued them when colleagues accused him of fraud and suggested that the magnets, not Mesmer, were the crucial source of healing properties. These accusations occurred during the 1773 treatment of Franzl Oesterlin, Mesmer's first patient to be treated entirely via animal magnetism. Oesterlin suffered from “various hysterical symptoms, including convulsions, vomiting, aches, fainting, hallucinations, paralysis, and trance” (Crabtree 5). He put three magnets on her body: one on her stomach and on each leg (the fact that this centralizes the uterus of his female patient should not be overlooked). The reaction to the magnets “caused severe pain” but the treatment “resulted in an improvement in her condition that lasted for several hours” (Crabtree 6). For Mesmer, the magnets were merely conductors, mineral tuning forks that enabled him to focus his practice, but conductors he nonetheless dispensed with in order to claim autonomy in his practice.<br />
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After moving his practice to Paris in 1778 and taking on large groups of patients, his work became more performative and grandiose (he frequently practice in a dark room, wearing a velvet robe and wielding a magnetic wand), and so to did his actions become more gestural and symbolic of actual physical manipulation (Pintar and Lynn 18). Mesmer used his hands to make close passes that traversed the length of a patient's body (''magnétisation à grand courant''), as well a passes from a distance (''passes longitudinales'') whereby the magnetic force was transmitted through his fingers held in the shape of a pyramid or through a brass or iron wand (Crabtree 14).<br />
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By foregoing any aiding substance and treating his body as a site producing the therapy of animal magnetism, Mesmer marked himself in a unique position in relation to the universal fluid. Mesmer was not necessarily a mediator of magnetic fluid, in the sense that he did not take it from a higher source and dispense it to a lower source. As stated previously, magnetic properties existed between any and all sets of bodies; the celestial magnetic relationship was fundamentally rhizomatic. However, Mesmer ''was'' a mediator in that he was able to ''intercede'' on behalf of individuals when this relationship became unharmonious. It is precisely the tension between Mesmer's role as an arbitrator of the body versus a gatekeeper of wellness that resonates so deeply with the late 18th century struggle between Medieval scientific thought and Rational scientific thought. Mesmer is caught decidedly at the crux between the empirical expectation that his work as a physician was to diagnose illness and produce a cure (turning the body into an object of his evaluation) and the therapeutic reality that his research produced no ''data'' of the body. Only the patient could speak to their own wellness, and Mesmer desired no knowledge of the patient's body, as the patient's body was ultimately not the source of illness. Despite its performative nature, this was not a mediation in which one could derive information from physical signifiers of sickness. This problem of Mesmer's non-existent ''knowledge of the body'' has salient epistemological consequences, as the 18th century was identified by the rising tide of biopower, particularly in the arbitration between the state and the “health” of the masses.<br />
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== The Crisis ==<br />
[[File:MesmeristSession.JPG|300px|thumb|right|Mesmerist Session: Woman on the right enters 'crisis'. Woman in background is convulsing an being carried into a padded 'crisis room'.]]<br />
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If Mesmer's work with animal magnetism was successful, it would provoke a crisis in the patient. The crisis was a replication of the patient's symptoms on a grander scale, and the ultimate cue that the magnetic practice was working through a blockage (Darnton 4). Numerous accounts of Mesmer's work in Paris detail the convulsions, fits, faintings and ecstasies that resulted from treatments of animal magnetism, particularly among women (Darton 4-6). Mesmer's treatment spaces included “crisis rooms” where convulsing patients could be carried to spasm and pass out safe from others and out of sight.<br />
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In many ways, Mesmer's inducement of a crisis exemplifies Foucault's notion of the “truth-thunderbolt”. For Foucault, the truth-thunderbolt (also referred to as the truth-event) is an metaphor of the classical and medieval relationship between science and truth. Foucault writes: “ […] there is always a moment for the truth of illness to appear. This is precisely the moment of the crisis, and there is no other moment at which the truth can be grasped in this way. In alchemical practice, the truth is not lying there waiting to be grasped by us; it passes, and it passes rapidly, like lightening” (237). Truth, in this sense, is a discontinuous ''moment'', an opportunity to be seized rather than knowledge to be discovered; it is a fundamentally archaic way of understanding the relationship between humans and the world, “a truth provoked by rituals, captured by ruses […] this kind of truth does not call for method, but for strategy” (237). Opposed to the truth-thunderbolt was the “truth-sky” or “truth-demonstration”, the truth-sky is the truth that is found, “a series of constant, constituted, demonstrated, discovered truths” (237). The truth-sky was intended to be infinitely provable and ever-present, like the presence of the sky itself: whenever one looks up, there it is. For Foucault, the transition from the truth-thunderbolt to the truth-sky is correlated to the “political procedures of the inquiry”, in which a subject can be tallied up, reported, cross-checked and evidenced according to a multi-plexing of physical and psychological measurements. Despite Mesmer's best efforts to rationalize his practice, he could not win the acceptance of the medical academy--not because his treatments were not effective, but because his methods were not ''measurable''. <br />
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In this sense, Mesmer could never make good on the promises of animal magnetism to cure the masses, as it could not ''calculate'' the masses. In his magnetic hands, the masses were a fluid body of ebbs and flows, sensible only through an immaterial feeling, through cosmic massage. The crisis was a carnival of the body: ''it disciplined no one''. As the 19th century moved toward an increasing manifestation of an epistemological medical order in the form of “a general surveillance of populations and the concrete possibility of establishing a relationship between a disease […] the birth of pathological anatomy and, at the same time, the appearance of a statistical medicine”, Mesmer was rendered a relic of a practice that could not overcome its own reliance on the immeasurable (Foucault 248).<br />
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== Works Cited and Referenced ==<br />
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Crabtree, Adam. ''From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychological Healing.'' New Haven: Yale UP, 1993.<br />
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Crary, Jonathan. ''Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century.'' Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990. <br />
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Darnton, Robert. ''Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France.'' Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1968.<br />
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Foucault, Michel. ''Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the College de France 1973-1974.'' Jacques Lagrange, Ed. Trans. Graham Burchell. New York: Picador, 2003. <br />
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Galloway, Alexander R. ''Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization.'' Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004.<br />
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Lanska, Douglas and Lanska, Joseph T. &quot;Franz Anton Mesmer and the Rise and Fall of Animal Magnetism&quot;. ''Brain, Mind and Medicine''. Ed. Harry A. Whitaker, Christopher Upham Murray Smith, Stanley Finger. New York: Springer-Verlag New York, LLC, 2007.<br />
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Mesmer, Franz Anton. &quot;Dissertations on the Discovery of Animal Magnetism.&quot; 1779. ''Foundations of Hypnosis: From Mesmer to Freud.'' Maurice M. Tinterow, Ed. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher: 1970.<br />
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Pintar, Judith and Steven Jay Lynn. ''Hypnosis: a Brief History.'' Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.<br />
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Tinterow, Maurice M., Ed. ''Foundations of Hypnosis: From Mesmer to Freud.'' Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher: 1970.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]<br />
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[[Category:Body]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Terra_Incognita&diff=12597
Terra Incognita
2010-11-24T08:33:52Z
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“When we storm forward and climb out of the trenches, we see the empty, unknown land in front of us where death goes about its business […] it appears as if a new dimension has opened up to us. Then we suddenly see up close, […] what awaits us in the land of the dead: the enemy. That is an unforgettable moment.” – Ernst Jünger (Kittler, 132) <br />
[[File:Terraincognita.jpg|400px|right|]]<br />
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The term ''terra incognita'' meaning “unknown land” in Latin, was coined as a concept during the Age of Exploration in the mid 15th century lasting through the 19th century. The naming in Latin for this concept was deliberate since, “The use of Latin as a universal language for knowledge was endorsed at the end of the Middle Ages, and so the term terra incognita perfectly captured both the spirit of the times and the character of unknown places” (Francaviglia 25). Latin becomes a signifier for knowledge and legitimation, revealing exploration as above all else the search for knowledge.<br />
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The exploration for terra incognita is a three-part process that begins with the map, which symbolically declares the points of the unknown, then there is the embarking and travel across the sea, culminating in the moment of visual contact and a claiming of the land through sight. Each part of the process is a moment of inscription: the map as rational inscription, the sea as irrational, and the gaze as legitimating. This process charts itself through increasing proximity to the physical land, the unknown becoming known, and thus the visual recognition as symbolic conquering of terra incognita.<br />
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==Mapping the Unknown (''Hic Sunt Dracones'')==<br />
[[File:Ptolemy.jpg|400px|thumb|1482 reconstruction of Ptolemy's world map]]<br />
The acquisition of knowledge and the need to know has been the main fuel for exploration. World maps during the Age of Exploration were in flux, mirroring the age itself, since there were still bodies of land to be discovered and rendered onto the map. The map as evidence of rationality and legibility also exhibited gaps of unknown spaces pointing to its own limitations and lack. Expeditions sought to fill in all of the missing spaces to complete and solidify the scientific reason proposed by the map and reassert its legitimacy. The gaps undermine the authority of maps and name it as something unstable. Maps were constantly being altered and rewritten, operating much like a palimpsest. These spaces of terra incognita were often marked as such, although there is also account of some displaying the phrase ''hic sunt dracones'' or “here be dragons,” emphasizing the fear and intrigue induced by the unknown as well as its presence as a threat to knowledge, rationality, and authority (Buisseret 295). The unknown, then, destabilizes the logic of the map as archive.<br />
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During the Age of Exploration, there was a rediscovery of ancient Greek maps, and Ptolemy’s world map completed in 391 A.D. served as a model for maps made in the 15th century. Although Ptolemy’s map was lost, writing and description of the map allowed scholars to make reconstructions, “The fact that the original was lost also enhanced its intrigue to an age searching for an elusive past” (Francaviglia, 26). States sponsored expeditions in pursuit of terra incognita where the discovery of the unknown emphasizes state power and knowledge. The ships on these explorations were therefore extensions of the state and also a metonymic reference to the state. The ships act as agents of rational state knowledge imposing order and unlocking the secrets of the unknown. Horn writes, &quot;The space that intelligence explores is, by definition, opaque and inaccessible. The task of intelligence is thus to penetrate into the forbidden and protected space, cross borders, and investigate the enemy’s territory. This space is by definition an uncharted, secret-filled, necessarily dangerous zone&quot; (Horn, 73). Terra incognita is an opaque space, the lux which becomes penetrated by the lumen of the explorers.<br />
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==The Sea as Sublime and Erasure==<br />
[[File:Turner-snowstorm-450.jpg|400px|thumb|left|Joseph Mallord William Turner's ''Snowstorm'', 1842]]<br />
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Terra incognita is reached by first traversing the sea. The sea acts as a medium of transport and delivery as well as a space of inscription by the ship as a writing instrument. The sea is experienced as sublime in the Kantian sense, where one is overwhelmed by the infinity and power of nature. Kant writes, “But in what we are wont to call sublime in nature there is such an absence of anything leading to particular objective principles and corresponding forms of nature that it is rather in its chaos, or in its wildest and most irregular disorder and desolation, provided it gives signs of magnitude and power, that nature chiefly excites the ideas of the sublime” (Kant 70). Kant goes on to say &quot;If we are to estimate nature as dynamically sublime, it must be represented as a source of fear&quot; (Kant, 119). The sea was at once delivery and obstacle, it was unpredictable and threatening, and became another level of the unknown to be mastered by explorers. The sea as sublime magnifies the distance between the explorer and the terra incognita. <br />
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The sea insofar as it is the sublime is black boxed, allowing one to experience it only through its projected surface interface, therefore one can only stand at the threshold or edge of the sublime. One can not enter into the sublime because it would result in death or complete madness. The sublime is black boxed through and through. Entering into it wouldn’t unlock it as black box, rather it would continue to be lux, the impenetrable and opaque body of light which reappears in the sublime. The threshold of the sublime then is like an event horizon, the position of the self at the interface of one’s own potential obliteration by the immense and engulfing threat of nature.<br />
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The sea also denies writing and any attempt at inscription is therefore irrational and fleeting. It is an unstable writing surface acting as liquid erase, as each trace the ship leaves in the water vanishes in the moment it appears. Writing is swallowed and buried in the sea. The ship is not permitted to leave a trail or to mark on the water. In this sense it functions like a [[mystic-writing pad]] that strikes back where the writer cannot control the erasure of writing, but rather it is immediately subsumed into the unconscious and the act of writing becomes synonymous with the act of erasing. The voyage across the sea is also the erasure of that voyage. This experience of erasure precedes the writing of the unknown.<br />
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==The Sovereign Gaze and the Spyglass==<br />
[[File:Spyglass.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Spyglass]]<br />
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“Cartesian thought, for Ricoeur, ‘is contemporaneous with a vision of the world in which the whole of objectivity is spread out like a spectacle on which the cogito casts its sovereign gaze’” (Jonathan Crary, 48).<br />
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The visual encounter of terra incognita is a [[mediatic encounter]] which reflects the dynamic in Hegel’s pure Notion of recognition in that “one [is] being only recognized, the other only recognizing” (Hegel, 113). The explorer gazes upon the land, and the land receives the gaze, therefore the mediatic encounter denies equality and always supposes a dominance of one over the other. The male gaze of the explorer acts as a stylus writing onto the land, making vision synonymous with writing, and authoring the land as a blank page in that moment of recognition. The gaze as stylus not only writes onto the land, but also pierces and penetrates it. This moment of recognition is also an impasse. In the seeing of terra incognita, it is no longer unknown, and becomes transformed by being placed within the field of vision. Just as the ship symbolically acts as state power, so to the male gaze acts metonymically and indexically as the sovereign gaze of the state which renders legible the previously illegible. <br />
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The spyglass, like the telescope, is dioptric and all lens which allows the explorer to look at the land and bring it under the scrutiny of the gaze. It also frames the image of the land, placing a border around the targeted area that is being looked at, and excluding periphery. This visual targeting of land reflects the goal of the pursuit of knowledge to target any disruption or unknown. The target here is also the promise of it to become known. The spyglass is also a prosthetic and extension of the senses in order to enhance vision. As a prosthetic it extends and penetrates into the terra incognita. The spyglass can be seen in Walter Benjamin's concept of cameraman as surgeon, where the surgeon &quot;diminishes the distance between himself and the patient by penetrating into the patient's body&quot; just as the cameraman penetrates into the reality of its subject (Benjamin, 233). The spyglass also contracts the distance between the viewer and the viewed as it similarly penetrates into the space of land, cropping and reshaping it, dissecting and reforming it. The explorer’s gaze alone writes on the land, but the presence of the spyglass physically signifies the gaze operating as stylus. This tool of extension also bridges and connects the viewer to the land. The spyglass in this way, is a symbolic attempt to bring knowledge closer and to bring the unknown into the realm of the known. The spyglass therefore represents and manifests the goal of exploration, to go to the unknown, and to place the self within that threatening space. The spyglass is a defense against the threat as it serves as protection and armor for the viewer. The spyglass also represents science extending into and rationalizing the unknown.<br />
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==Afterimage as Possession and Interface==<br />
[[File:Explorer.jpg|thumb|left|250px|right]]<br />
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A metaphoric afterimage is created in the moment of seeing terra incognita. The impression of this unforgettable moment creates an image that the explorer can take with him when he leaves. In the afterimage, the land as Other is remediated and re-presented. This idea is most clearly expressed in Lacan’s statement “No doubt, in the depths of my eye, the picture is painted” (Lacan, 96). This afterimage bceomes an objectified image of the land which remains under visual possession by the explorer. This also reveals that the land has the power to write back onto the explorer. The image becomes detached from the actual land, or the signified detached from its signifier, echoing Crary’s discussion of the afterimage as an “…optical experience that was produced by and within the subject (Crary 98).” The explorer is able to evoke this image and carry it as a possession. The eye becomes the archive which holds the image as a file. This is a similar effect to the mystic-writing pad. The image is written onto the eye and then subsumed into memory.<br />
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The explorer himself becomes a medium for carrying and transporting the afterimage of terra incognita, acting as Iris as opposed to Hermes, internalizing the message into his body. This internalization of the afterimage as message is also an internalization of the Other. The unknown is taken in by the explorer where it is consumed and transformed, then released and rewritten as something known. Upon returning to the home state, the afterimage is described as the photographic documentation of the land. This reveals the afterimage as parallax, as it is the slippage between the parallel lines of sight of the image and the recollection of the image, and results as the displaced product of the two. The afterimage also functions more significantly as an interface, mediating the experience with terra incognita. When the afterimage is carried back to the home state as a possession of the state, it is the only access the state has to the terra incognita. The afterimage becomes the basis for the changes made to maps and writing about the land. It therefore acts as document and legible proof which mediates the experience that people have to the land. The understanding of the terra incognita is mediated through the explorer’s afterimage. The rationality of the map is also filtered through the afterimage. The afterimage as interface also marks the return to the map, and the final point in the process of terra incognita which is the legitimizing of the land onto the map as a known space. This moment of writing is the death of the terra incognita.<br />
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==References==<br />
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Benjamin, Walter. ''Illuminations: Essays and Reflections.'' New York: Schocken Books, 1968.<br />
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Buisseret, David. ''The Oxford companion to World Exploration, Volume 1.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.<br />
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Crary, Jonathan. ''Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century''. Boston: MIT Press, 1992.<br />
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Francaviglia, Richard V. ''Mapping and Imagination in the Great Basin: a Cartographic History.'' Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2005.<br />
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Hegel, G.W.F. ''Phenomenology of Spirit''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.<br />
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Horn, Eva. &quot;Knowing the Enemy: The Epistemology of Secret Intelligence.&quot; Boston: MIT Press Journal Grey Room, 2003<br />
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Kant, Immanuel. ''The Critique of Judgment.'' Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987.<br />
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Kittler, Friedrich. ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.'' Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.<br />
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Lacan, Jacques. ''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis.'' New York: W. W. Norton &amp; Company, Inc, 1978.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]<br />
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[[Category:Visuality]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Ether&diff=12596
Ether
2010-11-24T08:33:32Z
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''Space that has been seized upon by the imagination cannot remain indifferent space subject to the measures and estimates of the surveyor. It has been lived in, not in its positivity, but with all the partiality of the imagination.'' (Bachelard, xxxvi).<br />
<br />
Ether is a space of speculation. Historically, the medium has been dually seized upon by poetic imagination and subjected to scientific measurement and experiment. From the Aristotelian physics of heavenly bodies to a 19th century notion of an expansive aerial phonograph (Milutis 37), speculations about the ether are necessarily partial: subjective because premised on a negative—a presence envisioned for the void. As the physicists G.N. Cantor and M.J.S. Hodge write, “the conceptions of aither often depend directly on ontologies, on theories of being and substance” (Cantor and Hodge 8). Signifying presence in the absence of a perceptible referent, ether is an image that can only indicate and sustain ontologies.<br />
[[Image: iris_airmail_stamp.jpg|300px|thumb|Iris depicted on an airmail stamp, 1946.]]<br />
As a mode of mediation, ether collapses signification and materiality. Ether is thus akin to Iris, the Greek goddess of communication who imminently embodies the message given to her. Despite its etymological tie to our concept of the “ethereal” (otherworldly, immaterial) in mediating unknowable, imperceptible space, ether was necessarily material: a rigorously tested and constructed presence to stand in for the void. Like Iris, the symbolic content of ether was indistinct from its material substrate. Never indifferent, the materiality of ether could potentially bridge lived experience and the absolute (as measurement) or explode this duality (as atomic imagination). <br />
<br />
== Symbolic materiality: plan(e) and plane ==<br />
<br />
As a conceptual physical field, ether pertains to the “two ways of conceptualizing the plane” (Deleuze and Guattari 265) outlined by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. On the one hand, Deleuze and Guattari describe “a teleological plan(e), a design, a mental principle...a plan(e) of transcendence” that, “even if it is said to be immanent, it is so only by absence, analogically (metaphorically, metonymically, etc.)” (265-6). On the other hand is the plane of pure immanence, where “the plane itself is perceived at the same time as it allows us to perceive the imperceptible […] relations of movement and rest, speed and slowness between unformed elements, or at least between elements that are relatively unformed, molecules, and particles of all kinds” (266-7). Historically, ether has been both teleological plan[e] and plane of pure immanence. On one level, ether has undergirded dualities that it mediates via transcendence, serving as a presence predicated on absence. On another, ether has structured the void on an invisible, atomic level, negating absolutes through the identification of continuous, volatile activity. The medium has performed according to the logic of representation, but it also embodies the potential for Deleuze’s idea of immanent expression, where Being refuses an appeal to transcendence or ontological hierarchy (McLean 232).<br />
<br />
== Bodies heavenly and atomic ==<br />
<br />
[[Image: chainofbeing.jpg|200px|thumb|left|The Aristotelian universe remediated as the Great Chain of Being in 1579, depicting a divinely inspired universal hierarchy.]]<br />
The origins of ether in Western philosophy are typically traced to Aristotle, whose theory of the universal elements included “aither” as a ''quinta essentia'', or fifth essense (Cantor and Hodge 4). Aristotelian ether was a sempiternal substance that bathed and preserved the heavenly bodies in perpetual, circular motion (5). Though ether was confined to the divine sphere above the sky, it had an analogue on earth: pneuma, the breath and spirit that animated terrestrial life (5). Aristotle’s conception of ether thus both preserved the divine cosmos as incorruptible and absolute and, through pneuma, mediated between heaven and earth. Even though it was “a product of the pagan worship of sun and moon and planets” (Russell 199), the hierarchical structure of the universe and the possibility of transcendence signified by Aristotle’s conception of ether was co-opted by Christian theologians and held sway into the Renaissance. <br />
<br />
In the 1st century BCE, however, the Roman poet Lucretius integrated the idea of ether into very different, non-hierarchized ontology: the atomist tradition of Empedocles and Democritus. As Siegfried Zielinski writes, the atomists did “not think of the infinite multiplicity of things in terms of any hierarchical order. Nothing is above anything else; everything exists side-by-side, in motion, and with constant interpenetration” (Zielinski 47). Elaborating this philosophy which prefigures modern particle physics, “Lucretius’s cosmogony starts with the formation of the earth from a mindless rushing of atoms driven only by their weight and their collisions with others” (Cantor and Hodge 7). While the heavier atoms link up to make the earth, the lighter atoms are squeezed out as a fiery ether that, with air, both congeals into and surrounds the moon, sun, stars, and planets. In contrast to Aristotle’s idea of ether as a substance that preserved the heavenly bodies as absolute, in Lucretius’ theory ether “is not, ultimately, special at all” (8), but is comprised, like the rest of the universe, of a particular particle density that both sustains and is subject to constant flux. As Stuart McLean observes, “such a materialism, in focusing on the emergence and dissolution of apparently stable forms, refuses…any absolute distinction”: “[p]hysical bodies, sensations, and products of the imagination thus share the same origin and the same materiality” (McLean 225). In the atomist tradition, which holds that images and material bodies are continuous, ether is at once a simulacra (the product of sensation and imagination) ''and'' materiality (a physical body).<br />
<br />
== Insurmountable connectivity ==<br />
<br />
In the late 19th century, James Clerk Maxwell theorized ether as a substance present in empty space in order to explain how light waves propagate in a void. Just as sound waves travel through air, Maxwell hypothesized, light waves travel through and relative to the ether (Hawking 20). As John Durham Peters notes, Maxwell characterized the ether as a heavenly substance in the Aristotelian and Newtonian lineage, rich with the divine potential of communicability. As Maxwell writes,<br />
<br />
''The vast interplanetary and interstellar regions will no longer be regarded as waste places in the universe, which the Creator has not seen fit to fill with the symbols of the manifold order of His kingdom. We shall find them to be already full of this wonderful medium; so full, that no human power can remove it from the smallest portion of space, or produce the slightest flaw in its infinite continuity'' (qtd. in Peters 102).<br />
<br />
Despite this “infinite continuity” Maxwell understands to allow action at a distance, Peters observes that Maxwell’s conception of ether also signified modern problems of communication. In one experiment, for example, Maxwell presses two lenses together to depict the space that intervenes between bodies. Even when the lenses are visibly sealed together, when he shone a light through them, a visible ring indicated their separation: which Maxwell perceived as the negation of “absolute contact” (qtd. in Peters 178). Maxwell thus “states a major theme in modernist art and literature,” Peters writes, where “the problem of communication becomes not only one of getting messages across the waste expanses traversed by the telegraph wires or the interference-prone ‘ether’ of radio transmission, but one of making contact with the person sitting next to you” (Peters 178). While at this time ether was used to describe the propagation of radio waves and wireless broadcast (“the Ethernet”), the medium also allowed for the conception of the atomized ontological space that characterizes Modernity. <br />
<br />
Both Maxwell’s conception of a crystalline space that propagates light and the atomized notion of social space that Durham observes prefigure the idea of particle physics formulated by Albert Einstein in 1905. “Overthrowing the concept of a universal ‘now,’” (Wilczek 85) Einstein’s theory of special relativity debunked absolute space and Maxwell’s concept of the ether as a spatial constant. Though he is typically credited with laying ether to rest, in 1920, Einstein stated that “according to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable,” because “to deny ether is ultimately to assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever” (qtd. in Cantor and Hodge 53-4). Einstein's recuperation of ether thus had a significant role in the dissolution of absolute ontological and physical categories into the immanent, atomic vision of the universe initially conceptualized by the atomists.<br />
<br />
== Where does the ether go to die? ==<br />
<br />
[[Image: large-hadron-collider.jpg|300px|thumb|The Large Hadron Collider, 2010.]]<br />
Despite Einstein’s redemption of the medium, as the physicist Frank Wilczek describes, even the modern iteration of ether “bears the stigma of dead ideas” (Wilczek 74). Nevertheless, Wilczek employs the term as a kind of placeholder to theorize the phenomenon of superconductivity: “where a space-filling material ether…does the conducting” (96). While “we don’t really know what this new material ether is,” we do “know it’s name: the Higgs condensate” (96). Ether may finally be put to rest 574 feet beneath the Franco-Swiss border. If the Large Hadron Collider succeeds in proving the existence of the Higgs boson through high-energy particle collisions, the role of ether as a representation and a potentiality could be ultimately rendered obsolete. Such a teleological plan(e), however, would obscure the immanent expression which characterizes ether as a medium.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<br />
Bachelard, Gaston. ''The Poetics of Space''. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958.<br />
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Cantor, G.N. and M.J.S. Hodge, eds. ''Conceptions of Ether: Studies in the history of ether theories, 1740-1900''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.<br />
<br />
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. ''A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.<br />
<br />
Hawking, Stephen. ''A Brief History of Time''. Rev. ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1996.<br />
<br />
McLean, Stuart. “Stories and Cosmogonies: Imagining Creativity Beyond ‘Nature’ and ‘Culture’.” ''Cultural Anthropology'', Vol. 2, Issue 2, pp. 213-245.<br />
<br />
Milutis, Joe. ''Ether: The Nothing That Connects Everything''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.<br />
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Peters, John Durham. ''Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.<br />
<br />
Russell, Bertrand. ''History of Western Philosophy''. Rev. ed. London: Routledge Classics, 2004.<br />
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Wilczek, Frank. ''The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces''. New York: Basic Books, 2008.<br />
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Zielinski, Siegfried. ''Deep Time of the Media''. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]] <br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]<br />
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[[Category: spatiality]]<br />
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[[Category: representation]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Heliograph&diff=12595
Heliograph
2010-11-24T08:33:27Z
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[[image:Helioknob.jpg|right|]]<br />
<br />
==The Sun-Writer==<br />
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The Heliograph, or sun-writer, is a form of visual telegraph which transmits coded signals by reflecting sunlight from a mirror, in the form of a series of flashes. This flash is created by a “keying” or tilting of a small mirror with a centered translucent viewing lens, mounted upon a tripod and directed toward the receiving location by aligning the viewing lens with the sighting vane. Though the technology dates back to the Native Americans in a primitive form (“As Told by Heliograph”, 213), the most prolific form of the Heliograph was a model invented by Henry C. Mance of the British Army in 1876 for field operation, distinct for it's portability, rifle scope sighting vein and regularized tilting mirror (Journal of the Society of the Arts, 163). The Heliograph can be seen as a remediation of the physical transfer of information over space, such a telegram, into an optical mode of transfer. Developed to increase the range and speed of communication, the advances achieved by the complex and precarious Heliographic system are in fact accompanied by profound limitations.<br />
<br />
[[image:BRITISH_MARK_V_MANCE.jpg|thumb|left|Mark V. Mance Heliograph]]<br />
<br />
==Heliographic Warfare==<br />
<br />
Primarily used as a technology of warfare, the design of the Heliograph can be seen as closely addressing the demands of battle, but also, embedded in those very solutions, new logistical complications arise. A letter from British troops in Afghanistan (1880) conveys military appreciation for its speed and durability , “The value of the Heliograph in war operations is becoming more apparent every day ; the message could not have been delivered so speedily by electric telegraph. The Heliograph does not require the route to be kept open. The line of communication can not be cut. “ (Science: A Weekly Record of Scientific Progress, 22).<br />
<br />
[[image:3360859.jpg|thumb|right|]] <br />
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Literally traveling at the 'speed of light' the Heliographic message cuts through the air protected both by coded encryption and it's immateriality. The rifle scope sighting vein parallels the precision of a firearm, affording the operator heightened control over the spatial destination of the information projected. The light weight and small size of the Heliograph affords a mobility advantageous during warfare, an immaterial replacement, and remediation, of information over wires. However, in these same physical components formed to address and solve problems lies new problems for the transfer of information, especially unsuited to warfare. The portability of the apparatus creates the problem of initial contact, requiring an additional mode of communication to direct the attention of the receiver, instructing him where and when to look. Although the 'bullet' of information travels speedily through the air, unobstructed by the enemy troops below, a problematic dependency on ideal topography and weather conditions arrises. Although not cut by enemy hands, the line of communication can indeed be severed.<br />
<br />
==Light In-Formation: Writing with Light, Flashes as Text/Image==<br />
<br />
[[Image:Eye_72.jpg|thumb|left|]]<br />
<br />
The Heliographic transfer of information can arguably be understood as a type of writing, information translated into code and inscribed onto the retina of the observer. Replacing the true materiality of the written word, the light is a stylus of inscription, creating a visual experience which conveys the semiotic message behind the flash, on the level of seeing the flash as code as well as translation from code to message. The “double inscription” of 'light-writing' reveals the dual nature of Heliographic messages,“inscriptions insistently belie their own double character, both material and semiotic” (Gitelman, 10)The light embodies the physical form of the code as Iris and the code carries with it the message as Hermes carries a letter.<br />
<br />
==Gone in a Flash: The Ephemerality of the Heliographic Message==<br />
<br />
The Heliographic flash, produced by manipulating sunlight reflecting off a small mirror creates an ephemeral visual experience. While Morse Code was a prevalent encryption system, rendering it an obvious choice, the visual pattern of short flashes seems to have been arbitrary, and in fact some advocated for the change to a constant beam interrupted by short instances of darkness instead, based on the increased visibility of the steady flash this is more logical but rarely adopted but do the necessity of standardization (Meyer, 251). Unlike physical writing, once the flash occurs it almost as quickly disappears, archived only in the observer. Sharing the vulnerabilities of misinterpretation occurring in written text, the same ephemeral quality of 'the flash as disappearing text' that protects it from enemy hands also creates conditions of unreliability and un-verifiability, a mistaken reading lurking in a momentary blink or sneeze of the observer. Conversely, Purkyně's exploration of 'after images' bring into question the potential visual durability of the flash image as well as the objective nature of the senses. “The reception of an [optical] impression is no longer the decisive factor but, instead, imagination and memory “become active themselves in the sense organs. . .senses then become 'mediators'” (Crary, 200).<br />
<br />
==Heliographic Contortions: Limitation and Distortion==<br />
<br />
[[Image:Morse1.jpg|thumb|right|]]<br />
In the analysis of the Heliograph as a medium for the transfer of information, the question of distortion is an important critical perspective. Most obviously the intended distortion lies in the codified message, though morse code is not secret, it is nevertheless a distortion through translation, limiting the message to alphanumerical representation. In contrast to the claims of precision and ease, Heliographic transfer affords various possibilities for distortion and confusion. The imperfect replication of the sun's light when reflected off the mirror, is then distorted into a flash, the intensity and direction of which is dependent upon a fallible operator who is vulnerable to human error and visual fatigue. Furthermore, in the reception of the signal, the observer creates limits based on visual ability, even a perfectly projected flash could be confused by inattention and distorted by observational eye as a lens through which information is refracted. <br />
<br />
The distortional risks inherent in the perceptual experience relate to the Heliographic image in terms of the objective/subjective divide. The first view, typical of the 18th century and earlier allows the Heliographic message to stand as the objective, distorted by conditions of transmission and reception but still accessible through the lens of reason. Distortion, here, is a possibility rather than a necessity, “It was crucial that the distorting power of a medium, whether a lens, air, or liquid be neutralized, and this could be done if the properties of that medium were mastered intellectually and thus rendered effectively transparent though the exercise of reason” (Crary, 64). <br />
<br />
Conversely, the 19th century shift to a visuality privileging the subjective human-mechanism, as demonstrated in Schopenhauer's classification of “perception as a biological capacity that is not uniform in all men or women” (Crary, 84), reveals the transfer of information within the Heliographic system as necessarily distorted. Observing information as being passed from one subjective human being to another, both as operationally “defective physiological apparatuses” (Crary, 92), raises the questions: Is the Heliographic machine more or less distorting than the physiological human-machine? How different are they really?<br />
<br />
==Surveying the Heliographic Multi-demential System==<br />
[[Image:836135_7276_625x1000.jpg|thumb|left|]]<br />
Although the Heliographic apparatus appears as a tool separate from and controlled by the operator, an exploration of the multi-dimensional system involved in the Heliographic transfer of information reveals a more complex web of relations, causation and control. <br />
<br />
Johannes Müller's identification of the body as a “multifarious factory-like enterprise” (Crary. 88) signifies the breakdown of the organic/inorganic distinction between man and machine. Crary led us to ask “how is the body, including the observing body, becoming a component of new machines, economies, apparatuses, whether social, libidinal, or technological?” (2). The body in operation of the Heliograph can indeed be seen as engaged in this convergence, wherein the body is demanded, by the apparatus, to perform regulated mechanized movement. The US War Department Manuel (1910) stresses the need for “perfect adjustment” achieved by “constant attendance” of the operator as well as the importance of the cultivation of “mechanical movement of the mirror”(Visual Signaling, 378). In Foucauldian terms,“the soldier has become something that can be made; an inapt body, the machine required can be constructed; making [the body] pliable, ready at all times, turning silently into the automatism of habit” (Foucault, 135). This mechanization of the body complicates classification of automation, in a sense the body is striving toward becoming automatic itself, although in actuality, the automatic nature of the Heliograph is isolated to the stabilizing and reflecting automation of the physical structure. <br />
<br />
The body can be seen not only as subject to the apparatus itself but also to the larger system of Heliographic transfer in terms of spatial location. The establishment of two or more Heliographic stations in communication with each other, acts to create a spatial grid, literally charting territory and imposing meaning upon the spatiotemporal bodies present. Not only does the Heliograph project its message, it also relays it's spatial relation within the system. Communication occurs in the context of the spatiotemporal coordinates, implicitly commenting on relational locality of the systemic components, that is, the operational and observational bodies in relation to each other, the sun, topography and the apparatuses. The Heliotrope, a device very similar to the Heliograph, is use for land surveillance (Meyers, 256) demonstrating the close connection between heliotropic communication and the mechanized position of the body in time and space. In the remediation of the Heliographic communication into electric telegraghy, the communicative function was passed on but the locational function began to fade, an erasure culminating in the digital age of email and the virtual collapse of the spatiality of communication.<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
“As Told by Heliograph”, The Land of Sunshine, a Magazine of California and the Southwest, Los Angeles, October, 1896: 213. Print. <br />
<br />
Crary, Jonathan. ''Techniques of the Oberver: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1990. Print.<br />
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Foucault, Michel. ''Discipline and Punish.'' New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Print. <br />
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Gitelman, Lisa. ''Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era.'' Stanford, California: Standford University Press, 1999. Print.<br />
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“Journal of the Society for the Arts.” Volume XXIII. November 20, 1871 – November 12, 1875: London, York-Street. <br />
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Meyer, Albert J. ''Manuel of Signals for the Use of Signal Officers in the Field for Military School, Etc.'' Washington: Government Printing Office 1879. Print. <br />
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“Science: A Weekly Record of Scientific Progress.” Volume 1. New York. July to December, 1880: Print.<br />
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[[Category:Writing]]<br />
[[Category:Spatiality]]<br />
[[Category:Visuality]]<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Human_Sacrifice&diff=12594
Human Sacrifice
2010-11-24T08:33:17Z
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[[Image:sac0.jpg|thumb|right|Human Sacrifice]]<br />
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''“Thus, tongueless, and swollen with words she could never again pronounce, each girl would be led in procession to the sound of solemn music, wrapped in veils and garlanded with flowers , up the winding steps of to the city's ninth door. Nowadays, you might say she looked like a pampered society bride.” - Margret Atwood, in The Blind Assassin (2000, 209).''<br />
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Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder. And so does terror. Human sacrifice was a dramatic combination of both. It was simultaneously a spectacular show of the aesthetics of making holy (Beattie, 1980) and a terrorizing venting of collective violence (Girard, 1987). As a religious ritual practiced globally and throughout history, human sacrifice involved killing of victims in order to communicate with or please a supernatural recipient, “in order to acquire benefits for an individual or a community” (Green, 2001). <br />
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<br />
== Postcards to Gods: Body as Palimpsest ==<br />
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At the center of this communication with the supernatural is the body. The body is the site of inscription. Not merely cultural inscription in a Foucauldian sense, but of a different type of inscription - a symbolic code that shared between the priest and the gods. Archaeologists come across bodies butchered with blades, crushed with blocks of flint (Green, 2001). &quot;A dismembered torso of a six-year-old boy, placed there after his legs had been hacked off,&quot; (53) and in a pit alongside, an adult female whose body had been &quot;drastically mutilated&quot; (54). &quot;Her head lay apart from her trunk and both femurs had been deliberately broken off... the pelvic girdle itself had been crushed by a huge block of flint.&quot; <br />
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What is already inscribed on the body is scratched off - mutilation, dismemberment and disembowelment through the use of spears, blades and weapons. To communicate with the supernatural, the absolute other, these weapons act not only as pens but before that as rubbers, dusters or scratching tools, to inscribe a completely different stylus and a unique encoding that the body is usually not meant to bear. As a site of inscription, the body becomes a palimpsest.<br />
<br />
The body itself is not a site of inscription for a response to the sacrifice. But the process is not uni-directional. Gods or nature respond provide feedback, either through direct communication with the priest whose own body enters an altered state to become receptive to this response, or through the interpretation of omens that follow. The priests in that sense interface with god(s) or nature on behalf of the rest of the community. The god(s) that run the course of nature are the mystical kernel around which there is the rational shell of religious rituals.<br />
<br />
== Exchange Value: The Economics of Sacrifice ==<br />
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[[Image:sac3.jpg|thumb|right|The Merchant of Venice]]<br />
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But the body is not mere carrier of a message. In a second sense, the flesh and blood are themselves the objects of exchange. If life, health, food and security are considered to have been bestowed by a supernatural being, then the body that they nutrition and protect belong to that being. According to Karl Marx (1977, 400) what is loaned by a lender to a plebeian becomes “transformed through his consumption of the means of subsistence, into flesh and blood”. The flesh and blood are therefore the lender's money. This phenomenon, he says, “is worthy of Shylock”, referring to the character in Shakespeare's play Merchant of Venice. <br />
<br />
The flesh and blood, even if they belong to the gods, are of no use value to the the gods, however. They do not need it. “There's more depends on this than on the value,” Balthazar says of the ring in the Shakespeare play. The value of the sacrificed body is merely exchange value. They are being given back to gods only with the expectation of tangible returns. Do ut des – I give so that you may give. <br />
<br />
If the welfare of the society can be gained in return for an individual's life, this exchange is economical.<br />
<br />
== Ritual as Reenactment: Sacrifice as Theater ==<br />
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[[Image:sac5.jpg|thumb|right|Sacrifice as Theater]]<br />
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The sacrificial body is also used as a site of performance. Inherent in the very meaning of the &quot;ritual&quot; is a reenactment of a prior event. While a debate on the primacy of ritual or myth remains unresolved, ritual in itself, as a cultural practice, is nothing but repetition. For Walter Burkert (1987, 151) it involves “action patterns used as signs” and is therefore “a form of nonverbal communication”. The sacrificial body then becomes what Crary (1992) would call a &quot;screen or a membrane&quot; on which this communication is projected. It is erected on an altar and therefore given a central position and made the primary site of action. <br />
<br />
Rituals &quot;introduce embellishments&quot; (Mack, 1987) and allow the use of &quot;a surrogate victim&quot; - violence against home can suffice to replace more generalized violence. &quot;Ritual provides the example&quot;, as it &quot;makes substitutions&quot; (17). For onlookers, this apparatus can be seen as substituting their own body on the altar to facilitate an Aristotelian catharsis and purify them. This effect is re-mediated by the theater, long after human sacrifice has become outdated.<br />
<br />
== Scapegoat: Logic of the Mob ==<br />
<br />
[[Image:sac4.jpg|thumb|right|Burn Witch Burn]]<br />
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“What kind of logic is it that finds the cause of an epidemic in one man, but only after it was decided that this man had secretly murdered his father and committed incest with his mother?” asks Rene Girard (1987, 84) referring to the myth of Oedipus. There indeed is none, except the logic of the mob. “At the time of Black Death, foriegners were killed and Jews were massacred, and a centry or two later, 'witches' were burnt for reasons strictly identical” (86) to the ones in the myth of Oedipus, Girard argues. <br />
<br />
The scapegoat is one, against many, and is therefore defenseless. Like Oedipus, he is the stranger, the other, or the minority - which is as prone to being idolized and made into a hero as it is vulnerable to being seen as an impurity that is the root of all problems in the community. <br />
<br />
“At the instant the scapegoat is selected, through a nonconcscious process of mimetic suggestion, he obviously appears as the all-powerful cause of all trouble in a community that is itself nothing but trouble. The roles are reversed. The victimizers see themselves as the passive victims of their own victim, and they see their victim as supremely active, eminently capable of destroying them. The scapegoat always appears to be a more powerful agent, a more powerful case than he really is.” (ibid, 91). <br />
The choice of the scapegoat is arbitrary. Scapegoating in itself is functional nonsense. It does not follow a logic. To blame him is a delusion that the society does not question or analyze. “The agitation and fear that preceded the selection of the scapegoat and the violence against him are followed, after his death, by a new mood of harmony and peace” (91) and that is the function that the ritual serves.<br />
<br />
As a ritualized practice, this effect can also be seen in capital punishment, in which a body is sacrificed to an abstract transcendental concept of justice. The body is seen as an impurity, an agent that could hurt the balance of the society, and therefore must be removed for harmony and peace to prevail.<br />
<br />
== Scape-goat: Sacrifice and Sons of Abraham == <br />
<br />
[[Image:sac2.jpg|thumb|right|Sacrifice of Isaac]]<br />
<br />
Theatrical practice began possibly with the substitution of an animal for a human sacrifice. Dramatists are descendents of priests in that sense. Muslims all over the world sacrifice goats and rams every year to re-enact the story of Abraham who, according to the Bible and the Koran, was willing to sacrifice his son before God sent an angel who replaced him with a ram - for a remediation. <br />
<br />
An odd kind of descendants of the sacrificial priests are Islamic terrorists, especially those involved in the contemporary practice of broadcast beheadings, which began with the videotaped beheading of American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. It “has grown into a more systematic tool of political expression”, according to Arjun Appadurai (2006), who sees the trend as a return to “the simplest form of religious violence, the sacrifice…” (p. 12). “My father's Jewish. My mother's Jewish. I'm Jewish,&quot; Pearl said, before he was beheaded and cut into 10 pieces - his killers replacing the goat back with a son of Abraham.<br />
<br />
== Citations ==<br />
<br />
Appadurai, A. (2006). Fear of small numbers: An essay on the geography of anger. Duke University Press. <br />
<br />
Atwood, M. (2000). The blind assassin. Nan A. Talese. <br />
<br />
Beattie, J. H. (1980). On understanding sacrifice. Sacrifice, 29–44. <br />
<br />
Burkert, W. (1987). The problem of ritual killing. Hamerton-Kelly, RG (Hg.), Violent Origins. Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation, Stanford, 149–176.<br />
<br />
Crary, J. (1992). Techniques of the observer. MIT Press.<br />
<br />
Girard, R (1987). Generative Scapegoating. In Violent origins. Hamerton-Kelly, R. G. (ed). Stanford University Press. <br />
<br />
Green, M. (2001). Dying for the Gods. Tempus Publishing, Limited. <br />
<br />
Marx, K. (1977). Capital, Volume 1. New York: Vintage.<br />
<br />
Shakespeare, W. (1977) The Merchant of Venice. ed. 2nd Series. London: Methuen. <br />
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[[Category:Dossier]] <br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Text-Based_Computer_Games&diff=12593
Text-Based Computer Games
2010-11-24T08:32:50Z
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[[Image:zork.png|thumb|right|The opening sequence of Zork I, created in 1979 by Infocom.]] <br />
Text-Based Computer Games are a form of gaming, popular during the 1980s, that requires players to read lines of text on their computer screen which describe a virtual world and prompts players to interact within and navigate that world by typing textual commands on a keyboard. Because these games did not contain graphics (pixel-based images such as bitmaps or raster graphics), they required a large degree of participating from the user, creating an experience that worked to closely link the human body with the machine. Games such as Zork and Adventureland are classic examples of text-based computer games, and although their use has declined in recent years, they have generally been remediated by image-based computer games such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest that feature advanced computer graphics, ultimately allowing the user to detach themselves from the game, replacing their physical body with that of a digitized avatar. This article will explore the protocols surrounding the text-based computer gaming experience in order to argue that text-based games can be read as a form of &quot;interactive fiction&quot;, which prompts players to actively use their minds in order to imagine a virtual world, allowing them to solve a maze-like puzzle by executing textual commands via type. This article will also include an analysis of Multi-User Dungeon Object Oriented virtual realms (MOOs), because although they are not technically &quot;games,&quot; they are text-based virtual worlds which users can explore and navigate while interacting with other users in a chat-based setting, while additionally allowing users to participate in narrative creation through object-oriented programming.<br />
<br />
==Interactive Fiction==<br />
Interactive Fiction, as the term is appropriately used, is a form of computer software that describes a world using text and requires users to respond using text-based commands in order to navigate the world. By this definition, text-based computer games are interactive fiction. But taking the term literally, there are several forms of interactive fiction, including MOOs and Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs). The common thread that ties together all interactive fiction is the aspect of the &quot;secret&quot; that is created by the narrative structure (mainly text adventures which have a Labyrinth structure). In interactive fiction, &quot;the secret is locked away, and a different sort of effort--a puzzle solving that manifests itself as actual writing--is needed to unlock it&quot; (Montfort, 3). This section will explore several aspects of interactive fiction that are required in order to unlock the &quot;secret.&quot;<br />
<br />
===Remediated Narrative===<br />
[[Image:Cyoa.jpg|thumb|left|Analysis of the paths and outcomes of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel.]] <br />
<br />
Interactive Fiction, literally, can be many things outside of computing. For instance, riddles could be considered an early form of interactive fiction, and a slightly more contemporary example would be the Choose Your Own Adventure novel, which text-based computer games would be a direct remediation of. There is a pre-determined element in addition to a user-created aspect in both mediums, creating a cake-mix effect when the two parts combine. In CYOA novels, readers are told to make different decisions in the plot that would result in various outcomes. Similar to players in a text-based computer game, the reader &quot;...determines if certain events will occur at all, and how they will unfold if they do: at such times the [reader] is the one doing the plotting. This means that these events cannot be considered narrative in the strictest sense&quot; (39). If narrative is something pre-determined, what the readers of Choose Your Own Adventure novels and the players of text-based computer games create is something slightly different. Both CYOA novels and text-based computer games have a pre-determined course of events that are created either by the author of the novel or the programmer of the game (which varies, as will be discussed later with MOOs). What the readers/players do is similar to Chatman's idea of the &quot;'implied author'&quot; or Aarseth's idea of the &quot;'intrigue,'&quot; a &quot;'...mastermind who is ultimately responsible for the events and existents'&quot; (Carr, 40). What the text-based computer game does is take the elements of the CYOA novel and shroud it further; you cannot flip ahead and take a sneak peek at the outcome of each decision you make. You are literally faced with a blank screen and have to guess which way to go, how to move, and what to do in order to achieve your desired outcome. This makes the text-based adventure game more similar to a labyrinth than the CYOA novel; a more complex, detailed world that expands the notion of secrecy.<br />
<br />
===The Typed Word===<br />
The principal mode of interaction players use in text-based computer games is the keyboard, through which they type instructions that allow them to move through the game's narrative. In ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter,'' Friedrich Kittler claims that &quot;the typewriter cannot conjure up anything imaginary, as cinema can; it cannot simulate the real...&quot; (Kittler, 183). Although the keyboard, a remediated version of the typewriter which operates similarly, cannot explicitly reproduce the real in the way cinema can, it is a mode of simulating the real in text-based computer games. Through the keyboard one can open letters, climb a cliff, and explore a forest. Kittler cites Heidegger's idea that the typewriter demeans the hand, since it &quot;'...deprives the hand of its rank in the realm of the written word and degrades the word to a means of communication'&quot; in addition to making &quot;'everyone look the same'&quot; (Kittler, 199). Heidegger believes that one's identity is held in one's handwriting, and type homogenizes handwriting. However, I would argue that in text-based computer games the typed word is not an inferior mode of communication, but rather a powerful mode of controlling and navigating the virtual realm in a more direct way. Unlike the point-and-click method of moving an avatar that is predominant in many modern image-based computer games, by typing the player is not transferring their agency onto a fictitious character, but more directly immersing themselves into the game. Rather than allowing type to &quot;withdraw from man the essential rank of the hand,&quot; the player utilizes mechanic type in order to dominate and win a game (Kittler, 199).<br />
<br />
==Visuality/The Imagined==<br />
<br />
Because there are no graphics, the act of seeing and observing in a text-based computer game is, aside from reading, an entirely internal process for the player. The mediation between eyes and text constructs images in the mind, and this act of imagining creates a unique relationship between machine and body. Because the only aid in creating the gaming landscape is an often brief textual description, I will argue that Crary's idea that &quot;the human body, in all its contingency and specificity...becomes the active producer of optical experience&quot; can justifiably be applied to the experience of text-based computer gaming (Crary, 69). Rather than an &quot;optical experience&quot; resulting in a user viewing an image and making inferences about that image, the player is physically creating an image. Similar to Maine de Biran's concept of the &quot;'sens intime,'&quot; this mode of gaming is centered around an internal experience. Likewise, Schopenhauer &quot;rejected any model of the observer as passive receiver of sensation, and instead posed a subject who was both the site and producer of sensation...[he was] concerned with &quot;'what occurs within the brain'&quot; (Crary, 75). What occurs within the brain is directly tied to the game, since the game is basically mapped out in the mind. While the read/write process occurs physically, and the player types commands and sends them to the computer, the gaming experience is almost entirely dependent on the active imagination constantly forming and reforming images. This process allows the brain to become an active part of the game, tying the body closely to the computer, with the hands acting as an extension of the brain, typing commands as the mind configures a setting and decides the player's movements, which are executed through the fingers.<br />
<br />
==MOOs, OOP, and Interface==<br />
[[Image:Lambdamoo.jpg|thumb|right|A map of LambdaMoo.]]<br />
===The MOO===<br />
In the strictest sense, a MOO is not a game in that there is no means to an end, and no way of winning, but in many ways it is closely tied to interactive fiction in that users must still navigate a maze-like setting in order to understand the landscape of the virtual world. A MOO is somewhat closer to a modern computer game because it requires a user to register a handle, and sometimes create a character, although one that is still represented textually. For example, in the popular MOO LambdaMoo, a user registers a handle--a pseudonym used while online--and then can choose certain &quot;physical&quot; characteristics of their character, i.e. by changing the gender you are changing the personal pronouns that will be used to describe and address that character. The character &quot;lives&quot; in the virtual world and will often continue to stay there (sometimes as &quot;sleeping&quot;) even if the user is not logged in.<br />
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===OOP and Interface===<br />
What is especially significant about MOOs is that many allow users to participate in object-oriented programming (OOP), calling into question Vismann and Krajewski's notion that &quot;...the computer show[s] only its anthropomorphic face; that is, its interface...[the user] is born as one who is capable of neither any insight beyond the surface nor any programmer's knowledge whatsoever&quot; (96). Although a game's interface depends on the interface of the operating system (the two must &quot;agree&quot;), MOOs allow users to physically change their surroundings through programming (via the MOO programming language) within the server of the game. You could add rooms, change the setting, and alter play with the knowledge of MOO programming language. In the world of gaming, this could be considered a hack, since players are typically not permitted to change a game's narrative structure. While Vismann and Krajewski would argue that not everyone is a programmer, and thus OOP is not accessible to all users, making it &quot;...impossible to decipher the product specifications of the finished product or even to change these specifications,&quot; the MOO programming language is relatively easy and straightforward for English-speakers, and can be learned quickly by anyone who is computer-savvy enough to navigate an English language-based MOO (96).<br />
<br />
The classic Hello world program can be written in MOO programming language as:<br />
&lt;pre&gt;<br />
@program hello:run<br />
player:tell(&quot;Hello to the world of MOO!&quot;);<br />
.<br />
&lt;/pre&gt;<br />
By acknowledging the ability for users to change their virtual world through code, thus affecting the law of the world, we can argue that saying &quot;beyond the interface, users have no access whatsoever&quot; is variable, and not always as concrete as Vissman and Krajewski argue (100). Law is continuously changing in the world of the MOO, relationships between users and their setting are never definite, and code can reflect a common vision the users share (i.e. they want their MOO to be a safe, welcoming place). The use of OOP to alter a MOO also counters the idea that computer and video games are contained within a &quot;black box&quot; and players/users cannot view or change the software's mechanics, which are often shrouded by interface. However, what remains unclear is if older MOOs, popular in the 1990s, that still exist, continue to compel such open use, or if they remain closed as a sort of artifact that people can tour.<br />
<br />
==The Image-Based Computer Game==<br />
[[Image:Wow.jpg|thumb|left|Creating an avatar in World of Warcraft.]] <br />
[[Image:Everquest.jpg|thumb|right|Navigating EverQuest.]]<br />
<br />
As computer technology advanced and more image-based computer games were released, the text-based computer game fell out of favor and became something that appealed to a dwindling audience of programmers and &quot;geeks.&quot; Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) like Ultima Online replaced text-based games one of the dominant genres for computer gaming in the late 1990s, working through visually constructed fantasy world in which players can create an avatar and use it to take part in game play, moving their physical bodies further away from computer gaming. The function of storytelling and narrative also changed, proving that &quot;computer games, even those that contain substantial amounts of storytelling, do not reside [comfortably] within existing models of narrative&quot; (Carr, 38). In image-based computer games users have more mobility than text-based games allowing the player to disregard the narrative embedded within the game (i.e. my avatar can just walk around a field killing monsters in WoW rather than complete quests). With the advancement of computer graphics came this increased mobility and a point-and-click method of moving. By eliminating textual commands and the opportunity for OOP, the computer game became more of a closed system, resulting in an interface that was entirely one-way and not malleable. Rather than type where I want to go in an imagined setting, I click my avatar through hills and forests that have already been visually created for me. The player becomes more passive, offsetting game play to his or her avatar rather than engaging their body and mind as part of the game. Rather than the game being a &quot;process of subjectivization in which the subject is simultaneously the object of knowledge and the object of procedures of control and normalization,&quot; the game becomes an objective experience in which subjectivity ends when you choose your avatar's hair color (Crary, 92).<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<br />
Carr, Diane. &quot;Games and Narrative.&quot; Computer Games: Text, Narrative, and Play. Cambridge: Polity, 2006. Print. <br />
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Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: on Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1990. Print. <br />
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Kittler, Friedrich A. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UP, 1999. Print. <br />
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Montfort, Nick. Twisty Little Passages: an Approach to Interactive Fiction. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2003. Print. <br />
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Vismann, Cornelia, and Markus Krajewski. &quot;Computer Juridisms.&quot; Grey Room 29 (2008): 90-109. Web. <br />
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[[Category:Gaming]]<br />
[[Category:Visuality]]<br />
[[Category:Computation]]<br />
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<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Code_Duello&diff=12592
Code Duello
2010-11-24T08:32:48Z
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&lt;div style=&quot;text-align:center;&quot;&gt;Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?&lt;/div&gt;<br />
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align:center;&quot;&gt;Oh That was right lad, that was brave:&lt;/div&gt;<br />
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align:center;&quot;&gt;Yours was not an ill for mending, &lt;/div&gt;<br />
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align:center;&quot;&gt;'Twas best to take it to the grave. &lt;/div&gt;<br />
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align:center;&quot;&gt;-A.E. Housmand, A Shorpshire Lad, XLIII (1896)&lt;/div&gt;<br />
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&quot;Duel of chivalry&quot; defined by Baldwick as &quot;a meeting in single combat between two knights, always with great public ceremonial, to settle a difference of law, possession or honour&quot; (22).<br />
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From the courthouse to the battlefield man has violently clashed together in any number of ways, including the oddity of the duel, &quot;a judicial combat between two persons or trail by wager of battle&quot; (OED). Necessarily, the duel is ordered by a pre-arrange set of rules manifest in the Code Duello of the time. Although the particulars of which have fluctuated in formality and prominence in relation to the ever changing socio-political atmosphere throughout history, the Code Duello in its various incarnations consistently reflects a tense marriage between the encoded order of systemic rules and the inherent disorder of the violent encounter.<br />
<br />
[[File:duel01.jpg|right|]]<br />
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==''Point d'Honneur'' - Dual Authority of Self + State==<br />
Dueling arrises out of aristocratic traditions of chivalry and honor, which, although they may not persist as such in modern times, serve to shape the nature of the duel throughout it's practice. Knightly chivalry and honor are closely tied to the monarchical authority, in such circumstance the Code Duello is embedded in the knightly order of the state itself, producing duels as an extension of the throne. With the decline of monarchical authority the duel's authentication shifts from the throne to the standardized code itself, a body often in conflict and competition with both church and state. As a codified system of ethics itself, the existence of Code Duello challenges other sources of authority designated to impose order onto violence. The French concept of the ''point d'honneur'' illustrates this tension as existing between the authority of the self and the authority of the king or the state inherent in the act of the duel, &quot;The sense of honour of the aristocracy retained a residue of habitual freedom and self-determination, to which they lent expression by engaging in duelling. At the same time, they introduced their concepts of aristocratic honour into the new areas of competence and functions with which they had been entrusted during the course of their incorporation into the state. Loyalty to the absolute monarch and opposition to this jurisdictional monopoly were two sides of the same coin&quot; (Fervert, 15) This duality of authority, inherent in the ''point d'honneur'', in which the Code Duello finds its roots, is remediated throughout the evolution of the code until it's demise in the 19th century. Embedded in a tradition of supposed civility hides unbridled hostility, out from under strict adherence to codified ritual leeks disorder and subversion. Through the early modern era forms of Codes Duello were specific to kingdom and country but in 1977 the Irish Code Duello became the more or less universally recognized code for dueling throughout the western world.<br />
<br />
==The Mediatic Encounter - Encoding the Self + the Other==<br />
The mediatic nature of the duel lies not in its particular coded incarnations but in how it addresses a larger issue of encoding the human encounter, most especially the violent encounter with the other. The nature of the duel presupposes a persisting state of conflict, and indeed, Goethe see's the ''point d'honneur'' as &quot;a certain safeguard against brutal acts of violence&quot; in as much as, &quot;if dueling did not exist, conflicts would take place under far more violent and disorganized conditions, which would exercise a much more detrimental effect upon the cultural tenor of a society.&quot; (Fervent, 23). Viewing the duel in this way reveals the Code Duello as a method of imposing rules and order upon the deeper realm of violence and disorder lurking beneath all encounters. Its existence suggests that if left without the Code Duello to reign the conflict in, tethering it to ordered ritual, disordered violence would simply run amuck. The Code Duello precedes the subject, walking ahead and providing a code of action, a protocol for the inevitable encounter of conflict with the other. Evaluating the Code Duello through the technique of 'mediatic encouter' reveals the degree of encoding in place to mediate an encounter with the unknown. The duel is certainly a highly encoded mediatic encounter, enabled through the body of the Code Duello, which by codifying and ritualizing each step of the duel, provides the subject with protocol for confronting the other through violence, while transforming that violence into a mediation of justice and a restoration of honor, transforming the other into friend, or at the very least lowering the risk of fatalities. <br />
[[File:Duel1.jpg|400px|thumb|left|]]<br />
<br />
==The Threat of the Other - Always Already Confronting Each Other==<br />
The very need for a highly standardized Code Duello suggests a persisting condition of conflict in the nature of human interaction, a conflict which, although not always violent, can be seen as rooted in the constant tension between the known-self and unknown-other. In the same way that the duel imposes rules of order on a disordered interaction between self and other, all interactions hold a degree of threat, inherent in the unknown, and a degree of order in the coded protocols of interaction, be it dancing or buying a sofa. The other is inherently mysterious to us, his or her inner workings and rational are black boxed from the subjective experience of self, in that mystery lies disorder and the threat of violence. Hegel illustrates the threat found in the encounter with the other, &quot;Just as each stakes his own life, so each must must seek the other's death. . .its essential being is present to it in the form of an 'other', it is outside of itself and must rid itself of its self-externality. . .it must regard its otherness as pure being-for-self or as an absolute negation. (Hegel, 113-114) Hegel's perspective of the threat of the self-as-other illuminates the natural inclination to view the other as threatening and the subsequent need to order the interaction, whether through duel or conversation the other is always being confronted as a mystery, as separate. <br />
[[File:Duel_2.jpg|400px|thumb|right|]]<br />
Eva Horn's exploration of boundaries in terms of the Wall can be applied to the subjective human experience, &quot;The space behind the Wall is a black box whose signals and symptoms are to be decoded&quot; (76). Unable to cross the wall into the experience of others, we can only 'decode' them through mediated interaction. Confrontation with the unknown other does not, however, need to remain colored by threat and suspicion. In his work concerning international political theory, Carl Schmitt explores the fundamental importance of determining friend from enemy, a distinction which is formative to the self. Revealing the political nature of encounters with the other, in one's potential to classify the other as friend or foe, Schmitt's friend/enemy distinction reveals itself as being constantly negotiated, the duel exhibiting an extreme form of violent negotiation but one that is not all together different from the workings of a discussion. The confrontation of the other through Code Duello also acts to classify the other, because one can only duel someone of the same social status, the opponent is at once an enemy and a potential friend. The act of accepting a duel is in itself an act of respecting the opponent, deeming him worthy of undertaking a mutual risk. By exposing onesself at once to the symbolic order of the Code Duello and to the violent reality swords and guns, the enemy can be transformed into a friend by passing through the medium of the duel. &quot;The proximity of death subjects both deullists to a sort of ritual purgation during which all feelings of hate, deliberate abuse and enmity are cast aside&quot; (Fervert, 24).<br />
<br />
==Encoding Order onto Disorder - Civility Through Violence==<br />
<br />
===A Cybernetic Network of Justice===<br />
&quot;The gate to the law refers to a law that resides behind it. Behind the first gate there is a further fate and then another one. . . nothing but a chain of references&quot; (Vismann, 21). The Code Duello is certainly a form of law, functioning to set the conditions of operation for the mediation of honor, to assign meaning to symbolic actions which will refer to a higher order of justice. Since the duel is fought in response to an offense, the gestures comprising the duel, as set forth by the Code Duello, are symolically referring to a constructed ethics of justice. Whether the assailants sword fight to the death or fire pistols purposely off mark, the duel acts to restore honor symbolically, either through blood or in many cases &quot;merely the willingness to risk ones life&quot; (Fervert, 19).<br />
[[File:DuelingPistol.gif|400px|thumb|right|Dueling Pistol]]<br />
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===Motor of Fury - The Irrational Core of the Duelist Black Box===<br />
The Code Duello can be seen as the governing principles over a network of agents, the code that creates limits for the activities of the duelists, who are connected through a cybernetic network; each acting as 'function' black box agents themselves but also subject to the universal rules of Code Duello. The space for particular agency is only within the black box of the agent, powered by Deluezian &quot;furor&quot; (Horn, 63) but simultaneously constrained by the ethics of the duel. Honor is transfered throughout the network, dependent upon the opinion of others for legitimation the network of duelists forms a complex ecology of encoded information, each &quot;node&quot; or duelist active on his own. The violent and disordered 'furor' is only accessible through the interface of the Code Duello, that is, through the ordered gestures of the duel which at times betray their disordered core beneath but never succumb to it entirely. The duelists are driven by an inner disorder, the raison d'être of the duel itself, but expressed through an ordered interface of coded actions, reflecting varying degrees of proximity to violent core, ranging from a passionate sword duel, to a mechanical and sanitized pistol duel. <br />
<br />
The encoding of honor entails imposing an ordered system of gesture on top of the disordered state of the violent psyche, at once restricting and promoting violence, creating approved bursts of disorder throughout the ordered system of Code Duello. Irrational acts of violence are encoded into rational acts of justice, calling into question the proclaimed civility of the duel. By this method of encoding, a Faustian bargain is struck, the universalizing and standardizing the terms of conflict, therefore sacrifices the autonomy of the duelist. The paradox is that, the very violent impulse that the Code Duello seeks to squash through ritual is the motor of the entire process, without violent malice there would be no duel, without danger there would be no transformation from dishonor to honor, from foe to friend.<br />
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===Empty Gesture - The Gutting of the Code Duello===<br />
The gestural manifestations of the Code Duello illustrate the tension between order and disorder, civility and chaos. The pistol duel especially demonstrates these paradoxes, setting a scene in which the gestures performed become seriously detached from their roots in battle. The mutually pointed guns tied together the duelists in their embrace of the threat of the other, but also pointing to each other as equals, gesturing toward a potential friend. The field between them acts as a stage on which the code will be played out. Aside from the fact that pistol dueling is ludicrously inaccurate, rarely coming even close to one's mark, practices such as &quot;Deloping&quot; or throwing one's shot to miss the opponent on purpose (Fleming, 8) served to further distort the connection between ernest violence and coded tradition. &quot;The deloper had to let the other man fire at him first, giving no hind of what he was planning to do. Often the duelists seconds would declare that honor had been satisfied and ban another shot&quot; (Fleming, 8). This gesture empties the duel of the risk valued as transformational and encoded with justice, leaving only the coded gesture, referring to nothing. <br />
<br />
[[File:Duel.jpg|400px|thumb|left|]]<br />
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It is understandable that early duels, fought hand to hand with swords, demonstrating skill and strength, could encode an ethics of power, along Nietzschean lines perhaps. However, with the further standardization of the Code Duello, decreased risk and skill required, the encoding of honor into the gesture of the duel buries deeper and deeper the violent disorder at its base. The farther removed the gesture becomes from the violent core, the more secret the law seems&quot; (Vismann, 21). By the late 19th Century the duel itself becomes a black box, the gesture as merely a line of referential codes, back and back, to what it was ever referring becomes indistinguishable. &quot;Bloodless scholars and fat businessmen waving pistols were would-be warriors, and the confrontation between frail flabby flesh and death was ludicrously inappropriate. . .By the late nineteenth century, disciplined cooperation had replaced heroism in the duel. It was more proper than glorious, more dutiful than beautiful&quot; (McAleer, 53). In a historical devolution, the duel with pistols had reemerged as its medieval antecedent, the ordeal, a trial mediated by mystical chance rather than any distinguishable form of ethics. The modern pistol duel had functionally become a skeuomorph of the earlier dueling which referenced to an encoding of honor rather than empty gesture, the encoded honor that had once been transfered through the medium of the duel was becomes decoded as the 'furor' ceases to inhabit the gesture of the duel.<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
<br />
Baldick, Robert. The Duel; a History of Duelling. London, New York: Spring, 1970. Print<br />
<br />
&quot;Duel.&quot; Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Online. &lt;http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/&gt;.<br />
<br />
Fleming, Thomas. Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America. New York, NY: Basic, 2002. Print.<br />
<br />
Frevert, Ute. Men of Honour: a Social and Cultural History of the Duel. Cambridge: Polity, 1995. Print.<br />
<br />
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, and J. B. Baillie. The Phenomenology of Spirit: (the Phenomenology of Mind). [Lawrence, Kan.]: Digireads.com, 2009. Print.<br />
<br />
Horn, Eva. &quot;Knowing the Enemy: The Epistemology of Secret Intelligence.&quot; Boston: MIT Press Journal Grey Room, 2003<br />
<br />
McAleer, Kevin. Dueling: the Cult of Honor in Fin-de-siècle Germany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1997. Print.<br />
<br />
Schmitt, Carl, and Carl Schmitt. The Concept of the Political. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2007. Print<br />
<br />
Vismann, Cornelia. Files: Law and Media Technology. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Nintendo_Virtual_Boy&diff=12591
Nintendo Virtual Boy
2010-11-24T08:29:51Z
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= Early history =<br />
<br />
[[File:Yokoi.jpg|thumb|Gunpei Yokoi]]<br />
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Virtual Boy was released on July 21, 1995 in Japan and August 14, 1995 in North America. It was released in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(fifth_generation &quot;fifth generation&quot;] video game console cycle. Other consoles released during this cycle include the Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn. During this time in video game history there was a transition from 32-bit to 64-bit graphics and 2D “sprite” to 3D “polygonal” game animation. Virtual Boy fits into the overall history of video games as a wholly transitional experiment.<br />
<br />
Virtual Boy was invented by Gunpei Yokoi, a long-time Nintendo hardware and software developer. He is best known for creating the Game &amp; Watch (1980) and Game Boy (1989) handheld systems and working on successful video game franchises such as ''Metroid''.<br />
<br />
In the spring of 1994, rumors were swirling in the video games industry about a revolutionary virtual reality project to be created by Nintendo. The rumors proved to be true; Nintendo had commissioned Yokoi to invent a brand new way to experience video games.<br />
<br />
= Development &amp; hardware specifications =<br />
Nintendo introduced Virtual Boy as “the first three-dimensional stereo immersive 32-bit video game system ever” that “eliminates all external stimuli, totally immersing players into their own private universe.” It was their attempt to bring a 3D virtual reality video games experience to the mass market. Codenamed VR32, Virtual Boy took two years to develop and incorporated a wide range of what was considered advanced technology at the time.<br />
<br />
[[File:gameplay.jpg|thumb|Gameplay - Virtual Boy Wario Land]]<br />
<br />
At the heart of Virtual Boy lie its two LED displays developed by Reflection Technologies Inc. The LED displays produce a 3D image similar to the way movies traditionally produced the stereoscopic effect with anaglyph images. The 3D gaming model uses the parallax effect to trick the player into thinking he is seeing one image instead of two. The dual LED displays produce two separate images, but your brain reads them as a single image. Flat oscillating mirrors behind the displays vibrate back and forth at a high speed and help produce the illusion of depth. Perspective is important. The player must look directly at the two displays to experience the full effect. Tilting of the head or viewing the on-screen gameplay from a side angle will result in the loss of the 3D effect. The displays have a 384x224 pixel resolution and produce a monochromatic image using the colors black and red. Originally Yokoi had plans to incorporate many colors beyond the use of red LED pixels; in addition he contemplated using LCD displays instead. During early testing, he found that a full color dual LCD array would not work because it negatively affected the depth effect (testers experienced double vision). He chose to use the color red (when faced with the option to also choose yellow, blue, or green) because it is a striking, recognizable color that requires the least amount of battery power.<br />
<br />
Other hardware specifications include a 20MHz 32-bit RISC processor, 128KB of dual-port VRAM, 16-bit stereo sound, an 8-pin serial port, and a controller port. The unit weighs about 750 grams and it measures at 8.5&quot; (H) x 10&quot; (W) x 4.3&quot; (D).<br />
<br />
A shoulder harness never made it past initial development stages.<br />
<br />
[[File:hardware.jpg|thumb|Virtual Boy hardware]]<br />
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<br />
= Console setup &amp; use =<br />
Setting up Virtual Boy for use is simple. The console shipped with three separate pieces. The first is the head unit. The head unit packs all the circuitry and the dual displays. Unlike all of the video game consoles that came before it (excluding handheld devices), the Virtual Boy does not (and cannot be) hooked up to an external display such as a television. The player must peer into the eyepiece mount to see the dual displays and play a game. The eyepiece mount is surrounded by a removable black neoprene eye shade that shields the player’s field of vision; it helps keep out unwanted light to make gameplay easily visible. The second piece is the adjustable stand. Though it is not required to make the console work, it is highly recommended to use since it elevated the head unit and kept it in place during gameplay. The head unit snaps into the stand and rotating knobs can be used to position it to your liking. The controller doubles as the console’s power supply. Connect the controller to the underside of the head unit, flip the power switch to the left, and Virtual Boy turns on. The console does not feature a main menu; for it to function a game cartridge must be inserted into the back of the head unit before it gets powered on.<br />
<br />
The Virtual Boy controller was designed specifically with 3D gameplay in mind. In addition to the standard D-pad, a, b, start, select, and left/right trigger buttons, the odd-shaped controller (that certainly shares design cues with the Gamecube’s controller) also includes a secondary D-pad. Yokoi had high hopes that this second D-pad located on the right side of the controller; he thought it would help players better manage and control in-game objects in a 3D space. Unfortunately game developers on the whole did not utilize this function. In most cases the two D-pads served the same function in a game. A second standout feature of the controller is that it also serves as the console’s power supply. At the back there’s a slideout battery pack that houses six AA batteries. Players had the option to purchase a second slideout accessory that allowed an AC adapter to provide power.<br />
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In addition to the cartridge loader, volume slider, a headphone port, and the controller port, the head unit also included an extension port labeled EXT. Yokoi envisioned Virtual Boy players hooking up their head units to each other for multiplayer gaming. Though a Game Link Cable accessory was in the works (Mario’s Tennis was rumored to boast multiplayer support), Nintendo never released it.<br />
<br />
[[File:WaterWorld.jpg|thumb|Game Pak - Water World (unreleased game)]]<br />
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= Games =<br />
A total of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Virtual_Boy_games twenty-two games] were made for Virtual Boy. Nineteen were issued for the Japanese market and only fourteen released in North America. Nintendo published the majority of them. Games were stored on small square cartridges Nintendo called “Game Paks.” North America launch games included ''Mario’s Tennis'', ''Red Alarm'', ''Teleroboxer'', and ''Galactic Pinball''.<br />
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= Demise =<br />
Shortly after Virtual Boy was unveiled to the public in the spring of 1994 at the Shoshinkai Exhibition in Japan and its release in Japan and North America later in 1995, the once thought to be revolutionary and breakout product of its time became a renowned failure in the video games industry. After being sold on the market for just about six months, Nintendo discontinued Virtual Boy on December 22, 1995 in Japan and March 2, 1996 in North America. It sold for around $180 USD. Nintendo sold around 800,000 units worldwide.<br />
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Gamers and industry analysts place the blame of the Virtual Boy’s failure amongst many factors, the first and foremost being the visuals. Ironically, it’s the awesome 3D visuals that Yokoi thought would successfully market this pseudo-portable gaming console as a revolutionary device—not drive it into oblivion. Players complained that the monochromatic red on black visuals induced headaches and mild dizziness after extended periods of gameplay. In fact, the instruction manual for games warned players about the risk of &quot;headaches, nausea, dizziness, and blurred vision.&quot; Though initial console and gameplay setup is simple, players were recommended to tweak Focus and Inter-Pupillary Distance (IPD) if the on-screen images appeared out of focus or blurry &quot;EACH TIME game play is started.&quot; Virtual Boy also has a built-in timer that automatically pauses a game every fifteen or thirty seconds to make the player avoid too much eye strain.<br />
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[[File:inuse.jpg|thumb|Player position]]<br />
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The hardware design also served as a major blunder. The instruction manual implores the player to place the head mount on the stand and lay it directly on a flat surface. Virtual Boy was considered to be a hybrid between a home console and a portable handheld device, but its lack of comfortable placement and convenience made it quite the hassle to use. The instruction manual warned that failure to properly adjust the angle and height of the stand and the player's sitting position could result in &quot;eye, hand, neck strain, or other discomfort resulting in injuries.&quot; Nintendo was overly concerned with the player's health and safety during gameplay. This would not bode well for sales and consumer mindshare.<br />
<br />
Lack of developer support also contributed significantly to Virtual Boy’s demise. Nintendo was the premier developer for Virtual Boy software, and many other developers did not seem to catch on with what Nintendo thought would be a new 3D gaming craze. Nintendo hurt their cause by promising multiplayer support and failed to deliver the proper cable to enable it. Developers declined the invitation to make enticing games for the console, and this resulted in almost immediate consumer disinterest.<br />
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The price proved to be steep for most consumers. The original Game Boy cost $89.99 and the upcoming home console Nintendo 64 would be priced at $199. Consumers did not see the incentive to pay $180 for an in-between device that performed poorly in comparison to the N64 and was certainly not as portable and convenient as the Game Boy.<br />
<br />
In more recent times, [http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1991915_1991909_1991900,00.html Time] named Virtual Boy one of the 50 worst inventions. &quot;The system consisted of bulky, bright red headgear that completely obscured a gamer's vision as he tried to play games rendered in rudimentary 3-D graphics. It was expensive (retailing at $180) and came with a limited slate of games.&quot; [http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/slideshow/195577/ugliest_products_tech_history/?image=5 PC World] called it one of the ugliest products in tech history. &quot;The &quot;portable&quot; unit consisted of goggles mounted on a stand (looking like some kind of compact, plastic peep show), along with a full-size controller.&quot;<br />
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= Legacy =<br />
Although Virtual Boy was a complete and utter failure during its short time on the market, the virtual reality three-dimensional gameplay gave technology companies and video games manufacturers reason to research and experiment with new methods of games interaction.<br />
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[[File:3DS.jpg|thumb|Nintendo 3DS]]<br />
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Though it lied dormant for many years following Virtual Boy, 3D gaming has made a huge comeback in recent years. Riding on the coattails of 3D’s popularity in cinema, Sony is making a big push for 3D gaming on the PlayStation 3. Modern active shutter 3D glasses and a 3D compatible television set are required for the stereoscopic effect. Coming next year is Nintendo’s next handheld gaming device, the Nintendo 3DS. In what can arguably be called the Virtual Boy successor, the 3DS will use an updated model of the same parallax effect used in Virtual Boy to provide gamers on the go with impressive depth perception—this time in all colors of the rainbow! The 3DS features a “3D Depth Slider” that allows the player to manipulate the strength of the 3D effect that does not require the use of glasses. In televised commercials Nintendo promoted Virtual Boy as a “3D game for a 3D world.” With much hype behind the launch of the 3DS, Nintendo hopes to prove they were ahead of their time and that portable 3D gaming can work with the right technology.<br />
<br />
In addition to the current push towards 3D gaming, Nintendo helps make the point that experimentation in video game interactivity is important for industry growth and diversity. They have proven this most recently with their latest home console the Nintendo Wii. The Wii relies on motion sensing with wireless controllers. It was a bold and risky move to introduce this new method of input, but it quickly proved to be a wild success in the market. Nintendo has sold over 74 million consoles worldwide, and direct competitors Sony and Microsoft are trying to steal the Wii’s thunder with their own methods of motion control in video games (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Move PlayStation Move] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect Kinect for Xbox 360]).<br />
<br />
= References =<br />
http://www.virtual-boy.org/<br />
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http://nintendoland.com/Consoles/VB/index.php<br />
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http://www.planetvb.com/modules/hardware/?type=vb<br />
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http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo-Virtual-Boy-Teardown/3540/1<br />
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http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1991915_1991909_1991900,00.html<br />
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http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/slideshow/195577/ugliest_products_tech_history/?image=5<br />
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http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/virtualboy/trouble_image.jsp<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]] <br />
[[Category:Fall 2010]]<br />
[[Category:Video Games]]<br />
[[Category:gaming]]<br />
[[Category:Virtual Reality]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Analog/Digital_Transition&diff=12590
Analog/Digital Transition
2010-11-24T08:27:53Z
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Although it may seem counter-intuitive, the analog/digital divide has been around for an extremely long time. Some project this binary dichotomy back to the differences between the slide rule and the abacus. More generally, it can be seen as the difference between the body (outward, physical) and the mind (inward, psychological). This dichotomy may have been placed retroactively on such devices, but today, for many, the dichotomy has almost disappeared. As digital technologies creep into every aspect of our everyday lives, we see analog technologies taking a step back in retreat, causing major ripples in the way we live our lives. As a note, the use of the words analog and digital herein, apply both to the devices and machines they describe as well as the more theoretical ideas of our ways of experiencing life.<br />
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==Differences==<br />
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The differences between analog and digital can be very technical, or otherwise, extremely intuitive. This wiki entry won’t deal with the specific technical differences, but instead focus on the intuitive and theoretical differences. As explained by Carol Wilder, the word analog comes from the Greek roots ana, meaning equivalent, and logos, meaning the structure of reality. Hence, something that is analog in nature refers directly to the way things are in reality, or is equivalent with such reality. “As a level of description, it [analog] is closer than digital coding to the physical world, closer to corporeality, more kinesthetic, tactile, more-dare I say-‘real.’” This can be compared to the “digital level of description” which “represents a more abstracted disembodied consciousness, which is at once more expansive and less visceral” (Wilder 252). In this sense it is an aesthetic difference between how we encounter life and experience the world around us.<br />
Furthermore, Wilder quotes physiologist Ralph Gerard, who explored this dichotomy in 1951, explaining that “an analogical system is one in which one of two variables is continuous on the other, while in a digital system the variable is discontinuous and quantized” (qtd. in Wilder 243). It is from Gerard that we get the prototypical analog device, the slide rule—it’s continuous numbering, as well as meaningful spatiality, wherein the further down the number is, the larger it is—and the abacus as the prototypical digital device, due to the ‘on-or-off-ness’ of the beads, where they are either counted or not. This latter conception of digitality has principally to do with the language of binary, used by today’s digital devices, in its utilization of 1s and 0s.<br />
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===Differences in Language===<br />
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One last difference is seen in the different levels of human communication. Gregory Bateson addressed this issue in 1966, in the form of a question: “How does it happen that the paralinguistics and kinesics of men from strange cultures, and even the paralinguistics of other terrestrial mammals, are at least partly intelligible to us, whereas the verbal languages of men from strange cultures seem to be totally opaque?” (qtd. in Wilder 247). He goes on to explain that this is because written/spoken language is digital, due to the arbitrary assignment of words to their meanings, and paralinguistics are analog. Paralinguistics, all of the nonverbal communication as well as the way the words are spoken (pitch, etc.), are analog because the meaning of this type of communication is directly related to it. Wilder further asserts that paralinguistics “is our primary means to communicate messages about relationship,” and at times written/spoken language can fall short of what we actually want to say in these situations, leaving paralinguistics as our only means of expressing ourselves (247-248). Interestingly, for the most part, it is solely written/spoken (digital) language that is transmittable using digital communication, and thus we lose a powerful form of communication when communicating as such.<br />
<br />
==Transition and Effects==<br />
<br />
As stated earlier, the transition from analog to digital has been a long time coming, and the dueling ways of thinking and living have been around even longer. However, it has taken until the latter half of the 20th century for the full transition to digital to really take effect. With personal computers, DVDs and CDs, the Internet and online communication, digital phone networks, etc. there is a tangible trend today towards the digitization of almost every aspect of our lives. One major signal could be the shutting down of the analog television broadcasting system in February of 2009; another could be the transition that has taken place over the latter half of the 20th century in the US from an industrial economy to an information economy, as well as the rise of globalization, neither of which would have been possible without digital technologies. At this point in time, the transition can most obviously be seen in the wealthier areas of the world, and affects the younger generations, who have been brought up around these technologies, more so than the older generations. Even still, this transition is taking place and will slowly permeate into poorer areas, and perhaps even the older generations.<br />
<br />
Wilder quotes Neil Postman in saying that “A new technology does not add or subtract something. It changes everything” (240). This section attempts to examine some of these changes. The most encompassing change that the digital age brings is well described by Joohan Kim. He explains,<br />
“Before computers, different types of information required different types of communication channel . . . [and] also required distinctive methods for storage . . . but now, with computers, we can store all kinds of information with a single digital medium. . . . This means that the computer would be the primary medium for human communications in the very near future . . . the medium called computer literally becomes an extension of our body” (102).<br />
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Here we see that the computer and digital technologies may literally become the medium through which we see, understand, and interact with the world. Again, this has not fully taken place as of yet, but is the direction we seem to be heading in. It is McLuhan’s prophecy come true, for many of the younger generations already communicate, consume culture, make friends, etc. through the computer and the Internet, using these technologies, as they were, as extensions of themselves. For many, a friendship is not a friendship until it is consummated on Facebook or similar social networking sites. There is definite resistance, but not much that can be seen amongst the young.<br />
While these are more abstract effects, this transition also has very real effects for the ways we experience the world in a more theoretical sense. These effects can be seen in three different, although connected ways: the way we see ourselves, the way we communicate, and the way we see the world.<br />
<br />
<br />
===Digital Self===<br />
<br />
The pervading use of digital technologies into our everyday lives can have enormous effects in our conceptions of self. Inherently, digital technologies are more inward focused. We interact with their external components, but these are connected to internal workings of which most of us have very little idea how they work. Alternatively, in the age of analog technologies, the majority of people could have some understanding of how their machines worked, and in fact, sometimes one could understand it simply from studying the mechanism. With digital technologies however, it takes increasingly specialized skills to achieve this type of understanding. The same could be said perhaps, in reference to ourselves. As digital technologies came more into our lives, we have taken to focusing inward on ourselves, so much so that it now takes specialized professions (psychologists, psychiatrists), to help us understand ourselves.<br />
<br />
Shanyang Zhao, in studying the effects of online communications by teenagers, found this exact idea in the creation of the digital self (his term for the online persona affected by those engaging on online communications): “The digital self is . . . more oriented toward one’s inner world, focusing on thoughts, feelings and personalities rather than one’s outer world, focusing on height, weight, and looks” (396). This is not to say that people who are connected online no longer care about their physical characters—it would be ridiculous to claim so—however, in online communications, the psychological is discussed more, and more thoroughly, than in face-to-face dialogue, partially due to the anonymity digital communication can provide.<br />
<br />
===Digital Communication===<br />
<br />
As mentioned above, the difference between analog and digital is apparent even in the general discussion of face-to-face human communication. Words appear as digital communication, while body language, tone and rhythm of speech, etc, can all be considered analog communication. In communicating digitally, through online media, we lose these paralinguistic aspects of communication and are forced to allay the full meaning of our conversation through words. This can be thoroughly difficult when attempting to communicate something as intimate as feelings where, typically, words can fall short. Surely this issue has been apparent in communicating through earlier technologies before the advent of truly digital communication, as both letter writing and especially telegraphy are technically digital forms of communication since they convey solely the digital aspects of language.<br />
<br />
While the advent of videochatting and other, less-text-based online communication methods brings some of the paralinguistic techniques to the table, the most important (especially to intimate communication), touch, has yet to be unlocked online. Furthermore, this sense is the very one that ties us to the analog world itself—the world we experience around us—for while we may see or hear things that are digital, we cannot touch them for they are not laid out in front of us tangibly.<br />
<br />
Although online communication is typically used to further the foundation between people that they establish in the ‘real world,’ it still does have effects in the way we communicate as human beings. The focus on the digital elements of language, and the leaving behind of the paralinguistic ones, could have major adverse effects on our relationships if online communication continues in popularity as it has. Even more so, the ability to easily and cheaply communicate with people the world over erases spatio-temporal restraints and effectively erases the boundaries of bodies, which, while it could be positive in some circumstances, could result in complete disembodiment, leaving our bodies aside and placing total importance on our minds, similar to the very nature of digital objects themselves.<br />
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<br />
===Digital World===<br />
<br />
In dealing with the digital we are dealing in things that are intangible. We can touch a computer, we can touch a DVD or a CD, but we cannot touch the contents they contain for they are located in encoded bits of information. All the more, the experience of the world comes through to some by way of the Internet and their communications through it. An empirical example of this can be seen in the constant need to photographically document all aspects of one’s life that is prevalent among many young people today.<br />
<br />
The great amounts of storage available on digital cameras have made it so that we can literally document everything that happens to us on a given day without having to reload the camera. Not having to develop anything, we can take these pictures immediately home and upload them: instant memories. But this new mode of image capture and image distribution has not come without serious epistemological consequences. Digital photography has fundamentally altered our relation to images of the world—how we come to have knowledge and form beliefs about the world.<br />
<br />
Bernard Stiegler addresses this radical change in his essay “The Discrete Image.” Stiegler, drawing on Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida, argues that with analog (i.e. photochemical) photography, the viewer had a certain faith in the fidelity of the image to some actual past event; this belief is completely elided in the realm of the digital, what Stiegler calls “the discrete image” and the “analogico-digital image.” As Stiegler explains:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;The ''digital'' photograph suspends a certain spontaneous belief which the analog photograph bore within itself. When I look at the digital photo, I can never be absolutely sure that what I see truly exists—nor, since it is still a question of a photo, that it does not exist at all. The analogico-digital image calls into question what Andre Bazin calls the ''objectivity of the lens'' [l’objectivité de l’objectif] in analog photography, what Barthes also calls ''this was'' [le ça a été], the noeme of the photo. The noeme of the photo is what in phenomenology would be called its intentionality. It is what I see ''always already, in advance,'' in every (analog) photo: that ''what is captured on the paper really was''. This is the ''essential'' attribute of the analog photo. That it would then be possible to manipulate this photo, to alter what was, this is another attribute, but it can only be accidental; it is not necessarily co-implied by the photo. This may happen, but it is not the rule. The rule is that every analog photo presupposes that what was photographed was (real). (“Discrete Image” 150, emphasis in original)&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Stiegler emphasizes that even though analog photos could be manipulated, it was not the rule; it is merely “accidental” and does not fundamentally alter the belief that what is depicted actually was. This logic is reversed with the transition to digital photography: “Manipulation is on the contrary the essence, that is to say, the rule of the digital photo” (150). To have the very ''essence'' of the mode of image capture overturned in such as radical way affects people’s consciousness, and their faith in the reality of photographic images, a faith in the objective lens that will transmit a real ''this was'', is shaken: “this possibility, which is ''essential'' to the digital photographic image, of ''not having been'', inspires ''fear''—for this image, at the same time that it is infinitely manipulable, ''remains'' a photo, it preserves something of the ''this was'' within itself, and the possibility of distinguishing the true from the false dwindles in proportion as the possibilities for the digital treatment of photos grows” (150, emphasis in original). <br />
<br />
For Stiegler, the analog photo is a positive artifact, a touching form of mediation. Indeed, Stiegler points to the Barthesian sense of photographic affectivity as well as the very literal touching of the light which touched the photograph’s subject and its subsequent retransmission to the eye of the spectator: “Nadar took Baudelaire’s picture, and between Baudelaire and myself there is a chain, a ''contiguity of luminances'': when I look at this portrait, ''I know intimately'' that the luminance’s that come to ''touch my eye'' touched, that they ''really'' touched Baudelaire” (152, emphasis in original). It is this very continuity that is the essence of the analog; as Stiegler says, “This whole chain of duplication, from Nadar to me, is necessary in order for the photographic reality ''effect'' to take place, this whole ‘umbilical cord’ constituted by the photons that come to imprint and ''physically'' touch, from out of the nineteenth century, the ''photosensitive'' silver halides” (152, emphasis in original). Stiegler has an entirely different impression of the light that is captured by the digital photograph: “With the digital photo, this light, from out of the night, ''no longer comes entirely from the day'', it doesn’t come from a past day that would have become night (like the photons emanating from Baudelaire’s face). It comes from Hades, from the realm of the dead, from underground: it is the electric light, set free by materials from deep within the belly of the earth. An ''electronic'' light, that is to say, a ''decomposed'' light” (153, emphasis in original). A footnote makes it clear that Stiegler is referring to “Carbon, petroleum, uranium” (173) coming from the earth to create the electric light from Hell. While Stiegler’s tone here is rather hyperbolic, he is getting at an important distinction to be made within the discourse of analog/digital transition: that is, the often utopian tones of a “digital immaterialism.” Sean Cubitt rightly points out that the rhetoric of digital media as “immaterial” and thus “clean” technologies, especially compared to previous industrial technologies, just doesn’t hold up to closer scrutiny: <br />
<br />
<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;In theory, digital communications substitute for energy-hungry transportation, encourage people to stay home in villages rather than risk the desperate conditions of the slums, and prepare economies for transition to the supposedly weightless condition of the advanced information economies. The sad truth is that digital technologies are more, not less, polluting and energy-hungry than predecessor media like film and print. The environmental footprint of digital media comes in several phases: (1) The extraction of raw materials, including rare earths and gemstones often mined under appalling conditions, and subject to strategic struggles to secure supplies among the major powers (for the case of sapphires, important for LED fabrication . . . (2) the manufacturing of computers and computer parts on offshore, unregulated and immiserated areas such as the maquiladoras of the Mexican-US border region . . . (3) the built-in obsolescence of the computer industry, based on constant cycles of updates and system changes (4) the energy requirements of manufacture and of use . . . (5) the recycling and dumping of unwanted computers, many of which pass through donation programs to the developing world before finding their inevitable way to the nightmare of recycling villages, notably in West Africa and Southern China. (“Dirty Media” n.p.)&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
<br />
With his emphasis on the “surgical precision” (154) with which photographs can now be manipulated due to their digitalization, and the stench of death that is carried by electric light, Bernard Stiegler makes clear his thoughts on the transition from analog to digital. Even further down the pessimism scale we encounter the German “media scientist” Friedrich Kittler. For Kittler, the transition to digitization through optical fiber networks means an end to medium specificity:<br />
<br />
<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;People will be hooked to an information channel that can be used for any medium—for the first time in history, or for its end. Once movies and music, phone calls and texts reach households via optical fiber cables, the formerly distinct media of television, radio, telephone, and mail converge, standardized by transmission frequencies and bit format. . . . The general digitization of channels and information erases the differences among individual media. Sound and image, voice and text are reduced to surface effects, known to consumers as interface. Sense and the senses turn into eyewash. Their media-produced glamour will survive for an interim as a by-product of strategic programs. Inside the computers themselves everything becomes a number: quantity without image, sound, or voice. And once optical fiber networks turn formerly distinct data flows into a standardized series of digital numbers, any medium can be translated into another. With numbers, everything goes. Modulation, transformation, synchronization; delay, storage, transposition; scrambling, scanning, mapping—a total media link on a digital base will erase the very concept of medium. Instead of wiring people and technologies, absolute knowledge will run as an endless loop. (Kittler 1-2)&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
<br />
For Kittler, even more so than Stiegler, the transition to digital networks marks a normative reduction in formerly distinct media; they turn all sense into mere &quot;eyewash.&quot;<br />
<br />
This leads to the experience of the actual digital world. If our experiences of life are leading to a digital exploration of it we could ask the question, “Can ‘being-in-the-World-Wide-Web” be another way of becoming a “being-in-the-world’?” (Kim 88). This question itself works on both the levels of the Internet and simple digital experiences offline. In other words, if in the future, way down the line, we become bodies in space whose every experience comes through digital impulses (the ultimate death of analog) will it be the same as inhabiting the real world? In a far simpler restatement, is the digital real? It would seem it isn’t, however as time goes by and digitalism pervades further and further, perhaps it will become the only real, only the true death of analog will tell.<br />
<br />
==Resistance May Not Be Futile==<br />
<br />
“At one point I wondered why my teenage son—denizen of the digital age—covets my old analog vinyl records? Why has the New York subway system, encountered such resistance as they try to move riders from using analog brass tokens to digitized Metrocards? . . . Why do people who spend time online with each other want more physical contact, not less?” (Wilder 241-242). While the transition to digital may seem imminent (albeit slow moving), examples such as these abound. People still carry around Polaroid cameras; in a report on CBS, Charles Osgood stated “that people ‘yearn for analog sound in this digital age’” (qtd. in Wilder 249). There is definite resistance to the movement into digital, and this is an aesthetic decision. More than aesthetic, this is a decision of feeling. For with the loss of analog we lose endearing qualities of the old. We lose the feel of a record in our hands, and the 'pops and hisses' we hear as it plays. We lose the click of the camera that while it may be reproduced digitally, will never sound like it did when actual mechanisms were making the it. And we lose the feeling of solidity: instead of metal and wood, we receive plastic and silicon; instead of being hugged, we get hug messages from friends. The decision for many is that the experience of the ‘real’ means more that the experience of the high tech. This may be what keeps these analog experiences around, as while the digital pervades people shy away and yearn for the real.<br />
<br />
Just as many yearn for a return of the repressed Real, there are those who have fully embraced the emancipatory potentiality of the digital—even some who have been highly critical of the effects of digitalization, for it can be the very act of resistance that creates new communities. Bernard Stiegler, for one, has written extensively on the parallel co-evolution of the human and technics in his three volume series ''Technics and Time.'' In this passage he suggest the community-forming effects of efforts to forbear from worldwide techno-industrialization; Steigler writes, quoting André Leroi-Gourhan’s ''Milieu et Techniques'': <br />
<br />
<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;We can ask whether today the technical groups still belong to the ethnic group, or if they may not extend beyond it, to the point of calling its unity into question: the phenomena of deterritorialization and acculturation are the telling marks. It is as if the technical groups tended to become autonomous with respect to ethnic groups, owing to the very fact that techno-industrial units have become worldwide. Thus, “it is obvious that if the technical milieu is continuous, the technical group belongs to the exterior milieu,” which is not only geographical but a vector for foreign influences, displaying “a large part of discontinuity.” This discontinuity affects in the first instance the technical milieu itself, but by reaction, it also affects the interior milieu as a whole. One may conclude that the technical group then gains an advance with respect to the ethnic group to the extent that, as is the case today—with technical evolution accelerating and becoming too fast for the possibilities of appropriation by the “other systems”—one must wonder if we might not be in the presence of a separation and progressive opposition between, on the one hand, cultures, or an ensemble of interior milieus, and on the other hand technologies, which are no longer only a subgroup of the technical milieu but the external milieu become worldwide technology: the dilution of the interior milieu into the exterior milieu has become essentially technical, firstly as an environment totally mediated by telecommunications, by modes of transportation as well as by television and radio, computer networks, and so on, whereby distances and delays are annulled, but secondly as a system of planet-scale industrial production. (''Technics and Time'' 62)&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
<br />
Mark Hansen sees in Stiegler's project an opportunity for the project with which many in the humanities are engaged: rethinking the common in the age of global war and neo-liberal Empire: &quot;This perspective opens up a fundamentally new task for the analyst of the ‘transnational media systems’: for once media technology has usurped the role formerly held by culture of providing the common, the global media system can no longer be localized and specified through its cultural configuration or use. Rather, it can form the very ground for new, ''to-be-invented forms of collective life'' precisely because of its resistance to the kinds of empirical specification championed by today’s cultural studies practitioners&quot; (Hansen, “Realtime Synthesis” n.p., emphasis added). Indeed, even Stiegler, for all of his Heideggerian anxiety over the de-naturing effects of new media technology (seen especially in his recent ''Taking Care of Youth and the Generations''), still recognizes that the future of resistance and critique will be found through digital networks:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;A mutation has been produced in the world of networks since 1992, with the appearance of the Internet. This network of networks, unified by the TCP-IP protocol, has manifestly changed the organizational setup of the program industries. And there is no doubt that this transformation of industrial technology, via the digital, renders new perspectives conceivable. These must be systematically explored; they constitute privileged terrain of combat and a field for social invention that could be extremely fertile. I believe more than anything in the necessity of acting in this domain. (''Acting Out'' 75)&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
Binkley, Timothy. &quot;Digital Dilemmas.&quot; ''Leonardo''. Supplemental Issue. 3 (1990): 13-19. J-Stor. 29 Nov. 2008 &lt;http://www.jstor.org/stable/1557889&gt;.<br />
<br />
Cubitt, Sean. “Dirty Media” ''Sean Cubitt’s Blog''<br />
http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/2009/04/third-is-from-vision-statement-prepared.html<br />
<br />
Hansen, Mark. “’Realtime Synthesis’ and the Différance of the Body: Technocultural Studies in the Wake of Deconstruction.” ''Culture Machine.'' Vol. 6 (2004). http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view/9/8<br />
<br />
Kim, Joohan. &quot;Phenomenology of Digital-Being.&quot; Human Studies 24 (2001): 87-111. J-Stor. 29 Nov. 2008 &lt;http://www.jstor.org/stable/20011305&gt;.<br />
<br />
Kittler, Friedrich. ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.'' Trans. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and Michael Wutz (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).<br />
<br />
Stiegler, Bernard. ''Acting Out.'' Trans. David Barison, Daniel Ross, and Patrick Crogan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).<br />
<br />
———. “The Discrete Image,” in Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, ''Echographies of Television.'' Trans. Jennifer Bajorek (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2002).<br />
<br />
———. ''Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus.'' Trans. Richard Beardsworth and George Collins (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998).<br />
<br />
Wilder, Carol. &quot;Being Analog.&quot; ''The Postmodern Presence : Readings on Postmodernism in American Culture and Society.'' By Arthur A. Berger. New York: AltaMira P, 1997. 239-53. The New School. 29 Nov. 2008 &lt;http://homepage.newschool.edu/~wilder/beinganalog.pdf&gt;.<br />
<br />
Zhao, Shanyang. &quot;The Digital Self: Through the Looking Glass of Telecopresent Others.&quot; ''Symbolic Interaction'' 28 (2005): 387-405. 09 Sept. 2005. Caliber. 29 Nov. 2008 &lt;http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/si.2005.28.3.387&gt;.<br />
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<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Dymaxion_House&diff=12589
Dymaxion House
2010-11-24T08:25:54Z
<p>Egugecuge: </p>
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'''DYMAXION''' = '''DY'''namic + '''MAX'''imum + Tens'''ION'''<br />
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[[Image:dhouse.jpg|thumb|350px|right| Henry Ford Museum]]<br />
[[Image:dymaxion model construction.jpg|thumb|350px|right| diagrammatic model of Dymaxion House Construction]]<br />
[[Image:bucky and house.jpg|thumb|350px|right|]]<br />
[[Image:archleague invite.jpg|thumb|350px|right|invitation to debut of the Dymaxion House]]<br />
[[Image:model with nude.jpg|thumb|350px|right|&quot;The nude model model on the model bed in this model Dymaxion House was considered a bit scandalous in 1929, as she demonstrated the precise climate control of the Dymaxxxion House.&quot;]]<br />
[[Image:auto metaphor.jpg|thumb|350px|right|An illustration of Bucky's metaphor of using the housing construction process to buy a car]]<br />
<br />
=Buckminster Fuller=<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Read Up. The Man, the Myth, The Legend]]<br />
<br />
Buckminster Fuller was a man of no formal training as a physicist or architect who nevertheless had a revolutionary and lasting impact on both fields. Infamously charismatic, Fuller decided to make his existence on earth:<br />
<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;&quot;a lifelong experiment designed to discover what-if anything-a healthy young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and newborn child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, account monies, credit, or university degree, could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprises to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives, at the same time removing undesirable restraints and improving individual initiatives of any and all humans aboard our planet Earth&quot;&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
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In his pursuit of this lifelong goal, Fuller created many novel and pragmatic alternatives to modern dwellings, modes of transportation, urban layouts, and more. R. Buckminster Fuller based his designs on the principle that resources on earth are abundant enough to support all human life, as long as we humans can exercise the ingenuity to use everything to its maximum potential. All of his inventions are therefore his attempt to revolutionize social conception of certain practices he found wasteful. Fuller's ultimate goal was no less lofty than the preservation of mankind on earth from his own self-destruction. This desire is embodied most elegantly in the Dymaxion House.<br />
<br />
=The Story of the Dymaxion House=<br />
In the era of industrialized technology, Fuller found resource mismanagement inexcusable. One of the practices he most lamented was the lack of industrial production of houses. To build houses by hand, Fuller thought, was an archaic practice that was especially apparent when you compared it to the idea of building a car by hand. To construct houses out of materials considered by the general public as more sentimentally &quot;natural,&quot; like wood, than of a material which was cheap, light, sturdy, and comparatively indestructible, like aluminum, was a gross waste of resource. Fuller considered creating such a building tantamount to planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
The Dymaxion House was a work that took Fuller 19 years to bring to fruition for a variety of reasons. While the initial idea was created early in Fuller’s career, the project hit many snags, and lived through many delays, before going into an anticlimactic production, which only yielded two finished houses. <br />
<br />
==The 4D Dymaxion House==<br />
The original conception of the 4D Dymaxion House set the standard of Fuller’s estimations for what new houses should require, making the most out of the materials it was created from, specifically, aluminum and the “economics of mass production” (Baldwin 18). The estimated costs, by pound, to purchase a mass produced house was roughly the same as a car in 1927. The interior features of the 4D Dymaxion house were extremely forward thinking, including a multimedia room, an observation deck, and a garden area. <br />
The Dymaxion house was intended to be entirely autonomous from the municipal system of pipes and wires (Baldwin 28). Through photovoltaic cells, wind generators, micro-hydroelectric systems, locally purified water pumps, and limited exports the autonomous house could be almost entirely off of the grid. Fuller designed an answer for practically every input or output demand a modern house could have, from gardening space to grow your own vegetables, to the clean packaging toilets of the dymaxion bathroom. The 4D Dymaxion House was the ultimate in economical living, minimizing the costs for users and for the environment, however usually at the expense of luxury (or some would say reasonability).<br />
The 4D Dymaxion House ultimately was never out into production because of limited resource availability and astronomical tooling costs to get started. The project was shelved until some outside support or driving motivation to pay the initial costs. <br />
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<br />
==Dymaxion Deployment Unit==<br />
As is frequently the case with high investment technology, war served as the motivation for the next implementation of the Dymaxion house. World War II saw a huge need for cheap, durable houses which could withstand extreme conditions. To answer this need, the army employed a much less sophisticated version of the 4D Dymaxion House, made of refashioned grain bins. This product was coined the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, and created widespread familiarity with Fuller’s work. <br />
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==Dymaxion Dwelling Machine==<br />
The Dymaxion House found its new opportunity with the end of the war in sight, when Fuller and Beech Aircraft Co. teamed up to utilize airplane production machinery for a new peace-time goal: affordable, mass produced housing. Beech was happy to provide incentive for it’s workers to stay in their employment post-war, and Fuller was satisfied with an order for two prototypes from the Air Force (Baldwin 44). <br />
The future of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine looked bright, thousands of preorders piled up and the two protypes were in the hands of some of the finest engineers available. Unfortunately, the bubble for the project burst for a few reasons, including poor business practices by Fuller and disputes about tooling costs between Beech Co. and Fuller. The two prototypes were the only Dymaxion Houses ever created, and only one, The Wichita House, was ever lived in. <br />
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<br />
=Failures=<br />
1.The systematic mechanization of the home, and Bucky's incredibly futuristic outlook, ignores any past conception of what has been characterized as &quot;homely.&quot; The common conception of &quot;home&quot; usually involves unforeseen additions and renovations, seemingly useless nooks and crannies that always get piled with tchotchkes and &quot;homely&quot; detritus. <br />
<br />
For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, &quot; [[Media: Thinking homely.pdf | Thinking Beyond Today]],&quot; an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. <br />
<br />
Additionally, In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains:<br />
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&lt;blockquote&gt;&quot;If something is really, really remarkable everyone will look at it and say, ‘wow!’, but they’ll be too scared to touch it, sit on it, eat it or whatever. And if you do something too commonplace it won’t get noticed. So actually the furtive approach is in that middle territory.&quot; &lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
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2. People are unwilling to trust a “grand creator” to define their behavior. People are hesitant to sacrifice flexibility and choice in how they behave and live their life. Even if it was the most perfectly laid out, beautiful, simple dwelling, people will very hesitant to opt out of their decision making process.<br />
<br />
=Parallel to Corbusier=<br />
In 1923 Corbusier published Vers un'Architectur, including a chapter on Mass-Production Housing<br />
<br />
A great era has just begun. <br />
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There exists a new spirit. <br />
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Industry, invading like a river that rolls to its destiny, brings us new tools adapted to this new era animated by a new spirit. <br />
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The law of economy necessarily governs our actions; only through it are our conceptions viable. <br />
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The problem of the house is a problem of the era. Social equilibrium depends on it today The first obligation of architecture, in an era of renewal, is to bring about a revision of values, a revision of the constitutive elements of the house. <br />
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Mass production is based on analysis and experimentation. <br />
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Heavy industry should turn its attention to building and standardizing the elements of the house. <br />
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We must create a mass-production state of mind: A state of mind for building mass-production housing. <br />
<br />
A state of mind for living in mass-production housing. A state of mind for conceiving mass-production housing.<br />
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Corbusier's solution for mass housing was the Unite d'Habitation, realized in Marseilles and elsewhere, and both praised and ridiculed for its massive concrete soullessness.<br />
<br />
For a greater discussion of this idea of homeliness, &quot; Thinking Beyond Today,&quot; an essay by Daisy Froud of London-based architecture firm The AOC, excellently discusses this domestic phenomenon. In a May 2008 interview with the firm, principal Tom Coward concisely explains<br />
<br />
=Wrong Place, Wrong Time, or the Eternal Pendulum of Pop Culture=<br />
One possible cause of the death, or non-implementation, of the Dymaxion House could be in fact completely divorced from the design itself, and more reliant on prevalent social and cultural attitudes of the time. One could argue that the cultural aesthetic of the United States has shifted its preference between two opposing poles, on the one hand the concept of mass homogeneity, association with &quot;popular&quot; culture, and a singularly unified &quot;public,&quot; and on the other the desire for individuality and finding one's &quot;niche.&quot; This can be seen throughout the 20th century: WWI as unity, the prosperous 20's as individuality, the Great Depression (30's), WWII (40's) and 50's suburbanization/baby boom generation all acted as unifying cultural forces, the 60's and 70's promoted individual liberty, and the ubiquity of the ubiquitous I-want-my-MTV generation in the 80's and 90's.<br />
<br />
The failure of the Dymaxion House to popularize could simply be attributed to the cultural climate of the time and place. Fuller first publicly unveiled the design on July __, 1929, at the tail end of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties Roaring Twenties]], and just months before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash. This unfortunate timing fell at the end of an affluent era, when people had the choice and money to not live in something that looks like what everybody else is living in, and just before anybody who would potentially fund or could potentially fabricate the Dymaxion House en-masse. All of the &quot;good&quot; qualities that Fuller touted were in fact all of the undesirable qualities of the time period.<br />
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<br />
=A House is a Labor of Love=<br />
<br />
Buckmister Fuller created a house meant for the future. In every way, the genius of Fuller looked to solve the world's grandest problems with the Dymaxion House, by creating a new paradigm for sustainable living, eventually ending in universal world harmony. In looking to create a logical, justified, and mass produced place of dwelling, Fuller looked to solve the larger societal issues which he felt faced the human race. The Dymaxion House is his solution to these issues, leveraging the technological and manufacturing might of a fully mechanized United States of America. Looking at the Dymaxion House from Fuller's perspective, one would think that every qualm of modern living is addressed by the overly obsessive Fuller. <br />
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In creating one of the most thought out, theoretically logical and efficient dwellings of all time, Fuller forgot basic necessities, by structurally dis-allowing the &quot;nooks and crannys,&quot; of a true home by removing all choice and flaws from a home. In recalling one of Fuller’s presentation of a Dymaxion House, a reader of the New York Times recalls Fuller’s lack of thoughts on actual livability for the house:<br />
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'''&lt;blockquote&gt;DYMAXION HOUSE; Pitter-Patter On the Roof Published: May 31, 1992''' <br />
<br />
&lt;br /&gt; <br />
To the Editor:<br />
&lt;br /&gt; <br />
&lt;br /&gt; <br />
In reading Witold Rybczynski's essay &quot;A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum&quot; [ April 19 ] , I was reminded of the time in 1944 when I participated in a conference with Buckminster Fuller regarding his Dymaxion House. I attended at the request of my boss. He told me he would like to have an engineer accompany him. (I am an aeronautical engineer.) He wanted me as window dressing. Since I might feel uncomfortable if I said nothing, he advised, &quot;You can say anything you feel like.&quot; We drove to the New Jersey Meadowlands, where we discussed the possibility of my boss financing a 500-house development. It was wonderful to hear Fuller's description of the technical achievements in his house, and the idea of a central compression column and thin curtain walls sounded extremely efficient. I realized that the three-hour conference was almost over and I had not made a single comment, so I asked: &quot;Mr. Fuller, Grumman Aircraft gave me an employee's discount on an aluminum canoe. I like the canoe, but it isn't good for fishing because of the noise the water makes against the hollow aluminum. Would the noise on the roof be bothersome?&quot; He laughed and said, &quot;Well, I hadn't thought of that.&quot; On the way back to New York, I asked my boss if he was going to buy the houses, and he told me he was not. I said, &quot;Why not? They seem so exciting.&quot; He told me it was because of the question I had asked and explained: &quot;It wasn't your question; it was his answer. If he hadn't thought of that, I wondered how many other things he hadn't thought of.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; - LEONARD M. GREENE White Plains, N. Y. &lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
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While Fuller certainly saw and understood many problems of the future of housing, such as energy and water consumption, inefficiencies of space and raw materials, and excessive upkeep requirements, he failed to understand the purpose of a house as a home. The cold, specific and deliberate nature of the Dymaxion House left little input for the dwellers, who were more fulfilling the requirement of inhabitant rather than homeowner, seen as simply another machine expected to act in a logical manner within the environment. Having such a well thought out dwelling was a drastic shift from the organic standard of homemaking, failing to fully realize that the purpose of home is not simply a place to sleep at night, but a place to spend time creating, tweaking, and making one’s own. These acts are not always logical extensions of life, but sentimental realities that the logical Fuller overlooked when creating his grand plans for the Dymaxion House. '''Fuller did not understand that maintaining a home in many ways is a labor of love''', outside the need for efficiency and logical order. In a sense, the Dymaxion “Dwelling machine” solved issues and inefficiencies that people didn’t want fixed. <br />
<br />
<br />
The ultimate failure of the Dymaxion House is largely shared with the failed ideas of futurist modernity. While certainly the Dymaxion House found opposition to success through its own failure in the marketplace, the ideological context which it was conceived may be equally responsible for pre-fabricated housing failing to catch on in the 1930-40s. <br />
<br />
One of the common follies of Dead Media lies around the concept of being &quot;before its time,&quot; as device or media which looked to solve problems outside the existing everyman's need. In looking to solve &quot;future-issues,&quot; by fundamentally rethinking what a house was, the Dymaxison House failed to reconcile with the organic evolution of the house itself. In the wake of &quot;New Deal&quot; politics, Fuller himself looked to recreate the most basic of American possessions and replace it with a mass produced image of what the future required, without first considering the impetus for how the home came to be in its current iteration. In many ways however, the Dymaxison House was the opposite direction American identity. After Fuller failed to market the product in the late 1940s, the 1950 brought rapid suburbanization and a new American ideal, and the concept of pre-fabricated housing remained largely untapped and un-mourned until the recent global economic crisis.]]<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
<br />
Baldwin, J. BuckyWorks. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1996.<br />
<br />
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Your Private Sky: Discourse. Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers.<br />
<br />
Greene, Leonard M. Letter. New York Times. 31 May 1992.<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DD163EF932A05756C0A964958260&amp;scp=17&amp;sq=buckminster%20fuller%201992&amp;st=cse <br />
<br />
Robbin, Tony. Engineering a New Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.<br />
<br />
<br />
Rybczynski, Witold. “Architecture View; A Little House on the Prairie Goes to a Museum.” The New York Times. 19 April 1992.<br />
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1339F93AA25757C0A964958260&amp;sec=&amp;spon=&amp;pagewanted=all<br />
<br />
http://www.paleofuture.com/2008/12/tomorrows-kitchen-1943.html<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Town_Crier&diff=12588
Town Crier
2010-11-24T08:25:11Z
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[[File:towncrier1.jpg|300px|thumb|right|towncrier]]<br />
<br />
== Historical Sketch on Town Crier ==<br />
<br />
[[File:towncrier.jpg|300px|thumb|left|towncrier]]<br />
<br />
Town criers could well be described as '''“historical newscasters”.''' It is known that the tradition was started in ancient Greece, when heralds were used to announce the severing of relationships which would lead to an official proclamation of war. The herald would also be used to bear proposals of truce or armistice.<br />
<br />
The origin of the word “stentorian” has been attributed to the Greek warrior Stentor, who played a part in the Trojan war and whose voice was said to be as powerful as the voices of 50 other men. The first use of criers in the British Isles was said to date back to Norman times, when the cry “oyez, oyez, oyez”, (old French for “hear ye”) was used to draw the attention of the mostly illiterate public to matters of importance. <br />
<br />
As town criers enjoyed royal protection, the command “don’t shoot the messenger” had very real significance. In the capital city of Edinburgh, one of the last known town criers was George Pratt – about the year 1784 – who was noted for his pompous delivery in discharging his duties. George had a high opinion of the importance and dignity of his situation as a public officer. They persecuted him with the cry of “quack, quack!” – a monosyllable which was particularly offensive to his ears. This cry was sometimes varied into “swallow’s nest”, a phrase which he also abominated, as it made an allusion to a personal deformity – a large wen that grew beneath his chin.<br />
<br />
Although we have access to many different, almost instant, types of communication these days there is still a place for “communication with a human face”. Town criers are used to lead parades, open supermarkets, launch ships, attend official functions and act as ambassadors of good will on any occasion when a flamboyantly dressed character can be deployed to draw attention to what is happening. <br />
Criers or bellmen were usually people of some standing in the community, as they had to be able to read and write the proclamations. The crier would read a proclamation, usually at the door of the local inn, then nail it to the door post – which is where the expression “posting a notice” comes from, as well as naming newspapers as the post.<br />
<br />
== The Medium is NOT the message ==<br />
<br />
[[File:Hermes and two women at right.jpg|400px|thumb|photograph by Maria Daniels, courtesy of Harvard University Art Museums, 1990]]<br />
<br />
'''Hermes,''' the fleet-footed messenger with wings on his heels and cap symbolizes fast floral delivery. However, Hermes was originally neither winged nor a messenger - that role was reserved for the rainbow goddess Iris. He was, instead, clever, tricky, a thief, and, with his awakening or sleep-conferring wand, the original sandman whose descendants include a major Greek hero and a noisy, fun-loving god.<br />
<br />
In the Iliad, Iris is the messenger god and in the Odyssey, it's Hermes, but even in the Iliad (Book 2), there is a passage where in the words of Timothy Ganz, Hermes serves as courier:<br />
<br />
''&quot;Then King Agamemnon rose, holding his sceptre. This was the work of Vulcan, who gave it to Jove the son of Saturn. Jove gave it to Mercury, slayer of Argus, guide and guardian. King Mercury gave it to Pelops, the mighty charioteer, and Pelops to Atreus, shepherd of his people. Atreus, when he died, left it to Thyestes, rich in flocks, and Thyestes in his turn left it to be borne by Agamemnon, that he might be lord of all Argos and of the isles.&quot;''<br />
<br />
In this sense, town criers have been took their role as Hermes and then were used to issue warnings and acted as conveyors of local news. In Haddington, East Lothian, after a fire which destroyed one side of the High Street in 1598, the “coal and candle” proclamation was introduced. This was an instruction to the burghers to acquaint themselves with every device for fire prevention. The proclamation was announced by the town crier nightly except Sunday from Martinmas to Candlemas. <br />
<br />
== Isn’t it still “Alive”? Pops and hisses: Cyborg as Double-Headed figures ==<br />
<br />
From the perspective of audience, there are no more people those who are just dependent on what town criers – on the material level – are saying. If so, I would like to deploy the networks of information in terms of players. <br />
<br />
[[File:cyborg.jpg|300px|thumb|left|cyborg]]<br />
<br />
When technologies comes to us, people need to examine how they came to get their knowledge and advocate self-examination to identify possible biases so that individuals can avoid believing in “unlocatable, and so irresponsible, knowledge claims” not just being dependent on messengers who let us know what is happening. (Haraway, Situated Knowledges 583). Reiterating the importance of acknowledging one’s hybridism, she emphasizes the danger of acquiring knowledge from only one source: “the moral is simple: only partial perspective promises objective vision” (583). She encourages objectivism, deconstruction, partiality and critical interpretation. Her insistence that partial perspectives must be used to build situated knowledge is reflective of her construction of the hybrid-cyborg: The knowing self is partial in all its guises, never finished, whole, simply there and original; it is always constructed and stitched together imperfectly, and therefore able to join with another, to see together without claiming to be another (586).<br />
<br />
The cyborg is a utopian figure that is representative of a possible world-view and a political figure that Haraway wants women to embrace and “code”. However, the cyborg is also dangerous. In the same way that cyborgs build networks of affinities with no beginning and no end, they also represent networks of communication that can exert control with no beginning and no end. The irony that the cyborg figure embodies both of these optimistic and terrible possibilities is one of the more challenging concepts within A Manifesto For Cyborgs. Haraway believes that it is impossible to escape the cyborg as a site of contestation (Penley et al 13). The challenge, she believes, is to “see from both perspectives at once because each reveals both dominations and possibilities unimaginable from the other vantage point” (Haraway, A Manifesto For Cyborgs 154). That is, in order to embrace the metaphor of the cyborg as a way to build coalitions and value partial identities, one must be prepared to recognize the dangers of this mythical figure. The dangers arise when we stop contesting the boundary definitions of human and animal, organism and machine; without such contestation, biological and technological determinism will prevail.<br />
<br />
== Where do media go to die? ==<br />
<br />
We can say that town crier does not work anymore, but we can see it as remediated forms in daily routine life as the technology used is in a very literal sense extinct. Unless there are definitely monumental leaps regarding the historical newscasters, there are no more town criers. On the aspect of media, what are the necessities of a media that degrade the long term utility of the media itself, or of the social conditions that cause its use? In the case of town criers, it is pretty hard to being existed. Due to ‘pop and hiss’, town criers are unnecessary at the material level but are still nevertheless necessary at the semiotic level. We are still eager to know how newscasters probe the fact with their own situated knowledge.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
<br />
* Donald, Kelley R. &quot;.Hermes, Clio, Themis: Historical Interpretation and Legal Hermeneutics.&quot; The Journal of Modern History, 55(4),644-668<br />
* Haraway, Donna. &quot;Situated Knowledge:The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.&quot; Feminist Studies,14(3),1988. 575-599.<br />
* Haraway, Donna. &quot;A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,&quot; in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991),149-181.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=HyperCard&diff=12587
HyperCard
2010-11-24T08:24:20Z
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HyperCard was first released in 1987 by Apple Computers and was an object-oriented Hypermedia system featuring the Hypertalk programming language. HyperCard allowed written and graphical information to be accessible in a nonlinear format. It was the brain child of Bill Atkinson who also created the MacPaint application and helped develop the Macintosh graphical user interface (GUI). <br />
<br />
==Origins==<br />
===Hyper-reality===<br />
[[Image:interwingled.jpg|thumb|alt=Everything is Deeply Interwingled|from Ted Nelson's &lt;i&gt;Dream Machines&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;([http://www.flickr.com/photos/loversvhaters/sets/72157623435688617/ Click here for more images])]]<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;<br />
We have entered the age of hyper-reality.<br />
&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;<br />
Day-to-day living provides only a limited variety of physical stimulus, and little incentive to manipulate the physiological and psychological processing involved. Man’s historical preoccupation with the need to maintain constant images of the physical world, is a product of his extreme orientation toward physical survival in a hostile environment. The current evolving of society of leisure orientations removes this need for constant images and thereby enhances the opportunities for a more complete use of the sensory apparatus and those related brain functions. Many have turned to drugs or meditation. More specifically it is proposed here, that modern communications technology be employed as a ‘vehicle of departure’ from this need for constant images, to bring about a more complete use of human technology itself. Hyper-reality is the employment of technology other than the biological machinery, when used to affect the performance of the biological machinery beyond its own limitations. This is almost like making adjustments on a television set, except you are what’s plugged in, and the controls are outside your body, being part of whatever technology is interfaced to the body itself. As part of such a man-machine interface you could extend your own mental processes, or if you should choose, you could just diddle with the dials. Hyper-reality is an opportunity to enhance the various qualities of the human experience. Reality is obsolete.<br />
&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;<br />
&amp;mdash;&lt;i&gt;How Wachspress&lt;/i&gt;<br />
(Nelson, p 44)<br />
&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
In Theodore Holm Nelson’s Dream Machines (an artifact of computing culture that is more of a zine than a book), hypermedia is philologically explained in terms of hyper-reality. The advent of hyper-reality represents a change in the human sense apparatus, challenging the linearity of vision by overlaying another viewing dimension exposing the fractured and interconnected status of all objects. To access this dimension, man needs certain technologies, or rather, man must technologize the body in interfacing with a machine that can parse and assist in the navigation of the new viewing dimension. The underlying data structure that supports hyper-reality and renders it usable is hypertext and hypermedia.<br />
<br />
===Hypertext and Hypermedia===<br />
The terms hypertext and hypermedia, as they pertain to computing, are officially attributed to Nelson, who described the phenomenon as text or other media “visibly cross-connected by two-way links and transclusions.[http://xanadu.com/XanaduSpace/btf.htm].(Nelson goes on to define transclusions as any method of “presentation which indicates the identity or origins of media content”.) The term, coined in 1965, expressed possibilities that were still two decades away from fruition. Hypertext owes its origin to engineer Vannevar Bush’s allegorical Memex machine: a microfilm-based system of organizing media, regardless of their format, using a navigation scheme modeled after the non-linear twists and turns of mental association (Nelson, p 45). The technological feasibility of such a non-linear hypertextuality was not realized until the mid-1980’s. By the late 1980s, programmers and software engineers began to see broader possibilities for hypertext; increased computation speed, wider proliferation and accessibility of personal desktop computers, and greater interest in a nascent public internet drove computer scientists to consider new ways of human computer interaction (HCI) that could include hypertextuality. By 1987, the concept had been linked to a specific definition pertaining exclusively to computers, and the first Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia was held by the Association for Computing Machinery to address the fledgling theory. This coincided with the release of Apple’s first version of HyperCard. Computer Scientist and hypermedia pioneer, Jakob Nielson, inaugurated the first ACM Hypertext and Hypermedia conference, and introduced hypertext as:<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;non-sequentially linked pieces of text or other information. If the focus of such a system or document is on non-textual types of information, the term hypermedia is often used instead. In traditional printed documents, practically the only such link supported is the footnote, so hypertext is often referred to as &quot;the generalized footnote&quot;. (Nielson, p 27)&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
==History==<br />
[[Image:HyperCard Intro Screens.jpg|thumb|right|alt=HyperCard Tour Stack|HyperCard Tour Stack from Beekman's &lt;i&gt;HyperCard 2.3 in a Hurry&lt;/i&gt; p.10]]<br />
The HyperCard was released in 1987, and with the promise of free release on subsequent Apple computers. HyperCard was hyped by Apple as an accessible way for the everyday user of computers to create graphical programs. According to George Beekman, author of ''HyperCard 2.3 in a Hurry: The Fast Track to Multimedia'', “before HyperCard, it simply wasn’t possible for a computer neophyte, with an investment of a dozen hours to build sophisticated graphic presentations with complex logical structures. With HyperCard, beginners turn into programmers every day” (p.XV). Bill Atkinson himself stated in 1987 that HyperCard is &quot;an attempt to bridge the gap between the priesthood of programmers and the Macintosh mouse clickers&quot; (Lewis). In March of 1993, Apple claimed to have three million active HyperCard users and 100,000 active corporate, educational and commercial developers. The company attributed HyperCards popularity in schools due to the simple programming language and in corporations as a front-end to databases and other applications(HyperCard leaves Claris).<br />
<br />
Apple Computers produced the software from 1987-1990 and 1993-2004. Apple's subsidiary Claris Corp took over the production of the brand between 1990 and 1993. During the Claris years, a viewer-only version, the HyerCard Player, was created and included on all Macs instead of the basic HyperCard software. Claris created a separate editor product that users would have to pay to use. HyperCard's only major upgrade, 2.0, was released in 1991 (HyperCard leaves Claris).<br />
<br />
When the product returned to Apple, it was eventually rolled into the QuickTime group--because of its multimedia aspects--focusing a new effort to allow HyperCard to be used to create interactive content. QuickTime movies started under the direction of Kevin Calhoun who was a main player in the development of the prototype HyperCard 3.0. The prototype was first presented in 1996 when a beta-quality version was given out at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Demos were made throughout the late 1990s that included new features like fully supported color, internet connectivity, and the ability to displayed HyperCard documents in a web browser. However, the product was never released. Apple finally ceased selling HyperCard in March of 2004.[http://www.economicexpert.com/a/HyperCard.htm]<br />
<br />
==HyperCard's Functionality==<br />
A HyperCard document is referred to as a 'stack' that is comprised of 'cards'. Each card is of an identical size established by the user when the stack is created (until the 2.0 release that allowed for variable sized cards). A user can browse the cards in a stack in the sequential order that they were created. Many cards will have 'buttons', or 'links', that will allow the user to jump to cards with related information and to bypass the order. Buttons may be hidden or visible to the user. Hidden buttons respond to clicks even though they aren’t visible, for example introductory cards often used hidden buttons that would take up the whole screen that would send you to the next card (Durkopf,p.502).<br />
<br />
HyperCard lets users organize the information intuitively by association and context.HyperCard uses graphically generated index card. One can browse, sort, make notes, draw, type, and cross-reference cards in the same manner as can be done with paper index cards(Willis, Jr. and Koppe, p.1500).<br />
<br />
HyperCard came with a Home stack that's first five cards contain buttons that will direct the user to applications, documents and other stacks. This stack is accessible through a drop down menu in every other stack (Beekman, p.342). Another stack that is included with HyperCard was the database-like Addresses stack. <br />
<br />
===Uses===<br />
*Tool for accessing information that was possibly created by someone else.<br />
*Tool for managing information<br />
*Software construction kit.<br />
*Medium for publishing information in a nonsequential form.<br />
*Gateway--through constructing front ends--to multimedia computer applications including software packages and hardware peripherals(Beekman, p.XXII).<br />
<br />
===Organization and Output===<br />
The program stores forty-two recent cards--similar to memory cache on internet browsers. When the user selects recent cards from a drop down menu, forty-two thumb nails appear in the order visited, and the user can click on any of them to be sent to that card. The user can also mark cards so that they can be quickly accessed or grouped for printing. In the standard Address stack, the user simply clicks the top right corner of the card, and the corner will ‘fold over.’ This skeuomorph reminds the user of selecting a subset of papers or note cards by physically turning over a corner of the paper so the user can easily separate the marked cards/sheets from the rest of the group. The user can mark cards by searching for cards with specific text. There is an option for searching for multiple terms using a intersection or union of two or more variables (Beekman, p.39). <br />
<br />
The user can select marked cards or the entire stack to print. As opposed to printing the actual cards, the program can print reports similar to those produced by contemporary database software that highlights certain variables. The user must create and design a print layout, and save up to sixteen associated templates with each stack (Beekman,p.44).<br />
<br />
===Layers and User Levels===<br />
[[Image:HyperCard background and Card layer.JPG|thumb|right|alt=Customizing Cards|Customizing Cards from Beekman's &lt;i&gt;HyperCard 2.3 in a Hurry&lt;/i&gt; p.49]]<br />
HyperCards are composed of two layers: the transparent card layer and the opaque background layer. An interesting mix of dioptrics and catoptrics that are indicitive of the function of the two levels. Depending on the user level selected of the last card of the deck, the user will have different degrees of access and editing ability on the two levels of the card. The five different user levels include:(1) Browsing,(2) Typing,(3) Painting,(4) Authoring, and (5) Scripting. The browsing level is the most restricted and will only allow the user to navigate through the cards via buttons. Level 2 allowed the users to populate and edit text fields on the card layer, but did not allow them to access the background layer or create any buttons. The painting level allowed the user to change the appearance of the card level. Authoring allowed the users to access the background layer, create buttons that link cards and stacks together, and create fields. Any change to the background of one card, effected all the other cards that utilized the same background. Therefore if the user wanted to make a specific graphical change or add a button to just one card, they would add it at the card level. The final level was scripting and it allowed the user to script stacks, background, cards, buttons, and fields (Beekman, p.50).<br />
<br />
===HyperCard and the Extension of Writing===<br />
<br />
HyperCard begins to suggest how the computer can extend the concept of writing.<br />
<br />
* &quot;The first extension has less to do with HyperCard than with the fact that computers work with digitally encoded information. As Richard Lanham(1989) has pointed out, digital encoding makes text coextensive with other digitally encoded material from music to video; thus &quot;Writing&quot; comes to include visual and auditory dimensions that used to belong to other media.&quot; (Slatin,1992:114)<br />
<br />
* &quot;HyperCard extends writing to include programming. Though I hasten to add that it is quite possible to create highly successful HyperCard stacks without writing a single line of code, it is important to recognize that &quot;Computer programming is a kind of writing,&quot;as Jay David Bolter(1991:9) has said, and that the problems involved in the design of computers and computer software are precisely language problems.Moreover, HyperCard's scripting language HyperTalk is more tolerant of syntactic and verbal variety than any other programming language that I know. (Slatin,1992:115)<br />
<br />
* &quot;The user interface mediates a person's relationship with the computer it includes not only screen layout but also the &quot;behavior&quot; of the elements on the screen. Perhaps even more vital, the user interface mediates relationships with materials off-screen. The interface provides access to the functions of the computer-functions that readers require, for example, in order to activate links they wish to follow. Interface issues are thus rhetorical issues. (Slatin, 1992:115)<br />
<br />
===HyperTalk===<br />
Underneath the HyperCard's user-friendly GUI is a scripting language that can be used to create cards instead. Users seeking to access other applications on the local machine (including drivers that talk to peripheral devices), or even those interested in delving deeper into programming were encouraged to pick up HyperTalk. HyperTalk is a high level scripting language, meaning that it is a human-readable abstraction of the commands governing the computer's hardware. As such, programmers will &quot;talk&quot; to the machine in code that resembles English vocabulary, and create statements that mimic English grammar, rather than having to type out 1s and 0s natively understood by the machine.<br />
<br />
====Scripting Grammar====<br />
The entire philosophy behind HyperTalk is one of accessibility, and it was revolutionary in that it broke with the norms of computer languages in terms of grammar and naming conventions. C++ is a lower level language that requires programmers to accustom themselves to certain grammatical structures that are not easily comprehended as descriptive language. HyperTalk, however, uses a grammar more like speech, employing &quot;verb-arguments&quot; that describe which operation is to be performed. Below are two examples of a simple counting function; a variable starts at zero, and then increases by 1 until it reaches 9, and the value of the variable is displayed to the user at each iteration. The first is written in C++, and the second in HyperTalk:<br />
<br />
&lt;pre&gt;<br />
int x = 0;<br />
while(x &lt; 10) {<br />
cout&gt;&gt;x&gt;&gt;\n;<br />
x++;<br />
}<br />
&lt;/pre&gt;<br />
<br />
&lt;pre&gt;<br />
set x to 0<br />
repeat until x equals 10<br />
put x<br />
add 1 to x<br />
end repeat<br />
&lt;/pre&gt;<br />
<br />
Although these two functions do the exact same thing, the HyperTalk version can be easily understood by a non-programmer, due to its semblance to English. Also, the lack of characters such as the wrapping curly braces and delineating semi-colons add to the impression that the user is in fact &quot;talking&quot; freely to the machine, rather than coding functions for it.<br />
<br />
====Rapid Application Development====<br />
HyperTalk succeeds as a scripting language because it eliminates the compile-link-run cycle that bogs down the development process when creating in lower-level languages. This feature aids the development process by allowing a programmer to debug a portion of the program, and test their new code right where the bug left off, without having to restart their program from the very beginning. Furthermore, a casual HyperCard user is probably unfamiliar with the compiling process necessary in programming in a low level language, so this feature makes application prototyping more user-friendly.<br />
<br />
==Failures==<br />
Theorists have criticized HyperCard from the outset for introducing a graphical metaphor that was incompatible with hypermedia’s broader intentions. At the inaugural address of the 1987 ACM Hypermedia conference, computer scientist Andy van Dam cautioned against wide scale acceptance of HyperCard’s GUI, saying “[w]e would not want to be limited to a single way of looking at the world such as in HyperCard.” (Nielson, p. 30) The graphical metaphor of HyperCard falls into what Ted Nelson would call a “virtual reality” trap. Instead of challenging the writing act; the notion of paper, and the office environment one normally associates with the task of writing; HyperCard seeks to simulate it (see: Nelson's [http://xanadu.com/XanaduSpace/btf.htm Xanadu]). The skeuomorphic motif of “cards” and “stacks” are meant to conjure for the user the Rolodex or a group of index cards, thus encouraging the familiarity associated with these objects. <br />
<br />
===&quot;l'internet raté&quot;===<br />
While it is true that HyperCard contributed much to the visual and topological syntax of modern-day networked computing, it is a myth that HyperCard once stood a real chance at becoming the predominate tool for browsing the internet. Tim Berners-Lee, engineer and internet pioneer, did indeed remark that he was inspired by the visual metaphor HyperCard presented (one of interlinking screens of information), but any further linkages to HyperCard end there. Berners-Lee wrote in 1989 regarding the future of the internet, and how hypertext should be introduced as both the underlying logic of linking various documents and as the visual metaphor for users:<br />
<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;<br />
[Hypertext systems] use &quot;hot spots&quot; in documents, like icons, or highlighted phrases, as sensitive areas. touching a hot spot with a mouse brings up the relevant information, or expands the text on the screen to include it. Imagine, then, the references in this document, all being associated with the network address of the thing to which they referred, so that while reading this document you could skip to them with a click of the mouse...<br />
&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;<br />
It has been difficult to assess the effect of a large hypermedia system on an organization, often because these systems never had seriously large-scale use. For this reason, we require large amounts of existing information should be accessible using any new information management system. (Berners-Lee, &quot;Information Management: A Proposal&quot;)&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
Ultimately, Berners-Lee sought to introduce the idea of &lt;i&gt;hypertextuality&lt;/i&gt; to multiuser networks, not HyperCard itself. Thus, modern internet syntax owes to Ted Nelson's original idea of hyper-reality rather than HyperCard. In the passage cited above, Berners-Lee suggests that methods of embedding rich media (&quot;Hypermedia&quot;) might not be possible to implement in a project at the scale of the internet he envisioned at the time. Thus an attempt to attribute the genealogy of the internet to HyperCard would be superficial at best.<br />
<br />
HyperCard was also not capable to support the internet infrastructure envisioned by Berners-Lee due to the fact that HyperCard stacks had to be housed in their entirety on the local machine. On the internet, when a user visits a site, only immediately-required data are downloaded to the user's machine. This means that a browser does not need to be aware of each individual page bundled into a web site; the browser only needs to acknowledge the ones currently requested by the user. HyperCard, in contrast, requires the entire stack, and all embedded media, to be present. HyperCard's chief developer, Bill Atkinson, actually accepted HyperCard's failure to adapt to a multiuser infrastructure compatible with the grand scale of the burgeoning internet, saying:<br />
<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;<br />
I have realized over time that I missed the mark with HyperCard... I grew up in a box-centric culture at Apple. If I'd grown up in a network-centric culture, like Sun, HyperCard might have been the first Web browser. My blind spot at Apple prevented me from making HyperCard the first Web browser... You don't transfer someone's website to your hard drive to look at it. You browse it piecemeal.... It's much more powerful than a stack of cards on your hard drive.(Wired Magazine, 2002 [http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/08/54370])&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
[[Image:B_atkinson.png|thumb|right|alt=Bill Atkinson|HyperCard chief developer Bill Atkinson]] In a televised interview for KCSM TV San Mateo's The Computer Chronicles in 1990, Atkinson mentions that Apple received hundreds of user-submitted stacks. Atkinson goes on to say that the home-made stacks signal user empowerment, and that the stacks he had seen were from non-programmers who used the program to create media with the expertise they already held; labors of passion. Atkinson says that stacks &quot;usually come from something that they do... something that they were interested in before HyperCard came along, and HyperCard just let them express it.&quot; Dr.Benkler limns this same compulsion to share knowledge in his work,&lt;i&gt; &quot;The Wealth Of Networks&quot; &lt;/i&gt;, only Benkler's analysis describes the way multiple users contribute content to the internet, thus adding to the cultural store of knowledge:<br />
<br />
&lt;blockquote&gt;<br />
It is this combination of a will to create and to communicate with others, and a shared cultural experience that makes it likely that each of us wants to talk about something that we believe others will also want to talk about, that makes the billion potential participants in today’s online conversation, and the six billion in tomorrow’s conversation, afrmatively better than the commercial industrial model.<br />
<br />
(Benkler, p.55)&lt;/blockquote&gt;<br />
<br />
It then follows that both HyperCard and the internet offer tools of authoring that privilege content over programming skill, but HyperCard fostered an environment where the knowledge this content produced could only be conferred upon the public by the creator directly. The internet, conversely, is based on a more decentralized model of distribution. Intrinsic to this particular failure is an economic one. As HyperCard gained in popularity as an authoring system, several firms sprang up to sell custom-made stacks to consumers (some of which still persist today). This represents a highly centralized distribution system for HyperCard stacks with small firms at the head of the distribution chain. Stacks sold as stand-alone programs on floppy disk retailed at prices anywhere from $45 to $250. This model of distribution contrasted with the project of the internet on a very fundamental level: generally speaking, it has never been acceptable for users to pay to simply view content from a web browser.<br />
<br />
===Problems===<br />
Despite its hyped usability, HyperCard suffered from many problems with its functionality. First and foremost, the program required a lot of RAM and worked best off of the user's hard disk. Therefore most of a computer's resources would be allocated to HyperCards. For the user the most noticeable inconvenience beyond the usage of computational power, were issues with saving changes to a HyperCard stack. HyperCard automatically saved all changes to a stack and only allowed the user to undo one action. Because the program automatically remembered where all originals--including the Home stack--are saved, it was very easy to overwrite files. Therefore when updating decks, users had to manually copy originals and move them to new locations on the hard disk or reconfigure the HyperCard's memory options. Another technical issue was due to the fact that HyperCard 3.0 was never released: HyperCards never had integrated color capabilities, and the visual effects only worked in black and white. Finally, any stacks that follow a narrative or are interactive required the time costly act of users planing and mapping out the network of cards (Beekman, p.128).<br />
<br />
==Technological Genealogy==<br />
HyperCard contributed heavily to the skeuomorphic index of computing culture. Albeit superficially, the program was the first to render Nelson's idea of a hyper-realistic computing environment to task, and thus set the bar for subsequent hypermedia systems. The following is an overview of HyperCard's influences across computing culture.<br />
<br />
===Scripting Languages===<br />
HyperTalk came to being at a time when programmers were starting to break away from lower level system programing languages in favor of scripting languages. Whereas languages like Perl and Tcl were widely used by advanced programmers, HyperTalk was among the first scripting languages to be accessible to non-developers for Rapid Application Development. (Ousterhout, p.23)<br />
<br />
The grammatical structure developed in HyperTalk has been extended to AppleScript, which is included in the Mac OS platform. AppleScript (like HyperTalk) is a cross-application languages, and their easy-to-adapt grammar encourages computer users to hack on their own machines, creating scripts that make computing tasks more convenient, user-specific, and fun. A large novice hacker audience has grown up around AppleScript development.<br />
<br />
===Erector Set Logic===<br />
[[Image:Flash_screencap.png|thumb|alt=Adobe Flash|Adobe Flash GUI]][[Image:Max_screencap.png|thumb|alt=Max/MSP|Max/MSP GUI]]The ability to drag and drop modules that graphically representing operations, variable, media, or other media is present in many of today's application authoring platforms and multimedia creation interfaces. Adobe Flash and Max/MSP are two programs that have inherited such a visual vocabulary. Both Flash and Max/MSP consist of a user-friendly GUI for rapid prototyping, and a scripting language backend (ActionScript for Flash, and JavaScript for Max/MSP). The interface of these programs lend the impression that media systems can be created using &quot;erector set logic,&quot; where interconnected modules can be physically cobbled together on a graphical canvas, with the scripting language translating the design into executable code behind the scenes. This is important: HyperCard was the first to affix a graphical metaphor to the concept of object-oriented programing.<br />
<br />
===Browser metaphors===<br />
HyperCard introduced the hotlink cursor (the pointing hand that appears over a hyperlink) that to this day signals a hyperlink.<br />
<br />
===Databases===<br />
In much of the early press related to HyperCard, journalists referred to the application as 'database software' (&quot;TECHNOLOGY&quot;). But the creator of HyperCard and Apple Computers insisted that HyperCard was a new kind of application beyond anything on the market in 1987 (Lewis).<br />
<br />
===Presentation software===<br />
Today's modern presentation software (e.g. Microsoft's PowerPoint) has the same goal of presenting information and graphics in small digestible pieces. Also the transitions between cards can be seen remediated in the transitions between slides.<br />
<br />
<br />
===Cards and Organization Systems===<br />
The remediation of paper cards is obvious throughout a user's experience with HyperCard due to the fact that each unit within a document is referred to as a 'card.' The aggregated cards form 'stacks,' despite the fact that they are more accurately a web of connected cards. Most strikingly, these references are to index cards that can be their own technology or put within the organizational systems of a card catalog or a Rolodex. [[Image:HyperCard Map.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Diagram of a HyperCard Stack|Diagram of a HyperCard Stack from Beekman's &lt;i&gt;HyperCard 2.3 in a Hurry&lt;/i&gt; p.128]]HyperCards allow users to organize information intuitively by context and associations through graphically generated cards. In a similar manner to that used with index cards, users can browse, sort, make notes, draw, type, and cross-reference cards. A card catalog is similar to a HyperCard in that it is composed of several 'cards' that refer the user to some other piece of information. While the information in a HyperCard is self contained (if they do not include any external commands or functions), a card catalog refers to information within another technology, books. But with the additional scripting capabilities of HyperCards, a card can also reference another piece of information that is contained outside of the deck. A Rolodex is a rolling index of cards that usually hold contact information organized alphabetically. While HyperCards are interactive and participatory, they do not allow for random access into the information. The user must enter through the HyperCard program and will be sent to the first card of the deck each time. The user must then navigate to the desired information. Whereas, tabs on the Rolodex or labels on the outside of draws of a card catalog can help a user jump in closer to the information they seek.<br />
<br />
== References ==<br />
# Nelson, Theodore Holm. Computer Lib/Dream Machines. Distributors, 1974.<br />
# Nelson, Theodore Holm and Robert Adamson Smith. Back to the Future: Hypertext the Way It Used to Be. [http://xanadu.com/XanaduSpace/btf.htm]<br />
# Nielson, Jakob. “Hypertext ‘87”. ACM SIGCHI Bulletin archive, 1988.<br />
# Beekman, George. HyperCard 2.3 in a Hurry: The Fast Track to Multimedia. Peachpit Press, 1996.<br />
# &quot;HyperCard leaves Claris, bounces back to Apple.&quot; Computer Dealer News 8 Mar. 1993.<br />
# Lewis, Peter. H. &quot;PERIPHERALS; It's, Well, HyperCard.&quot; New York Times 18 Aug. 1987, Late Edition (East Coast).<br />
# &quot;TECHNOLOGY Apple's innovative products. &quot; The Globe and Mail 12 Aug. 1987<br />
# Duhrkopf, Richard. &quot;HyperCard Stacks for Biology.&quot; The American Biology Teacher.51(8).1989.502-503[http://www.jstor.org/stable/4449000]<br />
# Willis, Jr.W.D and Koppe, James, A. &quot;Brain Browser: Hypercard Application for the Macintosh&quot; Science, New Series, 251.1991.1500-1502.[http://www.jstor.org/stable/2875833]<br />
# Slatin,John M. &quot;Hypercard and the extension of writing&quot;. 10(1).1992.109-116<br />
# Berners-Lee, Tim. &quot;Information Management: A Proposal.&quot; CERN, March, 1989.<br />
# Kahney, Leander. &quot;HyperCard: What Could Have Heen.&quot; Wired Magazine. 14 Aug. 2002. [http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/08/54370]<br />
# The Computer Chronicles. KCSM, San Mateo. 1 Aug. 1990. [http://www.archive.org/details/hypercard_2]<br />
# Benkler, Yochai. The Wealth Of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2006. [http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf]<br />
# Ousterhout, John K. &quot;Scripting: Higher-Level Programming for the 21st Century.&quot; CyberSquare Magazine. March 1998.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Kinora&diff=12586
Kinora
2010-11-24T08:24:00Z
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'''The Kinora''' was an individual moving picture viewing device that was popular in England during the early 20th century.[http://courses.ncssm.edu/physvideo/toys/kinora-s240.mov]<br />
[[Image:Kinora.jpg|thumb|right|Kinora.]]<br />
<br />
==History==<br />
[[Image:ViewerandReel.jpg|thumb|left|Viewer and Reel.]]<br />
<br />
The Kinora served as a home entertainment movie machine around 1912. Only one or a couple people could view the moving pictures which led to it being a device used mostly in the home and not on a larger scale. The fact that the Kinora was intended for private use led to it being able to survive the early years of cinema for two decades. The Kinora was invented in 1897 by the Lumiere Company in France. The Lumiere Company was more concerned with the development of their camera/projector in 1895, therefore relatively ignoring their Kinora invention (Dead). As a result, widespread adoption of the Kinora occurred in 1908 with the British Kinora Company’s reintroduction of the product. <br />
<br />
==Remodeling==<br />
<br />
The Kinora was ideal for home use thanks to the work of the Kinora Ltd. Company that remodeled the Lumiere brothers’ original invention. Kinora Ltd. distributed reels printed from professional films allowing people to rent or buy them for in home viewing. There were over 600 different reels available (Dead). The company also appealed to individuality by allowing consumers to have a photographic studio in London take moving pictures of them that they could then view on their Kinora. Starting in 1908, Kinora Ltd. came out with an amateur camera that allowed people to make their own Kinora movies on 25.4 mm unperforated paper negatives or celluloid rolls that were processed and printed and turned into reels by the company (NCSSM).<br />
<br />
==Physical==<br />
[[Image:interior.jpg|thumb|right|Interior of Kinora.]]<br />
<br />
A viewer rotates the handle that is connected to a 14 cm diameter wheel. The wheel contains a set of small pictures that are each seen individually in front of a lens. If the wheel is turned at the right speed the combination of pictures give the illusion of motion. Each reel usually holds about 25 seconds of motion. <br />
<br />
The Kinora home viewer came in numerous different styles. However, all of these styles were based off of the flip book idea where individual pictures flip over against a static peg (Science). The reels were based off of cinema films. Home movies were also introduced through a camera that could be used by consumers.<br />
<br />
Most see the Kinora as an extremely simple machine that produces results near that of a miniature television screen (Dead). The concepts and mechanics of the machine are relatively easily understood and could be produced for the masses. There was no limit of technological skill level as to who could use it. <br />
<br />
==Similar Machines==<br />
[[Image:Mutoscope.JPG|thumb|left|Mutoscope Patent.]]<br />
<br />
The Kinora is similar to the stereoscope in theory as an individual viewing machine in the home. The Kinora’s collectable reels are similar to the stereoscope’s printed images. The Kinora was even advertised as “similar in size to a small table stereoscope, yet presents to the eye photographic views of objects in motion in a manner so life-like as to border upon the marvelous” (Motion). <br />
<br />
During same time period as the Kinora, several other moving picture viewing machines were also in use. The mutoscope was invented in 1894 by Herman Casler. Casler describes the mutoscope in his patent as a “device for showing the changing positions of a body or bodies in action” (Patent). The mutoscope was a machine similar to the Kinora. However, it was usually used as a viewing vending machine. Patrons would typically pay 5 cents to view an image in the mutoscope viewer that was located in public places. The machine was therefore open to the masses for viewing. The kinetoscope was a complicated machine that used film to portray a moving image. <br />
<br />
==Social==<br />
<br />
Middle classes originally saw attendance of the cinema as socially unacceptable. The Kinora provided them with moving pictures at home so that they did not have to go to the theatre. They reduced the chances of mixing with the lower classes. Perhaps, the Kinora only allowed for greater social stratification. <br />
<br />
The mutoscope was seen by the upper classes as morally evil and a means of corrupting the youth. They believed that the mutoscope was a peep machine that portrayed improper images. The mutoscope suffered the same scorn of every individually consumed media. The novel was even seen as a source of literary pornography that would corrupt young girls. The internet today is also viewed as a network of pornography and corruption because it is consumed by an individual and not a group. Even though the mutoscope was seen as a source of moral evils, the Kinora did not seem to be viewed in the same way. However, it seems that the private home cameras available to Kinora users would only encourage the production of illicit material. The Kinora may have escaped defamation due to its association with the middle classes while the mutoscope was much more publicly available as a vended amusement. <br />
<br />
==Demise==<br />
[[Image:1908.jpg|thumb|right|1908 Kinora Viewer.]]<br />
<br />
Cinema essentially led to the demise of the Kinora. The Kinora Ltd. Company also experienced a fire in its London factory in 1914. The company was already seeing loss of interest in the Kinora and therefore decided not to rebuild its production facilities (NCSSM). <br />
<br />
Some aspects of the Kinora that would have led to its demise include neck cramping from leaning over the machine to view the images. There really was no comfortable position that could be maintained while viewing the Kinora. There seems to be no evidence of any physical mark left on the forehead after viewing of the Kinora but one can only assume that there had to be some evidence of leaning over the machine impressed on the forehead. The reflection in the glass lens also seemed to impair the quality of the image. <br />
<br />
==Remediations==<br />
<br />
The Kinora is now virtually obsolete requiring viewers to translate the images into newer formats for viewing. The Royal &amp; Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews of England has inspired a preservation of a collection of Kinora footage of Harry Vardon a golfing legend of the early 1900s. The film is on 100 year old Kinora film that has never been seen before this restoration project (Restoration Project).<br />
<br />
Some of the aspects of the Kinora have been maintained in modern media entertainment. Home video rental still remains a vital part of distribution in the film business. Video rental sees its roots in the availability of Kinora reels for lease. Personal hand held recording devices also saw their beginning with the Kinora. Hand held cameras are still used today to capture important aspects of our individual private lives. These hand held cameras also allowed for the development of amateur video recordings of significant events that would grow into its own industry of media entertainment.<br />
<br />
==Formal Prohibitions/Affordances==<br />
[[Image:viewinglens.jpg|thumb|left|Viewing Lens.]]<br />
<br />
The middle class made up most of the audience of the Kinora as it was an in-home luxury entertainment piece that ranged from 5 to 16 English pounds depending on the model and how ornate it was. Anyone with enough money to afford time in the studio could produce their own material for the Kinora viewing. Mainstream reels however made up most of the content. <br />
<br />
==Pops and Hisses==<br />
<br />
The Kinora did not provide a clear unbroken moving image. It depicted quite the opposite. Each image was placed on a tiny individual plate that worked together as a flip book. Therefore there were breaks and flashes in vision during the presentation of the short movie. The splotches and breaks seen here in this demonstration of a mutoscope seem to resemble old films shot on film with the lines running through the image.[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JQW35pwBn8] (55 seconds video starts) The color of these images are also key as they were black and white but seem to have taken on an orange tint. The tint could be a reflection of age and wear or it could have been part of the original intention of the creators. Another feature of the Kinora is the sound of the hitting and clanging of the individual pictures against the pin as the wheel is turned. <br />
<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<br />
Anthony, Barry. The Kinora: Motion Pictures for the Home 1896-1914 : a History of the System. London: The Projection Box, 1996.<br />
Casler, Herman. “Mutoscope.” Google Patents. 21 Nov. 1894. Patent No. 549309.<br />
<br />
Day, Michael. &quot;Metadata for Images: Emerging Practice and Standards.&quot; UKOLN. 16 Mar. 1999. UK Office for Library and Information Networking. 5 Dec. 2007 &lt;http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/presentations/cir99/paper.html&gt;.<br />
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Fullerton, John. Celebrating 1895: the Centenary of Cinema. Indiana: Indiana UP, 1998.<br />
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Gregory D Black. &quot;A Victorian Film Enterprise: The History of the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, 1897-1915. Business History Review 75.3 (2001): 660-661. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. NYU. 7 Dec. 2007. <br />
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&quot;Kinora.&quot; NCSSM. 2005. NCSSM. 3 Dec. 2007 &lt;http://courses.ncssm.edu/gallery/collections/toys/html/exhibit05.htm&gt;.<br />
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&quot;Kinora.&quot; Science and Society Picture Library. 2004. Science and Society UK. 2 Dec. 2007 &lt;http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?txtkeys1=Kinora&gt;.<br />
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&quot;Mutoscope Picture Machine.&quot; YouTube. 9 May 2007. 11 Dec. 2007 &lt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JQW35pwBn8&gt;.<br />
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&quot;Restoration project. &quot; Televisual 12 Jan. 2005: 45. ABI/INFORM Trade &amp; Industry. ProQuest. NYU. 3 Dec. 2007.<br />
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http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Flatness&diff=12585
Flatness
2010-11-24T08:23:50Z
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[[Image:Flatland.jpg|200px|right|thumb|A. Square can still only imagine what Sphere really is.]]''You who are blessed with shade as well as light, you who are gifted with two eyes, endowed with a knowledge of perspective, and charmed with the enjoyment of various colors, you who can actually see an angle, and contemplate the complete circumference of a Circle in the happy realm of the Three Dimensions--how shall I make it clear to you the extreme difficulty which we in Flatland experience in recognizing one another's configurations?''<br />
<br />
- A. Square, ''Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions''&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;<br />
<br />
In Plato’s ''Symposium'', Aristophanes presents an unusual view of the history of human nature: “the primeval man was round, his back and sides formed a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast.” Zeus, threatened by these children of sun, moon, and earth, splits them in two so they “will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers.” In this story Aristophanes locates the origin of love. He could just as easily locate the origin of inscription media. <br />
<br />
This is a study of the &quot;obvious.&quot; In this dossier we look at flatness not solely as a tactile characteristic—our walls, floors, and desks reveal that to be thriving—but as a characteristic of information organization. The two dimensional perspective of the torn human, realized in the initial single planar creation of tablet, scroll, and map, defies Zeus by evolving into the multiplanar media of the codex and the globe. This media not only recreates the multi-directional, 360&lt;sup&gt;o&lt;/sup&gt; view but expands it to include innumerable steradians. The speedy tumbling ideal of pre-humanity, lost to direct human physiology due to the wrath of the gods, is regained through random access three-dimensional models. The dominant paradigm of single plane inscription designed the way information was organized, presenting a world view that was flat. Three-dimensional representation of information broadened this perspective to encompass a new complexity. No longer a necessity of mediatic representation, flatness has since become an aesthetic value, while persevering the functionality of three-dimensional representation.<br />
<br />
=Bodies of Inscription=<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:Torah Scroll.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Scroll Storage|Picture 1: Modern Jewish Torah scrolls continue the discreet column format of ancient Greece (Simmonds). ]]The flatness of the initial inscription bodies—clay and stone tablets—delineated the boundaries of thought, flatness limiting the ability to connect disparate ideas. Some of the oldest written records from Mesopotamia contain information about agriculture and “later tablets contain information about the social structure of the Sumerians” (Jean 13). These tablets were both unitopical and one sided. The press of weight from the heavy objects made double sided inscription difficult, and the limited space made multi-topical exploration literally unthinkable.<br />
<br />
The transition to flexible inscription mediums, papyrus and later parchment in Egypt and paper in China broadened the capabilities for inscription. However, these capabilities did not initially broaden the single-planar mindset. Papyrus scrolls varied in length and size, but not in reading method. &quot;The Latin or Greek volume was read from left to right, and when the scroll was held in the hands, the already-read portion was often rolled up in the left hand while the still-to-be read text was unrolled from the right, not unlike the way we handle the pages of a book being read today&quot; and &quot;when a scroll was finished it would have to be rewound to be read again very much as with a modern videotape after it is viewed&quot; (Petroski 25). Scrolling on computer screens is a remediation of this physical movement. Text was written in a series of columns, a format used today in newspapers publications; thus the physical medium also imposed a specific graphical structure of the text. Although the medium of the scroll is analog and continuous, the text of the scroll has digital aspects. Because works could span several scroll the whole is comprised of discreet pieces. Also, the single plane of the scroll is composed of discreet columns, which are approximately uniform. The whole of the text is &quot;split up into little bits&quot; to be more easily digested by the eyes and accessed by the hands (Flusser 62). A &quot;concentration of dots&quot; creates the world of the scroll, but the scroll offered two choices: view the text in piecemeal form in order to use it or view it in its unwieldy entirety. Clay and stone restricted space; scrolls restricted searchability due to the arduous nature of physically wrapping and unwrapping to reveal the contained text.<br />
<br />
Whether on parchment and papyrus, scrolls provided a clear recording medium. However, labeling and storage presented difficulties. Meta-text was attached to the ends of scrolls “with tags or tickets, not unlike modern price tags, which were marked to give the necessary information, such as descriptive words, author, and the like&quot; (Petroski 25-26). Easily detached, the loss of these tags was another feature limiting convenient access to the contents. Although storage was easier than with stone, scroll storage was not unfettered. A multi-scroll document would be kept upright in a box or gathered in a shelf cubby, with the limit on the latter that too great a weight from the top would crush the scrolls, which fell to the bottom. Slate or wax writing tablets offered an additional convenient option, particularly for note taking, but each lacked permanence as inscription mediums.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Scroll Storage.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Scroll Storage|Picture 2: Scrolls were sometimes kept in hat box-like containers known as capsae, as depicted in this drawing made from a fresco in the ancient city of Herculaneum (Petroski 27). ]]&quot;The codex evolved during the first century AD and was the predecessor of modern book structure…The codex comprised two boards enclosing sheets and the whole structure was sewn at the back&quot; (Marks 10). In the poem Apophoreta Julius Ceasar’s contemporary Martial “is at pains to commend the form of the parchment codex to a public unaccustomed to it, pointing out, for instance how convenient such a book is for the traveler, or how much space it saves in the library when compared with the role” (Roberts 25). The transition from scroll to codex was not immediate; “the codex emerged as an acceptable form only after a long period of gestation” (Roberts 32).<br />
<br />
The bound codex, with double-sided sheets, layered in multiple planes, and later the book as we know it, provided greater sophistication as a resource for both organizing and locating previously recorded information. “Where an entire scroll might have to be unrolled to find a passage near the end, the relevant page could be turned to immediately in the codex. Also, writing in a scroll was normally on one side only, whereas the codex lent itself to the use of both sides of the leaf” (Petroski 29). As a result of the increased functionality, already established fields, such as law, became more intricate in their operations. &quot;A new way of binding or of writing things down, a change in the way data are collected, affects the legal framework. It is only in such a diachronic description that the discourse of the law assumes its specific appearances. Only then, by turning into parchment codices, string-tied convolutes, or standardized chrome folders, do files acquires face, form, and format&quot; (Vismann xiii). This ability to search and to tie separate thoughts physically together leads to an increased complexity of the thoughts themselves; the medium shapes the message. In his work ''Flaubert, Joyce, and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians'', Hugh Kenner emphasizes how these authors embraced the physical structure of the book. Before them, &quot;It is the books of reference that think to make use of leaves, sheets, numbered pages, and the fact that all pages of all copies are identical&quot; (Kenner 59). The flimsy metatext of the scroll becomes an integrated part of the object, with titles living on spines and indexes and tables directing a search.<br />
<br />
Hypertext adopts the functionality of books and even remediates the terminology of pages, but takes their use beyond the material restrictions of the printed word. The options for the serial and temporal ordering of a text have expanded in ways that no physical page could realistically support. In Ted Nelson's words, a &quot;non-sequential writing, a branching text that allows the reader to make choices…&quot; (Nelson). This web of options operates outside the boundaries of spinal bindings to produce an even greater organizational freedom than even that of the the multi-planar codex.<br />
<br />
=Maps and Globes=<br />
[[Image:Terrestrail Globe Gore.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Terrestrial Globe Gore|Picture 3: Example of a Globe Gore found in ''Terrestrial and Celestial Globes'' (1921) by E.L. Stevenson ]]<br />
Maps and globes are technologies of representation, conveying the human sensory experience of the outer physical world. While the earliest maps expressed spatial knowledge of a specific place, subsequent versions overlay other relationships. This section concerns two dimensional maps, which display geographic information in graphical detail that still exist today. Maps shaped how early humanity thought about the world due to the limited representative abilities of the planer surface. <br />
<br />
While it is difficult to pinpoint when map making truly began, it has roots in many ancient cultures. The British museum has a 5th century BCE Babylonian clay tablet that illustrates the civilization’s belief that the world was round--but not spherical--surrounded by an ocean (Tooley 3). As Crary points out in ''Techniques of the Observer'', both the map and the globe display representations that give the user more information about the world beyond what their own sensory organs provide. The map and the globe are used as tools to extend our own vision and allow people to contemplate the “crucial feature of the world, its extension, so mysteriously unlike the unextended immediacy of their own thoughts yet rendered intelligible to mind by the clarity of these representations, by their magnitudional relations” (Crary 46). Scale is an issue in understanding the world. The curves of the earth's surface appear to be flat because of our vantage point on the massive globe. The flatness of a single-plane medium like a map mirrored early concepts of the world as a whole that were based on this limited visual information. Therefore, the fantasy of flatness as a mediation paradigm was corrected with the development of a global perspective.<br />
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The idea that the earth was a flat disc was debated during the Hellenic period, leading the Greeks to make globes in tandem with maps. In addition, renowned polymath Ptolemy drafted maps and developed the concepts of longitude and latitude. Ptolemy, though, placed the prime meridian through the Canary Islands and therefore “greatly overestimated the length of the land surface eastward from this line, and consequently reduced the gap…lying between Europe and Asia” (Tooley 5). While these distortion were mainly based on faulty calculations and assumptions, a flat surface is not capable of accurately capturing the relationships between the landmasses in our spherical world. The distortions are &quot;pops and hisses&quot; of flatness in graphical representations of geography. Globes provide a way to view the world’s geography without distortions. Modern maps are actually projections of the globe onto a flat surface, in contrast to earlier map making. Therefore when flatness is filtered through the lens of the global, our representation of the world is more accurate. When humanity began to think beyond one plane, our understanding of the world was changed. <br />
[[Image:Miller Cylindrical Projection.PNG|thumb|left|alt=Cylindrical Projection|Picture 4: Example of the distortions created with Map Projection]]<br />
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But, while geographers utilize the knowledge that the earth is a sphere to make the most accurate maps, globe gores have been used since at least the 1500s in the production of globes (Stevenson 202). As seen in &quot;Picture 3,&quot; gores are maps of the Earth printed in flat, roughly triangular sections. Because of the difficulty of printing or engraving the maps onto a surface that is not flat, these flat maps are attached to a sphere made out of wood, brass or some other medium. Therefore the flat characteristic of a map is remediated in the globe. Some modern globes are still constructed in this way. But, many globes are no longer handmade and are composed of plastic that has dye directly applied to the sphere itself. <br />
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Globes are typically tilted on their axis at the same degree the planet is toward the sun, and go along with the “arbitrary” convention that north is upward. Most also can rotate just as the earth does. Ptolemy and other astronomers utilized both terrestrial and celestial globes and the information encoded on them to understand their area of study--the earth’s relation to other heavenly bodies. Due to the physical limits of space, though, only so much information can be housed on a map or a globe. For example, not every city can be labeled on a normal globe because the scale would make the labels unreadable. Additionally, the viewer cannot increase or decrease the magnification of a section of the world, and, as with all physical objects the whole cannot be seen all at once. The material bulk of the globe prevents viewing New York and Perth simultaneously. <br />
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These lacks of maps and globes as graphic representation of geographic information have been overcome with the development of digital maps. Contemporary society has found a way to &quot;fix unwritable data flows&quot; (Kittler 14). GPS units, Google Maps, and Google Earth are all examples of modern technologies that display the terrestrial globe on a flat screen with information gathered or dispersed from satellites. This extraterrestrial perspective allows for scalability and overcomes the &quot;pops and hisses&quot; of the material maps and globes. Even though the display is flat, the conceptions behind the technologies take into account the three-dimensional thinking associated with a global perspective.<br />
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=Deliberate Flatness=<br />
Flat media are still in existence; however, now flatness is created as an aesthetic choice. Because flatness has become an explicit choice and not the given paradigm in the creation of media, it is transformed into a different mode of mediation than that previously described. The term ‘deliberate flatness’ should be used to call attention to this aesthetic choice in both media's contents and the media themselves. In either case the use of deliberate flatness is recognized and considered for its effects on the way in which we interact with the medium and with the information it displays.<br />
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By calling attention to itself as flat, deliberately flat media are created with an acknowledgment that flatness has become a new, purely aesthetic part of the &quot;obvious&quot; of media. That is, the use of flatness in design is optional, but useful, and through deliberate flatness media produces a very specific message. In this way deliberate flatness is rarely the content, but the form media take. Deliberate flatness has limitations though. It only produces its desired effect with a knowing viewer who understands that flatness is an obvious trait of the medium.<br />
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Deliberate flatness does not actually produce a physically flat medium. Many modern media that are made to appear flat have complex content and operations, which produce a juxtaposition within the media's consumer. In this way, deliberate flatness can be thought of as artificial simplicity. The effects of this are to either produce a meta-dialogue about the media or to avoid that kind of discussion as much as possible. Effectively, this choice comes to whether or not media producers want their consumers to be dazzled by their creations or to consider them as creations.<br />
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==Deliberate Flatness in Art==<br />
[[Image:Mondrian_Comp10.jpg|thumb|left|Picture 5: Mondrian's Composition 10 - A deliberately flat work of art. ]]While flatness has always been a trait of painting, it is only with Modernist painting that we begin to see painting’s flatness as something to be aware of. In his essay ''Modernist Painting'', Clement Greenberg describes flatness as one of the distinctive features of pictorial art. Flatness, for Greenberg, brought forward and commented on by Modernism. This is a drastic parting from older traditions which “acknowledged [flatness] only implicitly or indirectly” (Greenberg). Flatness was no longer something that had to be worked around by a painter; it had become something to cherish. With this new freedom artists were able to abandon the illusion of space produced by art to force their audiences into thinking about the art’s flatness. This transforms the discussion of the work of art into a discussion of art itself.<br />
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With all of this revelry in flatness, Greenberg also acknowledges that with any sort of brushstroke on a canvas there is a destruction of the perceived flatness. When a modernist painter makes anything, she produces a “strictly optical third dimension” which “can only be seen into; can be traveled through, literally or figuratively, only with the eye&quot; (Greenberg). This turns painting into a purely visual medium without any kind of escapist ability, once again bringing the art back to being in many ways a commentary on itself.<br />
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So here within art, maybe one of the most complex modes of mediation, deliberate flatness is produced, but it is created with a purpose. By using flatness Modernist painters were able to make deep commentary on not just the techniques of art, but on art as a way of seeing the world.<br />
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==Deliberately Flat Technology==<br />
While it could be seen as a purely practical use of flatness, the way in which data is stored for computers has become deliberately flat. While machine-readable data was stored on something flat, these things never seemed flat to us thanks to the surface of the medium itself, such as the grooves of the vinyl record. Flatness was never an issue with records because the text of the record was within the grove, thus making flatness into blankness. And in other forms of machine-readable data, such as magnetic tape, flatness existed, but in a similar fashion to the scroll as a fundamental quality of the medium. Both media paradigms, however, make flatness seem strange to even consider.<br />
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With the introduction of the compact disc flatness suddenly was brought to the front of media. The CD changed the way information was stored and, with this change, turned flatness into a language. Of course, this is not technically true.[[Image:Cdpits.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Picture 6: The pits on a compact disc viewed at great magnification]] CDs have very small impressions on their surface, but to the unaided human eye these impressions are impossible to observe (Pohlmann). While the use of machine-written storage media had already created a public comfortable with machines that could “read themselves” as representing technology, the media before CDs were still reading a text which, even if not quite perceivable, was at least connected to a cinematic understanding of media (Gitelman 64). The CD then was hailed as revolutionary because of its deliberate flatness while changing the way we think about memory. To remember something requires a way to see patterns in a place where there is no visible pattern. It is as if all the marks ever made on [[Freud’s mystic writing pad]] could only be seen on the bottom surface and never the top. To read the pad one would have to know how to lift the top layer and read carefully the constantly written over indentations. This turns flatness into a barrier that must be lifted before memory (much less the memories content) can be revealed.<br />
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This deliberate flatness makes things appear to be simple to understand and operate though. So much so is this the case that other forms of media are working toward flatness as a way of manufacturing simplicity. Probably the most recent example of this is the Apple iPad®. While a highly complex piece of technology, it leverages its flatness as a way of making the public more comfortable its operation. Deliberate flatness for the iPad is used in a way to exceed our understanding of how it works in order for it to seem “magical” (iPad). As the iPad’s advertisement even says, “It is hard to see how something so simple, so thin, and so light could possibly be so capable” (iPad). The iPad, like most other consumer electronics, is flat to give the machine’s functions a sense of great depth of wonderment, while simultaneously creating a black box that protects the consumer from being forced to know just how anything works. This black boxing produces a &quot;formal prohibition&quot; against destroying the deliberate flatness of the iPad.<br />
<br />
=Sources=<br />
*Abbott, Edwin Abbott. ''The Annotated Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions''. Cambridge, MA: Perseus. 2002<br />
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*Crary, J. ''Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century.'' Cambridge: MIT Press. 1990.<br />
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*Flusser, Vilém. ''The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design''. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. 1999.<br />
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*Gitelman, Lisa. ''Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines''. Stanford University Press: Stanford. 1999.<br />
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*Greenberg, Clement. ''Modernist Painting''. '''Forum Lectures'''. Voice of America: Washington D.C. 1960.<br />
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*Jean, Georges. ''Writing: The Story of Alphabets and Scripts''. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers: New York. 1992.<br />
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*Kittler, Friedrich A. ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter''. tanford University Press: Stanford. 1999.<br />
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*Kenner, Hugh. ''Flaubert, Joyce, and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians''. Beacon Press: Boston. 1962.<br />
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*Marks, Philippa J.M. ''The British Library Guide to Bookbinding: History and Techniques''. University of Toronto Press: Toronto. 1998.<br />
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*Nelson, Theodor H. ''Literary Machines 93.1'' Mindful Press: Sausalito CA. 1992.<br />
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*[http://www.apple.com/ipad/ iPad Video]. Apple. Accessed April 10, 2010.<br />
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*Petroski, Henry. ''The Book on the Bookshelf''. Alfred A. Knoff: New York. 1999.<br />
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*Pohlmann, Ken C. ''The Compact Disc Handbook''. A-R Editions Inc: Middleton. 1992.<br />
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*Roberts, Colin H. and Skeat, T.C. ''The Birth of the Codex''. The Oxford University Press: London. 1987.<br />
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*Simmonds, Byron. &quot;Divine Art: Torah Scroll&quot;. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/articles/2007/01/11/faith_divine_torah_scroll_feature.shtml] BBC. Accessed April 11, 2010.<br />
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*Stevenson, E. L. ''Terrestrial and Celestial Globes''. Yale University Press: New Haven. 1921.<br />
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*Tooley, R. V. ''Maps and Map-Makers''. Bonanza Books: New York. 1949.<br />
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*Vismann, Cornelia. ''Files: Laws and Media Technology''. Stanford University Press: Stanford. 2008.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]<br />
[[Category:Spatiality]]<br />
[[Category:Representation]]<br />
[[Category:Obvious]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Marginalia&diff=12584
Marginalia
2010-11-24T08:23:10Z
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'''Marginalia''' are notes in margins.<br />
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''We underline (particularly if we are students or harried book-reviewers). Sometimes we scribble a note in the margin. But how few of us write marginalia in Erasmus's or Coleridge's sense, how few of us annotate with copious rigor.''<br />
- ''George Steiner, The Uncommon Reader''<br />
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[[image: Chardin.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Le Souffleur by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, 1734]]<br />
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==A Definition==<br />
The act of writing in margins is perhaps as old as the act of writing itself, but it has evolved in fascinating ways since the dawn of its inception. Still, a definition of marginalia for this project inheres a purpose. I wish to examine one of the the most fundamental media of human communication - the way that we interact with our own ideas through texts by writing on them. Ultimately, I wish to argue that true marginalia are dead. Since an argument of such a grand scale must include, admittedly, sweeping characterizations of the changes in societies over time, I am employing a broad definition of marginalia. I hope to use this project as a vehicle for understanding theoretical changes in the way that society archives its own thoughts through technology. And so this dossier is more of a structure for a debate than it is a specific rendering of a certain medium. With that said, I define marginalia as the notes in margins. Delineated below, this includes the most candid scribble as well as structured annotation and bibliographies. I invite and encourage expansion of this definition.<br />
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==The Early Literate Elite==<br />
The dawn of literacy was not, in fact, conducive to act of writing in margins. The very first instances of any kind of writing are generally agreed to have been for purposes of accounting (Robinson). The development of writing across the globe was a complex process, something that scholars heatedly debate today. Whichever mode of development you subscribe to (writing spread from a focal point to the rest of the globe or writing developed independently in different places), it is safe to say that much of the very early writings were used in society for much more concrete purposes than marginalia concern themselves with. That is, there is little need to discuss or debate accepted day-to-day practices that were often documented in early writings and as such, there was little need for marginalia. Also, the production of these scripts would not have even allowed for marginalia, as so many of them were made of stone or delicate animal skins and later, delicate papers. As societies expanded their use of documentation, the aspect of life that allowed literacy to flourish was religion. Religious dissent, such as Martin Luther's ninety-five theses in 1518, necessarily spread literacy throughout the world (Graff). Perhaps because that Bible itself was, for a long time, not printed in the vernacular, religious philosophy was expressed in writing, which opened the door to more expressive forms of writing.<br />
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The history of early literacy is richly complicated with the politics of libraries and means of production, for example in Ancient Rome. The evolution of scribal culture itself has its own important ancestry. But generally what was seen was that as literacy spread throughout Europe, circles of the literate elite developed their own &quot;bookish culture&quot; (Eisenstein). In each of these circles, individuals would become intimately familiar with a foundational set of readings, later to become a canon of literature. Although oftentimes the tensions between oral and print culture were difficult to resolve, these men would also write their own scripts. Since the circles were so small, each person would be reading everyone's work and there was a very visible process of influence and reactionary thought. This is perhaps the early forms of many of the concepts Walter Benjamin outlines in his essay &quot;Author as Producer&quot; and the comparisons between the early and modern forms of authorship/production give credibility to inherent tensions when an author is a producer.<br />
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In most cases, although we can't know for sure, fellow literate elites would read and literally emend the works of their peers. The first marginalia emerged as ways of altering texts. This evolved from peer-to-peer communication into student-teacher interaction in large part because of the spread of education and schools (Jackson). Early students' notes became commonplace in much the same way that they are today - as a way for a student to physically engage with a text. There is some evidence of teachers instructing their students on how to correctly study by note-taking, most notable Erasmus's frequent addresses to his students. Research about learning styles in more recent years might lend answers to questions about how this slow adaptation of student marginalia has affected cognition, but because there is little existing evidence to work with from two thousand years ago, this domain has been largely untouched.<br />
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As marginalia became more widely used and spread out from the elite literate circles, the structure and precedence of early margin-users like Erasmus, Gabriel Harvey, John Dee, and John Evelyn, shaped the way the public would begin to write in texts. The scholarly etiquette of marginalia was defined by a vast majority of great thinkers and a significant amount of modern scholarship is dedicated to understanding and interpreting the marginalia of great thinkers. It was Erasmus and later, Samuel Taylor Coleridge who played the most significant roles in shaping scholarly marginalia simply because they stressed its important and left a great deal of their marginalia behind.<br />
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==Forms of Marginalia==<br />
The forms of marginalia are as wide-ranging as the users who create them. The following forms are the most common and easily categorized types of marginalia. This is not to say, however, that marginalia are this simple. Indeed, a great fascination with marginalia is its varying form. It is also imperative, although not a large part of the greater argument I'm making, to note that the forms of marginalia depend on their physical medium. That is, changes the paper market change the way readers and writers have written in margins. At different point throughout the history of paper, the medium has been so costly that publication is a great accomplishment and therefore other authors would sometimes write whole stories in the margins of a colleague's book just to be published in some way. The idea of palimpsest also brings up questions about changes in paper because the idea of erasing text and writing over it (i.e. using paper like you would use a blackboard) subverts the goal of marginalia. We realize, then, than marginalia relies on a sense of permanence of the text it is on. The history of paper could lend much to this discussion, but I ultimately want to pursue a more theoretical discussion about society's use and interaction with ideas through marginalia and therefore I am focusing on more general claims about the history of reading.<br />
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===Common Marginalia===<br />
The most popular form of marginalia is the kind that readers do in private - it's that process by which we talk to ourselves through fragmented and improperly formatted sentences scribbled on the pages before us. The best description of this kind of marginalia is the one we provide from experience, for the kind of notes we take are the kind of notes that make up the common marginalia. These marginalia could be the most drawn out form of writing opinions in the margins or they can be simple asterisks and pointers. But it is important to note that the act of taking notes has become extremely casual as literacy has spread throughout the world. There was a time when the act of reading a text called for an empathy and concentration that we very rarely bring to texts today.<br />
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Common marginalia also teach us a great lesson about what they can signify personally. If you think back on how you even learned to take notes, you will probably find a similar answer to a question about learning to fasten your watch. Note-taking, particularly on our own books and on our own time, is something we do almost subconsciously, and yet it represents something so important.<br />
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===Libraries===<br />
The best record of common marginalia is in library books, although those who choose to write in library books, who haven't forgotten that they are library books, are aware that that book with circulate to another reader at some point. The most intriguing thing about marginalia in library books is that they are highly discouraged, yet extremely insightful. No one has yet done a thorough analysis of a library's marginalia to understand why readers write in certain books. For example, it is so fascinating that the Occult section of the New York Public Library is disproportionately populated by books that have been written all over. If we assume this is intentional, does this indicate that the public wants to engage in debates about religion? Or is it a taboo topic that is best debated through anonymous scribbles in library books?<br />
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===Emendation===<br />
Emendation is textual alteration. In terms of marginalia, this is the physical act of correcting a manuscript. The modern reader and writer most likely has little experience with this kind of marginalia, as computer technology has drastically changed the very idea of literary correction. Emendation, in its original sense, is a kind act, but one that is fundamental to a proper academic discourse. Emendation among different people requires different minds to interact with a single text, to agree or disagree, and ultimately to broaden their respective views. Technological changes force us to ask whether true emendation and dialogue exist today (see below, &quot;The Contemplation of Death&quot;).<br />
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===Transcription===<br />
The 16th and 17th centuries saw a rise of the literate to carry around personal notebooks so as to write down, word for word, phrases and quotes they acquired throughout their days. This was the early form of transcription, which is the act of copying famous literature by hand. It was commonplace for students to transcribe lengthy orations, sermons, and many pages. It served to improve the student's own style and deliberately store ready examples for persuasion and argument. Transcription represents something completely lacking in today's college student: a complete engagement with a text through reciprocity (Steiner).<br />
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===Scholia, Glosses, and Rubrics===<br />
Scholia are the ancient forms of marginalia. They are grammatical or explanatory notes on ancient texts, written in the margin, that often explain relevant historical events or other literature the author deems relevant. Scholia have been present on the earliest publications of the Bible, classical literature, and legal code. Scholia are closely related to glosses, which are notes that explain obscure or foreign words and which will make it the glossary of a difficult text. Scholia and glosses are mainly structural forms of marginalia, and could be considered to include rubrics, which is the early name for headings in books that signal structural changes to a reader (Jackson). The important aspect to note here is that scholia, glosses, and rubrics are made by the author, not the reader. It is instructive marginalia that is nonetheless important for a reader's understanding especially of ancient or foreign texts, but the rhetorical situation between reader and writer is much less elusive than it is with common marginalia; in this case, the author knows and plans for his/her marginalia to be read.<br />
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===Annotation===<br />
Annotation, like marginalia themselves, is a broad term and encompasses many different types. It can be used by the author in a structured way like scholia, glosses, and rubrics are used or it can be an outside addition to a text, like the added notes of great thinker to a text. Annotation is often used in instructional texts to explain the thought process of the reader, as in a medical or legal article. The important distinction between annotation and other forms of marginalia is that it is published with intent and rarely includes candid notes in a margin. Famously annotated texts by thinkers that are not the author usually annotate the text with intent, to give a concrete analysis of the given text. It is a staged technique.<br />
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===Footnotes &amp; Citation===<br />
Footnotes and citations have been used historically in the same ways in which we know them today. They are used by the author to give credit to the sources for their inspiration and explain the process of their thinking. This is interesting, however, because the goal of footnotes and citation has a parallel with the purpose of the common form of readers' marginalia. That is, citations are used to demonstrate the way that an author has come to produce the text at hand by listing references ad suggesting new ones. This creative process in writing the text is the end product to what lay readers are doing when they make candid notes in the margins of their own personal books. I'm arguing here that marginalia, in a general sense, document the way in which readers interact with texts. But citations given by an author are the organized layouts of how the author was once a reader. There seems to be a cycle - while a reader is absorbing a text, he/she will write notes in the margins to help process the new information. Then, if the reader decides to put these newly created, reactionary comments into writing, he/she will document that process through the use of citation, which other readers will then use to spark their own creative processes.<br />
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==Mediatic Etymological Approach==<br />
I am employing, here, a mediatic etymological approach to studying marginalia as a medium and because it is a unique way of studying dead media, it deserves some comment. Mediatic etymology is the way of examining dead media in relation to their modern-day legacies. That is, isolating a modern medium or technique, and tracing its origins to a form of extinct early form of it. I am fascinated by the intricate process by which a reader takes notes in a text and this project is an attempt to trace the early forms of marginalia. In the end, I've found that the kind of notes we take in margins today are situated in an entirely different literary and educational context than they once were and as a result, we are not writing the same kind of notes we once used to write. I propose that the kind of marginalia we create today represents a serious shift in values from the kind of marginalia that characterizes earlier societies.<br />
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==Marginalia as an Archaeology of Ideas==<br />
The deepest intrigue of marginalia is similar to the deepest questions of writing itself because marginalia are a certain type of writing. It has its own etiquette and form and is therefore worthy of its own classification. But just as literature documents a complex relationship between an author and a reader, an author and his/her ideas, and a reader and the author's ideas, marginalia document a complex relationship between a writer and his/her own thoughts. The language of marginalia is almost not recognizable. Aside from annotation, we should probably have a hard time understanding notes we took on a text from years ago. And for marginalia to be successful, we shouldn't be able to understand them. Marginalia represent a dialogue within our own minds that is beautifully complicated by fleeting ideas and influences of that specific time. As George Steiner puts it &quot;Marginalia are the immediate indices of the reader's response to the text, of the dialogue between the book and himself.&quot; It's useful to mention the intentions of great political thinkers who strove to preserve a free and open flow of information in society because that structure is what has taught us to value free speech and dialogue. Their belief was that an educated society can be created by allowing for a multiplicity of opinions and thoughts. The more society circulates and interacts with these different ideas, then the more it will create new ideas, thoughts, and inventions. Marginalia capture the essence of this value set because it sheds light on the mysterious and private process that a reader engages with the ideas of society. The importance of studying marginalia is in the fact that learning about this process of societal interaction through texts will teach us about how culture and communication has changed over time. Steiner writes, &quot;Marginalia are the hinges of aesthetic doctrine and intellectual history.&quot;<br />
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==The Contemplation of Death==<br />
George Steiner's essay &quot;The Uncommon Reader&quot; is perhaps the most thoughtful analysis and contemplation of marginalia and my thinking has been greatly influenced by his brilliant writing. Steiner emphasizes that the true act of marginalia must include a sensitivity. He says that in order to produce the best kind of marginalia, one must earnestly search for the &quot;original and imaginative scruple&quot; that guides the author. He says that good marginalia are empathetic by treating the text with care. A reader should believe and doubt, but never be divorced from a real sense of urgency in the text. As one of his main points, Steiner writes, &quot;The principal truth is this: latent in every act of complete reading is the compulsion to write a book in reply.&quot; And if we are to consider marginalia dead media, we must realize how the scribbles and notes of today have shifted away from this fundamental objective.<br />
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Steiner also requires, in his sense of complete reading, the motif of cortesia, the ceremonious encounter between reader and book. He says that this is today &quot;so remote as to be unrecapturable.&quot; Today informality is the etiquette we have adopted to read a book. Perhaps influenced by the consumer culture or by modern political systems, we are no longer preoccupied with that used to be the most fundamental idea in literature: the fact that writing represents an immortality that is not granted to humans. Instead of pushing ourselves to understand how the most ruthless villain in modern fiction will somehow live on long past the author's death, we are too busy worrying about our own mortality. It could be argued that with the rise of advertising and the therapeutic ethos that instills a sense of guilt about how we are in constant need of improvement has shifted our values. While advertising has created a culture that obsesses over the frivolous surplus of goods that are created in a capitalistic society, it has also shifted our attention away from the care and attention we once brought to the act of reading. And if sociological constructs have changed our values so much to change how we read, then the act of marginalia can no longer be considered a healthy dialogue between reader and text - it is informal and fleeting today.<br />
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The idea of auctoritas, the normative, prescriptive status of the written word, is gone. As Steiner argues, modern readers don't respect the authority of a text any longer. He even goes so far as to say that &quot;We distrust auctoritas...precisely because it aspires to immutability.&quot; This could be an outgrowth of a largely adopted political ideology. Perhaps we distrust the auctoritas of books because we, as Americans who are instilled with the values of free speech and the courage to challenge authority, are scared that too much power (i.e. the ultimate power that books have over us - their impermanence) is harmful.<br />
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The idea that socio-political structures have influenced the death of marginalia can go even further. The formality of reading from the 18th century arose out of class divisions. Inherent in the Chardin scene is the sense that many working class individuals helped to bind and prepare the books while only a selected few can read and interact with them. Personal libraries are symbols of this kind of class division. But today, knowledge is supposed to be for everyone and as such, we have lost the kind of ceremonies that used to accompany reading because it represented a larger social hierarchy. There exists, then, a confusing inverse proportion between social hierarchies and the ability to learn. Or perhaps more accurately, the inverse proportion is between the ability to learn and the value of free speech. Because this has been proven empirically true in states like the former Soviet Union, where memorization has been preserved and emphasized, but there is no dialogue about those indoctrinated texts. The &quot;bookish&quot; culture lived on in the USSR because the history of their great texts was thrust upon society by means of a socio-political climate that is much different from ours. In our society, we are even taught to despise marginalia, for they are used goods, something we should not cherish.<br />
<br />
This is not to say that true marginalia do not exist in our own society. It certainly exists in elite academic circles. But the kind of reading that was once a norm is no longer to us. Steiner uses the example of a private library. Publishing industry changes have rendered personal libraries obsolete, but it also means we don't take our texts as seriously. &quot;The modern apartment, notably for the young, simply has no space.&quot; He goes on to talk about the implications of the paperback revolution that although liberating in some sense, has created texts that are physically ephemeral and made to wither. &quot;The paperback is both a marvel of packaging and a denial of the largesse of form and spirit expressly states in Chardin's scene.&quot;<br />
<br />
The ending to this argument has to do with the idea of memory, which is essential to an &quot;answerability&quot; to the text. Now although the recurring argument that the sky is falling when communication revolutions occur, there is serious credibility to the disappearance of memorizing texts. Few of us can locate central passages in the Bible or even in our favorite books, even though these passages have been central influences on some of the most brilliant poetry or the basis for common and moral law. It begs the question of whether we can truly know something &quot;by heart,&quot; a phrase that arose out of the true and complete relationship between memory and literature. We no longer have an echo chamber of ideas that resonates with each text we read and therefore allows each text to respond to each other. Although Steiner goes on to say that this makes us &quot;readers by half,&quot; I think it signals a serious shift in the ways that we think and document ideas. In terms of marginalia, it means that our notes and scribbles are even less imbued with a sense of rich dialogue, which is ultimately what makes marginalia so dead.<br />
<br />
But it also signals a shifting sense of elitism in literature and its readership. As Steiner argues, &quot;The folio, the private library, at home-ness in classical tongues, the arts of memory, will belong, increasingly, to the specialized few&quot; (241). This brings up the question of social hierarchies that was discussed before. Does this suggest that reading will always have some sort of hierarchy and that today, those who can remember are the elite?<br />
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The even more pressing issue is the fate of the book itself. If we accept the argument that we are using the book less and less, that we are memorizing less and quoting less, then we must ask where the book will go. Surely, the book relies on its audience in a very real way. And if modern readers are turning to other, perhaps equally engaging, forms of reading that do not necessarily include the book, then what will happen to it?<br />
<br />
The study of marginalia opens the door to so many exciting and fresh ideas. The alleged death of marginalia is so important because it involved so many different aspects of modern society. Above all, though, it hits at the very heart of how society interacts, observes, thinks, and communicates through technology. Although marginalia do not embrace the up-to-date digital technologies, it instead tracks the print culture that is nonetheless being affected by changes in technology. In a sense, examining marginalia is an indirect examination of modern technology in general.<br />
<br />
==Future==<br />
[[image: engelbart.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Engelbart Mural by Eileen Clegg, artist and Valerie Landau, writer]]<br />
What is the future of the book? What is the future of marginalia?<br />
<br />
I like to assume that the death of marginalia in its truest sense does not necessarily signify the death of true readership, as Steiner argues. I like to assume that new ways of rigorous reading are already being created, but that we can't and won't fully recognize them until after the current technological revolution has passed. Steiner writes, &quot;Schooling today, notably in the U.S., is planned amnesia&quot; (240). I tend to think that schooling is perhaps incorporating new techniques to enhance our academic experience in ways different, but not lesser than, those of old. Steiner's argument is interesting (he argues that in the future we will have schools of &quot;creative reading&quot;), but it might not be the most accurate.<br />
<br />
===Blogs: The Modern Marginalia?===<br />
Blogs are just one of many ways that society has changed with its interaction and expression of ideas. The common assumption the field of media studies is that as society changes its habits as technology evolves, the different means of communication are not necessarily better or worse, just different. This assumption is crucial to embrace because it can eliminate the &quot;sky is falling&quot; reaction to changes in known histories. This attitude might actually be the impetus for Steiner's pessimism and if we analyze his arguments through this lens, we can regain a sense of optimism about new societal interactions.<br />
<br />
Blogs are now so popular that many, many people have their own. But the types of blogs are also important. Some people have daily blogs and they use it to share information about many things. Some people have travel blogs or blogs about their career or studies. This structure interestingly mimics the structure of marginalia in that both adapt with a sense of purpose. If we assume that marginalia represent the way that we interact with our own thoughts, then blogs also fit the bill quite nicely.<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
Birkets, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. Fawcett Columbine: New York. 1994.<br />
<br />
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. A Book I Value: Selected Marginalia. Princeton University Press: Princeton. 2003.<br />
<br />
Eisenstein, Elizabeth. &quot;The Rise of the Reading Public.&quot; Communication in History, eds. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. 2007.<br />
<br />
Graff, Harvey J. &quot;Early Modern Literacies.&quot; Communication in History, eds. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. 2007.<br />
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Jackson, H.J. Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books. Yale University Press: New Haven. 2001.<br />
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Mladenov, Ivan. Conceptualizing Metaphors: On Charles Peirce's Marginalia. Routledge: New York. 1996.<br />
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Robinson, Andrew. &quot;The Origins of Writing.&quot; Communication in History, eds. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. 2007.<br />
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Steiner, George. &quot;The Uncommon Reader.&quot; No Passion Spent. Georges Borchardt Literary Agency. 1999.<br />
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&quot;The Future of the Book.&quot; ed. Geoffrey Nunberg. University of California Press: Berkeley. 1996.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Data_Visualization_and_Defunct_Visual_Metaphors&diff=12583
Data Visualization and Defunct Visual Metaphors
2010-11-24T08:22:06Z
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[[Image:Dehomag.JPG|thumb|right|Liminal metaphor (Thanks, guys!)]]<br />
This dossier concerns the relationship between visualization as a mode of knowledge-production and vision as a (visual) metaphor for knowledge. It looks at the history of data visualization and its relationship to epistemology, particularly renderings of statistical data. Key moments in the history of statistics and data visualization are discussed, with a particular focus on so-called political arithmetic and the decline and re-emergence of visualization techniques as an effect of complex quantification methods and computing, respectively. The dossier advances the argument that visual metaphors are fundamentally inadequate for the contemporary forms of data acquisition, analysis, and knowledge-production that are endemic to the informatic mode. The persistence of visual metaphors for surveillance is considered alongside the increased incidence of opaque data capture and mining, practices which do not lend themselves to familiar metaphors or renderings. The dossier concludes with a critical discussion of the use of data visualization techniques in artistic interventions which seek to make this process more legible.<br />
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==Visualization and Cognition==<br />
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A discussion of the complex relationship between vision and epistemology may well begin with Plato, as does Martin Jay's influential book on the treatment of vision in twentieth century French theory, but this dossier takes a different path. It instead follows the unique methodology developed by Bruno Latour in his discussion of &quot;Visualization and Cognition,&quot; wherein he argues for the careful consideration of representational techniques in the production of scientific facts. His concern, like that of this dossier, is with the way in which inscription practices both make legible their objects of study and how these same inscriptions are then discursively marshaled in support of specific scientific claims. In other words, Latour examines &quot;the transformation of rats and chemicals into paper,&quot; (3) as &quot;[n]othing can be said about the rats, but a great deal can be said about the figures [which reductively represent them]&quot; (15). Latour is careful to acknowledge that such claims teeter on the brink of triviality, but responds by insisting that it is upon the basis of representational efficacy and economy that truth claims obtain their status. Inscriptions should not be dismissed as mere visual aids; they provide the necessary grammar for the representational transposition of objects or phenomena into a semiotic system. Whatever form this may take, the meaningful specification and analysis of objects or phenomena must pass through a process of rendering. As Latour notes: &quot;If scientists were looking at nature, at economics, at stars, at organs, they would not ''see'' anything […] Scientists start seeing something once they stop looking at nature and look exclusively and obsessively at prints and flat inscriptions. In the debates about perception, what is always forgotten is this simple drift from watching confusing three-dimensional objects, to inspecting two-dimensional images which have been ''made less confusing''&quot; (15). For Latour, science happens in the specific and consistent rendering of perceptual information on a material substrate. The phrase &quot;data visualization&quot; would therefore seem redundant in this context: visualization ''is'' the production of data. The visualization of economic trends by way of mathematical or graphical representation is what makes economics, from an ontological perspective, a possible object of study. This is not to deny that economic activity ''happens'', but rather to suggest that any meaningful understanding of economics as a measurable and data-producing activity must always begin with inscription and visualization. Visualization is always already a way of understanding. <br />
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[[Image:Scheiner.gif|thumb|Right|Christopher Scheiner, ''Tres Epistolae de Maculis Solaribus'' [Three Letters on Solar Spots], 1612]]<br />
[[Image:Playfair.jpg|thumb|Right|William Playfair, ''Chart Showing at One View the Price of the Quarter of Wheat, &amp; Wages of Labour by the Week from the Year 1565 to 1821,'' 1821]]<br />
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Latour extends this insight into discussions of the unique relationship between science and bureaucratic technologies like paperwork and record-keeping. He examines the degree to which visualization techniques achieve popular support and thus, in turn, confer increased legitimacy on the arguments to which they are attached. Visualization, he argues, is key to understanding the mobilization of consensus. And it is here where data visualization may no longer seem like a redundant expression: one form of inscriptions (say, numerical tallies, measurements, formulae, etc.) can effectively feed another (say, a graph). Of course, the reverse is true, too: graphical inscriptions produced by way of mechanical instruments can be the basis upon which numerical data-collection occurs. The rise of statistical thinking, an expression coined by Theodore Porter, is therefore concomitant with the emergence of specific forms of visualization. Visualization brackets statistical reasoning on both sides: the visualization of objects or phenomena by way of specific inscriptions which lend themselves to mathematical reductionism, and which, in turn, for reasons of economy, clarity, or analysis, may be once again rendered graphically. For example, in Christopher Scheiner's ''Tres Epistolae'' to the right, which visually charts the change in sunspots over time, visualization produces the data that others would later evaluate mathematically. Below that, William Playfair's well-cited chart plots the historical change in wages, price of wheat, and reign of specific monarchs. Statistics elsewhere obtained (and by way of yet another form of inscription) are here rendered anew in graphic form. Playfair, to whom many of the most familiar forms of contemporary data visualization are still ascribed, understood the unique power of charts thusly: <br />
<br />
&quot;The advantage proposed, by this method, is not that of giving a more accurate statement than by figures, but it is to give a more simple and permanent idea of the gradual progress and comparative amounts, at different periods, by presenting to the eye a figure, the proportions of which correspond with the amount of the sums intended to be expressed. As the eye is the best judge of proportion, being able to estimate it with more quickness and accuracy than any other of our organs, it follows, that wherever relative quantities are in question […] this mode of representing it is peculiarly applicable […] In a numerical table there are as many distinct ideas given, and to be remembered, as there are sums, the order and progression, therefore of those sums are also to be recollected by another effort of memory, while this mode unites proportion, progression, and quantity, all under one simple impression of vision, and consequently one act of memory&quot; (ix-x).<br />
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Of particular note is the degree to which Playfair privileges vision at the same time that he acknowledges the fundamental commensurability of statistical figures and their derivative graphic representation. Playfair would later describe this advantage as the ability to &quot;speak to the eyes.&quot; Notwithstanding its peculiar use of an auditory metaphor (which conceivably refers to the presumed passivity or oral comprehension), Playfair's visualization techniques ushered in a host of transformative practices that buttressed the burgeoning field of so-called political arithmetic. No doubt Playfiar's chart possessed a didactic quality. This chart, in particular, accompanied a text which argued for the apparent improved conditions of worker in recent years. Graphic literary, however, remained a concern. Apparently, one had to learn how to hear with one's eyes. As Michael Friendly points out, Playfair's charts were so novel that he was forced to devote several pages of ''The Commercial and Political Atlas and Statistical Breviary'' to explaining how one should go about interpreting a line graph. Graphic vision was an acquired skill. Once acquired, however, it radically increased the fluency with which the graphically literate could engage in comparative thinking. But this was a visual competency once removed from the key transformation in sight: &quot;The implicit project of the construction and appropriation of social reality in terms, perhaps not of mathematics, but nonetheless of calculation and classificatory and systematic analysis was conceptualized in the notion of the 'statistical gaze': ''de statistische Blick''&quot; (Hans Erich Bödeker, 176). The ability to see statistically preceded the statistical mode of inscription which in turn preceded the capacity to interpret the visual rendering of statistics.<br />
<br />
==Vision as Visual Metaphor==<br />
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In a brief essay entitled &quot;The All-Seer: God's Eye as Proto-Surveillance,&quot; Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt argues that the semantic multi-dimensionality of vision can be understood by examining the etymological connection between the French ''voir'' (vision), ''savoir'' (knowledge), and ''pouvoir'' (power). Schmidt-Burkhardt suggests that vision never achieves a fixed semantic position within this network of meaning. His genealogy of vision as a visual metaphor speaks to this insight. His history begins on the cusp of antiquity, a period in which the idea that gods had eyes or were indeed themselves eyes had already achieved currency. &quot;Divine symbolism should be seen as a relic of hieroglyphic knowledge that had also Greek and Roman authors,&quot; he argues. Although Christianity inherits this symbolism, no recorded instances of the figure of the eye occurs in religious art prior to the the sixteenth century. <br />
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<br />
Eye of Providence<br />
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[[Image:Chodowiecki.png|thumb|left|]]<br />
[[Image:Information_Awareness_Office.png|thumb|left|Logo of the defunct Information Awareness Office'']]<br />
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[[Image:Lyon.png|thumb|The Cover of David Lyon's ''The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society'']] [[Image:Garfinkel.jpg|thumb|The Cover of Simson Garfinkel's ''Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century'']]<br />
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[[Image:Choicepoint.png|thumb|left|A chart depicting the various types of information collected by Choicepoint and to whom this information is commonly distributed]]<br />
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==Artistic Interventions==<br />
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Manovich<br />
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Data visualizations ''as'' the new metaphor?<br />
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http://r-s-g.org/carnivore/<br />
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[[Image:jj_carnivore.jpg|thumb|left|A screen-grab from ''JJ,'' a Carnivore client by Golan Levin]]<br />
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http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#<br />
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http://superv.org/<br />
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[[Image:Supervision.jpg|thumb|left|A promotional image from ''Super Vision,'' a mixed-media installation and performance]]<br />
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http://newsinitiative.org/files/medill/datadilemma/gdmp/main.html<br />
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[[Image:Who_are_you.png|thumb|left|A screen-grab from ''Government Data Mining Programs,'' a web-based interactive tool that maps which agencies collect and mine information about you]]<br />
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http://feltron.com/index.php?/content/2007_annual_report/<br />
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[[Image:Feltron.jpg|thumb|left|A spread from ''The 2007 Feltron Annual Report'' by Nicholas Feltron]]<br />
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==References==<br />
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Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Parapraxes_(Freudian_Slips)&diff=12582
Parapraxes (Freudian Slips)
2010-11-24T07:48:37Z
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[[Category:Dossier]] <br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]] <br />
[[Category:Writing]]<br />
[[Category:Reading]]<br />
A parapraxis (gr: para + praksis, another action) or Freudian slip (originally termed Fehlleistungen, German for “faulty function”) is an error of memory, speech, writing, reading or action that was thought by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) to be due to the interference of repressed thoughts and unconscious feature’s of the individual’s personality (Motley 530) These slips were viewed by Freud to be a window into and proof of the unconscious, an interface or symptomology that would shed light on a latent or hidden state. First articulated in ''The Psychopathology of Everyday Life'' in 1901, the concept marks Freud’s focus towards the relocation of identity and selfhood in everyday life, and his blurring of the distinctions which existed between normal states and a pathology.(Gossy 11) This dossier examines the slip as both a mode of mediation used as a starting point used by the analyst to trace the contours of the mind and locate the unconscious. In that sense it primarily looks at the slip from the point of the analyst, and determines its operational structure to argue it is a site of control in which knowledge of the self is carefully constructed and then revealed by the analyst.[[Image:Freud.JPG|thumb|right|Sigmund Freud]]<br />
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==Precursors and Re-mediation of Freud's Theory of Slips==<br />
Although the terms ''slips of the tongue,'' ''parapraxes,'' and ''fehlleistungen'' were unique to Freud, many of these concepts can be found in his predecessor Schopenhauer, who argued that at the core of mental illness are gaps and interruptions at the level of memory. The difficulties of memory in the psychologically disturbed are due to a repression of traumatic events. (Zenter 372) Although he was a physiologist, Freud was influenced by a neo-Cartesian approach, leading him to create various models of the mind which would account for unconscious mental states. (Livingstone Smith 576) This led to a multiplexing of the mind in which multiple levels were thought to be running in parallel. At this period of time in Freud’s theory, he was working with his theory of the structural unconscious, the topographic theory of mind would not be developed until much later. As Freud’s theory develops, it becomes clear that although the mind as he conceives it is a parallel structure, it is much more complex in that what controls thought can be seen as a struggle for power between different faculties. Although Schopenhauer’s theory is directly related to Freud’s theory of slips, Freud can be thought of as indicative of many different ideas prevalent in the nineteenth century. <br />
<br />
Freud’s theory of slips was initially accepted in the physiological community, only to be rebuked, then integrated once again into research in cognitive psychology and linguistics in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the lack of empirical phenomenon and the reliance on anecdotal evidence meant that most were not willing to accept its validity. In the mid 1970s, a direct empirical test was developed, and the concept was transformed into that of “spoonerisms,” however, it was a model of phoneme transference between target speech and error, and was not necessarily regarded as a window into hidden states. (Motley 531) Within Western culture, Freud’s theory was integrated into cinema, self-help literature and advertising, and has been used within literary and textual analysis. This theory was predicated upon his work in ''On Aphasia'' (1953) in which he argues cognition is the function of the passage of information through a vast, network of interconnected neurons in the brain, and therefore this theory as indicative of models of memory and cognition contributed to the “connectionist model” of the brain. (Livingstone Smith 577) Most importantly, however, it has been argued that Freud’s theory of slips has been re-mediated into Western culture as a whole in its focus on the pathology of everyday life, through ideas of the ‘wounded’ self which exists in contemporary Western Culture. (Rieff 1966; Zaretsky 2004) Although it is still used within classical psychoanalysis, it could be argued that the continued popularization of the term Freudian slip has included within it a dilution of the original technical meaning and lacks any connection with traditional psychoanalytic thought. For instance, although Freud argued the slips were a function of varied complexes (ex; the family complex), the interpretation of slips of the tongue as Freudian have centred upon those which have sexual content, presumably because of incidence of sexuality within Freud's theory, and his notoriety for this aspect of his theory.<br />
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==The Mind as Black Box: The Slip as Cypher==<br />
The theory of slips is emblematic of the cypher black box, as derived out of the ideas of Karl Marx and his concept of the commodity having “rational kernel and a mystical shell.” (Marx xxx) Analogous to the commodity, slips as being a function of repressed thoughts act as an interface with the unconscious in the form of errors in speech which are nonsensical when considered outside of psychoanalytic theory. <br />
With Freudian analysis, the meaning of the slip is unveiled through the use of free association, pulling away the facade of consciousness, giving access to the latent or unconscious motivations behind the utterance. What once appeared completely irrational, and mystical (the content of the utterance) is thus is a product which is made to have meaning through the ‘rational’ process of analytic treatment. Although the issue of rationality at the level of the unconscious is difficult to argue, as Freud’s narrative was not a linear model but figurative; it was not as mechanistic or causally determined as it is thought to be today. [[Image:A Black Box.jpg|thumb|A representation of a black box with a hole to see inside.]]<br />
===Encryption and Interiority, and the Loss of the Cypher=== <br />
The utterance itself is encrypted, in numerous ways. Freud argued that faulty recollection or temporary forgetting is the result of a disturbance from either the beginning or after an association has been formed between the concerned utterance and the error which is produced. (Freud 1901: 18) This can also be through “artificial means” through superficial or outside associations. The forgotten or distorted material has either been disturbed through its initial encoding, or in its retrieval; either way the material has been connected “through some associative road with an unconscious stream of thought, which gives rise to the influence that comes to light as forgetting.” (Freud 1901: 15) Freud argues that speech disturbance may be influenced by another component of same speech, through a “fore-sound or echo,” which would disturb the process of retrieval; his concept of speech coming from his theory of networked pathways within the brain, meant that it was possible to stimulate a connected path to the desired utterance. (Miller 161) <br />
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Yet this early neural network theory does not entail a view of the mind as a function black box, as Freud held that there could be access to the unconscious content of these networked processes through the symptoms presented in the form of errors of utterances (amongst other phenomenon such as dreams). Although he concentrates on what are surface characteristics of the black box in the form of manifest content, there is a presumption that he can reveal its contents without destruction. The problem with the mind as a cypher black box is that the notion of the ‘unconscious’ can never become actual; it is only a shadow viewed in the periphery, when one turns to look it disappears, an idea eventually recognized by followers of Freud. To some extent, the focus upon surface characteristics and the denial of any internal states which is indicative of the ‘function black box’ as takes place during behaviourism, is the point of break boundary or reversal of the system; the denial of interiority done initially through theorists such as Watson and Pavlov, and then extended significantly by B.F. Skinner indicates a transformation of the way in which the medium of the mind was viewed. Contemporary cognitive psychology is a movement back toward interiority, while retaining the importance of surface characteristics gained through behaviorism.[[Image:FreudBrain.jpg|thumb|Freud and his networked brain]]<br />
<br />
===Decoding the Utterance through Symbolic Associations===<br />
The utterance is thus the expression of an analog function; it is a sign of overall reduced efficiency in the apparatus of cognition as a whole, arguing against an extreme cerebral localization of function that was argued for in phrenology, while maintaining the existence of speech centres that were discovered within the nineteenth century (Wernicke’s and Broca’s). (Miller 160) What interests Freud are the symbolic associations, or the analogies that can be made between the surface content which is produced and that which exists below or hidden the manifest content. The analyst acts as a decoder in the discovery and removal of neurotic symptoms, through free association, a process through which the patient says whatever comes to the surface of the mind. One is reminded of the concept of lists as discussed by Cornelia Vismann.(2008) The free associations are not subject to any fixed meaning, meaning arises from the agreement between the patient and the analyst in a similar way as the “ethnologist and his informant that the communicated signs constitute information.” (Vismann 3) The signs or meanings of the associations produced are not fixed and could individually be seen as functionally nonsensical; the meaning is produced in the serial production of speech until the analyst has discovered the true meaning of the slip. The speech which is produced is seemingly discrete or digital, yet has meaning when considered in relation to the other information produced. Kittler argues that once these “pictures,” or words emerge from the patient’s memory, it becomes fragmentary and obscure as the patient proceeds to describe. At the level of the Lacanian symbolic, the patient enters into language in an attempt to gain access to the images in the unconscious, and dislodge the fixations which exist on the imaginary level. (Kittler 141) Kittler argues that psychoanalysis imitates the doppelganger film by translating it into words; through the chopping up of the internal ‘film’ of the imaginary into the symbolic indicates the emergence of another part of personhood or space which the subject is then confronted with through the talking cure. (Kittler 142) The slip which is produced, as well as the subsequent free associations act as a way in which Freud can interface with the black box of the mind. <br />
<br />
Through a process similar to that done by Hermes, the analyst both guides and interprets the information which is given through the utterance and the products of free association. Freud would interpret the messages while being guided by his own theories of repression acting as the chaperone of the message, relaying information produced by the unconscious to the conscious patient. Necessarily in Freud’s theory, there is a symbolic layer which remains separate from the material substrate of the unconscious, however, the utterance produced by the patient functions in a similar manner to Iris; the message is contained within the mind of the patient. This also can be seen in terms of a differentiation between the sample and the program; the utterance which is produced is nonsense unless analyzed making e analyst acts as interpreter. While the Freudian slip is the imperfect execution of a symbolic system, existing at the level of the program, it requires a great deal of analysis and understanding of context to discover its meaning. When Freud &quot;unlocks&quot; these images, this is not done to store their content, but to decode their signifiers. (Kittler 141) According to Kittler, the translation of the pathology into the symbolic is also indicative of nonverbal storage technologies emerging in 1900, such as the film.<br />
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===Analyst as Gatekeeper===<br />
The analysand acts as a gatekeeper to the unconscious. Vismann speaks about the category of cancellari, those who control public access who not only control the opening but also the deletion of information. (Vismann 17-8) The analyst has control over not only the meaning which is eventually deduced from the utterance, but the cancellation of the repression through its retrieval. Once the content of the utterance is thought to be retrieved and made conscious, the repression is thought to no longer exist. In the psychotherapeutic procedure, which is the discovery and removal of neurotic symptoms, Freud argues the analyst is charged with “the task of discovering from the accidental utterances of the patient the thought content, which though striving for concealment, nevertheless intentionally betray themselves.” (Freud 1901: 31) Kittler in reference to Freud says that once a picture emerges from the patient’s memory, “the patient is getting rid of it by turning it into words.” (Kittler 141)The emphasis Freud placed on psychoanalysis as an intervention results in a loss of agency in terms of the patient, serving to separate the patient from the unconscious elements which are thought to emerge, rather than integrate. It is in this way, as well, that the analyst constitutes private empotions as something to be exposed; and guides its emergence into the public.<br />
<br />
==Nothing Wasted, Nothing Lost==<br />
Vilém Flusser argues that psychoanalysis is a branch of knowledge that is concerned with studying waste, surrounding the human being with not only two worlds (nature/nurture) but with three: nature, culture and waste. (Flusser 90) Indeed, the Freudian Slip is indicative of Freud’s deterministic view that nothing is ever lost in the mind nor is it an accidental occurrence; forgetting is at once both automatic and directed, the influence of repression exists as a motive which interrupts the communication of thought. (Freud 1901 5) Freud’s determinism, however, attempts not to contradict a notion of free will (a revival of the concept of the soul/spirit in German Idealism). The multiplexing of the brain means that one can retain the conviction or feeling of free will, while still being determined uninterruptedly in the psychic realm. (Freud 1901 91) Arguing through an analysis of the neurotic, he claims that nothing is lost, not even sensory experience; the difference between the neurotic and the normal person being that the neurotic both perceives something that escapes the normal person and it is expressed. (Freud 1901 92) Freud believes there is the possibility that something can only occur psychically, in mental life, which can by chance be brought to surface by external events, while not being accidental at the level of the unconscious. <br />
===The Expression of Feedback and the Unconscious===<br />
Kittler compares the Freudian mind to the phonograph, arguing that backflow or feedback “comes as close to perfect hallucinatory wish fulfulfillment as Freud’s project for a Scientific Psychology does to technological media.” (Kittler 34) Thus that which exists as a pop or hiss for the phonograph is that for the unconscious; if everything is inscribed onto the unconscious, then the noise from the world is as well. The content of the slip could therefore be from anything, the combination of auditory, visual and motor memories, could result in an encoding and decoding which lacks the rationality that Freud argues exists. It is lack of attention in the process of retrieval which is of issue in the phenomenon of parapraxes, not attention in encoding, and one can frequently be led astray in analysis due to the noise which exists at the level of the unconscious.<br />
===The Slip as Trace===<br />
Freud’s use of the tablet as a model of the psyche is indicative of the deeper traces of memory which remain on the lower wax layers which can be deciphered when held under light. (Vismann 55) The ‘mystic writing pad,’ a model which was conceived for the mind much later in Freud’s scholarship, was already present in his theory on slips. Even through the removal of repression through analysis, the information is not lost it is made conscious. The conscious mind is a layer of celluloid which acts as a protective shield against stimuli; however it does not mean these traces are not written on the unconscious, it simply allows for legibility/the removal of noise at the conscious level. The slip, for Freud, is proof of the unconscious material which lies 'below' consciousness, and is indicative of its interference within the world of the symbolic. The notion that this is somehow more real is expressed by Freud, as being more &quot;honest,&quot; and &quot;true,&quot; the temporary removal of the mask which separates this content from the symbolic realm. (Freud 1901: 32)<br />
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==The Paradox of Automaticity and Attention in Freud's Theory of Slips==<br />
The role of automaticity in Freud’s theory can therefore be seen both at the level of perception or encoding, as well as in the act of slip and free association. Freud’s view that slips occur more frequently when “conditions are favoured by exhaustion, circulatory disturbances and intoxication,” and his view that inattention can produce errors in speech or writing demonstrates that the processes of the mind are both automatic and individually motivated in Freud’s theory. (Freud 1901: 25) This paradox, however, illustrates a notion that acts of writing and speech require an attention on the part of the conscious subject, however errors can occur automatically, in a somnambulistic state which will enable parts of the unconscious to come through. (Gitelman 195) The lack of concentrated attention is an articulation of mental process which questioned &quot;the resemblance between motor and mental habits&quot; and divided types of attention. (Gitelman 196) However, when the contents of the unconscious which are contained within the mind begin to interfere with speech and writing it can be seen as a case of when writing ceases “not to write itself,” and the expression and storing (in errors in writing) of errors means that it has begun to write something else, the unconscious. (Kittler 3) Therefore according to Freud’s theory, all mental life and its expression would be a result of the cake-mix effect, the combination of the automaticity at the levels of mental life: unconscious motivation and conscious attention. It also indicates that the good weather for making Freudian slips are fatigue and inattention.<br />
==The Emergence of the Other through the Slip: The Case of Women==<br />
Mary S. Gossy argues in ''Freudian Slips: Woman, Writing and the Foreign Tongue'' (1995) that ''The Psychopathology of Everyday Life'' demonstrates the manner by which the bodies of women “slip through theoretical discourse and make their own impractical, parapractic” sense. (Gossy 9) The existence of a symbolic system of language which makes it difficult to identify with the oppressed other, means this must occur at the level of the imaginary or unconscious. She identifies the repressed thought with the repressed female body, and suggests the slip is a way of freeing rather than sacrificing the bodies of female. While not suggesting that the female body is of a language that is ungrammatical or irrational, she argues that the female body “can make the discourses of patriarchy and masculinity ungrammatical” and cause error. (Gossy 47) This is argued through both the natures of the slips presented by Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (which is overwhelmingly on the subject of females, however, not exclusively) as well as through other signifiers which she argues is indicative of the female body and formerly unwritable data flows. This perhaps could almost be the obvious in Freud’s theory of slips; the language of the repressed is necessarily that which cannot be expressed or desired through the symbolic language existing in Freud’s period in Vienna, the female form. Eva Illouz also argues for a feminist analysis of Freudian slips, in that they placed an unprecedented amount of significance upon everyday life (the realm of domesticity and femininity). (Illouz 37) [[Image:FreudSlip.jpg|thumb|left|Caricature of Freud in a woman's slip]]<br />
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==References and Works Cited==<br />
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Gitelman, Lisa. Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Print. <br />
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Gossy, Mary S. Freudian Slips: Woman, Writing, the Foreign Tongue. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1995. Print. <br />
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Flusser, Vilém. The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design. London: Reaktion Books, 1999. Print. <br />
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Freud, S. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Trans A.A. Brill, 1901.Web/Pdf.<br />
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Freud, S. On Aphasia: A Critical Study. London, Imago Publishing Co., 1953. Print. <br />
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Illouz, E. Saving the Modern Soul. Los Angeles, CA: UC Regents. 2008. Print.<br />
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Kittler, Fredrich. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford University Press, 1999.<br />
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Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. Ed. Frederick Engels. Trans. Samuel Moore. Edward Aveling. London: Swan Sonnenschein &amp; Co., 1904. Print.<br />
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Motley, M. “Theory of Slips” in Encyclopaedia of Freud. Edited by S. Gendin, L. Leiman, and J. Walkup. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.<br />
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Livingstone Smith, D. “The Uncosncious” in Encyclopaedia of Freud. Edited by S. Gendin, L. Leiman, and J. Walkup. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.<br />
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Miller, L. Freud’s Brain: Neuropsychodynamic Foundations of Psychoanalysis. New York: The Guilford Press, 1991. Print.<br />
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Nunberg, Herman. Principles of Psychoanalysis: Their Application to the Neuroses. Trans. Madlyn Kahr. Sidney Kahr. New York: International Universities Press, 1962. Print. <br />
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Rieff, P. The Triumph of the Therapeutic. New York, NY: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc 1966. Print. <br />
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Vismann, Cornelia. Files: Law and Media Technology. Trans. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. Print. <br />
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Zaretsky, E. The Personal Unconscious. From Secrets of the Soul. NY: Vintage,2004. Print.<br />
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Zentner, M. “Nineteenth-Century Precursor’s of Freud” in Encyclopaedia of Freud. Edited by S. Gendin, L. Leiman, and J. Walkup. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.</div>
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http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Textual_Closure_(Formal)&diff=12581
Textual Closure (Formal)
2010-11-24T07:47:53Z
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[[Image:Gutenberg complete2.jpg|thumb|right|Gutenberg's Bible, book of books, authored by divine authority.]]<br />
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Textual closure, in a formal sense, is the property primarily exhibited by the printed text of the book during much of the modern historical moment by virtue of its formal construction as a complete and unified conceptual whole. This should be distinguished from the frequently convergent notion of *discursive* closure, as reflected in the Romantic Era concept of the modern literary novel as a narrative whole proceeding from a beginning and end. A narrative text which is not discursively closed, such as a novel with an ambiguous or open ending, is still formally closed, as it has a defined end-point. But any distinct, data-bearing document, typically printed, is a formally closed text if it is delimited by a paratextual frame such as the book cover, and its text cannot be modified on the discursive level of its original inscription.<br />
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In the late 20th century, the adoption of computers for word processing has thrown the formal closure of the print form into question. While the transparency of word processing software is illusory, built on layers of computer code, the technical ease for the user of editing digital text within the ever-changing context of the Internet is increasingly denaturalizing entrenched formal and textual assumptions about the printed word as it has evolved over it’s 500 year history since Gutenberg. Yet what is less recognized is that web sites like Wikipedia suggest that a new dynamics of coherence are occurring for digital text. Rather than adopting a model presuming any user modification would lead to error, this model is finding out that user modification are leading instead to refinement. <br />
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==The Incompleteness of the Written Word and the Truth of Dialectic: Plato and ''Phaedrus,'' 370 BC==<br />
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[[Image:Plato-Aristotle crop.jpg|thumb|left|Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) depicted in Raphael's &quot;School of Athens.&quot; Aristotle hand is out, towards the (closed) earth, whereas Plato's hand points up, towards the (open) heavens.]]<br />
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In his dialogue with Phaedrus, Plato debates the nature of the printed word in relation to oratory. Plato holds that writing can be useful as an aid to memory, but not as a replacement for it. He believes the presence of the written word stymies education, leading men to believe they 'know' truths documented in books, when it is education enabling one to reproduce this which is knowledge’s true measure. Plato writes, &quot;[I]f a man believes … that lucidity and ''completeness'' and serious importance belong only to those lessons on justice and honor and goodness that are expounded and set forth for the sake of instruction, and are veritably ''written in the soul'' of the listener, and that such discourses are ought to be accounted a man's own legitimate children … this … I would venture to affirm&quot; (278a-b, my emphases).<br />
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It is curious that, while the much later Romantic ideal of a text as a work of aesthetic genius inspired by nature is often considered a Platonic ideal, Plato himself holds that no static written work can contain “important truth of permanent validity.” He describes serious inquiry as the transfer of knowledge from the teacher to pupil, when a learned person selects a “soul of the right type,” through which to propagate “words which instead of remaining barren contain a seed whence new words grow up in new characters, whereby the seed is vouchsafed immortality…” (277a). <br />
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Texts for Plato are not closed, as they cannot be comprehensive. The knowledge that texts describe is validated only through dialectical transfer and practice. It appears Plato's thought may be that as one debates an issue more, both sides understand more about it as their collective knowledge is refined. This is in comparison to the static text, which Plato appears frustrated by: words seem to 'speak to you as though they were intelligent,' yet if you ask them about what they mean, &quot;they go on telling you the same thing forever&quot; (275d). True knowledge of truth, for Plato, is reached only through education, a process, not by a reliance on the illusory authority of written texts. In other words, for Plato, the text under-determines the truth, as it cannot possibly contain it. Conversely, truth over-determines the text in its dynamic complexity, and can be reached only through an ongoing dialectical analysis.<br />
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==The Emergence of Formal Textual Closure: the Codification of Civil Law in Late Imperial Rome, 530 CE==<br />
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[[Image: Corpus 3 views.jpg|thumb|right|Edition of Justinian I's &quot;Corpus Juris Civilis&quot; (&quot;Body of Civil Law&quot;). Page tabs indicate its use for reference. It's appearance and heft conveys its imposing authoritativeness.]]<br />
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The codex was adopted in the late Roman Empire. Succeeding the continuous scroll, a radically serial, analog technology, the codex provided a sequential yet digital structure which enabled a new ease and power of reference. Filling the new codex was often the substrate of parchment. In comparison to the rough, porous, impermanent surface of Egyptian Papyrus, parchment was an easily-inscribable, yet erasable, medium of surprising durability. The parchment codex proved to be a powerful new administrative reference medium for Roman leaders. The Roman legal codex gave rise to an entirely new conception of textuality and civil law. Harold Innis has shown that, following the spread of the parchment codex, Rome grew from a territorial unit to an eternal empire (Vismann, 43).<br />
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Previously, various legal texts had been scattered across the Empire’s diverse localities, even withdrawn from circulation for preservation. The emperor Justinian I recognized the power of the codex, and undertook to codify Roman civil law within an ordered system, the codex. The result was the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (''Body of Civil Law”'') around 530 CE. Yet codifying existing laws did not simply entail collecting these. The process of compilation and codification radically reshaped the entire system, day by day. As documents were brought together, old or conflicting decrees were frequently excised, and supplanted with new protocols. The Pandects, or the Digest, as it was called, inaugurated a new kind of governance, through textual administration, which seeded their new textual traditions as they were transmitted throughout the empire.<br />
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Justinian sought to build a textual barrier to enclose the newly codified laws. In doing so, he cut off the natural ordering processes of law by imposed a universally-valid rule of law with its own self-justification. Local traditions, then, became overwritten and frequently lost, as Justinian sought to wield the new laws as weapons ('arms'), by punishing (textual) transgression. Texts in disparate languages were universally translated into Latin, an ur-language for the ur-text. Governance shifted from administrative form to an authoritarian one, as a new textual hegemony overtook the Empire. This was codification as textual purification, the disallowance of individual interpretation. The text was the law, and it had one official meaning, its literal meaning.<br />
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==Textual Closure as High Natural Ideal: From Gutenberg’s Bible, 1450, to Goethe’s Bildungsroman, 1800==<br />
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[[Image: Gutenberg Bible w Nature.jpg|thumb|left|Gutenberg's Bible. The hand-added leaves surrounding the text foreshadow both the concept of aesthetic enclosure and the future centrality of nature to Romanticism.]]<br />
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The circulation of texts largely ceased during the Middle Ages, following the crumbling of the Roman Empire. Gutenberg’s famed mechanical moving type printing press gradually reintroduced textual circulation was the gradual reintroduction of textual circulation centuries later, which literally inaugurated entire new literary and scientific traditions in the Renaissance. The new medium of printed text had a number of distinct qualities: fixity, a binding, and a mass potential, which ultimately came to form the basis for the book’s structure of formal closure. Yet the belief in the aesthetic textual perfection represented by the formal closure of the volume, while persisting far into modernity, can be seen to be a contingent quality of the book which emerged from the cultural foment of Germany's and England's entrance into the modern industrial era.<br />
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Print, birthed by its press, exhibited new formal qualities. Printed text was fixed materially to the page in a persisting fashion. By Goethe’s Romantic period, as books had been outliving their owners for centuries, this fixity came to connote an immortality to the printed word. Print formalized the book's paratexts, the cover, contents page, index, and so on, which delimit and contain the text materially. The paratextual conventions of print persevered across new books, and their semi-textuality enabled them to take on visual aesthetic qualities, which further served to reify the fixed text they contained. Further, the press' technical architecture enabled it to print texts in numbers not previously known. In time, books found a mass audience.<br />
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Yet it was not inherent to the book, but within the cultural ideals of the Romantic moment in Germany and England that the book was transformed into a unified, complete, and unchanging aesthetic entity. Central to Kittler’s account in ''Discourse Networks 1800/1900'' is the notion of Romanticism as the discursive production of the primal Mother as the source for Man’s language (xxiii). The German notion of 'bildung,' or education, came to acquire a new significance. As developed by the German philosopher Humboldt, (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildung) the word refers to both the process of education, and the end result. Humboldt argued, then, that the 'end' of education is actually its 'process.' <br />
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[[Image:Goethe.jpg|thumb|right|Goethe's ''Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'' (1796) the quintessential bildungsroman, the story of a boy becoming a man.]]<br />
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Alphabetization, then, is the process by which schoolchildren become inculcated with the written word within the newly modern context of compulsory education, such that their use of it becomes automatic, reflexive. Penmanship served both a universalizing and a textualizing function, as a practice of the unification of subjectivity. Through alphabetization, children learned to take on the printed word as a medium for thought, through which they could develop character vicariously through fiction. ‘The fine arts [became] the bond that holds men together.’” (Kittler, 70)<br />
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Crary (1990) describes the shift at early 19th century moment, in large part through Goethe's theory of color, from subjective phenomena such as afterimages being considered mere apperance, to being countenanced in the early 19th century as forms of truth. As an originary opening, the Mother’s Mouth becomes for the baby (boy) the origin of language, and as such, the origin of truth. As source of life, the Mother becomes equivalent with Nature, with divinity. The language of Nature, then, becomes united with Woman, as with love. (Kittler, 73). Compelled to ‘speak’ by Woman, the poet unites poetry (literature) and love. As Herder writes, “The poet [acts as] a translator, who brings Nature into the heart and soul of his brothers.” (73) <br />
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[[Image:Friedrich.jpeg|thumb|left|Mother-Nature-God: Caspar David Friedrich's &quot;Woman Before the Setting Sun&quot; (1820).]]<br />
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With the poet as conduit, the medium of poetry then disappears beneath its content, to allow the author’s spirit to communicate directly with the reader’s spirit. (113) Alphabetization thus ultimately displaces all other media, as imagination becomes the ur-sense, fulfilling all the functions that later split up the perceptual field into film, sound, and (typed) discourse in Kittler’s 1900 moment into the 'Entertainment industry.' The printed word becomes for Kittler a universal language, what in ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter'' (1999) he calls “Old Europe’s storage monopoly” (8), for that roughly century-long period before the technological fragmentation that inaugurates 20th century technical modernity. <br />
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In contrast to Plato’s view of the written text as radically epistemologically under-determined, for Kittler the closed aesthetic text is radically phenomenologically over-determined. In the bildungsroman’s perfect aesthetic unity of man, language, nature, buildung, and geist (spirit), there is more experience packed into the novel than every individual reading it could experience. The text’s formal closure does not serve to limit meaning, but in fact to construct it into a formal beauty through which the subject may glimpse the absolute.<br />
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==Computational Sociality and the Cohering Unity of Fluid Digital Textuality, 1993==<br />
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[[Image:wiki.jpg|thumb|left|Editing History of Wikipedia's &quot;Evolution&quot; article, showing thousands of iterations of changes by different authors, yet still cohering into a textual whole.]]<br />
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The onset of the information age has profoundly changed the very nature of textuality. Specifically, the Internet’s graphical realization in the Mosaic browser in 1993, and the widespread adoption of the Netscape browser in 1995 suddenly opened up an entirely new, textually-mediated ‘cyberspace’ to anyone with a computer and a data connection. The onset of a user-generated content paradigm, what has been called Web 2.0, has enabled these same subjects new ways to communicate, some might say to live, through the Internet. Clearly, this is a very different model than the hegemony of the printed word and what may be its aesthetically highest form, the formally complete work. Inherently, the Internet is a dynamic network. Yet it does not exist in an anarchic form. Form emerges as data clusters into sites (which might be considered a dynamic work) navigated by pages (a dynamic text). While the formally closed unity of the printed word, in this model, fundamentally does not exist, a new kind of formally open unity does appear to. While a Wikipedia page can be edited by infinitely many users over time, those users at each step cohere it into a dynamic but textually persisting form.<br />
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N. Katherine Hayles (2005) has argued that, even in the present age, most scholars of textual critique still regard the work as an abstract ideal, an abstract representation, which takes its form in texts, the specific sign system which manifests a particular work, i.e the English, German, or Braille edition of a work, and its associated versions such as scholarly or mass-market. The work and the text are materialized concretely in the document, the physical artifact seen as merging the abstract ideal and its sign system. Yet while the digital word appears transparent on a computer screen, simply another manifestation of the same work, its very ability to emulate the printed word so specifically is based on its fundamental infrastructural difference from the printed word. The text that appears on a computer screen is supported by what Rita Raley calls a “tower of programming languages”: word processing software, Operating Systems and their scripting languages, markup languages, high-level programming languages (more human-readable), low-level programming languages (more machine-readable), on down to machine code (Hayles, 110).<br />
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[[Image: IPad ad.jpg|thumb|right|Ad for Apple's iPad. Technological emulation as even better than a real book?]]<br />
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Hayles argues that the electronic word is fundamentally not a product, but a process. It does not exist, like the printed word does imprinted in paper does, before it is invoked, because the process of invocation is fundamentally what constitutes it. Here the concept of a static, divine ideal actually begins to lose intelligibility. Whereas the book is fundamentally a static, ontologically-persisting entity, the digital word is a momentary, performative entity which persists only as long as the page it is on does. The digital text fundamentally exists as machine data, not even as text. In this light, McGann has argued that these texts are “algorithmic, containing within themselves instructions to generate themselves as displays” (Hayles, 99). <br />
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Textuality itself here is in fact illusory, as ultimately the digital text’s form as display or interface is fundamentally dis-similar from its inherent form as data and the algorithms used to process that data. Yet textually nevertheless persists on the internet, in natural human languages (primarily English), and in fact textual wholes also persist, even if in a radically dynamic form. While thousands of users may edit a Wikipedia page, still the page continues to cohere around the particularities of its content. In fact, the Wikipedia model uses the very dynamic quality of pages, which would be expected to multiply textual corruption and difference, as a refining mechanism, multiplying textual coherence (Wikipedia explains on its ‘About’ page that older wiki pages are generally more balanced, whereas young wiki pages pages are generally more biased). <br />
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The very stasis of the printed word now begins to appear illusory and suspect. Yet this was the same insight Plato brought to printed texts, that the authority of the text’s completeness is a fallacy, as it cannot evolve, and hence cannot be complete in time. Plato favored a generative approach to knowledge through dialectic, in which knowledge was in a sense ‘grown’ over time through the analysis of different minds, “words which instead of remaining barren contain a seed whence new words grow up in new characters” (277a). In other words, what Plato and Wikipedia share is a belief in a new formal unity which coheres through time, fundamentally open.<br />
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==References==<br />
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Barthes, Roland, [1971]. “From Work to Text,” from Hale, Dorothy (ed) ''The Novel: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory, 1900-2000.'' Wiley-Blackwell. Print.<br />
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Crary, Jonathan (1990), ''Techniques of the Observer''. Cambridge: The Mit Press.<br />
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Genette, Gerard (1997), ''Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation.'' Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK. 1997. Print.<br />
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Hayles, N. Katherine (2005), ''My Mother Was A Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts.&quot; The University of Chicago Press: Chicago. Print.<br />
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Hesse, Carla (1996), &quot;Books in Time,&quot; pp. 21-36. From Nunberg, Geoffrey (ed) ''The Future of the Book.'' University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1996. Print.<br />
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Kittler, Friedrich (1990) ''Discourse Networks, 1800/1900''. Stanford University Press: Stanford. Print.<br />
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Kittler, Friedrich (1999) ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter''. Stanford University Press: Stanford. Print.<br />
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Plato (1972) ''Plato's Phaedrus''. Translated by Hackrord, Reginald. Cambridge University Press: London. Print.<br />
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Thompson, John B (1981). “Editor’s Introduction,” pp. 1-26. From ''Paul Ricoeur: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences''. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Print.<br />
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Vismann, Cornelia. ''Files: Law and Media Technology.'' Stanford University Press: Stanford. 2008. Print.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]<br />
[[Category:Writing]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Smoke_Signals&diff=12580
Smoke Signals
2010-11-24T07:47:02Z
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''A gentle… almost magical… puff of smoke rises up toward the clouds and heavens, floating, suspended in space, lifting then gradually disappearing, being consumed by the earth surrounding it and the breath of the wind that carries it'' (Grandmother Selma).<br />
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[[Image:MendotaMdewakantonDakotaCommunity.jpg|right| American Indians creating a smoke signal (Grandmother Selma). ]]<br />
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==Purpose of Smoke Signals==<br />
American Indians used smoke signals to alert others of multiple situations, including, to warn of danger, to call the people to a common meeting area and to transmit news (Grandmother Selma / Clark 411). This ancient skill stems from the larger category of American Indian non-verbal communication. Different types of this, most notably sign language, were essential for American Indian communication. Since each tribe had their own unique language, these types of non-verbal signals enabled communication among diverse groups. This tool for transmitting messages was also extremely useful in mountainous or heavily forested regions (Clark 415).<br />
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==Types of Signals==<br />
The smoke could be transformed into many different types of shapes to communicate different signals. For example, the “[s]moke could be made to curl in spirals, ascend in puffs or circles, [and] even parallel lines. Some signals resembled the letter V or Y and some were zigzag” (Grandmother Selma).<br />
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===The Non-Code===<br />
There never has been a standard code for smoke signals. This is partially due to the idea that the signals were oftentimes meant to be secretive. Because the signals were visible to all, the enemy would be able to see the message in the sky but, because of the non-standardized system, could not make out the meaning behind the smoke. Thus, unique codes were secretly developed between individuals or groups of people for their private use (Tomkins 92). <br />
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===The Standard Code===<br />
There were a few abstract, commonly understood signals (Tomkins 92):<br />
*One puff meant ATTENTION. <br />
*Two puffs meant ALL'S WELL. <br />
*Three puffs of smoke, or three fires in a row, signifies DANGER, TROUBLE OR A CALL FOR HELP.<br />
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[[Image: Apache.jpg|thumb|left|Portrait of Apache man, Cassadora and wife in 1876 (Artstor.org). ]]<br />
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Another widely accepted signal known about today is the announcement of a successful battle. Because two puffs signify &quot;all's well&quot;, building “two fires a short distance from each other [which would send] up two parallel columns of smoke” would demonstrate this message (Clark 415).<br />
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It is important to understand that the significance of the number three goes much beyond that of smoke signals. Amongst outdoors people if “three shouts, three whistles, three shots from a gun, three smoke signals, three fires in a row at night in a place where they might be visible, all should be interpreted to convey the message that a person is in danger or requires assistance” (Tomkins 92).<br />
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===The Apache Code===<br />
The Apache tribe had a specific way to communicate that strangers were approaching and their reason for approach. “[T]he sighting of one puff quickly losing its geometric shape indicated that a strange party had been spotted approaching. If those ‘puffs’ were frequent and rapidly repeated, it transmitted the message that ‘the stranger approaching’ was in fact many in number and armed” (Grandmother Selma).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==How to Create==<br />
[[Image:artstorimage.jpg|thumb|right| American Indians communicating through smoke signals (Artstor.org). ]](Tomkins 92)<br />
<br />
1. Pre-arrange code of signals<br />
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2. Party creating signal goes to an adjacent high hill or mountain (bring blanket or tarp)<br />
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3. Build a fire on a visible point<br />
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4. Wait until fire is blazing<br />
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5. Create smoke fire by adding some handfuls of grass or green branches<br />
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6. Use blanket or tarp to control the smoke, liberating the fire in a series of puffs to convey the message<br />
<br />
==Fire Bowls==<br />
Fire bowls refer to the pits the smoke fires create in the ground. They are “saucer shaped depressions, round or square, five to eight feet across and lined with field stones.” Studied for many years, especially those “in close proximity to the ‘Warrior Path’ that ran between encampments of Shawnee near the Scioto River and Ohio River near Richmondale,” the size of the fire bowls directly correlates to the type and amount of leaves and brush used to produce the smoke. The stones, which line the edge of the fire bowls, allow for both the immediate control of the fire and to anchor the polls that the blankets attach to regulate the smoke (Grandmother Selma).<br />
<br />
==Widespread Communication==<br />
Smoke signals have often been cited as “Indian Telegraphy.” They were able to transmit messages over vast distances. Oftentimes, multiple messages were transmitted in a row, allowing for roll reversal – the receiver to become the sender and the sender to become the receiver (Grandmother Selma). <br />
<br />
==Death==<br />
While there is no account of the end of the use of smoke signals, it would be quite probable that as European settlers came to America, their written culture – among other socio-cultural changes – replaced that of American Indian smoke signals. As the code and use of smoke signals were created on an ad hoc basis, there is no linear progression of when their use began, how it changed over time and how the signals became extinct. <br />
<br />
==Other Signals==<br />
Besides smoke signals, American Indians took advantage of a myriad of other communication signal tools, such as, pony, blanket, mirror, and figures or pictures. At the bottom of this page is a chart indicating each signals purpose and way in which it was performed (Clark 411-416).<br />
<br />
==Interesting Information==<br />
The only group that still practices the use of smoke signals to learn about different communication methods is the Boy Scouts (Tomkins 92). They are constantly researching and inquiring about a smoke signal code. Smoke signaling is “[a] skill of the Native American Indians, also of the ancient Chinese and presently used by the Boy Scouts of America” (Grandmother Selma).<br />
<br />
==Special Thanks==<br />
Mary Ahenakew at NIN (Native Information Network)<br />
<br />
==Works Cited==<br />
*Clark, William P. The Indian Sign Language. Philadelphia: L.R. Hamersly &amp; Co., 1885. 411-16.<br />
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*Selma, Grandmother Selma. &quot;Origins of the Smoke Signal.&quot; Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community. 8 Mar. 2008. 23 Nov. 2008 &lt;http://mendotadakota.com/mn/tag/native-american-indian-smoke-signals/&gt;.<br />
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*Tomkins, William. Indian Sign Language. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969. 92.<br />
<br />
==Signal Chart==<br />
<br />
&lt;table border=&quot;1&quot;&gt;<br />
&lt;tr&gt;<br />
&lt;th&gt;Signal&lt;/th&gt;<br />
&lt;th&gt;Purpose&lt;/th&gt;<br />
&lt;th&gt;Technique&lt;/th&gt;<br />
&lt;th&gt;Interesting Fact&lt;/th&gt;<br />
&lt;/tr&gt;<br />
&lt;tr&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;Pony&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;To attract attention, denote danger, indicate presence of enemy&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;<br />
*Riding in a small circle, forwards or backwards. <br />
*Speed of riding indicates importance.&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;Before American Indians had ponies they would perform this act by foot.&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;/tr&gt;<br />
&lt;tr&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;Blanket&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;To attract attention, question, interrogate, to ask the reason for anything&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;<br />
*Hold blanket with both hands as far apart as possible so that the majority of the front of the blanket is visible.<br />
*Swing blanket vertically from left to right, touching the ground on each side.&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;There are nine signals that are commonly understood.&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;/tr&gt;<br />
&lt;tr&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;Mirror&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;To attract attention and give warning&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;<br />
*Flash the mirror on someone or something to call attention to it. <br />
*Use the sunlight to direct the flashes.&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;It was oftentimes used in romantic situations to call upon a desired one.&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;/tr&gt;<br />
&lt;tr&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;Figures or Pictures&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;Gives information about where a party has gone, what it has accomplished, and it communicates the message of its war/peace intentions&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;<br />
*Carve or draw figures or pictures on the ground, on bark of trees, or on pieces of skin.&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;td&gt;A pipe is the sign of peace while an illustrated broken pipe is the sign of war.&lt;/td&gt;<br />
&lt;/tr&gt;<br />
&lt;tr&gt;<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Signet_Ring&diff=12579
Signet Ring
2010-11-24T07:25:05Z
<p>Egugecuge: </p>
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The signet ring is an early but long-lasting form of jewelery used to seal letters and other important documents. Its evolution as a media artifact is long, but important in showing the way that security and identification must grow together in order to have any function. The ring also brings up several important questions about the way in which media becomes part of ourselves.[[Image:Signetringandseal.jpg|thumb|A signet ring and its seal]]<br />
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=Historical Overview=<br />
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[[Image:Cylindricalseal.jpg|left|thumb|Babylonian pre-ring seal]]The evolution of the signet ring originates, as with all rings, in the remediation of Babylonian cylindrical seal, which was typically strung and worn around the neck or wrist and used to authorize clay documents and close grainery doors to prevent the invasion of property (Kunz 1). Over time these seals were reduced in size as to be worn on the finger, the earliest example being the scarab signet ring, introduced by Egyptians in the middle of the XXII Dynasty (c. 1800 BCE). [[Image:AshkelonLBScarabRing.jpg|thumb|An Egyption Scarab Signet Ring]]This change was perhaps an obvious element of the signet ring's evolution and design, in that wearing the seal on the finger allowed for increased security and convenience. Like most rings, the scarab ring consisted of a bezel mounted on a hoop. The bezels in these rings were carved into the form of a scarab (a dung beetle, the symbol of life and harmony in ancient Egypt) from rock amethyst or glazed steatite and pierced with gold wire which was formed into a hoop. The use of a sacred form and precious materials indicates that status and power are essential to the wearing of the signet ring. In addition to symbolic importance, the scarab rotated on the wire, revealing itself as a tool with an intaglio of hieroglyphs inscribed on the belly. Thus, since its inception, the signet ring has had a dual purpose, both symbolic and as a tool; a mark of divine authority and a seal to be pressed in clay as a symbol of one's ownership or authorization, akin to the modern-day signature.<br />
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The custom of wearing these seal-rings, or signet rings as they are known today, was &quot;transmitted to the Greek world and also to the Etruscans, from whom the usage was derived by the Romans&quot; (Kunz 1). As the technology to work with metals and stone advanced, the form of the signet ring evolved. By 600 BCE the Greeks made fixed-metal signet rings, the stones of which were engraved with motifs of nature and considered to be miniature versions of Greek sculpture and painting masterpieces. During the Hellenistic period (beginning with the conquering of Alexander the Great in 331 BCE and ending with the establishment of the Roman Empire by Augustus in 27 BCE) all-metal rings emerged, but signet rings with bezels, typically depicting motifs of gods, recreational activities and love, carved in harder precious stones were more desirable and characteristic of this period.<br />
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As evidenced by a shift in the style and purpose of the signet ring with the rise of Christianity, the evolution of the ring was influenced just as much by cultural preference as by the available materials and technologies. During this period, &quot;as early as the 3rd century AD, St. Clement of Alexandria, who disapproved of luxury and immorality, declared that the only ring acceptable to Christians was the signet. This was for practical purposes: women, being the housekeepers, needed gold rings for 'sealing [i.e. locking] things that have to be kept safe in the house.' Men should only wear the signet on the little finger, at the root....'being guarded by the large knot of the joint.' The devices should express love, peace and sober living. Instead of pagan gods, drinking cups, nude women and victorious soldiers, signets would bear the Christian symbols of the fish, anchor, ship and fisherman&quot; (Scarisbrick 23). Here we see a new emphasis on the practical and religious functions of the signet ring, extending the use to women and dictating the finger placement for men. The encoding on the ring, rather than being a relatively arbitrary image associated with the wearer, was to be strictly Christian symbols. Similarly, the practical and religious come into contention in the Mishna (book of Jewish Law) which prohibits the wearing of signet rings on the Shabaat because they are a tool, prohibited on the day of rest.<br />
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In Byzantium, signet rings were made entirely of metal, marking a transition from figures to words and letters which are easier to engrave. Signet rings rapidly increased in popularity during this time, becoming a common mundane object employed by a range of people. To meet the demand, standard designs (commonly a monogram of letters arranged around a cross) were stocked by goldsmiths. This shift marks the transition of the technical image of the signet ring, moving away from the face image of the artistic image conception of the ring of the ancient Greeks, to a more text image conception, where we see and emphasis on digital placement, monograms and mass production.<br />
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The use of heraldry as a theme on signet rings emerged during the Middle Ages. It was also during this time that a revolutionary innovation emerged, the foiled crystal intaglio signet ring. These rings featured the &quot;owner's coat of arms painted in brilliant colors beneath the crystal intaglio. In this way, an impression could be made on the hot wax without causing the colors to fade&quot; (ibid). This innovation is an interesting embodiment of Plato's metaphor using the signet ring to explain vision and knowing (see below). &quot;Those not entitled to bear arms sealed with other devices. From the 14th to the 17th century merchants used signets engraved with the emblem by which they marked their goods so as to be easily recognized by those who could not read or write, made by a few strokes of the brush&quot; (Scarisbrick 31). In the 15th century the most common signet was bronze, usually gilt, with initial letters on the bezel, representing the Christian name of the owner, either crowned or flanked by palm branches (ibid).<br />
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==Impressions in Wax and Clay==<br />
[[Image:Ring_hospital_12_wax_impressionA.jpg|thumb|left|A seal made with a signet ring]]One cannot fully understand the signet ring without considering its relationship to the material it is impressed upon. In warmer climates, such as Egypt, the material was typically clay; perhaps an obvious choice because clay dries in the sun as opposed to wax (preferred in Europe) which would simply melt. Sealing wax was originally uncolored beeswax or resin until the 16th century when vermilion was added to tint the wax red. Though other colors became available starting in the 19th century, red skeuomorphically remains the most popular shade.<br />
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Both Aristotle and Plato use the signet ring and wax in their theories of sensation and vision to make the &quot;the point that it is the form and not the matter, that is impressed upon the mind,&quot; (Seidel 77). For Plato, &quot;vision has what it sees, and yet does not have it all: 'echei ho eide kai au ouk echei.' There is both possession and non-possession. The gold of the seal is not found in the imprinted sealing wax&quot; (Ibid). Aristotle also uses the signet ring and wax as a sexual metaphor. In his conceptualization, activity (the act of sealing) is associated with the male and passivity (the wax receiving the ring) with the female. &quot;According to Aristotle's biology, its is the male that provides the form for the offspring (the soul), the female providing the matter or material...the image of a piece of warm wax passively receiving the impression of the signet ring&quot; (Seidel 65).<br />
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==Form Meets Function==<br />
The material form of the signet ring--an inscribed metal (and stone) hoop attached directly to the finger, to be merely displayed or pressed into a malleable substance to leave an imprint--is, in the McLuhan sense of the word, a prosthetic, an &quot;extension of ourselves.&quot; It is both an augmentation of the body and a barrier between the sealer and the sealed. When a person in a place of power, such as a King or a Pharaoh, seals a document a transfer of power occurs between the authority of the physical presence of the King and his mark of authorization, mediated by the signet ring--which, though acting as a prosthetic, directly extending the body and connecting it with the wax. This transferrence of authority from a human into a material good can also be understood using Marx's theory of material relations between commodities. The seal, like Marx's commodities, appears to be independent of the people that produce them,having intrinsic power abstracted from the producer. The social relations between people no longer take place face to face, rather the goods (in this case the seal) stand in for them, conducting business among themselves (Marx, Capital: A critique of Political Economy).<br />
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The signet ring has both catoptric and dioptric qualities. The act of sealing is catoptric; an obfuscation of information, concealing the content by reflecting the authority of the sealer. However, the signet ring itself is dioptric, a window into the wear's identity; the symbolism conveyed by the intaglio (be it a family crest, initials, or Greek god) illuminates information about the status, history or interests of the wearer.<br />
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=Signet Ring as Authority=<br />
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The relationship between the wearer and the signet ring can be seen as a complex tension of authority. [[Image:Henry.jpg|thumb|Henry VIII made sure we could see his rings.]]On one hand, the ring is constructed for the very purpose of reflecting the sovereignty of the wearer, to act as an external symbol or prosthesis of his will. The authority of the wearer is transferable through the seal by the fact that one's signet ring is unique to one's person (though not in all cases) and the mark of the seal suggests a proof of contact between the ring wearer and the sealed artifact. &quot;Several instances in the Christian Scripture refer to the impression from a monarch's signet ring as giving the force of a royal decree to any instrument to which it was attached. Hence the delivery or transfer of it gave the power of using the royal name&quot; (Jones 1). In the act of impressing a royal seal into wax or clay, the authority of the ring wearer shows through the seal bearing artifact. The wax impression then acts as memory or storage of a physical interaction with the source of authority, such as the king. The image of this seal is a lens through which to see the identity of the wearer. St. Ambrose confronts the quandry of a violent symbol, suggesting that &quot;anyone having an image of a tyrant was liable to punishment&quot; because &quot;the wearing of such a ring would imply not only an admiration of the person figured, but also devotion to his cause.&quot; St. Ambrose supports this conclusion with the fact that persons wearing rings with images of the assassins of Caesar were put to death (Kuntz 128). This case shows the ring bearing the image of Brutus as dioptrically revealing the wearer's sympathies, acting as a lens through which to see and understand the wearer. <br />
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One the other hand, wearer can gain legitimation through the ring, without it he is unable to exert his own authority, depending on the symbol of the ring as legitimation. As demonstrated in the &quot;Dream Book&quot; of Artemidorus published in 709, he refers to an unsettling dream in which &quot;his signet ring had dropped from his finger, and that the engraved stone set therein had broken into many fragments, the result of this being that he could transact no business for forty-five days, presumably until he could have a new signet engraved. For the impression of the individual signet was indispensable to give validity to any order or agreement&quot; (Kunz 131). This dependency on the signet ring for agency and authority reveals it's nature to be one of a mediation between the authority giving power of the wearer and the authority giving power of the ring itself. Artemidorus's ring both reflects and grants his authority by acting as an necessary technology for the authentication of self. Without his ring he is incapable of bringing his authority to action.<br />
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==Externalization==<br />
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Inherent in the signet ring's ability to transfer authority is the question of externalization. There are two levels of externalization: from the owner to the ring and from the ring to the wax. The interaction between the ring and the wax creates a petrified seal of authority which contains the benefits of mobility and efficiency, characteristics which make the signet ring a useful medium in the first place. However, the authenticity of this interaction depends on a situation in which the wearer of the ring is also the owner and the source of the authority. Herein lies the risk, while imbuing a signet with royal authority gives that authority a new character of mobility and convenience, it also creates the possibility for forgery and misuse by creating a medium which is able to 'speak' in the voice of the owner even when apart from the owner, essentially creating a self outside one's self. The physical form of the rings suggests this risks, by remediating the ancient Babylonian seal into a ring that can be kept on one's person at all times, it suggests the serious consequences of it's loss. A person with the signet ring of the king can, in fact, act in the name of the king. In this way, by externalizing authority into the ring as a prosthesis, some measure of authority is effectively removed from the ring owner and placed irretrievably into the artifact.<br />
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==Identity==<br />
The signet ring has been closely associated with identity throughout history by virtue of the seal as a dioptric lens revealing the identity of the owner, as well as its power to perform authoritative action in its owner's name. The signet ring was both necessary and also cherished as an important symbol of self. Faced with poverty &quot;as a general rule a signet ring was one of the last objects of value that an owner would part with&quot; (Kunz 158). Often times the seal was a family crest, reflecting the heradic identity of the wearer and creating a strong link between the ring and the owner. Together the ring and the wearer comprise a complete entity, both the origin of authority and the medium through which authority is enacted. The form of the ring, worn close to the body on the hand, reflects not only the need for security but also the close relation the signet ring holds the identity and agency of the wearer. <br />
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[[Image:King_Solomon.jpg|thumb|left|King Solomon]]&quot;Arabian tradition, which recounts that Solomon was so much infatuated with a female prisoner, the daughter of a Gentile prince, and named Aminah, that he entrusted to her care his precious signet, given to him by the four angels that presided over the four elements. A mighty Jinn succeeded in gaining possession of the ring, and, by its power, assumed Solomon's form, at the same time changing that unhappy monarch's appearance to such an extent that his courtiers no longer recognized him, and drove him from his kingdom. However, one of Solomon's ministers was shrewd enough to see through the disguise of the Jinn, and proceeded to exorcise the evil spirit by reciting certain verses of the Law. The Jinn fled affrighted, and dropped the ring into the sea. Here it was swallowed by a fish, and in due time this fish was caught by Solomon, who had entered the employ of a fisherman. Once again in possession of his ring, Solomon soon regained his kingdom.&quot; (Kunz 289)<br />
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This folk tail demonstrates the auratic power of the signet ring, containing the human presence of the owner and thus fracturing the Solomon's identity between person and ring. In the story Solomon was only identifiable as the king while in possession of his ring and unrecognizable without it. The loss of the ring constituted the loss of self. This connection between the signet ring and personal identity is also demonstrated through it's relation to death. &quot;In the middle ages an instance of the ring dropping from one's finger was seen as an omen of death&quot; (Kunz 133). Additionally, &quot;The Romans not only took off the rings from the fingers of the dead . . . for fear the Pollinctores, or they who prepared the body for the funeral, should take them for themselves, because when the dead body was laid on the pile they put the rings on the fingers again, and burnt them with the corpse. (Jones 45)<br />
<br />
=Signet Ring As Security=<br />
Moving beyond just the need to extend power over space and time, the signet ring is probably best recognized as a way to secure messages and various other enclosures.<br />
<br />
==Seal as Enclosure==<br />
The seal of the signet ring is a signifier for security, secrecy, and protection in addition to power and authority. The seal has a double function encoded in its title as “seal” to secure and enclose privileged information or access. [[Image:sealedenvelope.jpg|thumb|A letter protected from unintended eyes]]The seal is both a physical and symbolic stamp of security by a figure of authority. The wax or clay impression of the signet ring serves as a mediating barrier between the thing that it seals and anything outside of it. Signet rings and seals are most commonly used to seal letters and documents, but have also been used to seal doors and tombs as chambers, or spaces, which hold information that is meant to be private or secured. The seal is the gatekeeper guarding the gate. It is invested with the power and authority to guard from the individual who sealed it. The seal becomes the symbolic presence of the sealer standing guard before the gate.<br />
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The seal is not meant to be permanent as can be gathered from the materials of wax and clay, and therefore only offers temporary protection and security until the rightful person is meant to break the seal. The function of a seal then is very similar to that of a lock, or a skeuomorph, remaining unread or unopened, until the person with the key or matching document is able to open it. The seal was developed as a way to ensure the authenticity of what was sealed. If a seal was broken before arriving at its destination it meant a breech in security, and therefore the erasure of the document’s validity and authority. In this case the power of the sealer is not transferred and possibly comes into question. “The bearer of such a letter fully realized his responsibility for its delivery with unbroken seal, and generally took pains to have this duly recognized by the person to whom it was addressed&quot; (Kunz 83).<br />
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The physical structure of a ring, as well the definition of the word “ring” refer to an enclosure. A ring has no opening in its structure, except for its hollow center to fit around a finger. The band of the ring is continuous and unbroken, which lends to its significance in becoming a symbol of marriage, referring to the ultimate seal of commitment.<br />
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The hand itself is also invested with the symbolic act of sealing as with the sealing of US presidency by swearing with the hand on the Bible. The placement of the hand acts as a seal and signature. The authenticity of Barack Obama's presidency was undermined because his hand was not placed on the Bible, and therefore it was perceived that he did not in fact seal the presidency. This inauguration had to be repeated in order to become solidified. This shows that the hand as signifier of power and sealing continues to be true, and also lends to the significance of the seal being worn on the hand rather than than anywhere else.<br />
<br />
==Seal as Signature==<br />
The application of the seal onto a document or letter meant the signature of the individual as well as a last word and the closing or ending of the document. The seal authenticates the document as a signature and a signing off by an individual. In the seal as signature, the individual authors himself, and imprints himself into the document as part of that archive. This is also a sealing of the self into a document or agreement/contract. The self is sealed onto the document, adhering to it and providing a promise or guarantee of the author’s word. The seal offers a double archive as it already exists as a symbol of an individual in a physical object, and also attaches that individual to a surface. The seal, then repeats the individual as self and as word or promise. In cases of contracts by merchants or legal agreements, the seal as signature binds the signer or signers if there are more than one seals fixed to a given document to the agreement stated in the text. Merchants also used seals to verify and prove that they sold a certain object. This has evolved today into the trademark, pin numbers, bar codes, and other identifying data. <br />
<br />
==Seal as Protection==<br />
[[Image:Riley.jpg|thumb|Pat Riley]]In cases where a ruler would ask a scribe or servant to take his signet ring and sign a document for him, that person was protected by the ring. The power of the ruler was transferred through the ring to the servant. He could not be touched and was guaranteed sovereign protection until his task was completed. In these cases it is as though the ruler himself is beside the servant as his guard during his task and any attack or harm to the servant would be perceived as a direct attack on the ruler. The ruler is also asking the servant to be his body for him as in the Hegelian lordship and bondage dialectic. The ruler, or lord in Hegelian terms, engages in a relationship with the servant where his body becomes doubled by the work the servant does for him. The signet ring is also a detachable second or doubled body of the ruler which can be used as his body to sign for him (Catherine Malabou and Judith Butler lecture at NYU 3/4/10). The doubling of the body can be seen as providing protection of the original body.<br />
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The seal also has a history of protection in its common display of a coat of arms. “In Elizabeth’s reign and in those of her immediate successors, it is believed that scarcely a gentleman was to be found who did not own and wear a signet ring on which appeared his coat-of-arms. Those not fortunate enough to have the right to display armorial bearings, sometimes sought to make their signets individual using as designs rebuses expressing more or less well the pronunciation of their names&quot; (Kunz 140). This alignment of a knightly coat of arms and the signet ring endow it with a very literal expression of protection. The ring becomes armor which is fastened to the body for protection. The seal as armor provides protection for the wearer as well as protection of anything signed with it while simultaneously indicating a relationship to battle and to an enemy threat. The seal is threatened by the possibility of it being broken by the wrong person and intercepted. The ring in this case becomes a kind of media skin, or second layer of consciousness to the body which armors it. The body that wears the signet ring wears another layer of signification and protection.<br />
<br />
=De-signifying the Signet Ring=<br />
<br />
While the signet ring quickly lost its use as a means of secure and authentic communication with the advent of things like the adhesive envelope and the fob stamp, the ring still retained much of its status as a means of indicating certain social status and prestige. Eventually, much of this faded away as many rings became simply jewelry, but we can still see many places within our culture today where the signet ring’s use as a status indicator is still powerful.<br />
<br />
==Social Status and Respect==<br />
The signet ring performs a passive yet vital function in face-to-face interactions. [[Image:Popering.jpg|thumb|The Pope receiving respect]]To show respect to the status of one's betters soon becomes a practice of showing reverence to the ring. This leads to the practice of kissing the ring’s jewel, which is still practiced today when greeting the Pope (although not always) (Gleeson). Simultaneously, the kisser shows respect to the authority of the ring, and the ring metaphorically stamps the lips of its kisser, there by giving some tacit authority to those lips. This simple wearing of a ring (signet or not) by anyone who wanted to show off even the most banal status was a real fear of those in power in 14th century Britain to the point that a law was passed by the government regulating the wearing of rings (Oman 6). Despite this effort, over time the ring lost much of its authoritative power, the sealing function remaining only skeuomorphically. <br />
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The custom of ring wearing served a twofold purpose: ornamental as well as useful. In this early history of the ring, simply by glancing down at the hands of those within a room it becomes easy to identify social status based on the quality of their sphragi, or the gem on which intaglio is inscribed (Jones 18). Because the signet ring then was such a powerful social signal of status, respect and authority, many desired to create rings that simply for a display of high status. This leads to the creation of ornate styles of rings whose jewels were not longer used in the act of sealing and instead created primarily to indicate wealth and status (Oman 23).<br />
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Today signet rings have lost a portion of their authority, in part due to the general disenchantment of rings in modern culture. The signet ring is so common that it is ignored in most cases. Because class rings are mass produced and sold to graduates at every level of education by companies like Jostens they give very little if any status to their wearers. Likewise many jewelers sell signet rings with the initials of the owner carved into them which is more novelty tradition than utility of identification. Some of these rings can be meaningful and communicate basic meanings, such a school or fraternity, but are rarely a useful form of communication any more.<br />
<br />
==Authenticity of Identity Today==<br />
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While the practicality of the signet ring was originally to extend the hand of authority through time and space, today this function has been remediated through various media. Listed are several items of importance today that can be traced back to the signet ring.<br />
<br />
*Hand Signature - In business transaction, a signet ring was needed to authenticate and sign documents. Without a signet ring, transactions must use a hand signature (Bouvier 3071). With the rise of literacy, limited the use of someone just making a mark, the signature reduces the need for the signet ring as a tool in business and trade. The individual’s signature became a powerful shift in locating the individual’s authority and validity within an economic market. <br />
<br />
*Trademark - As the need for a signet ring by merchants atrophied, the trademark grew increasingly important. The trademark bears stronger legal binding than the signet ring, and is therefore more ensuring to merchants.<br />
<br />
*Fingerprint - This is mostly related to forensic identification, the fingerprint creates individual authenticity. While we often need another medium to read fingerprints (such as powder and a magnifying lens), they have drastically changed the idea of what it means to produce authenticity. Now our hands leave a bit of our aura in everything we do. The fingerprint is not yet a common form of deliberate authenticity.<br />
<br />
==Arts and Crafts==<br />
Today signet rings and other forms of seals are still easily found and used by many in non-legal contexts. These uses no longer serve any practical security or authoritative purpose. Often they are used to connote a feeling of formality or specialness in correspondence, such as wedding invitations.<br />
<br />
=Fictional Signet Rings in Popular Culture=<br />
[[Image:Greenlantern.jpg|thumb|left|Member of the Green Lantern Corps showing off his power ring]]<br />
*Green Lantern - Each Green Lantern officer gets a power ring which is used both as a badge and weapon for the individual.<br />
<br />
*Captain Planet - In order to summon Captain Planet each of his &quot;planeteers&quot; was required to call on their rings' power.<br />
<br />
*Ring Pop - While primarily a sweet treat, when considered in the context of the ring as identity we must begin to consider the empty consumption as a kind of auto-vampirism.<br />
<br />
=References=<br />
*Bouvier, John and Francis Rawle. ''Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia, Volume 3''. William s Hein &amp; Co, 1914.<br />
*Butler, Judith and Catherine Malabou. ''You Be My Body For Me''. New York University, March 4, 2010.<br />
*Gleeson, Colin. &quot;Bishop: I was uneasy about having to kiss the papal ring.&quot; Irish Independent. March 5, 2010. [http://www.independent.ie/national-news/bishop-i-was-uneasey-about-having-to-kiss-the-papal-ring-2089675.html]<br />
*Jones, William. ''Finger-Ring Lore''. Singing Tree Press, 1890.<br />
*Kunz, George Frederick. ''Rings for the Finger''. J. B. Lippincott company, 1917.<br />
*McLuhan, Marshall. ''Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man''. Gingko Press, 2003.<br />
*Oman, Charles. ''British Rings 800-1914''. The Anchor Press Ltd, Essex. 1974.<br />
*Plato, Plato and Benjamin Jowett. ''Phaedrus''. City: Forgotten Books, 2008.<br />
*Scarisbrick, Diana. ''Rings: Jewlery of Power, Love and Loyalty''. 2007.<br />
*Seidel, George. ''Knowledge as Sexual Metaphor''. Associated University Presses, 2000.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
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Literary Hoax
2010-11-24T07:23:29Z
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'' “You can't handle the truth!”''<br />
-Jack Nicholson as Colonel Gessup in ''A Few Good Men''<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
<br />
A literary hoax is a situation where an author of any published medium that is published masks their own identity by assuming another. The term literary hoax implies certain assumptions about what is labeled authentic literary works which is said to represent the personal effort of an author or group alone claiming responsibility for what is produced. Conversely a literary hoaxer seeks to obscure his or her own contributions to the work that is produced, offering it as the effort of an entirely different person often concocting elaborate back stories and smokescreens to keep the illusion of the imaginary author alive. In a recent and thought-provoking analysis of literary hoaxes Ken Ruthven contends that 'since what a society values will show up obliquely in what it rejects, reactions to literary forgeries illuminate perceptions of literariness' (Ruthven, 2001). Many points create this account to be worthy of note to those working in the area of ethnic minority literary criticism and their relationship to 'literariness' (Gunew).<br />
<br />
To produce a literary hoax is to “deceive by amusing or mischievously fabrication.” Literature is fertile ground for hoaxers and people wanting to try it on. The temptation for writers to merge fact and fiction is seemingly irresistible. And there are any number of possible motivations, the question is when does a hoax in the literary world cross the line and become an outright fraud? <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Types of Hoaxes ==<br />
There are generally three types or genres of literary hoaxes.<br />
<br />
The Genuine Hoax<br />
The genuine hoax is a dishonest literary creation which is intended never to be exposed.<br />
<br />
The Entrapment Hoax<br />
The entrapment hoax is intended t o lure a particular academic, publisher, or literary community with a prank text.<br />
<br />
The Mock Hoax<br />
A genuinely experimental writer plays conscious tricks with the very notion of authorship to create a voice which is neither quite theirs nor someone else’s.<br />
<br />
== Famous Literary Hoaxes ==<br />
<br />
'''Ern Malley’s The Darkening Ecliptic'''<br />
In 1944, an Australian poetry editor published a collection of poems by a raw young talent named Ern Malley, a Melbourne mechanic who had died the previous year. The editor lauded Malley as one of the most “important poetic figures of this century.” Alas, the verses had been written as a joke by a pair of poetry purists: James McAuley and Harold Stewart penned Malley’s entire body of work in one afternoon, pulling phrases randomly from books and making it purposely obscure. Their mission was to reveal what they felt was the “gradual decay” and absurdity of avant-garde poetry. The hoax became national news and was the inspiration for Peter Carey’s 2003 novel My Life As a Fake.<br />
<br />
'''The Howard Hughes biography'''<br />
In 1970, U.S. novelist Clifford Irving cooked up a scheme with fellow writer Richard Suskind to write a fake biography of reclusive aviation and film mogul Howard Hughes. Irving landed a $750,000 advance from publisher McGraw-Hill, and with Suskind’s help, made up interviews and fabricated documents with Hughes’s forged signature. They were eventually discovered — Hughes even came out of his self-imposed exile to condemn them, claiming never to have met Irving. Both Irving and Suskind served time in jail.<br />
<br />
'''Alan Sokal''' Disgusted with a perceived slackness and ineptitude in modern academia, Dr. Alan Sokal published ''Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity''. It was a paper full of nonsensical gibberish in Duke University’s cultural studies journal Social Text. The same day the essay was published, he announced the hoax in the journal Lingua Franca.<br />
<br />
'''Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree'''<br />
Published in 1977, Forrest Carter’s celebrated memoir about a Cherokee orphan who fights racism and struggles to connect with his heritage was later revealed to have been written by a white Ku Klux Klan member named Asa Carter. (In more recent reprints, The Education of Little Tree was labeled “fiction.”) Carter had previously worked for Alabama Governor George Wallace, penning his infamous inauguration speech, in which Wallace vowed: “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw a line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say: segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”<br />
<br />
'''Go Ask Alice'''<br />
This 1971 “actual diary” of a teenaged girl who died of a drug overdose was meant to be a cautionary tale for adolescents in the post-hippie era. In the late 1970s, however, its “editor,” Beatrice Sparks, a psychologist and Mormon youth counsellor, admitted to writing it based on the stories of some of her students. Sparks has gone on to produce many other “actual diaries” about troubled adolescents, including Treacherous Love: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager and Annie's Baby: The Diary of an Anonymous Pregnant Teenager.<br />
<br />
'''The Hitler Diaries'''<br />
In 1983, the German magazine Stern announced that journalist Gerd Heidemann made the greatest Nazi memorabilia find of all time: Adolf Hitler’s diary, a whopping 62-volume set covering the crucial years of 1932 to 1945. Despite containing cornball entries like “must not forget to get tickets for the Olympic Games for Eva Braun” (or maybe because of that), the diaries were authenticated by several respected historians. Within days of the story breaking, however, a forensic study of the actual paper stock confirmed that the diaries could not have been penned in the ’30s and ’40s, and were thus fake. They had been written by a Stuttgart forger named Konrad Kujau; both he and Heidemann served time in prison.<br />
<br />
== Closest &quot;Current&quot; Incarnation ==<br />
<br />
'''The Fake Memoir'''<br />
<br />
'''James Frey'''<br />
<br />
<br />
'''J.T Leroy'''<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Herman Rosenblat'''<br />
<br />
== Postmodern Lit ==<br />
<br />
All the memoir hoaxes from the aforementioned lists rely on strict concepts of fiction and nonfiction, invention versus truth. But we’re in an era when these lines are blurred without consequence. Not just by people trying to manipulate their readers, but by authors doing so very transparently.<br />
<br />
Notice that Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius isn’t mentioned as a hoax-doer even though he fabricated just like some on those lists did. In Eggers’ quasi-autobiographical anti-memoir, there are blatant fantasy scenes and characters come in the narrative to comment on the book itself. In footnotes, Eggers reveals how he’s manipulating the reader.<br />
<br />
Postmodern writing (certainly not the only prevailing style now, there is a post-post) is all about transparency and about being self-conscious, ironic, even self-mocking.<br />
<br />
== Current Cultural Landscape ==<br />
<br />
Which is to say, there have actually been a lot of hoax-y things in the past couple weeks, and yet... they all suck. It's probably because, well, people are so quick now—because of rampant cynicism and a crushing worry about seeming not in-the-know, and because of information becoming available with increasing ease—to dismiss something as fake right off the bat, or soon prove it false, or just come forward to take credit for it so they can get famous. <br />
<br />
<br />
= References =<br />
<br />
Heyward, M. 1993, &quot;Indecent, Immoral, Obscene&quot; The Ern Malley Affair UPQ pp 182 - 212; 275 - 7<br />
<br />
Mill, J.S. 1910, &quot;On Liberty&quot; Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government, p. 65-77.<br />
<br />
Morrison, J. &amp; Waltkins, S. 2006, &quot;'Scandalous Fictions: The Twentieth-Century Novel and Public Sphere&quot;, Palgrave Macmillan.<br />
<br />
Ryan &amp; Thomas (2003).Cultures of Forgery: Making Nations, Making Selves. Routledge, Taylor &amp; Francis Group, NY. pp. 178-181<br />
<br />
Wimsatt, W.K. &amp; Beardsley, M.C. 1946, &quot;The Intentional Fallacy&quot;, The Sewanee Review, Vol. 54, No. 3, p. 468-488.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]] <br />
[[Category:Fall 2010]]<br />
[[Category:Literature]]<br />
[[Category:Hoaxes]]<br />
[[Category:Postmodernism]]</div>
Egugecuge
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Category:Literature
2010-11-24T07:23:08Z
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Pneumatic Mail in Europe
2010-11-24T06:32:27Z
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==Pneumatic Mail in Europe==<br />
[[Image:Picture 2.png|thumb|right|1884 Paris's Pneumatic Tubes]]<br />
<br />
The Tubes Pneumatique of Paris date as far back as 1867. The first tubes connected the Bourse and the Grand Hotel beginning what would become an enormous system several hundred miles in tubes (Scientific American 1884). Like the system used in America, the tube is filled with compressed air in a partial vacuum. Instead of using air pumps or any engines, the Parisian system worked using power from the city's reservoir. Originally there were three large connected iron plated vessels that could hold 1,200 gallons each. The first vessel was filled with water, which was pushed into the other two vessels, which were filled with air. The air becomes compressed and once a valve was opened the air escaped rushing with force into the tubes (London Engineer).<br />
[[Image:0052a.jpg|thumb|right|Prague's central office featuring historical working pneumatic post system]]<br />
<br />
The height of pneumatic post in Paris was in the 1930's where a letter, which the French called a &quot;pneu&quot; could get anywhere in the city in less than two hours. 240 miles of tubing created the net like system that laid just underneath Paris, carrying letter at an average speed of 40 m.p.h. After World War II the system was expanded and modernized but eventually began to decline and the Parisian pneumatic postal system ended in 1984 (Vincour). <br />
<br />
The Prague pneumatic post was completed in 1899 with 60 kilometers that could transport letter, documents, and small parcel at 30 m.p.h. Prague's pneumatic post is the only working historical model left in the world. Today not much has changed except the number of parcel sent which use to number in the millions each year and now has dwindled into thousands every month. The post employs fifteen people altogether¬– nine workers and six dispatchers. Incoming parcels are indicated by a blinking red light and outgoing parcels by a green light. Every parcel must make a stop on Jindrisska street as the network is star shaped (Drake). Pneumatic postal networks are so much like highways, it is no wonder the word 'pneu' is also the French word for car tire.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
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Talk:Pneumatic Mail in Europe
2010-11-24T06:31:47Z
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Phrenology (Craniology)
2010-11-24T05:37:55Z
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==Description, Precursors and Philosophical Background==<br />
(Gr: phren – mind + logy – theory, science) <br />
Phrenology (or craniology) is a discipline that held that individual traits or characters could be deduced from the shape of the skull, and was a mode of mediation which claimed it could read and analyze the brain through access to the medium of the skull. As a medium, it consisted of a series of instruments: a craniometer, topographical maps of the brain, and a system of classification which was used to gain data on the subject and interpret the findings (the terms mind and brain are used interchangeably). It was developed in 1796 by Viennese physiologist and neuroanatomist Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) while the term phrenology was popularized by Gall’s disciple Johann Spurzheim. (Sewall 1839: 8) They argued the mind was composed of independent and discernable organs (faculties) originally organized into twenty-seven traits or functions (although expanded upon by later theorists). Depending upon the individual, these organs would vary in size and affect the contours of the cranium, which could be examined through the fingers and hands of phrenologists, and through observation. <br />
Phrenology is therefore a method by which one can read the face and skull, using this information to analyze and classify individuals and groups and oneself. (Lokensgard 1940: 712) While the criteria were standardized or automated, both the subjects and the phrenologists become variables of this mode of mediation; the subject provided the data, but the phrenologist was equally engaged, and accuracy depended on training. As a classification system for individuals it is a remediation of humorism, and roots of this theory can also be found in Aristotle who argued the brain had multiple parts, each accorded a function. (Sewall 1839: 11) The head was therefore used because it was a material representation of the mind. Working within an empirical and mechanical framework, Gall argued that mental phenomena have causes which can be determined and classified empirically. This was largely considered a materialist theory of the mind, however this position was not advocated by Gall himself. Phrenology has been further remediated within both neuroscience and personality theory. (Simpson 2004: 475)[[Image:head2.JPG|thumb|right|Topographical Map of the Mind]][[Image:gall.jpg|thumb|left|Franz Joseph Gall]][[Image:TaylorIMMoePhrenologyM.jpg|thumb|right|Craniometer and Topographical Map]]<br />
<br />
== Phrenology as a System of Encoding/Decoding the Mind and Skull ==<br />
The formation of the brain was thought to be inscribed in the skull, which could then be digitally decoded through the use of the fingertips of the phrenologist. Therefore the body relayed the message like Iris, internalized in the body, which was then relayed by the phrenologist by decoding these messages in the fashion of Hermes. Inscription was due to both inherited attributes of the individual, as well as interaction with the environment. They protrusion indicated an organ which was used to a greater degree. Since organs were represented relatively, their graphic representation would have assumed an analogue function, in terms of a wave.<br />
<br />
=== Phrenology and Classification: Deviance and Racial Stereotyping === <br />
Phrenology was intertwined with the study of deviance. The first studies were conducted in prisons, and it was a method of early criminology in that its measurement was done through areas of the skull associated with criminal behaviour. (Zielinski 2006: 215) Since it depended on the physical attributes of the face and skull, criminality became associated with race. Cornel West argues that phrenology was the systematization of a racist ideology in the Enlightenment and early modern period. (West 1999: 80) The relationship between the organs in the brain and the system of classification meant that colonialists were able to 'hack' into this system and use it as a basis to argue for cultural hierarchy and racial stereotyping. (Bank 1996:394) Although originally framed as a psychology of the individual, the measurement of the brain based on race and gender played an obvious role in phrenology, as skulls were measured against an ideal skull which represented the white, European male and his concurrent socio-historical values. The map of the skull which resulted from this investigation represented a type of signature of the face, confirming a particular origin, a particular legibility of the face. Agamben argued the face represented the possibility of communication; phrenology used the face as a means, as a way in which to construct boundaries, examining it in terms of particular points (bumps) which represented a particular identity. (Agamben 2000:92-3) Photography eventually took the place of this medium in criminology, as it was assigned the same degree of truth as this measurement of the body. (Zielinski 2006: 215) <br />
<br />
Phrenology rested on the assumption that the guts of the brain was open, and were represented through indentations in the skull. (Cooter 1984: 110) The distribution of phrenological pamphlets and charts within the mid-nineteenth century meant that anyone could be subject to the phrenological judgments of others. However, although the medium could be felt or seen by anyone, it needed to be analyzed by the phrenologist or in conjunction with a phrenological chart in order to be rendered legible.[[Image:table2.JPG|thumb|left|Gall's Terminology]]<br />
<br />
== A Medium and an Inventory of the Body ==<br />
Jonathan Crary argues that the first half of the nineteenth century in European physiology was engaged in an “exhaustive inventory of the body.” (Crary 1992: 81) Gall and Spurzheim contributed to this fragmentation and classification of the early modern subject by decentralizing or localizing functions in specific areas of the brain. In phrenology, the object (or rather subject) is completely unhidden; one could visibly see the attributes of the face and skull when looking at the subject. After being “read” by the phrenologist, the information is interpreted through a series of traits which are determined a priori. (Fig: Gall's Terminology) Since measurement normally used the hands of the observer, vision was combined with a sense of touch which could apprehend evidence about the identity of the subject; Crary argues this was indicative of the eighteenth century mentality. (Crary 1992: 59) <br />
<br />
However, it was also integral in measures of subjective vision, as it was thought to be possible to be able to examine the face of an individual to determine their abilities of sensory perception; colour, sound and depth were spatially represented in the brain and skull. (Simpson 2004: 476) Phrenology attempted to divide the subject into a mechanical system which was represented by the phrenological chart. However, it was from a unified structure (the face and skull) that they made these measurements of perception, as opposed to those done by empiricists like Purkinje who worked from the discrete perceptions into a unified system of the eye. (Crary 1992: 104) Phrenological studies were measured in terms of a classical ideal, instead of statistical norms of behaviour. Physiological research like Purkinje in effect rendered the medium obsolete; research which began at the level of subjective perception was determined to be more scientific and empirically valid. Phrenology was composed of both objective and subjective views of perception; the phrenologist existed apart from the subject, however was intertwined through his own faciality and subjecthood. Although Gall argued argued that he made his observations inductively, his system of classifations, so closely tied to to a socio-historic circumstances, appears to have shaped his evidence. Since it did not have a way in which to isolate the structures of the brain in terms of its experimental practice, it can be read more as a medium by which the ideas of one age and class were transmitted to succeeding generations. (McLaren 1974: 87) <br />
<br />
Phrenology attempted to determine an ideal of the mind and argued that organs could be exercised to limited exposure to stimuli which would then exercise the organ. This early modern technique is thus indicative of the emerging modernized subject. Foucault argues that these &quot;disciplinary&quot; apparatuses are indicative of nineteenth century modernity and constituted a policy of the body which was docile, useful and modifiable. (Crary 1992: 15) <br />
<br />
Phrenological distinctions acted as a container for mental energy, through a system of classifications it was in-formed with material from the skull. Vilém Flusser would argue the form of the system of classifications can be argued made the material appear; each theorist adopting a different system which would classify the phenomenon under different characteristics and localities in the brain. (Flusser 1993: 25-7) The nomenclature was also in-formed by the conditions of culture; Gall’s own classification system was specific to the socio-historical circumstances existing in Vienna at the turn of the century. The classifications were separated by Gall between animal and human qualities, and subsequently hierarchized in terms of their functions, emphasizing the mental faculties over the manual and postulated an ideal of the human individual. One of its criticisms, was that the mapping of these traits onto the brain was arbitrary, the semiotic content of the discipline meaning more than its material constitution, or its representation of the brain. (Sewall 1839: 94)<br />
<br />
== '''Citations''' ==<br />
<br />
1835. ''Manual of Phrenology being An Analytical Sumary of The System of Doctor Gall on the Faculties of Man and the Functions of the Brain.'' Philadelphia: Carey, Lea &amp; Blanchard.<br />
<br />
Agamben, G. 2000. &quot;Notes on Gesture, Face.&quot; In ''Means Without Ends.'' Minneapolis, University of Minneapolis Press.<br />
<br />
Bank, A. 1996. &quot;Of Native Skulls and Noble Caucasians: Phrenology in Colonial South Africa.&quot; in ''Journal of Southern African Studies.&quot; 22(3): 387-403. <br />
<br />
Cooter, R. 1984. ''The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<br />
<br />
Crary, J. 1992.''Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century''. MIT Press.<br />
<br />
Davies, J. 1955. ''Phrenology Fad and Science.'' New Haven: Yale University Press.<br />
<br />
Flusser, V. ''The Shape of Things''. Reaktion Books. <br />
<br />
McLaren, A. 1974. &quot;Medium and Message.&quot; in ''The Journal of Modern History.'' 46 (1): 86-97<br />
<br />
Lokensgard, H. 1940. &quot;Oliver Wendall Holme's Phrenological Character.&quot; in ''The New England Quarterly.''13(4): 711-718.<br />
<br />
Sewall, T. 1839. ''Examination of Phrenology in Two Lectures.'' Boston: D.S.King.<br />
<br />
Simpson, D. 2004. &quot;Phrenology and the Neurosciences: Contributions of F.J. Gall and J.G. Spurzheim.&quot; in ''Colishaw Symposium.''75: 475-482.<br />
<br />
West, C. 1999. ''The Cornel West Reader.'' Civitas Books. <br />
<br />
Zielinski, S. 2006. ''The Deep Time of Media.'' Camridge, MA: The MIT Press.<br />
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[[Category:Writing]]<br />
[[Category:Representation]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
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Credit Card Imprinter
2010-11-24T05:37:18Z
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Located at a peculiar juncture in financial history, the credit card imprinter is a remediation of the printing press that makes use of the raised characters of a credit card surface to ensure the accurate transfer of credit card and merchant information free from human error. Although the mechanical process employed by the imprinter was a relatively simple upgrade of imprinting processes that gained popularity with the introduction of carbon paper as a means of producing multiple copies at a single site of inscription, the consistency and ease with which documents could be produced by the imprinter made it an ideal sight for the fusion of multiple systems of verification to be read by both humans and computers. In a financial climate whose biggest obstacles to growth were the often conflicting demands of maximizing the speed, efficiency and security of transactions, the imprinter presented an elegant solution that overlaid multiple forms of verification at a single site of inscription. The documents produced by the imprinter present crucial shifts in the cultural history of currency, lending practices, identity verification, financial networks, and consumer culture. Although the imprinting process has since been remediated in the form of magnetic strips on the back of credit cards, and the card itself can now serve as both an instrument of credit and debit, the contemporary predominance of electronic financial transactions might best be understood as the legacy of the credit card imprinter’s innovative reduction of abstract financial mechanisms down to one easily produced and modified document in the 1960’s.<br />
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'''In attempting to maximize speed, efficiency and security, the ideal form of transaction seems to be one that overlaid multiple forms of verification and authentication on a single sight, and the credit card imprinter presents itself as the most efficient and cost effective solution to this problem.'''<br />
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==Description of Artifact==<br />
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[[Image:Addressograph_Bartizan_4850.png|thumb|left|[http://www.imprinters.com/ Addressograph Bartizan] Model 4850 manual imprinter]]<br />
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[[Image:Roller_Platen_Printing_Press.png|thumb|Patent illustration for Addressograph Roller Platen Printing Machine, May 27, 1952]]<br />
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The imprinter itself consists of a flat bed of metal or plastic with bezels that holds a credit card in place and prevents lateral movement. On the same surface, a custom plate displaying the merchants name, address and telephone number is screwed into place so that its own raised letters sit level with the characters on the surface of the card. The placement of both the card and the merchant plate, along with bezels on the edges of the flat bed ensure that the sales slip placed on top remains precisely aligned with the raised characters beneath. Using either carbon paper or NCR (No Carbon Required) paper the slip is designed so that additional copies are simultaneously inscribed and distributed to the three parties involved in the transaction: customer, merchant and card issuer. Inscription is achieved with one lateral swipe of a roller mounted on top of the artifact with spring mounted wheels to ensure consistent distribution of pressure to each character pressed onto the slip. Whereas the earliest models are plagued by the tendency of operators to swipe back and forth often resulting in double inscriptions due to minute shifts of the slip later models (US Patent no. 3,838,640, October 1, 1974) are modified to ensure that pressure could only be applied in one direction. <br />
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When used successfully, the imprinter produces sales slips that record the name of the credit card owner, the unique account number of the specific credit card, the name of the merchant, the merchant's address, and the merchants phone number - if inscribed on the plate. Most cards issued after 1983 also include raised expiration dates which are also inscribed by imprinter (Us Patent no. 4,562,342, filed September 15, 1983). The slip records each item in specific areas on the form, leaving the actual quantity of the transaction, sales tax, and total, the only information inscribed by the salesperson by hand. The document is then given to the owner of the credit card, who signs the document entering into a legal contract with the credit card company and the merchant as defined in the credit card terms of service. It is then left to the salesperson to ensure the signature on the card itself matches the signature on the slip, and, when indicated, that the card has not past its expiration date.<br />
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The three identical documents produced in this momentary exchange constitute a streamlined reduction of financial processes often dependent upon a sequence of exchanged documents, producing in one motion the functional equivalents of a check, a bond, and loan. The distinction between them is, however, wholly dependent on the party who possesses them: the merchant copy functions as a check from the card owner to be honored by the credit card company, the credit card company's copy function as a bond backed by the credit card owners debt, and the credit owner's copy is a loan to be paid according to a prearranged schedule and legal agreement governing the use of the card.<br />
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The transaction ritual necessitated by the imprinter assembles multiple forms of inscription, authentication and signification at a single site producing a legal financial document that communicates a different meaning for each of the three parties it binds together. The credit card number itself, is on one level, simply a unique number to the individual to whom the card is issued, yet embedded in the number is a code which reveals the credit network, the card’s issuing bank, the issuing branch, and the number assigned by that branch to the individual. Although such a code can be read by those with the proper reference materials [[Image:card identification features.pdf|thumb|A manual for merchants to aid in the identification of genuine cards at the point of sale]] it is worth noting that the unique registered signifier is encoded using a standard OCR typeface, which is meant to be read by a computer.<br />
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==Money Form==<br />
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To meaningfully situate credit documents within a larger history of financial objects, we must return, unsurprisingly, to the emergence of what Marx calls the universal equivalent. Marx describes a long chain of proximate placeholders of value, of which the money form is but a more alienated sort. Marx suggests that the use of gold as an overriding unit of value &quot;is a purely ideal act [in that] we may use purely imaginary or ideal gold to perform this operation&quot; (Capital Volume 1, 190). Assigning a commodity a value specified in units of gold, Marx argues, does not turn the commodity into gold. The gold to which the price refers is entirely imaginary. &quot;In its function as a measure of value, money therefore serves only in an imaginary and ideal capacity&quot; (Capital Volume 1, 190). Whereas Marx would like to highlight the way in which the commodity form, represented in terms of gold as a universal equivalent, occludes the labor embodied in the commodity, we might simply focus on the way in which his description teases out the representational system at work in the money form. Not only is the selection of gold as the universal equivalent arbitrary, but the rendering of value in terms of gold is always representational (i.e., imaginary). Commodities can be exchanged for money (C-M), and back again (M-C)—&quot;Circulation sweats money from every pore&quot; (Capital Volume 1, 208)—but money is still only an alienated embodiment of labor of a higher representational order. Money must refer back to gold and the imaginary price expressed in gold back to labor.<br />
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Although the commodity would have us overlook its social history by expressing its value in money, the money form does not necessarily hide its relationship to gold. In fact, early forms of currency were bank-issued promissory notes that explicitly referenced their substitutability for gold. In Colonial and Prerevolutionary America, for example, individual banks would circulate their own forms of redeemable paper money. Notes stood-in for gold held at the bank in a specific customer’s account. Although currency was not an embodiment of gold, it represented specific amounts of gold in another location. Of course, if a currency maintained the confidence of its users, money could permanently defer its redemption and conversion back into gold. Currency, at this time, was still highly localized: notes issued by a bank in New York, for instance, may not have been accepted (at face value) in Providence. This was later paralleled in the early credit system which was often institution specific (e.g., credit documents issued by and for exclusive use at restaurants, gas stations, airlines, or department stores). At the outset, therefore, paper money assumed the form of a contract: a legally binding agreement drawn up by a third party (the bank) between two parties (the customer and the merchant). It is for this reason that we find hand-written signatures on early paper money, and why printed signatures persist on most contemporary currency. The bank issuer individually guaranteed each note and assumed the burden of authentication as an institutional intermediary. This allowed customers and merchants to avoid the burdensome and risky task of transporting gold on one’s person. Because early notes had no intrinsic value, the physical survival of a note—whether it was lost or destroyed—had no bearing on the money held in your account as gold. This remained the case, theoretically, until the Bretton Woods Agreements.<br />
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As the printing of currency was increasingly centralized and finally became the monopoly of the state, banks likewise developed new methods of mediated payment. Checks would revive the original contractual formula of early notes, but allow its customers the means to generate legal agreements on the fly. Rather than print notes of pre-specified value, the bank now instead offered pre-manufactured contractual templates whose final terms could be drawn up at the site of exchange. The check marked the beginning of a means of payment that required the individual and hand-written specification of parties to an exchange. Although there was no way for a merchant to verify whether a customer did indeed have the specified amount of money in his or her bank account, the general principles of fungibility and liquidity still obtained. Check were redeemable for actually existing money. Banks may have threaten customers with punitive fines for overdraft, but the possibility of overdraft also heralded the beginning of consumer credit. Customers could spend money they did not have. <br />
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The issuance and use of individual credit documents, in this context, may not appear so novel. As yet another kind of promissory note, they allowed customers to enter into simultaneous agreement with a merchant and credit issuer. Initially, as will be discussed, the merchant and credit issuer were often one and the same. But credit documents were not bound by the rules of currency and checks. Credit agreements literally introduced new money into the economy. Credit-based transactions would generate legal agreements of a qualitatively different sort: contracts that referred to money not yet in hand. Although the merchant would promptly receive the promised sum, and the customer would eventually repay the assumed debt, these two processes were now fundamentally decoupled from one another. Credit documents initiated near-immediate payment by the credit issuer to the merchant and a purposefully deferral of re-payment by the customer to the credit issuer. A credit transaction generates entirely new value at the same time that it extends the economy along a future horizon of deferred payment. But credit transactions are also a return to a mode of exchange based on promissory notes. Although the money to which these notes refer are no longer pegged to any material artifact of value (e.g., gold), the credit receipt represents a contractual agreement much like that of early currency. This is evident at the material level: the raised letters of a credit card operate on the same principle as the currency printing plate. The imprinter is a modular printing plate of promissory notes.<br />
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The history of money is the history of overcoming fraud.<br />
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==Credit Coins, Credit Cards, and Credit Plates==<br />
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[[Image:Farrington_Stamping_Device.png|thumb|right|Patent illustration for Farrington Stamping Device, March 10, 1931]]<br />
[[Image:Bullocks.png|thumb|left|The Bullocks department store of Los Angeles introduces and explains the Charga-Plate (''Los Angeles Times'', June 24, 1936)]]<br />
Before the rise of credit card companies, local stores simply extended credit to their regular customers, as remains customary practice in bars, for instance. Credit was a two-party arrangement rather than a three-party arrangement involving a business that issues credit without also selling goods. Such an issuance of credit operated on the strict principle of local knowledge. One could manage risk and safely extend credit in this context because most financial transactions occurred within a relatively closed social network. Routine interactions would allow merchants to make historically-informed decisions about someone's credit worthiness. But, as Ingrid Jeacle and Eamonn J. Walsh note: &quot;The nature of this local knowledge was such that it was embodied in individuals rather than institutions. For this reason, larger retailers were unable to participate in the credit nexus and avoided the problem by limiting the credit facilities offered to customers&quot; (739). Anonymous customers presented a huge challenge to the functioning of credit systems in early department stores. Cash was the preferred and often only acceptable means of payment. To overcome the problem of consumer credit, which had not yet been addressed by the established banking institutions, merchants began to establish in-store banking departments. Customers were encouraged to open and maintain accounts on the premises, upon which they could draw by way of credit slips at the checkout counter. <br />
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[[Image:Akron_Charga_Plate.png|thumb|right|Akron Charga-Plate]]<br />
This was soon replaced by the charge coin and then again by the charge card. According to Jeacle and Walsh, “The charge coin was a small and easily portable numbered metal coin that the customer presented when making a credit purchase. The number of the coin was also used as the customer’s account number in the store’s debtors ledger. These coins […] enabled the efficient management of a far greater number of customers and helped reduce the possibility of individuals fraudulently charging goods to a customer’s account” (748). The coin functioned as both an accounting and authentication device. The only information on the credit coin was the name of the store and a number representing the customer. The customer’s name and address still had to be written out by hand and was prone to human error. This often lead to discrepancies between the information maintained in the customer’s credit file and the information provided at the point of service. The Farrington Manufacturing Company of Massachusetts developed the Charga-Plate to solve precisely this problem. A small metal plate was embossed with the customer’s name, address, and account number. A customer would present this plate at the point of purchase; the merchant would then fix the plate into a manual hand-held press that would then imprint the customer’s information onto a sales bill. The original press required downward pressure, unlike the roller platen press that would later become more common.<br />
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The Charga-Plate was wildly successful. The first store to implement the system in 1928 issued 93,000 plates within the first month. This success had much to do with its standardizing effect at both the front (sales counter) and back (accounting) end.<br />
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===Charga-Matic and Optical Character Recognition===<br />
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Machine and human readable typeface—OCR<br />
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==The Universal Credit Card==<br />
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[[Image:Diners_Club.png|thumb|Diner's Club Advertisement (''The New York Times'', April 5, 1953)]]<br />
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The rise of the universal credit card marked the beginning of a consolidation of economic exchange and governmentality into a single piece of material. Efforts to make this consolidation as efficient as possible characterize the history of the credit card. The drive for efficiency has now become almost completely technological, a matter of developing technology that can collapse the time between a sale and the verification of the card. This is a temporal as well as a physical compression of spending and accounting of spenders into one efficient medium for making information accessible as quickly as possible.<br />
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Along with these efforts at compression or consolidation is an expanded range of movement for card holders, who can now use their cards anywhere. The universal card standardizes techniques of accounting and ties identification to a code, a series of numbers, instead of a physical body or a known personality. The power of local boundaries to bound people was undermined by credit cards. This can be understood as a kind of freedom, but it came at a cost. The recording of a person's economic activity followed the person across geographical boundaries and from store to store, taking as its access point the card itself. This was possible in part because of increased efficiency in information's coding, transmission to a central node, and decoding.<br />
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'''The Birth of the Universal Card'''<br />
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The history of the rise of the universal credit card sheds light on the beginning of this process of compressing the moment of economic exchange with the moments of identification and validation, while also encouraging consumers to expand the geographical range of their spending. Before the dominant problematic became one of technology, there were other problematics including the struggle over control of credit between new credit card companies and old industries such as gas companies, restaurants, and department stores.<br />
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In order for credit cards to be accepted by both consumers and merchants, they had to offer a clear benefit to both. They offered to make the process of buying easier, which would appeal to merchants and consumers. However, they were taking a percentage out of every credit card purchase from the merchant, and also undermining customer loyalty. In order to be worthwhile for merchants, the credit card company needed to take over the governmental functions previously performed by credit-issuing merchants, such as verifying accounts, tracking down debtors and demanding payment, and calculating a consumer's spending history, and by taking on the burden of controlling debtors, the credit card company also had to guarantee that the merchant would be paid regardless of the credit-standing of the consumer. Despite this function, many merchants resisted anyway, which suggests that the governmental function associated with issuing credit is an economic privilege, despite its risks.<br />
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The universal card was still relatively new in 1960, when Donald H. Maffly and Alex McDonald published an article in the California Law Review entitled, &quot;The Tripartite Credit Card Transaction: A Legal Infant.&quot; This article analyzes the switch from credit as a two-party arrangement between merchant and consumer, to a three-party arrangement including the credit card company. Maffly and McDonald focus on the resistance of stores and industries to the invasion of credit card companies.<br />
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Maffly and McDonald view the gas station &quot;courtesy card&quot; as a predecessor to the universal credit card. In the 1920s large gas companies started issuing courtesy cards that you could use to charge gas at any of the company's retail outlets. Independent dealers started accepting cards from larger companies as a way to share customers. According to Maffly and McDonald, oil companies were beginning to make deals with companies in different regions to accept each other's cards as early as the 1920s. This can be seen as a predecessor to the universal card because one could use it at a variety of different companies across a geographical span. However, all of the participating companies were in the same industry, so the card could only be used for gas and not for other commodities. In contrast, the universal credit card crosses industrial boundaries (Maffly and McDonald 1960, 460-61).<br />
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The first credit-issuing agency that did not also sell goods was the Diners Club of New York, started in 1950. Unlike the courtesy cards shared by different gas companies in the oil industry, the Diners Club was not merely a collection of participating restaurants: it was a separate credit agency. As Maffly and McDonald put it, the Diners Club &quot;makes it possible for card-holding members to purchase goods and services at an increasing number and variety of retail outlets without having to enter into a direct credit relationship with any of them&quot; (Maffly and McDonald 1960, 461). This is the function that credit card companies have served ever since. They set up a credit relationship with both the consumer and the merchant, so that the store does not have to worry about the shopper's credit; the credit card agency will pay the store no matter what.<br />
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The Diners Club card, also known as a T&amp;E (Travel &amp; Entertainment) card was successful enough to expand to other cities and industries, specifically hotels and retail stores. History has shown that it is nearly impossible for a credit card to succeed if it is only for local use. The Diners Club may have thrived in New York because of the density of the restaurant industry and the population. Its quick expansion to other cities allowed it to survive. Other companies, inspired by the success of the Diners Club, soon found that charge cards usually fail. As department stores were spreading to the suburbs, locals banks attempted to promote charge cards for use at independent stores that could not afford to accept the larger credit cards. But the failure of these local attempts demonstrates the financial power it took to make a charge card succeed: a large number of consumers and a large number of merchants had to sign up for the card at the same time for it to be worthwhile for either. (Evans, 62)<br />
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The Diner's Club had no serious competition until 1958, when American Express Company initiated a world-wide credit card system. This was followed by Hilton credit corporation six months later. These three credit card companies competed fiercely to get as many cards as possible into circulation while simultaneously signing up as many businesses as possible to accept the card. Bank of America, Carte Blanche, and Chase Manhattan Bank soon joined the competition, and the credit card industry was born (Maffly, 461, Evans, 63).<br />
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'''Industry Resistance and Hacking'''<br />
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Once the universal card became popular, it became difficult for businesses to refuse major credit cards without fear of losing customers. However, before this tipping point was reached, the restaurant, airline, retail clothing, and gas industries resisted the universal card. They preferred to maintain power over credit by limiting customers to their own company or industry cards, or finding other means of avoiding the credit card companies. <br />
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Maffly and McDonald discuss what they call a &quot;revolt by a specific portion of the restaurant industry&quot; against credit card companies from 1958-59. The restaurant industry objected to the size of the charge for each credit purchase, and the length of time they had to wait before being paid. The creativity of the restaurant industry's response is fascinating:<br />
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&quot;Various means have been devised by restaurant owners to avoid these disadvantages: e.g., withdrawing from credit card plans; using credit cards as a credit reference and billing customers directly; charging card holders a price higher than cash customers, equal to the amount of the fee charged by the issuer; and organizing their own cooperative credit card plans with a central billing system&quot; (maffly, 462).<br />
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Their method of using credit cards as a credit reference and billing customers directly can be seen as a hacking of the medium. Their boycott impelled the Hilton card company to &quot;buy&quot; the restaurant industry's acceptance by offering to lower the charge and expediting payment.<br />
The oil company response was to consider issuing their own card: &quot;The oil companies that oppose the use of all-purpose credit cards argue that they do not increase the total demand for gasoline products, and that they cut into profits and destroy brand loyalty&quot; (Maffly, 461). They were not sold by the universal credit card's promise to increase demand, perhaps because gas was a necessity, not a luxury, for all car owners.<br />
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Similar to the gas companies, &quot;As a group, the major scheduled airlines have strenuously resisted the attempt of all-purpose card companies to subvert the airlines' own credit card system&quot; (maffly, 462).<br />
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The largest department stores in the retail business held out the longest. Most larger retailers refused to accept bank credit cards until the 1970s. The Visa-J.C. Penny accord of 1979 was the first time bank credit cards were accepted by one of the Big Three department stores-- by that point Sears and Montgomery Ward were still resisting. According to David Evans and Richard Schmalensee's book, Paying With Plastic, &quot;Retailers' lack of cooperation was enough to force some plans out of business.&quot; (Evans and Schmalensee, 81).<br />
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This resistance suggests that the benefits of credit cards were not immediately apparent to big businesses. Maffly writes, &quot;The cases of the oil industry, the airlines, and the restaurant owners suggest that the credit card companies are able to overcome a particular industry's opposition to the costs by negotiating with members of the industry on an individual basis. Once the card companies have obtained a foothold, competitive pressures force many former dissidents to join.&quot; (Maffly, 462) Very quickly, there was no choice but to give the credit card companies complete power over credit. <br />
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'''Everyday Consumers'''<br />
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Maffly writes about the credit card companies attempts to expand their consumer base from businessmen to the &quot;average&quot; family (Maffly, 462). Much like its experience with industries, credit card companies found that the card did not sell itself. Their method for enlisting consumers was to find some way to get the card to the consumer, at which point they assumed the consumer would start using it. Eventually, credit cards became a means of access to things that would be impossible without them, for example, ordering things online; at this point it is just a matter of which credit card to get, and not whether or not to have one. <br />
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In an early attempt to sign people up for its credit cards, Bank of America joined together with San Joaquin Valley county medical organizations to devise a health insurance plan: &quot;Payments on premiums are made monthly, the bank being responsible for billings and collections. Persons cannot enter the health insurance plan without holding a credit card issued by the bank. Since billings are made by mail, it would seem the credit card serves no function in the operation of the health plan. Most likely, the issuance of cards was intended by the bank to encourage members of the health plan to utilize the cards for retail purchases at stores which are members of the bank's credit card plan&quot; (maffly, 462). This is an example of a governmental action built into an economic exchange. By telling people they cannot have access to one service (health insurance) unless they purchase another (the credit card), a subtle control is put on the buyer's freedom.<br />
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The ad slogan of the initial BankAmericard was, &quot;Think of it as Money&quot; ((From Hoover's Company Records - In-depth Records;, VISA INC. Copyright 2008 Hoover's Inc., All Rights Reserved. P.4)<br />
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==Slips of Paper==<br />
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[[image:Dunfee.jpg|thumb|left|Dunfee's 1918 &quot;Combined Check and Order Blank&quot; - One sheet of paper performs two transactions. (US Patent No. 1,284,264)]]<br />
In a November 12, 1918 patent Hod C. Dunfee introduced a blank slip that could function as both a check and an order form when backed by a given merchant. Although the form was initially intended to bypass the need for two separate documents, and to encourage loyalty on the part of a consumer issued the slips, the patent introduced the distinct possibility that a series of transactions could be simplified with the proper document. As Dunfee described: &quot;A further object of my invention is to provide a combination check and order blank by the use of which in commercial transactions the manufacturer and customer (retailer or consumer) are brought into closer business relations, and whereby the usual middleman and salesman are eliminated thus effecting a great saving to the ultimate consumer.&quot; (Patent No. 1,282,264, lines 25-33). The patent drew upon a fundamental prerequisite for the functionality of financial and legal documents, mainly that they can serve their desired function as long as they are honored by the parties they impact. By simplifying the need for two separate transactions - that of ordering merchandise, and that of paying for it - Dunfee's patent allowed for a single surface to function as an assemblage of transactions. Within the year, the capacity for single pieces of printed matter to serve multiple functions were exploited further by Leander W. Wood's April 8, 1919 patent for a &quot;Combination Acceptance, Order, and Plural Check Blank with Index-keys&quot; which provided &quot;a blank and index key whcih may be used to record an order for goods, the agreed price and the discount terms, and an agreement to pay, with an indication of the bank of the payer, and to provide as a part of such a blank a stub record.&quot; (US Patent No. 1,299,647, lines 28-33).<br />
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==Technical Problems/Solutions of the Credit Card Imprinter==<br />
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[[Image:Farrington.png|thumb|left|Industry advertisement for Charga-Plate and Charga-Matic services (''Wall Street Journal'', January 28, 1954)]]<br />
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The credit card imprinter was designed to increase the efficiency of copying a credit card in a way that would not wear down the card's numbers. Its predecessor was a large stamping machine that could be pressed onto the card with a lever. When credit cards were pressed too many times, their numbers became less readable on the receipts, which are decoded by a machine. <br />
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The imprinter also seeks to make the process of printing quick and easy, without sacrificing information. The resulting receipt gives the credit card company all of the information it needs to make a payment to the store, and more importantly to charge the correct customer.<br />
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==The Role of the Copy==<br />
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The credit card imprinting apparatus speaks to questions about the role of the copy in capitalism, especially after the rise of credit and the detachment of money from the gold standard in 1973. While a copy is usually thought to occur after the fact, as a record of an event, the credit card imprinter exemplifies why this idea of copy as record is not adequate. In the use of the credit card imprinter, the act of making a copy is not merely an act of recording a transaction that has already happened; rather, it constitutes the transaction. The print itself (the one that is sent by the business to the credit card company) represents a monetary value, while the credit card is an identificatory plate used to make this print, and to tie it to a particular individual. It is the paper that functions as an official bill for money, while the card does not. In other words, the print that is made has the performative function of creating value.<br />
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Timothy Mitchell points out that it is necessary to question the distinction between the real world and its representations, arguing that &quot;It is an opposition that is made in social practice, and the forms of this opposition that we take for granted are both comparatively recent and relatively unstable&quot; (Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Technopolitics, Modernity, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002, p.6). Mitchell argues that nineteenth century colonial practices took part in making modern representational thinking, suggesting that, &quot;since the mechanisms that set up the separations precede, as we will see, the separation itself, the foundation is not as stable as it seems&quot; (Mitchell, 6). This argument takes part in a discussion about the technical processes of economy that influence representational thought. Central to the technical processes surrounding the credit card are issues of copying, identity, centralization of control, delocalization of spending, and a calculus of data management that is immanent to capital and catalyzes its growth.<br />
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==Discretion and Transparency==<br />
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Portability of Device - Performance of transaction in front of customer<br />
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==Combating Fraud==<br />
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One of the major problems in the history of credit cards is the problem of verification. At the point of a credit card transaction, the user of the card needs to be identified as the owner of the card, and the card needs to be identified with a valid account that has not been canceled. If these two verifications can happen at the point of sale, then fraudulent use of cards can be prevented. Therefore, the problem of fraud is usually a problem of speed.<br />
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Fraud was a major problem in the early years of credit cards, in part because unsolicited cards were sent out in mass mailings as a marketing device. Despite its dangers, this technique seemed the only way to address the problem that companies faced when they introduced a credit card plan: to simultaneously sign up consumers and merchants. The card would only appeal to consumers if a variety of merchants accepted it, and it would only appeal to merchants if many consumers had it. This period of time in credit card history is characterized by a degree and quality of chaos foreign to us now:<br />
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&quot;Merchants mailed in slips for nonexistent purchases. Cards were stolen from hones and mailboxes, as well as directly from the manufacturers.... A healthy black market in stolen cards developed, and soon there were indications that organized crime was involved. Even as the banks developed methods to combat existing fraud, criminals developed new scams, such as altering cards with an iron, or shaving off and rearranging the embossed letters and numbers&quot; (Evans, 79).<br />
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Different security systems were developed over time in order to combat these problems. The historical development of the card and its processing needed to account for the two different moments of verification, the card user's ownership of the card, and the card's relationship to a valid account. The possibility of verifying these two identities is explained in the 1972 patent for a computerized credit card verification system. The writer of the patent points out problems of verification fraud that a centralized computer system could address:<br />
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&quot;A very substantial amount of purchases made in this country are by credit card. However, as credit cards have gained popularity, there has been an increasing amount of monetary losses due to either unauthorized charges made on lost credit cards or charges made by persons whose credit card has been cancelled or revoked but not picked up. Losses also result from instances in which the credit of a customer is limited to an amount commensurate with his ability to pay, but the establishment accepting the credit card permits excessive charges due to lack of knowledge of recent charges or lack of knowledge of the limit imposed on a particular credit card holder.&quot; (U.S. Patent 3,671,717. June 20, 1972. Credit Card Verification System.)<br />
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The problem this patent seeks to address is the lag time between the point of sale and the verification of a card. Before the process of credit card payment became electronic, a credit card could not be verified until long after the sale. Store owners could refer to a long list of bad credit card numbers at the point of sale, but this was not efficient. In this patent Albert H. Bieser proposes a &quot;card sensing device&quot; that electronically reads the embossed characters on the card and sends the information over a telephone line to a central computer. The device's &quot;feelers&quot; are able to read Farrington 7B type font. According to Bieser, &quot;Such fonts are most often used on credit cards.&quot; Credit card fonts were not yet standardized across the credit industry, but this font was apparently popular, perhaps because it was designed to be difficult to forge. The central computer is able to &quot;check the number of card against a list of good or bad numbers.&quot; &quot;If information on the amount of the sale is transmitted to the computer, the computer may also determine if the amount being charged is within the limits of the particular card holder. Billing information and card number can also be applied to a different computer, if desired for purposes of providing billing formation and automatically producing statements when desired.&quot;<br />
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Bieser repeatedly emphasizes that this does not have to be expensive, suggesting ways to cut telephone costs. This emphasis suggests that the technical capacity to electronically read cards and network credit card terminals to a central computer was already developed, and that the main issue was cost. <br />
<br />
This innovation solves the problem of a temporal lag between a credit card purchase and the verification of the card. It thus prevents people from &quot;hacking&quot; the credit card.<br />
<br />
<br />
Spacing between characters embossed on credit cards. Spacing within characters to make it possible to emboss. But also tight enough that you can't switch numbers. Can't turn 3 into 8. 2 and 5 don't look alike. Security font. Designed to be impossible to tamper with.<br />
<br />
Carbon paper wasn't accepted in court bc of forgery from late 1800s to end of 19th century (From &quot;Exciting History of Carbon Paper&quot;)<br />
<br />
==The Signature==<br />
<br />
From the outset, the signature assumes a strange and dual role in the credit card transaction. As Roy Harris notes, the location of the signature, in general, is key to understanding its semiological and legal significance: “The position of the signature marks the conclusion of the document (the assumption being that the signatory has written it, or at least read it, before signing” (173). The signature indicates a unique form of agreement. The individual, in so signing, acknowledges the substance and consequence of the document. But the signature is also a key mechanism in authenticating the parties to the transaction. The signature not only legally confirms the customer’s willingness to engage in such a contractual agreement, but likewise ties the signed agreement to the customer. Which is why a printed name is insufficient. As Harris again argues, “a name is not a signature. Names of all kinds can be appended to or included in a document without being eo ipso signatures” (164). The signature must be unique and perfectly replicatable. Although the signature is the purposefully non-mechanical, it must nonetheless remain consistent. According to Beatrice Fraenkel, “[t]he use of seals allows the production of impressions similar in every detail to their common matrix. In order to forge a seal, a false matrix must be made, The signatory is deemed to produce a signature as if he himself were a matrix capable of replicating a form” (Qtd. In Harris, 183). The signatory must him or herself act as a ‘graphic replicating device.’ The signature is a purposefully accurate reproduction of the same mark. The ability to compare a pre-existing signature on a credit card to the mark produced at the site of exchange makes the credit card “available for repeated acts of probative ratification” (Jane Caplan, 2001, 51). The signature allows the merchant to determine whether the card belongs to the customer.<br />
<br />
==Authenticating Transactions to Authentication as Transaction==<br />
<br />
Lagtime between invention of magnetic strip and universal use of it. Magnetic strip is about immediate verification. Can't be used until the business has a modem. Credit card co. needs to provide incentive for merchant to have immediate verification to deter fraud. Law that says if you accept fraudulent card it's your fault?<br />
<br />
==Exploitation of the Imprinting System==<br />
<br />
By 1982, exploitation of one of the weakest attributes of the system created by the imprinter was on the rise, and the need arose for new forms of verification that were less vulnerable to abuse at the point of sale. Although merchants were legally bound to inspect cards in order to ensure that they were not counterfeit, the imprinting system left absolutely no trace of whether such protocol had indeed been followed at the site of transaction. The imprinter was incapable of recognizing the difference between a card with valid authenticating apparatuses on its surface (such as the signature plate or identification of the issuing party), and a fake that simply possessed the proper embossed and raised characters to be imprinted. This weakness of the imprinting procedure created a climate wherein the collusion of merchants with fraudulent activity could go unmonitored, resulting in escalating losses for card issuers as the exploit became more widely practiced (“Bandits Wielding Plastic,” New York Times; May 22, 1983; p. F12).<br />
<br />
Although verification procedures less vulnerable to such misuse had existed for decades, they all required a more sophisticated apparatus for reading and inscription, and had earlier been seen as an obstacle to the spread of credit networks. Yet as it became profitable for corrupt merchants to join credit networks in order to exploit them, the adoption of sophisticated verification technologies became more feasible. Mastercard began featuring holographic emblems on its cards that were difficult to forge, yet like the signature plate, were entirely dependent upon merchant adoption of verification protocols that left no traces of having occurred. Visa introduced the “Electron” card, which featured magnetic strip technology that could be “read” by terminals and automatic tellers at the sight of transaction – though the earliest forms of this system did not necessarily rely upon modems and networked access to card databases, and simply ensured that all credit card information was read from the strip, eliminating the loophole of human error that had come to be exploited. Smart Card International licensed a memory chip technology that could store card balance information and be adjusted accordingly at each transaction to ensure limits were not exceeded.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Luhn's computer.jpg|thumb|left| Luhn's &quot;Computer for Verifying Numbers&quot;]] Even though these efforts did help combat forgery, they did so primarily by eliminating room for intentional human error, and for the most part, simply remediated the imprinting system in a less legible format that required special machinery to decipher. The use of special machinery in the verification process was by no means a new phenomenon, and although the use of such equipment at the site of transaction was impossible to guarantee in earlier attempts, such processes had been built into the credit identification structure in the early 60’s. Hans P. Luhn developed a mathematical algorithm in the previous decade which utilized checksums to issue numbers according to distinct formulae. His invention of a verification computer (US Patent no. 2,950,058, issued August 23, 1960) allowed for any given number to be tested for compliance with the checksum algorithm. This helped curtail the use of arbitrary numbers in forgery, yet was only useful in as much as a forger could not obtain the algorithm.<br />
<br />
As the decade came to a close and the distribution of shareware through Bulletin Board Systems found its way onto the internet, programs utilizing such checksums to validate serial numbers proliferated, and widespread distribution of generator programs which could provide numbers in accordance with Luhn’s algorithm became a serious threat to card issuers. Like “blue boxes” in the 1960’s, programs like “Credit Master” democratized the ability to exploit financial infrastructure, or as they explained on their instruction page: “Anytime you want to check a card, reconstruct one,&quot; or &quot;make new ones out of the blue or even make new cards out of an old one, the program will do the work . . . It's almost too good to be real. But alas, it is real.” (“On Line and Inside Credit Card Security,” New York Times, March 19, 1995). There countless examples of such counterfeit software, but one of its more peculiar manifestations came in the form of a moded client for America Online in 1994 called AOHell. The program, written by a hacker known as “Da Chronic” gave users functionality well beyond that of administrator access to the popular online service, and was envisioned as a means of disrupting the service which engaged in selective censorship and account terminations. Yet beyond the mail bomb and phishing tools embedded in the program was a fake account generator which would generate fake credit card numbers that would enable service until AOL billed the account and discovered the number to be fake. Such a state of affairs is especially significant in considering the decline of the imprinting system, because it was wholly parasitic upon the delay between a given transaction and the card issuer’s notification that the transaction had taken place. AOHell presents a particularly strange instance where an internet provider was not accessing databases online at the moment of transaction to ensure that card numbers were, in fact, valid: whereas other merchants had avoided such forms of verification in the past due to associated expenses, the internet provider inherently possessed such resources and failed to make use of them.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Legacies of the Imprinting System==<br />
Although credit card companies might have just as easily developed new algorithms in an attempt to stay a step ahead of new innovations in the practice of forgery, such attempts would have merely treated symptoms rather than the problem introduced decades earlier – namely the need to perform verification at a distance from the ultimate site of authentication. Interestingly, as imprinters became scarce, the absence of one item that had been documented on imprinted slips for at least the past decade, the expiration date, reasserted itself as an independent authenticator unique to each account. With no predetermined correlation between the two variables, fraud could only be accomplished through specific matches that would have to be obtained through means other than a checksum. In order to verify these non-correlating variables, documentation at the site of transaction gave way to direct electronic verification of card number, expiration date, confirmation that spending limit had not been succeeded, and eventually, in the following decade, the CCV security code. The removal of the delay between transaction and authentication ultimately reconfigured spending through the credit networks, transforming from a mode of inscription which was consistutive of the purchase as well as contractual agreement to another mode of transaction that is now purely a form of instantaneous authentication.<br />
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==Sites of interest==<br />
<br />
[http://www.financialhistory.org/ The Museum of American Finance]<br />
<br />
[http://www.museumofmoney.org/ The Museum of Money &amp; Financial Institutions]<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Phonograph_Doll&diff=12569
Phonograph Doll
2010-11-24T05:37:17Z
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[[Image:Bare_Phonograph_Doll.jpg|thumb|right|Edison's Phonograph Doll, with a phonograph to its left and a cylindrical record to its right (Formanek-Brunell 46).]]<br />
<br />
The '''phonograph doll''' was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in the late nineteenth century, following his invention of the phonograph. The doll, normally around twenty-two inches in length, was &quot;bisque-headed...with jointed arms and legs, but her body was made of thin strong steel capable of carrying the mechanism&quot; (Hillier, ''Dolls'' 191). This mechanism, of course, was a miniature phonograph that functioned by being continuously wound from the doll's back. This phonograph normally played nursery rhymes, providing an unconvincing illusion of a &quot;talking doll.&quot;<br />
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==The &quot;Talking Head&quot; Realized: Beginnings and Patents==<br />
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[[Image:Patent_Diagram.jpg|thumb|left|Diagram of the phonograph doll from Edison's patent.]]<br />
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The phonograph doll evolved alongside Edison’s invention of and continuous improvements upon the phonograph. Although he did not patent the idea until several years later, the “earliest mention of incorporating an Edison phonograph into a doll or other toy is November 23, 1877,” on a laboratory note sheet upon which Edison wrote, “I propose to apply the phonograph principle to make dolls speak, sing, cry, and make various sounds” (Welch 47). Initially, Edison’s plan was to “build up a doll around a phonograph but it was obviously more practical to use factory made doll parts and place a miniature phonograph within” (Hillier, ''Automata'' 93). Thus in his 1891 patent for improving phonograph dolls, Edison claims that his “invention relates mainly to reproducing phonographs designed to be enclosed in dolls or other toys bearing a short sound-record intended to be reproduced as often as required” (Edison 1). The idea here, therefore, was using Edison’s innovation of the phonograph, making it miniature, placing it within a tin casing that served as the doll’s chest, and attaching pre-made doll parts to this central mechanism. These doll appendages were imported from around the country, while the bisque heads were usually imported from Germany. The most important part of the doll, however (the phonograph), was manufactured in Edison's labs in New Jersey. Once on the shelves, these dolls sold for $10.00 each.<br />
<br />
The image to the left is a diagram taken from Edison's patent for phonograph dolls. Analyzing this image (and the image of a phonograph doll to the upper-right), one can note the odd wax cylinder/disc hybrid that was invented solely for the miniature phonograph within the doll. Clearly, this is an analog piece of media. It's as if Edison took the top of a wax cylinder and cut off a small piece, so it looks like a hollow disc with grooves all around the circumference instead of on either side. This was probably done solely for spatial purposes and to hold the small nursery rhymes, chatter, and songs that were emitted from these dolls. Regardless, it's still interesting to see this mix of new and old media for a miniature phonograph, a type of mix that we have not seen since.<br />
<br />
==How the Doll Functioned==<br />
<br />
An extremely detailed description of how the doll functioned was provided in an 1890 article from ''Scientific American'':<br />
<br />
[[Image:Doll_Factory.jpg|thumb|right|Phonograph Dolls being manufactured at the Edison plant (Formanek-Brunell 55).]]<br />
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&quot;...its body is made of tin, and the interior thereof is filled with mechanism very much like that of the commercial phonograph, but of course much more simple and inexpensive. The cylinder of the phonograph...carries a ring of wax-like material, upon which is recorded the speech or song to be repeated by the doll. Upon the same shaft with the record cylinder there is a large pulley which carries a belt for driving the flywheel shaft at the lower part of the phonographic apparatus. The key is fitted to the main shaft, by which the phonographic cylinder is rotated, and the flywheel tends to maintain a uniform speed. Above the record cylinder is arranged a diaphragm, such as is used in the regular phonograph, carrying a reproducing stylus, which is mounted on the lower lever in the same manner as the regular phonograph. The funnel at the top of the phonographic apparatus opens underneath the breast of the doll, which is perforated to permit the sound to escape. By the simple operation of turning the crank any child can make the doll say, 'Mary had a little lamb,' 'Jack and Jill,' or whatever it was, so to speak, taught to say in the phonograph factory&quot; (''Scientific American'').<br />
<br />
This article was written right around the time that these dolls were first invented and placed on the market. Nothing like them had been seen before, so one should note the language of this excerpt, especially the last sentence. Even though the doll was an inanimate object, and the sound quality of the doll's songs and stories was extremely poor, people did not yet know what kind of technological jargon to use when referring to the doll's ability to &quot;produce&quot; sound. The article does not say that the doll does not actually &quot;say&quot; anything, but just serves as an encasement for a phonograph that reproduces sound, but instead that the doll was &quot;taught to speak&quot; in the factory.<br />
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==Limitations==<br />
<br />
[[Image:SciAmerican_Page.jpg|thumb|left|Advertisement for the Edison Phonograph Doll showing how records were made (Hillier, ''Dolls'' 191).]]<br />
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===Pops, Hisses, and &quot;Voices of...Little Monsters&quot;===<br />
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Considering that this critical technique was borne of phonograph recordings’ “pops and hisses,” it is no wonder that the miniature phonographs within these dolls followed suit: these recordings were tainted with actual pops and hisses emblematic of those caused by the original phonograph. But the pops and hisses were not the only audio problem present in phonograph dolls. Various other imperfections caused mounds of angry letters to reach Edison’s toy company, complaining of “‘loose works,’ dolls that would not talk, and those whose voices were too faint to be heard” (Formanek-Brunell 58). These problems were caused by a defect within the phonograph mechanism: “The diaphragm/stylus assembly simply would not stay in the fine groove of the wax record. Consequently most of the dolls failed to work properly, steadfastly refusing to talk for their owners” (Millard). But even when dolls’ voices were present and could be heard, they were not at all pleasant.<br />
<br />
'''Sound Sample:''' Brief description and audio of a phonograph doll: http://exhibit.chautauqua-inst.org/doll.ram (Source: Chautauqua Institution at the Smithsonian)<br />
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It is no wonder, then, that one “disgruntled customer complained, ‘The voices of the little monsters are exceedingly unpleasant to hear’” (Formanek-Brunell 58), and that “[o]ne dealer reported that 188 dolls were returned out of 200 sold” (Miller). With such low customer satisfaction and such a high return rate, it is no wonder that the doll failed in the marketplace.<br />
<br />
===Faulty and Fragile Form===<br />
<br />
Many of the inner workings of the doll failed to function correctly because the entire doll was fragile, unsafe, and cumbersome. Edison was a man of machines and gadgets, not toys, so he clearly did not realize the doll’s impracticalities when placed in the hands of children. He’d thought only about amusement over safety and comfort. The bisque head was fragile (since it is made of unglazed porcelain), the four-pound body was too heavy, and the metal chest encasement was too dangerous. Therefore, “a heavy doll that slipped out of cradling arms was far more likely to injure the child than suffer any harm itself” (Formanek-Brunell 58). However, it is also clear that if the doll’s outer parts could easily break, the inner phonograph could be knocked out of place as well. Perhaps this fragile form is what made faulty phonographs within the doll so common.<br />
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Even if safety and comfort are pushed to the wayside, one can also deduce that the doll's functionality as an amusement was not very high. The inner phonograph only worked if a rotating handle at the doll's rear was ''constantly'' wound. No child wants to play with a heavy doll that requires continuous physical effort in order to produce an off-putting sound. Most likely, all of these limitations could explain why the doll's production was eventually halted.<br />
<br />
==The Doll is a Machine, Not a Toy==<br />
<br />
[[Image:Jumeau_Doll.jpg|thumb|right|The Jumeau Phonograph Doll from France in 1895 did not have a tin chest like Edison's original, but its main function as a machine was no less hidden (Hillier, ''Dolls'' 191).]]<br />
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The phonograph doll was created at the peak of industry and innovation at the end of the nineteenth century. So how did inventors respond to the always-present demand for new toys? By turning them into machines, of course, making their appearance mimic that of the factories in which they were made. The phonograph doll represents not only repeatable, weak, one-way communication through a “miniature” medium, but also its larger time period; this aspect is &quot;the obvious.&quot; The phonograph within the doll makes this the most obvious, since there was literally a new communicative technology within a child’s toy right after this medium was invented. But “the obvious” is less obvious when one looks at the appearance of the doll. The head, arms, and legs look no different from any other doll, no doubt because these parts were imported from around the country and Europe. What one must take note of is the doll’s tin chest, or the encasement for the miniature phonograph, and the handle that protrudes from behind the doll. The fact that the doll is a machine was not hidden, and the illusion of a “talking doll” seemed to be intentionally hindered. It’s as if Edison wished for consumers to understand that the doll was more an intricate mechanism than it was a toy, though its aim was to entertain. Whereas now, you would never see the inner workings of an audible toy or doll on its outside, back then, it seems as if this was a mark of innovation and modernization.<br />
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==Unknown Girls Recording the Words, Encoding the Message==<br />
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The cylindrical records within these dolls featured the voices of little girls who worked in factories, and whose voices were recorded as the final step of phonograph doll manufacturing. As described in an 1890 article from ''Scientific American'', the wax-like records &quot;are placed upon an instrument very much like an ordinary phonograph, and in the mouth of which a girl speaks the words to be repeated by the doll. A large number of these girls are continually doing this work. Each one has a stall to herself, and the jangle produced by a number of girls simultaneously repeating [nursery rhymes]...is beyond description. These sounds united with the sounds of the phonographs themselves when reproducing the stories make a veritable pandemonium&quot; (''Scientific American''). Mary Hillier provides an interesting first-hand description of these girls' work: &quot;Each one sits before a large apparatus, singing, reading, crying, reciting, talking with all the appearance of a lunatic! She dictates to a cylinder of wax the lesson that the little doll must obediently repeat to the day of her death with guaranteed fidelity&quot; (Hillier, ''Automata'' 94). Hillier aptly asserts that the &quot;unknown girls who recorded the words in [Edison's] factory achieved a curious immortality&quot; (Hillier, ''Automata'' 93). In this way, not only do we see this recurring idea of immortality through the phonograph embodied in these little dolls, but we also see a strict layout of who can &quot;write&quot; the message, even though the &quot;messages&quot; were nursery rhymes and stories well-known in English and American culture. In addition, one can see that each phonograph doll had unique recordings, since these girls needed to repeat the stories over and over again for each individual cylindrical record.<br />
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==The Doll is the &quot;Click&quot;==<br />
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Edison did not have to enclose his newly created phonograph in a doll in order for it to be a toy. He could just as easily have created a mini-phonograph to sell from the start as a toy for children. However, the doll had been seen as the standard &quot;toy&quot; for children for centuries, so the only way that a new media technology could be marketed as a toy was to encase it in the most standard toy possible: the doll. In a way, then, the doll exterior itself is the &quot;click&quot; of this medium: it is unnecessary at the material level (since nothing about the doll produces sound or makes the phonograph function), but nevertheless necessary at a semiotic level - the phonograph doll is only a toy ''because'' it is a doll. Chances are, it would not have been seen as a toy had the doll not encased the phonograph.<br />
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==Remediations==<br />
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Even though Edison's phonograph doll and its immediate followers were failures, the idea of a &quot;talking doll&quot; has persisted over a century later, with various remediations popping up here and there (from &quot;Chatty Cathy&quot; in the 1960's to talking &quot;Dora the Explorer&quot; and &quot;Barbie&quot; dolls today). However, while these dolls &quot;talk&quot; and sometimes use mini-plastic-&quot;records,&quot; they are certainly not phonograph dolls. This clearly makes sense, since the phonograph was extremely faulty, especially when it came to the miniature cylindrical records used for phonograph dolls. But the form of these remediations, especially the earlier ones, mimic Edison's first invention: mechanism inside of the chest/stomch, with a string or button behind the doll to power whatever was &quot;making&quot; sound. Nowadays, these dolls are battery powered.<br />
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An example of a remediation of the phonograph doll can be seen in this video from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z1ZTXW4ZAA . This doll, according to the video's description, is from the 1980's and contains a &quot;mini record player&quot; inside that plays plastic records. One should note that this doll's structure is almost exactly the same as Edison's: audio apparatus in the stomach, sound emits from the chest. The sound quality is not nearly as creepy as the phonograph dolls from a century prior, but it's equally as irritating.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
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*Edison, Thomas A. &quot;Phonograph-Doll.&quot; United States Patent Office. Patent No. 456301. July 21, 1891.<br />
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*&quot;Edison's Phonographic Doll.&quot; ''Scientific American (1845-1908)''; Apr 26, 1890; Vol. LXII; APS Online pg. 263.<br />
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*Formanek-Brunell, Miriam. ''Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of American Girlhood, 1830-1930.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.<br />
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*Hillier, Mary. ''Automata &amp; Mechanical Toys: An Illustrated History.'' London: Jupiter Books, 1976.<br />
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*Hillier, Mary. ''Dolls and Doll-makers.'' London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968.<br />
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*Millard, Andre. ''Edison and the Business of Innovation.'' Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.<br />
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*Welch, Walter L. ''From Tinfoil to Stereo: The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry, 1877-1929.'' Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Newsreel&diff=12568
Newsreel
2010-11-24T05:37:11Z
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[[Image:Newsreel_Title_Shot_-_First_pictures_of_Norway.jpg|thumb|right|alt=War in Norway|[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Gt6hPuMaw&amp;feature=player_embedded To watch a newsreel, click here.]]]<br />
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The newsreel was a short collection of nonfiction stories compiled on a single reel of film produced primarily between 1911 and 1967. A number of countries produced their own domestic newsreels, however this article focuses on American-made productions. Usually included as part of a theatrical program including other shorts and a feature film, the newsreel covered an assortment of events and human interest stories that were directed at a national audience. In peacetime regarded as a form of light entertainment, during World War II, it gained national significance as the primary source of news images of combat. <br />
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Produced by motion picture studios, newsreels were not the sole source of news for American audiences; rather they presented a cinematic interpretation of the events of the day. Multiple factors, including reduced industry competition, censorship, and the increasing popularity of television news, contributed to the decline of the medium, and the last of the major newsreels ceased production in 1967. From the very beginning of its existence through its demise, the newsreel was caught between the impulse to entertain and the impulse to inform.<br />
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<br />
{|border=&quot;1&quot; cellpadding=&quot;5&quot; cellspacing=&quot;0&quot; align=&quot;right&quot;<br />
|+ '''Major Newsreels'''<br />
|-<br />
|''Universal Newsreel''<br />
|-<br />
|''The March of Time''<br />
|-<br />
|''Hearst Metrotone News''<br />
|-<br />
|''Fox Movietone''<br />
|-<br />
|''Paramount News''<br />
|-<br />
|''Pathé News''<br />
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|}<br />
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==Origins==<br />
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===Silent Era===<br />
[[Image:Firstnewsreelad.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Pathé ad|Ad for the first newsreel produced in the U.S. for ''Pathé's Weekly'', which was released on August 8, 1911. &quot;This announcement appeared in the July 29, 1911 issue of ''Moving Picture World''&quot; (Fielding, 72).]]<br />
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An early form of non-fiction cinema, actualities, recorded unscripted moments, while news films captured events of historical significance or staged reenactments. These early cinematic products of Edison, Muybridge, Lumière, and others created a cinema of attractions that overtly acknowledged the spectator and played to the camera as described by Tom Gunning, professor of cinematic history at University of Chicago. Both genres declined in the United States, along with the nickelodean theater, as the feature length narrative film gained traction. The newsreel remediated the topical journalistic diversity of newspaper and radio news, the camera techniques of the actuality, the narrative devices of the news film, and the abbreviated length of the nickelodeon picture. <br />
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&quot;The idea for the newsreel is credited to Leon Franconi, Charles Pathé's American-based confidential interpreter&quot; (Fielding 69). Charles Pathé released French and British newsreels in 1910, with an American edition of ''Pathé's Weekly'' premiering on August 8, 1911. The Vitagraph Company, with over a decade of experience producing news films, released its newsreel, ''The Vitagraph Monthly of Current Events'', ten days later on August 18, 1911. Over the next decade a number of companies entered the newsreel market, only to find that the expense of cameras and processing apparatus impeded on profits.<br />
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By 1925 two major Hollywood studios--Fox Film Corporation and Universal Studios, in association with Hearst Corporation--and two independent producers--Pathé and Educational Pictures, Inc.--were producing newsreels. Two other Hollywood studios entered the field in 1927, Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in association with Hearst, just as sound pictures were on the rise.<br />
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===The Introduction of Sound===<br />
<br />
Fox's ''Movietone News'' was the first to release an all-sound newsreel on October 28, 1927, after testing the technology with two sound news films, recording celebrations of Charles Lindbergh's record flights. The addition of the integrated audio design element changed the structure of the newsreel, because narration and music could now be used to provide transition between segments. Narrators spoke in voice-over and directly to the audience setting the tone of the story and influencing interpretation. &quot;Such was the initial popularity of the sound film newsreel that, with one notable exception, by 1931 every major producer had converted to sound. The exception was Kinograms&quot; (Fielding 185). That newsreels were sourced from Hollywood Studios and now had the ability to add artificial non-diegetic sound effects complicated the question of the authenticity of the picture and illustrated the slippage between news and fiction.<br />
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==Production and Technology==<br />
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===Film Technology===<br />
[[Image:Pathecam.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Pathé camera|A 16mm Pathé camera, the &quot;Pathé webo.&quot; Manufactured from 1946 until 1960. Literally a black box.]]<br />
<br />
To record images film cameras spool celluloid film 16 millimeters wide (almost 3/4 inch) between two smaller reels, mechanically drawing undeveloped film before an aperture. The camera mechanism allows direct mimetic light impressions through its lens, where these imprint and adhere to the receptive surface of the film. After the reel is in the can–-a tin container protecting it from further exposure–-the visual impressions are sealed onto the film surface through a chemical development process. The resulting document, a motion picture, consists of a serial sequence of discrete photographs, viewed by rapid projection at a rate of 24 frames per second. Historically, the human visual perception was systematized in relation to visual apparatuses extensively in the 19th century, as Jonathan Crary has discussed in ''Techniques of the Observer'', such that perception became understood as the visual apprehension of minute differences through time. Film’s motion is only apparent, produced artificially. The film is severed, spliced, and affixed into segments of precise lengths to create a composed sequence. <br />
<br />
Film exhibits a particular dynamic between what German media archaeologist Siegfried Zielinski calls dioptric and catoptric optics, a distinction descending from Euclid (85). Celluloid film is dioptric in that its substrate is transparent. It can be backlit by a bright light to refract a displaced image; in fact it must be backlit in order to be visible. Yet the image as cinema is also not visible without an opaque, typically bright surface to be projected on, such as a reflective screen; in this sense it is catoptric. <br />
<br />
===Collecting Footage===<br />
[[Image:Dope_sheet.jpeg|thumb|right|alt=Dope Sheet|A Fox Movietone News dope sheet, used by cameramen to take notes while filming. [http://sc.edu/library/digital/collections/movietone.html Click here to see more dope sheets.]]]<br />
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Employees of the newsreel organizations collected the majority of footage used in the newsreels. Some cameramen were sent out on specific assignments (ball games, visits from royalty, contests, etc.) and others had a specific beat to cover and would collect anything of interest they might encounter. While collecting the material, the cameraman would fill out a ''dope sheet'', listing the different shots recorded on that reel of film. The amount of commentary and contextual information provided in these dope sheets varied; however related newspaper clippings or other information were attached to assist the editors.<br />
<br />
Foreign governmental regulations and inhospitable subjects put restrictions on collecting footage. Americans were forbidden by Nazi Germany to film in their country, and the Nanking government of China was also restricted on newsreel cameramen out of concern for the unregulated future presentation of the recorded material. Domestic events also posed difficulties because “strikers and rioters often singled out newsreelmen for their wrath, since the footage photographed under such circumstances often ended up in the district attorney, who used it for prosecution and the securing of injunctions&quot; (Fielding 277). Production companies typically never placed restrictions on what could be filmed, but would encourage the filming of all “newsworthy” events. Editors shaped the footage to match company's point of view. It was not uncommon for the studios to pay amateurs for footage they may have collected, particularly to have exclusive access to the material. In one instance a cameraman paid $7,500 cash (almost $117,000 in today's dollars) to a local amateur who had caught about 1000 feet of film of a Japanese earthquake (Scott). <br />
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Starting in 1930 despite competing for audiences, American and foreign production companies found sharing footage to be advantageous. “The coverage of scheduled events was carefully preplanned by all five newsreel producers, sometimes in concert, weeks in advance” leading to “a monotonous similarity of newsreel content…to an increasing extent [as] each of the 5 newsreel companies began screening identical footage” (Fielding 270-271). One writer in 1936 noted, “’If one of ''Pathe''’s cameras had broken down…probably Fox or Universal would have helped out with an extra print’” (271). <br />
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Cameramen unionizing contributed to a communal view toward footage. Normal Alley and Eric Mayell, representing Universal and Fox, filmed the bombing of the American gunboat Panay in 1937 together. The two cooperated in the filming and follow-up coverage as well as agreed to “guard each other’s footage in the event of an unforeseen catastrophe” (272). Under the rota pool-coverage system, introduced in the 1930s, cameramen were guaranteed the opportunity to cover an event under the condition that all footage had to be shared among all newsreel producers. During WWII, the pool system helped distribute footage of battles and war events to all theaters.<br />
<br />
Colonel William Mason Wright, head of the Pictorial Branch of the Bureau of Public Relations of the Department of War, described the mechanics of the rota system: <br />
<br />
<br />
“I propose the idea of pooling our resources for the duration of the war. If each newsreel company will provide us with two cameramen for each theater of operations, I think we can adequately cover all theaters. The work of all cameramen will be censored and processed by the War Department and the Navy Department, and then distributed to the five newsreel organizations, along with all of the work of the Army and Navy cameramen. You will use all the same films, of course, and there will be no more competition among you, but we feel that this is the only way of bringing the war in film to the American people” (274).<br />
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<br />
The majority of combat footage during WWII was filmed by United States Signal Corps and Navy photographers, many of whom were trained by newsreel companies (288).<br />
<br />
===Editing===<br />
<br />
{|border=&quot;1&quot; cellpadding=&quot;5&quot; cellspacing=&quot;0&quot; align=&quot;right&quot; <br />
|+ '''Genres of Segments''' <br />
|- <br />
|Combat <br />
|War at Home <br />
|- <br />
|Celebrities <br />
|Society <br />
|- <br />
|Oddities <br />
|Travelogues <br />
|- <br />
|Fashion <br />
|Sports <br />
|- <br />
|Disasters <br />
|Celebrations <br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
Reels of footage were mailed from the field to the editors' offices. Sound and narration was added as the content was juxtaposed with other stories to form a finished reel to be distributed to theaters. The reference materials available to the editors when writing the scripts and assembling the stories were the notes on the dope sheet and any attached documents. Thus the commentary on the events was editorially constructed or reflected the tone or opinions of previously published newspaper accounts. Additionally, the importance of a fast turn around time for newsreels made verifying the facts difficult.<br />
<br />
The need for each of the studios to have the freshest, most up-to-date news led to technical innovation to speed up the process. One fascinating example is a &quot;flying picture laboratory,&quot; that contained technology to develop and edit both moving picture film and photos for newspaper distribution. Post-production of the material could be completed on the plane and the finished product could be dropped off at various stops along the flight route (&quot;Newsreel is Finished in Monoplane&quot;).<br />
<br />
Although in later years it was possible for the cameramen to record sound simultaneously, the cumbersome nature of bringing along the sound equipment along with the necessity to be accompanied by a sound technician led many cameramen to collect soundless footage. Editors then used stock sounds to bring the film to life. A newspaper article from 1938 describes how the sound of a waterfall was used along with footage of fire-hoses and sounds of an Italian naval destroyer siren were used in place of fireboats (Desmond). <br />
<br />
===Internal Censorship===<br />
<br />
Newsreel companies exercised self-censorship when constructing the final products. In 1931 Fox ruled “that its theaters and newsreels could not show scenes of a ‘controversial nature…on which reaction might be divided’” (Fielding 278). In 1938 there was a similar move when Warner Bros. banned their 425 theaters from showing a newsreel pertaining to Nazi Germany claiming it was &quot;not good policy&quot; to show it. This ban, however, was lifted in Chicago, and theaters owned by other studios were free to make their own call (&quot;Warner Theaters Ban Film on Nazis&quot;). Editorial newsreel censorship also favored showing celebrities and political figures in a positive light, such as not portraying President Roosevelt in his wheelchair, or not showing the short King Victor Emanuel of Italy being lifted onto his horse. <br />
<br />
Self-censoring aimed to prevent a public frenzy, such as the Paramount filming of a 1937 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO, a coalition of unions) strike, during which police shot protesters. Paramount’s editor, A.J. Richard, said of his decision to not show the footage: “…whereas newspapers reach individuals in the home, we show a public gathered in groups averaging 1,000 or more, and therefore subject to crowd hysteria while assembled in the theatre” (282). Richard’s decision caused U.S. Senator Robert La Follette Jr., chairman of the Senate Civil Liberties Committee to subpoena the footage, which led Paramount to release it in a newsreel. Banned by Chicago police, the reel was shown elsewhere in the United States.<br />
<br />
==Distribution and Regulation==<br />
[[Image:Newsreelad.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Newsreel ad|Australian newsreel ad from 1951 for the Star Theatrette, [http://filmbunnies.wordpress.com/ Found here.]]]<br />
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During the first year of production, 1911, Charles Pathé issued 95 prints of each newsreel and distributed them through the Keith-Albee and Orpheum circuits (Fielding 75). On June 8, 1914, Pathé had begun to rent its newsreels directly to exhibitors and introduced a daily supplement newsreel service. However, this service had a very limited run, only through the outbreak of World War I. Most newsreels including ''Fox Movietone'' and ''The March of Time'' were distributed twice weekly to film theaters for projection before a narrative feature alongside other short segments. <br />
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By the 1940s a standard theatrical package, known as the &quot;staple program,&quot; typically consisted of a featured attraction preceded by some combination of newsreel, cartoon, travelogue, featurette, serial, singalong, and trailer. (Doherty 9). Before the Paramount Decree of 1948, studios had direct distribution access to their vertically integrated theaters, contributing to the rise of the Hollywood-produced reels and the decline of competition from independent producers. After the decision, however, all producers were forced to market to the now independently owned theaters.<br />
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While most newsreels screened before feature movies, there were other distribution platforms. The newsreel theater exclusively showed programs of assorted shorts. These programs, about an hour long, featured collections of the major studios' newsreels, along with other short entertainments such as cartoons and recordings of musical performances (Schallert). Newsreels were also viewed outside the theater environment at various community locations or events. For example, some schools had regular newsreel screenings for students (&quot;Newsreels To Be Shown In Schools&quot;).<br />
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While almost everything produced ended up in theaters, censorship was not unheard of. The censorship of newsreel distribution occurred as early as the 1930s on both national and international levels. Foreign governments commonly banned American newsreels, such as in 1933 when the British government claimed that U.S. newsreels were “’objectionable news pictures’” and threatened to stop airing them, referring to a newsreel that showed the re-enactment of the Brooke Hart murder case. However, during the 1930s, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas, Maryland, and Florida developed censorship committees, which previewed films before allowing them to be screened publicly. The committees would recommend edits to newsreels before allowing them to be shown. In 1935, Louisiana passed a censorship act at the persistence of Senator Huey Long after a ''March of Time'' newsreel was made criticizing Long’s career, and Ohio censored a newsreel because they feared it was anti-Nazi (&quot;Ohio Censors Newsreel, Claiming It 'Anti-Nazi'&quot;). In 1953, it was estimated “that the newsreel industry could save fifty thousand dollars a year if censor-board review were abolished in the state of Ohio alone” (Fielding 286). <br />
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In response to state-mandated censorship, newsreel companies would boycott certain states in protest. Universal held a camera boycott and refused to film news in Ohio. Around the same time during the 1950s, “public and legislative opinion began to form…against all forms of motion picture censorship” (286). In 1952, soon after the case of ''Joseph Burstyn v. Wilson'', during which an Italian film distributor, Burstyn secured a temporary injunction against New York’s license commissioner Edward T. McCaffrey. Soon after the Supreme Court of New York ruled that McCaffrey, “nor any other municipal official could interfere with the exhibition of a motion picture that had already received an official license from the New York State censors” (Jowett, 263). After the court ruling, newsreels were excluded from censorship laws in Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.<br />
<br />
==Newsreels in Wartime==<br />
[[Image:Filmplane.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Cameraman in Plane|&quot;An American Air Corps cameraman sights through the open bomb bay of a B-24 Liberator on a run over enemy territory, 1943&quot; (Fielding 299).]]<br />
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In peacetime, shorts shown before a theatrical feature offered the viewer diverting forms of entertainment. During World War II, newsreel war-related topics dominated newsreels and served several important functions for civilians: to spread news; to dramatize news; and to unite civilians at home to the cause of the war abroad. &quot;By 1944, according to Paramount News, 77% of its total content was devoted to war news…” (Fielding 289). The ostensible content of newsreels was informational, yet the real purpose was to dramatize the news. Especially during World War II in Europe and the Pacific, airplane delivery took 10-14 days to bring images back to the US. Radio and newspaper continued as the main sources of news, while newsreels provided visual spectacle of the same topics. Because newsreels addressed audiences in the context of feature films, they adopted many of the same narrative techniques.<br />
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During the war, the US government acknowledged raised stakes in establishing nationalism. All newsreel war footage was sent to Washington for review before being edited and distributed by producers. Pictures of events were not released until months or, in the case of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a year after the event occurred. Because of government intervention, “the footage which military officers did release was frequently dull and lifeless” (295). Changing the length of newsreels also affected production and hindered the newsreel industry. The government decided to shorten the length because of a lack of stock footage, since they were mainly concentrating on shooting war events. Newsreel length went from “900 to 750 feet during the period of 1942-45 and from 750 to 700 feet in 1945” (295). <br />
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This wartime lens painted the world in starkly polarized social tones of &quot;good&quot; versus &quot;evil.&quot; Roeder cites one government official who described this centrality of message control as a &quot;strategy of truth&quot;(2). Roeder proposes to see this dynamic in terms of &quot;war as a way of seeing&quot; (81). To promote both inspiration and involvement, the government sought a positive message, involving an optimistic, one-sided tone. In theaters across the nation, audiences witnessed a film serial like no other: &quot;our boys,&quot; plucky and virtuous, picked fights of a lifetime with conniving &quot;Japs&quot; and sinister Nazis for the right side of history. <br />
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The government control stymied competition between producers. “Under the rota system the government furnished every foot of film on combat that was released and made it available equally to all interested producers” (Fielding 294). This lack of competition and the government’s control over filming led to a sameness in coverage that caused newsreel theaters to suffer. The theaters attracted audiences “only because of the intense general interest in war news, as well as promotion schemes such as that which provided free photographic enlargements from combat footage to customers who recognized relatives and loved ones in the films” (294). Additionally, the United States financed its own newsreel for foreign viewers, called ''United Newsreel''. This reel was released in sixteen languages and in both allied-countries and captured territories to act as pro-American propaganda. <br />
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The film industry and the American public took newsreels seriously for the first time. According to one 1940s journalist, “’the newsreels very likely reached their peak of effectiveness during the war because they were made and supervised largely by individuals and government agencies genuinely concerned with the tremendous drama of global war’” (291). <br />
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==Decline of the Newsreel==<br />
[[Image:Equipment.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Filming of Elizabeth II|&quot;The newsreel had one last moment of glory--the coronation of Elizabeth II of England in 1953...shown is all of the equipment used by just one company, Pathé, to film the event&quot; (Fielding, 304).]]<br />
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As positively as World War II newsreels were received by critics and audiences, homogenization in coverage, censorship, the government-implemented shortening of newsreel film length, and a lack of controversial issues all contributed to the demise of the medium.<br />
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===Homogeneity===<br />
<br />
The rota pool and cameraman union led to homogeneity across the different newsreels. This sameness started as early as the 1930s, when major news events were covered by all major newsreel organizations. Although the rota system officially ended in 1945, newsreel producers continued to buy content from other companies, because it was cheaper than producing their own. Thus, the different productions continued to lack diversity, even as other factors made the medium less enticing.<br />
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===Consequences of Censorship===<br />
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Censorship affected film production and exhibition since its initiation in the 19th century, but “with the addition of sound and the growth of the political, economic, and military tensions in the 1930s, censorship became even more frequent, severe, and inevitable” (Fielding 276). Newsreels were not immune. This censorship took many forms, as discussed above, including the control of cameramen, editorial control during the production, and the control of distribution and exhibition. <br />
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After the war newsreel companies were not able to generate the same sensational and controversial footage, thus losing a spark necessary for public interest and causing a decrease in popularity. Newsreel companies attempted to recover from these events by making changes, such as offering color newsreels, but these changes did not save the companies from further decline.<br />
<br />
===TV News and the End===<br />
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The introduction and proliferation of television in the 1940s was dismissed by newsreel companies as amateurish. In 1952, Charles Lazarus wrote in ''Motion Picture Herald,'' “theatrical newsreels are expertly and smoothly edited and presented with no interruptions, whereas TV footage all too often is catch-as-catch-can with the presentation interrupted by commercial” (Fielding 305). Television had been broadcasting news events since the 1930s, and one American trade paper commented in 1935 that “against [TV’s] time delay of only about one minute…ordinary newsreels cannot compete. The only hope, then, of the newsreel industry is to improve the technique of newsreel production” (306). Newsreel companies experimented with techniques in the 1930s to transmit footage quickly, as an attempt to provide “live” coverage, but failed due to the restrictions of film. After WWII, the quality of television news coverage improved greatly, and by 1950 many newsreel theaters were closing. On November 6, 1949, New York’s Embassy Newsreel Theater closed, after having sold over 11 million admissions in its 20 years of existence (307). Newsreel companies began to acknowledge the competition of TV news and began providing footage to television stations. Overall, the film industry was panicked by the popularity of television, and box office sales suffered. <br />
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By 1953 the newsreel “had sunk so low that parent studios required their own newsreels to feature pseudo-news coverage of gala premieres and publicity events which advertised their own features” (308). In 1951, the newsreel program ''The March of Time'' ended and turned to creating a television news program, while in 1956 ''Warner Pathé News'' stopped production (308). In the 1960s Fox Movietone and Hearst Metrotone also stopped production, and finally on December 26, 1967, Universal Newsreel, now the oldest newsreel company, aired its final piece (309).<br />
<br />
===The Afterlife of Newsreels===<br />
[[Image:Burnsthewar.jpg|thumb|left|alt=&quot;The War&quot; documentary|Ken Burns' ''The War'' is a 2007 documentary relying heavily on WWII stock newsreel footage.]]<br />
<br />
While they cannot be assumed to exhibit a consistent documentary validity, newsreels have nevertheless become valuable as historical documents. Due in part to the widespread distribution of the films and the economic need to produce new ones frequently, newsreel cameramen often captured the only moving visual record of certain historical events. Apart from historians, the newsreel film record has public relevance now, as much is publicly available. As archives modernize, an increasing amount of footage is becoming freely available on the internet. In 1976, Universal Studios gave all Universal Newsreel material to the National Archives, making it public domain (Universal News Reels). Much newsreel footage similarly became public domain as stock footage after it fell out of regular use. Among the largest sources of stock footage is the US government, as all video footage shot by the military, NASA, and other agencies has also become public domain.<br />
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Its status as primary source material has made newsreel footage commonly used in historical documentaries. Study and interest in early and mid-twentieth century events such as the Hindenberg disaster and the speeches of Franklin Delano Roosevelt have kept newsreel footage present in the 21st century. A cultural nostalgia about World War II and its &quot;greatest generation,&quot; for example, appears to have created a cottage industry around the subject which relies on this footage, as can be seen in recent productions by institutions such as the BBC, the History Channel, and Ken Burns.<br />
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Newsreels have also been used by fictional entertainment productions to set a contextual stage. For example ''Star Trek: Enterprise'' used computer editing to create a newsreel depicting Hitler in New York City to add authenticity to a storyline that suggested history had been changed and the Nazis had gained control of the US. The recent Pixar movie, ''Up'', on the other hand, featured a computer animated newsreel that highlighted the era depicted and also served to demonstrate the rather spectacular nature of newsreels themselves.<br />
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[[Image:UpImage.jpg|thumb|right|alt=&quot;Up&quot;|A character reacts to watching a newsreel in the 2009 Pixar movie ''Up''. The newsreel subsequently changed the character's life.]]<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
Crary, Jonathan. ''Techniques of the Observer.'' Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990. Print.<br />
<br />
Desmond, Robert W. &quot;News About the Newsreel.&quot; Christian Science Monitor 28 Set. 1938: WM5. PDF. <br />
<br />
Doherty, Thomas Patrick. ''Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Print.<br />
<br />
Fielding, Raymond. ''The American Newsreel, 1911-1967.'' Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. Print.<br />
<br />
Hanssen, Eirik Frisvold. &quot;Symptoms of desire: colour, costume, and commodities in fashion newsreels of the 1910s and 1920s.&quot; ''Film History.'' 21 (2009): 107-121. ''Project Muse.'' Web. 4 March 2010.<br />
<br />
MovieTone News: The War Years. The University of South Carolina and Lib. of Congress, 29 May 2008. Web. 8 Mar. 2010. &lt;http://sc.edu/library/digital/collections/movietone.html&gt;.<br />
<br />
&quot;Newsreel is Finished in Monoplane.&quot; The Washington Post 8 July 1928: 49. PDF.<br />
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&quot;Newsreels To Be Shown In State Public Schools.&quot; The Hartford Courant 29 Sept. 1951: 6. PDF. <br />
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&quot;Ohio Censors Newsreel, Claiming It 'Anti-Nazi'.&quot; The Hartford Courant 27 Oct. 1935: 11. PDF.<br />
<br />
Roeder, George H., Jr. ''The Censored War: American Visual Experience During World War Two''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Print.<br />
<br />
Scott, John. &quot;Newsreel Men Unsung Heroes of Film Front.&quot; Los Angeles Times 21 Aug. 1932: B15. PDF.<br />
<br />
Schallert, Edwin. &quot;News View Theater Opens With Special Subjects.&quot; 3 May 1940: 18. PDF.<br />
<br />
Universal News Reels. Internet Archives. Web. 28 Feb. 2010. &lt;http://www.archive.org/details/universal_newsreels&gt;.<br />
<br />
&quot;Warner Theaters Ban Films on Nazis.&quot; The Atlanta Constitution 21 Jan. 1938: 9. PDF.<br />
<br />
Zielinski, Siegfried. ''Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means''. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006. Print.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
<br />
[[Category:Spring 2010]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=HD-DVD&diff=12567
HD-DVD
2010-11-24T05:36:34Z
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HD-DVD: High-Definition Digital Video Disc<br />
<br />
[[Image:Displayimage.jpg|thumb|right|(HD-DVD)]]<br />
<br />
<br />
=Pre-Creation=<br />
==Standard DVD==<br />
Videocassette tapes (VHS) dominated the home video market up until the mid 1990’s when DVDs, a major medium upgrade, were introduced. DVDs, much like compact discs (CDs) with a greater data capacity, are capable of storing: <br />
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• A full-length high-resolution movie (133 minutes) <br />
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• The accompanying soundtrack and alternative soundtracks in other languages <br />
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• Subtitles in up to thirty-two languages<br />
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• Other content and information<br />
<br />
<br />
Furthermore, DVDs provided other advantages over VHS:<br />
<br />
• Better picture quality<br />
<br />
• More advanced sound <br />
<br />
• Compatibility with audio CDs <br />
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• The option to select wide screen or standard<br />
<br />
• The ability to pause and zoom without distortion<br />
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• The freedom to skip scenes and/or chapters (Alleman). <br />
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<br />
However, a problem with the DVD was noticed when high-definition (HD) television sets started to become available in the late 1990s. The larger size of the TV screens on these new sets posed a great problem for DVDs since, due to their resolution standard (720x480 pixels), DVDs looked best (i.e., clearest, most vivid, and most focused) on smaller screens – usually screens no larger than 36 inches (Wilson).<br />
<br />
=Creation=<br />
[[Image:Hddvd.jpg|thumb|right|HD-DVD 30GB Disc (HD-DVD)]]<br />
In response to the problem the DVD was facing (i.e., poor image quality on HD TV sets), Toshiba manufactured and sold the first high-definition (HD) DVDs in the beginning of 2002. The product was developed to provide consumers with an affordable option to high-quality, high-definition content. Moreover, HD-DVDs were designed to prepare consumers for the ever-progressing digital convergence – the fusion of consumer electronics and information technology (Toshiba).<br />
<br />
==How It Worked==<br />
The HD-DVD shared many characteristics with the standard DVD. To begin, the HD-DVD disk was the same size and structure of the standard DVD – two 4.7 inch diameter, 0.02 inch thick discs bonded back-to-back to form a 0.04 inch thick disc. This was an advantage, as well as a large promotion factor, for the HD-DVD since it allowed manufacturers the ability to easily modify existing equipment to accommodate the production of the new discs (Williams).<br />
<br />
Although very similar to the DVD, the HD-DVD incorporated a much-needed improvement for the ever-growing home theatre experience – the ability to hold more information (4 to 8 hours, approximately 30GB, compared to 2 hours, approximately 4.7GB). The HD-DVD's ability to hold more information was due to three main features:<br />
<br />
• The use of 405-nanometer blue-violet lasers rather than 650-nanometer red lasers<br />
<br />
• Smaller pits and closer together tracks<br />
<br />
• More efficient compression to cut down the size of the stored files<br />
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<br />
The blue-violet laser of the HD-DVD had a shorter wavelength than the red laser of the DVD. Because of this, the blue-violet laser allowed the HD-DVD's pits to be smaller and closer together. This means that the size of the laser spot on the disc is much smaller and therefore capable of fitting more data in the same amount of space. An example of this is thinking of the “difference between writing with a magic marker and a fine-tipped pen” (Wilson). <br />
<br />
[[Image:Hd-dvd-1.jpg|center|(Wilson)]]<br />
<br />
HD-DVDs used MPEG-4 compression, a superior form of compression to that of the DVD’s MPEG-2. MPEG-4 compression allowed HD-DVDs to have both higher video quality (i.e., a resolution of up to 1125 lines of pixels from top to bottom, as opposed to 525 lines) while, at the same time, maintaining a much smaller file size (Wilson).<br />
<br />
==HD DVD Player – DVD Compatibility==<br />
[[Image:Toshiba-3gen-players.jpg|thumb|right|HD-DVD Player (Tech Shout)]]<br />
Although HD-DVDs couldn’t be played in standard DVD players (only in HD-DVD players) standard DVDs could be played from an HD-DVD player. And, even though standard DVD’s didn’t have a high enough resolution to look good on large screen TVs, Toshiba’s HD-DVD player had the capability to automatically up-convert regular DVDs to accommodate 720- or 1080-line displays. Therefore, even though the converted picture didn’t have as high of a resolution as an HD-DVD it was still a superior picture to that from an analog signal from a standard DVD player (Wilson).<br />
<br />
=Decline=<br />
==The Emergence of Blu-ray==<br />
[[Image:HD-DVD_Blu-Ray.jpg|thumb|right|HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray (Cybershack)]]<br />
When the market began to demand a new technology to follow the standard DVD several companies began to develop alternatives. For several years the two main competitors were HD-DVD (Toshiba) and Blu-Ray (Sony). However, as competition between the two companies increased there was an ever-growing struggle between the two formats. <br />
The main comparison points for the two formats were as follows: <br />
<br />
• Both formats used blue-violet lasers<br />
<br />
• Both formats used the same form of compression<br />
<br />
• Blu-ray offers significantly more storage – 50 GB vs. 30 GB<br />
<br />
• HD-DVD discs and players were less expensive than Blu-ray disks and players<br />
<br />
• HD-DVD players were available to consumers in April 18, 2006 – two months before Blue-ray players (June 2006)<br />
(Wilson)<br />
<br />
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oKkqpA2ZoI Click here to Watch VIDEO: HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray (CNET)]<br />
<br />
==Consolidating High-Definition Formats in Retail and Rental Stores==<br />
It wasn’t cost-effective for companies to produce content in both formats, nor was it a sound business plan to provide room on retail shelves for both formats. Therefore, the media industry decided that it would be best to consolidate the high-definition industry into one format. For HD-DVD this meant there wasn’t going to be a competition between them and Blu-ray for much longer – only one of the formats was to survive (Belson).<br />
<br />
==State of the High-Definition Market After the Decision to Consolidate==<br />
Shortly after the decision to consolidate the high-definition market into one format was made, HD-DVD began to struggle:<br />
<br />
• Blu-ray discs outsold HD-DVDs by a factor of two to one in the first half of 2007<br />
<br />
• Blockbuster Video stores switched exclusively to the Blu-ray format for its high-definition movie selection during the summer of 2007<br />
<br />
• Target announced it would stop carrying HD-DVD players and only reserve space for Blu-ray machines in their stores<br />
<br />
Blu-ray outperformed Toshiba's HD-DVD format despite Blu-ray being more expensive. Blu-ray’s success was in its ability to store more information – more valuable to studios than a slightly lower cost (Wilson).<br />
<br />
==Warner Bros. Backs Blu-ray==<br />
A sudden shift to Blu-ray occurred in January 2008 when Warner Bros. announced it would be using the Blu-ray format exclusively. Warner Bros., up until this point, had been the only large studio producing movies in both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats. However, when the studio made the decision to only issue movies in Blu-ray it marked the beginning of the end for the HD-DVD.<br />
<br />
This was because, at the time Warner Bros. began to back Blue-ray, only two studios were using the HD-DVD format: Universal and Paramount. However, Universal’s agreement with HD-DVD had just expired and Paramount had an escape clause – if Warner Bros. switched to Blu-ray, Paramount was allowed to switch to the alternate format as well (Hansell).<br />
<br />
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j51bjangNo Click here to Watch VIDEO: Blu-ray wins out over HD-DVD (BBC)]<br />
<br />
==Wal-Mart Switches to Blu-ray==<br />
In early February of 2008 Wal-Mart, one of the last avid supporters for Toshiba’s HD-DVD format, announced that it would back Sony’s Blu-ray format – by June 2008 Wal-Mart would sell Blu-ray players and discs only. Since Wal-Mart is responsible for selling approximately 20 percent of all DVDs in the United States, their decision to abandon the HD-DVD format was the final blow to the HD-DVD. A few days later Toshiba announced that it would not continue to manufacture HD-DVDs (Hansell).<br />
<br />
=Death=<br />
[[Image:Blue-ray-vs-hd-dvd.jpg|thumb|right|Blu-ray wins out over HD-DVD (Sun)]]<br />
The competition between the two high-definition formats continued for over two years before finally coming to an end on February 19, 2008 when Toshiba officially conceded the format war to Blu-ray.<br />
<br />
Many originally thought that HD-DVD would win as the dominant format, largely based on the fact that it was less expensive than Blue-ray, however, in the end, Blue-ray won out over HD-DVD due to its ability to store more information. <br />
<br />
Toshiba stopped manufacturing HD-DVD players, discs and disc drives in March of 2008 (Toshiba).<br />
<br />
=Future=<br />
What we’ve learned from the HD-DVD is that a successor doesn’t always outlive its descendant. The HD-DVD was created in order to improve on and succeed the standard DVD format, however the standard DVD continues to outlive and outperform the HD-DVD today. It’s important to understand this pattern when looking at the future of the video market.<br />
<br />
Although Blu-ray seems like the obvious successor to the HD-DVD this may not be the case. In the ever-changing media environment a more important question may be – do we need high-definition disks at all? Or, even more radically, do we need discs (or physical entities) at all?<br />
<br />
To answer the first question, the ability to “upconvert” standard DVD’s using standard DVD players (i.e., turn 480 lines of resolution into 1080 lines of resolution) allows viewers to see a picture close to high-definition quality. This ability almost entirely eliminates the need for high-definition discs and players – the only time a viewer would notice a difference between an “upconverted” image and a high-definition image would be on an enormous TV screen (Hansell).<br />
<br />
[[Image:Picture_1.jpg|thumb|right|Netflix Roku - 12,000 movies and TV shows available for instant download (Netflix)]]<br />
<br />
In regards to the second question, an argument can be made against all physical entities/formats of movies in general. With quick movie downloads via the Internet (i.e., iTunes), companies like Comcast offering high-definition movie downloads on demand, Netflix offering over 12,000 movies and TV shows instantly via Roku, and the price of flash memory falling, it seems that movies, in the near future, will not be stored on discs but rather on hard drives or flash discs.<br />
<br />
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvuUfLxMaQo Click here to Watch VIDEO: Netflix Roku (Tekzilla)]<br />
<br />
=Works Cited=<br />
<br />
Alleman, Gayle A. &quot;How DVDs Work.&quot; HowStuffWorks. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dvd.htm&gt;.<br />
<br />
BBC. Video: Blu-ray Win Over HD-DVD. YouTube. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j51bjangNo&gt;.<br />
<br />
Belson, Ken. &quot;Early Salvos in the High-Definition DVD Format War.&quot; The New York Times. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/24/technology/24adcol.html?_r=1&amp;scp=2&amp;sq=HD-DVD%20format%20war&amp;st=cse&gt;.<br />
<br />
CNET. Video: HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray. YouTube. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oKkqpA2ZoI&gt;.<br />
<br />
Cybershack. Image: HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray. Cybershack. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://www.cybershack.com.au/t.php/New+tech+for+next-gen+DVDs&gt;.<br />
<br />
Hansell, Saul. &quot;Did Warner Brothers Just Kill HD DVD?&quot; The New York Times. 4, Jan. 2008. &lt;http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/did-warner-brothers-just-kill-hd-dvd/?scp=2&amp;sq=HD-dvd&amp;st=cse&gt;.<br />
<br />
Hansell, Saul. &quot;Will Toshiba Suspend Its HD DVD Campaign?&quot; The New York Times. 15, Feb. 2008. &lt;http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/will-toshiba-suspend-its-hd-dvd-campaign/?scp=12&amp;sq=HD-dvd&amp;st=cse&gt;.<br />
<br />
Hansell, Saul. &quot;HD DVDs Fall Like Dominoes.&quot; The New York Times. 10, Jan. 2008. &lt;http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/hd-dvds-fall-like-dominoes/?scp=40&amp;sq=HD-dvd&amp;st=cse&gt;.<br />
<br />
HD-DVD. Image: HD-DVD. The Look and Sound of Perfect. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/&gt;.<br />
<br />
HD-DVD. Image: HD-DVD 30GB Disc. The Look and Sound of Perfect. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/&gt;.<br />
<br />
HowStuffWorks. Image: How HD-DVD Works. HowStuffWorks. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hd-dvd.htm/printable&gt;.<br />
<br />
Sun. Image: Blu-ray WIns Out Over HD-DVD. Sun. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://blogs.sun.com/hinkmond/entry/blu_ray_picked_by_warner&gt;.<br />
<br />
Netflix. Image: Netflix Roku. Netflix. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://www.roku.com/&gt;.<br />
<br />
Tech Shout. Image: HD-DVD Player. Tech Shout. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://www.techshout.com/hardware/2007/07/toshiba-third-gen-under-500-hd-dvd-players-announced/&gt;.<br />
<br />
Tekzilla. Video: Netflix Roku Player. Youtube. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvuUfLxMaQo&gt;.<br />
<br />
Toshiba. &quot;Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Business.&quot; Toshiba. 19, Feb. 2008. &lt;http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2008_02/pr1903.htm&gt;.<br />
<br />
Toshiba. &quot;Memory-Tech and Toshiba Announce Latest Advance in Single-sided, Three-layer TWIN Format Disc for DVD and HD DVD.&quot; 11, Sept. 2006. &lt;http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2006_09/pr1101.htm&gt;.<br />
<br />
Williams, Martyn. &quot;Disc Makers Bet on Blue Lasers.&quot; PC World. 1, Oct. 2002. &lt;http://www.pcworld.com/article/105534/disc_makers_bet_on_blue_lasers.html&gt;.<br />
<br />
Williams, Martyn. &quot;Opening the Door for New Storage Options.&quot; PC World. 12, Aug. 2002. &lt;http://www.pcworld.com/article/103862/opening_the_door_for_new_storage_options.html&gt;.<br />
<br />
Williams, Martyn. &quot;Toshiba, NEC Share Details of Blue-Laser Storage.&quot; PC World. 29, Aug. 2002. &lt;http://www.pcworld.com/article/104570/toshiba_nec_share_details_of_bluelaser_storage.html&gt;.<br />
<br />
Wilson, Tracy V. &quot;How HD-DVD Works.&quot; HowStuffWorks. 24, Nov. 2008. &lt;http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hd-dvd.htm&gt;.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Hotel_Annunciator&diff=12566
Hotel Annunciator
2010-11-24T05:36:29Z
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[[Image:annunciator.JPG|thumb|right|Hotel Annunciator; calls have been placed from rooms 9, 29, and 50]]<br />
<br />
==Early Annunciators==<br />
Zeilinski notes that techniques for the initiation of “microevents in distant places with the aid of electrocircuits,” had been devised and demonstrated between 1787 and the early 19th century by Hungarian, French, Austrian, and English researchers (182). Though the telegraph would eventually be the most widely dispersed outgrowth of these advances, the technology and concept were first put to use in a variety of small-scale communicational situations. Later components of the hotel system are exhibited in these early devices, such as the ringing of a bell to signal the form of the message, rather than the content; referring to Soemmering’s 1805 telegraph: “A further wire, connected to the clapper of a bell, existed to signal the beginning and end of a message” (182).<br />
Electric bells and annunciators are one of the first in home uses of electricity (Brackett 239).<br />
<br />
Henry Murray, an Englishman traveling through the United States in the 1850s, suggests that the hotel annunciator may have begun as a U.S. phenomenon, calling the device “that invaluable specimen of American mechanical ingenuity…Why this admirable contrivance has not been introduced into this country [England], I cannot conceive.” The earliest officially documented form discovered is for J. Russel's &quot;Annunciator,&quot; patented October 10, 1829 by the U.S. Patent office. The device pictured seems as if it may operate with applied pressure to a pull wire in the back of the cabinet, rather than through electrical agitation. This pressure forces a numbered circle to protrude from the front, rendering it visible from the side only; a bell hanging from the box by an internal spring would also presumably jangle. Unfortunately the U.S. Patent office’s Data Conversion Operation reports that all other text or images of the patent are missing at this time.<br />
<br />
===Tremont House===<br />
[[Image:tremont_house.JPG|thumb|left|A current exterior photograph of The Tremont House]]<br />
Massachusetts, 1829. Located on Tremont Street in Boston, the Tremont House is known as the first modern hotel, offering upper class luxuries such as private rooms and á la cart dining (Morgenroth 137). At four stories and 170 guest rooms, and with opulent parlor, dining, drawing, and reading areas, technologically aided communication among staff and guests would have been necessary. Charles Dickens notes, &quot;more galleries, colonnades, piazzas and passages than I can remember, or a reader would believe&quot; (Kaplan). Technological advancements built into the hotel's design included indoor plumbing, heating, elevators, and an annunciator. This early hotel annunciator aided seclusion by allowing communication to the office through walls and over the vertical and horizontal space of the building. The specific annunciator, patented by Seth Fuller, was a &quot;bell system [which] enabled guests to call “rotunda men” to their rooms&quot; (Berger). Essentially a system of hanging bells connected to individual rooms with wire, the main office could be alerted to a guest's needs through an electronically trigged signal. The interesting lack of intra-guest communications through the system seems to remain a steady component of future annunciating systems.<br />
<br />
==Primary Features==<br />
A basic hotel annunciator(pictured at top of page)in mC19 consists of a bell fixed to an often ornate wooden box that stores the receiver’s mechanization and frames its visual interface. The face is divided into discrete units, each comprised of a linguistic or numeral signifier representing the location of a calling device and an armature capable of rest in two positions, one indicating a call. When a call button is depressed, two types of data are transmitted simultaneously by the annunciator through two binary codes, one visual and one aural. Dormancy and silence indicate that no external message is being conveyed to the annunciating board. A call closes the electrical circuit; the struck or vibrating bell audibly announces a change in the visible structure’s information, which has shifted an individual annunciating unit’s lever from one position to a second. Mechanically, &quot;an annunciator consists of electromagnets which allow shutters to drop or needles to move on the circuits being closed...The number of the circuit is marked on the shutter, or near the needle, either shutter or needle being replaced by a reset device, which may be mechanical or electrical&quot; (Schneider 55). <br />
<br />
The intended receiver of the annunciating board's message would be a hotel clerk or attendant, but the location of the board may have made the communications visible and audible to all visitors. One account of a hotel annunciator in the 1850s describes it as standing &quot;in full sight of all&quot; (Murray).<br />
The clerk would then issue the proper service person to the guest's room, to either discover what their request is, or within more complex annunciator systems, to bring them the service requested.<br />
<br />
===Call Buttons===<br />
[[Image:Complex_call_button.JPG|thumb|left|A complex hotel call button with a variety of possible requests]]<br />
[[Image:Push_Buttons.JPG|thumb|right|Simple and compound call buttons]]<br />
Call buttons ranged from the simple to the complex but operated on similar principles; &quot;pressure of the finger on a button brings two strips of metal into contact and completes a circuit...By means of an accumulation of wire as a coil round a horseshoe bar of iron the magnetism is locally intensified to an extent necessary for the attraction of the iron hammer bar and by a simple automatic device the blow on the bell is reduplicated (Brackett 241). Complicated call buttons, with their variety of services capable of being requested, would have required either additional indicators on the annunciating board or additional structural modification of the system. Paul Lindemeyer, on the The Dead Media Project message board, cites Charles Lockwood's &quot;Manhattan Moves Uptown&quot; as suggesting a device whereby &quot;a metal disc dropped to the bottom of a case filled with discs for all the various rooms. Each disc had a room number and a service type stamped in it.&quot;<br />
<br />
===Reset Function===<br />
After having revealed the location of a caller, the annunciator's armatures had to be replaced into their non-indicating position. Variations of the annunciator handle the situation differently; &quot;Some of the annunciators are arranged so that the indications are placed in their natural position by a mechanical device. Some are reset by pressing a push-button on the annunciator, and the resetting is done by electricity. Others are so made that the last place called or signaled from resets any indicating device that may be out of its natural position and leaves only the indication which was used or called last&quot; (Weber 42).<br />
<br />
An automatic reset seems to be preferred in some cases, again referencing the difficult task of servicing a large number of guests: &quot;a good, substantially made pendulum indicator is so much to be preferred to any kind that requires a shutter or vane to be replaced by the attendant before it can be used again, as with the almost incessant ringing of bells in a large hotel the most careful of servants will repeatedly forget to replace the shutters&quot; (Allsop 113). &quot;Pendulum, or swinging, signals are used in annunciator work, where there is a liability that the ordinary drop shutter would not be reset. They, however, only give a visible signal for a few seconds, and are therefore liable to be overlooked&quot; (Schneider 57). <br />
<br />
A lack of memory may be understandable; Boston's 1829 Tremont House (or Hotel) had 170 rooms, as well as a 200-person dining hall while New York's 1836 Astor House had over 300 rooms. This &quot;forgetfulness,&quot; on the part of a wait staff could also have had something to do with their lack of monetary and social reimbursement. A simultaneous disdain for poor hotel service and for the Irish or African servants employed is evident in many sources. Murray offers a period politico-cultural possibility for the lack of capable or willing laborers: &quot;the moment a little money is realized by a servant, he sets up in some business, or migrates westward.&quot;<br />
<br />
===Basic Wiring Scheme===<br />
<br />
[[Image:Anunciator_wire.JPG|thumb|right|Basic annunciator circuits]]<br />
<br />
Annunciator circuits are run between push buttons, battery and the annunciating board. In the diagram, B indicates battery; 1, 2, 3 and 4 are push buttons; 5 is a floor button and 6 is a separate bell system, hooked to the same battery source. Floor buttons may have been placed under tables so that service could be called by the host or hostess with discretion. A return call annunciator could also be wired, so that a similar return communication could be sent. Fire alarms are often wired alongside annunciators because they also need to reach into each guest's room.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Annunciator, fire alarm, room call.JPG|thumb|left|Hotel annunciator with fire alarm (bottom) and room call functions]]<br />
<br />
===Usage===<br />
Electric Annunciators were utilized in a variety of different locations. Most often found in hotels, offices or houses, they were essentially installed wherever a number of &quot;signaling stations&quot; were needed to signal one centric location; &quot;[the] Annunciator can be made for as many indications as desired, and is so constructed that when a push-button is pressed, the bell on the annunciator rings, and an indicating needle, drop, or some other device will show from where the call, or signal came. There is but one bell to the annunciator, but the number of indications is never limited&quot; (Weber 41-42).<br />
<br />
If an attendant was not near enough to hear the bell, the armature would be held into place by its own weight and convey the message that a call had been placed from the room indicated. Aside from the annunciator types of &quot;gravity drop, in which a target is released by the action of the current, and its weight causes it to drop into view, thus indicating that a call has been made; needle drop (as seen in the image to the right); and target type,&quot; (Pattison 14) a slightly different type is the lamp annunciator. A lamp annunciator's main difference lies in how its &quot;signaling system is indicated by the lighting of a small incandescent lamp&quot; (Pattison 15). The visual aspect serves as a necessary reminder since in some instances &quot;the annunciator bell stops ringing as soon as the caller releases his push button, but the lamp burns until the call is answered&quot; (Pattison 15). This feature of the device is mentioned by a number of sources as being especially useful in dealing with a “forgetful” wait staff. On a ship’s annunciator: “One great advantage to this contrivance is that should the servant fail to hear the bell he can always tell by looking at the “indicator,” whether his services are needed.” <br />
<br />
A three-point style push button is &quot;used for special bell and annunciator work&quot; (Schneider 20).<br />
<br />
==Further Remediations== <br />
[[Image:burglar_alarm.JPG|thumb|right|One remediated version of the hotel annunciator is the burglar alarm]]<br />
&quot;New forms of annunciators are made for recording degrees of temperature, for time signaling service, on street and steam railways, etc. Another comparatively new commercial use of the annunciator is for keeping and recording engagements, especially designed for hotel and livery stable service&quot; (Barrett 459).<br />
<br />
Another variation of the annunciator is found in Knights American Mechanical Dictionary: “The chamber of the guest and the hotel office are each provided with an indexed gauge, consisting of a hollow tube containing a colored liquid. At the back of each tube is a graduated index marked at intervals, “fire,” “light,” “water,” “brandy,” “towels,” etc., as may suit the average of customers. The respective tubes are connected by an air pipe, into which air is injected by the guest, to raise the liquid in the respective tubes to the point which indicates his wants.” (117)<br />
<br />
The annunciator was also remediated into the form of a burglar alarm. There were two types of electric burglar alarms: the open circuit alarm, typically utilized in private homes, and the closed circuit alarm, which was more useful in a location where the alarm would sound some distance away (Weber 51). <br />
<br />
==Impacts==<br />
===On User===<br />
<br />
Annunciators are an electro-mechanized remediation of the general or domestic hand bell. Essential changes in the structures of these two means of communication are dynamic and should be highlighted. Most notably, the struck bell which is the acoustic message has been removed from the perceivable field of the caller. This silence, or really ''lack of bell'', removes the caller from his or her usual awareness of the communication. The receiver of the message not only retains perception of audible ringing, but has moved closer to the source—-though the bell is now in the servant’s office, the caller’s ghostly hand still controls its movement. Immobility of the bell also fragments the dual position it may have once held. Sound waves produced may not only announce a particular, preconceived message (lunch time, one is needed, etc.), but also indicate the location of the caller by direction and distance. The hotel annunciator’s bell, because it is held in common with other guests and locations, can only convey that a message has been sent; communication is handled by the ‘screen’ of the device through the coded locations of all possible callers.<br />
<br />
===Luxury and Service===<br />
[[Image:lux.JPG|thumb|left|ornamented display case concealing an annunciator]]<br />
Though the annunciator was wired for a variety of technical uses, it also came along with a new ideology of convenience and luxury. The location of the annunciator created a new consciousness of appearance; in each venue they were located, they &quot;were all framed in wooden cases of desirable style and finish&quot; (Barrett 459). As they were placed within households and office buildings, the annunciators were constructed as a commodity that was to be displayed.<br />
<br />
With the request for service, it is evident that only the more luxurious hotels had annunciators. For example, the Tremont House, as the first modern hotel, offered amenities not seen at other hotels of the time. This notion of room service was not feasible in the early days as being a part of the general public's typical stay at a hotel. At the very least, it would cost more to have one of the &quot;rotunda men&quot; go to the room to take an order. In addition to providing the product such as water or food, the hotel would also have to pay for the service of the attendants. <br />
<br />
===Immediacy/ Feedback===<br />
The function of an annunciator fueled the drive for immediacy. Once a button was pushed requesting service, the guest would expect speedy service from the hotel staff. In reality the amount of time it takes for a call to be answered varied. Despite the inconsistent system in the early days of the annunciator's introduction, the hotel annunciators served its purpose. Remediations of the system, including the burglar alarm addition and later development into its own system, helped to save time. The sound of the bell called for immediate attention, even if it was to turn off the ringing. The annunciators targeted a simple setup and implementation. The annunciator was a fairly easy tool to use; with the push of a button the call has been placed.<br />
Yet there is an underlying issue of whether the call has been effectively placed. The only way to verify that the message has been sent is by the presence of an attendant. So while there is ease of use in the immediate implementation of system, there is limited resources to confirm the receipt of a call. The communication process is obstructed by noise, including the attendants' &quot;forgetfulness&quot; and presence (or lack of) and even the possibility of a faulty system: &quot;in the case of a large hotel where the insulation [of the wiring] has broken down, and owning to the place being full, it is not convenient to at once remove the faulty wires&quot; (Allsop 113).<br />
<br />
Later versions of annunicators developed a two-way communication method, such as a &quot;three wire return call annunciator system&quot; (64) in which the caller would receive instant confirmation by the front desk attendant. The invention of the telephone caused a critical change to the hotel hospitality industry. The telephone became the replacement of these hotel annunicators as the way to contact hotel staff for room service. <br />
<br />
===Privacy===<br />
[[Image:Cg1.JPG|thumb|left|&quot;Crooked Gamblers&quot; Privacy is shot in various markets with the help of an annunciator]]<br />
[[Image:Cg2.JPG|thumb|right|&quot;Crooked Gamblers&quot; (continued)]]<br />
Privacy was sold through the annunciator system as well for interpersonal communication was no longer necessary. Instead, the guest could now relay their desires through the impersonal use of a push button rather than seeking out an attendant. <br />
<br />
In the case of the burglar alarm, the privacy of in-home servants virtually disappeared. With the installation of the burglar alarm, not only were house owners informed of intruders, but &quot;the hours can be known when [servants] come in or go out, when the alarm is on&quot; (Weber 52). Furthermore, family convenience was taken into account as it is described that &quot;[the] proper place for a burglar alarm annunciator is in the family bed-room, and so located that a good view of the annunciator is had from a lying position on the bed&quot; (Weber 54). <br />
<br />
===Safety===<br />
Today, the concept of a hotel annunciator is no longer embraced as a technology of service. More currently used for alarms, the annunciator has become a safety automation. The fire alarm, for example, utilizes the annunciator from a central location to notify residents in multiple rooms of a need to evacuate. The sound of the bell is immediately recognizable as a call for attention, and serves as its own sign system.<br />
<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
<br />
*[[Allsop, F. C.]] ''Practical Electric Bell Fitting, a Treatise on the Fitting-up and Maintenance of Electric Bells and All the Necessary Apparatus, with Nearly 150 Illustrations.'' (London : E &amp; F. N. Spon, 1892).<br />
<br />
*[[Badt, F. B.]] ''Bell Hangers' Handbook, 2nd edition.'' (Chicago : Electricians Publishing Company, 1889).<br />
<br />
*[[Barrett, John Patrick]], ''Electricity at the Columbian Exposition,: Including an account of the exhibits in the Electricity Building, the power plant in Machinery Hall, the arc ... of the grounds and buildings ... etc'', (Chicago : R.R. Donnelley, 1894). ASIN B00086MX3S<br />
<br />
*[[Berger, Molly W.]] &quot;The Old High-Tech Hotel.&quot; American Heritage of Invention and Technology Magazine. 11 (1995)<br />
<br />
*[[Brackett, Cyrus Fogg ]] ''Electricity in Daily Life: A Popular Account of the Applications of Electricity to Everyday Uses.'' (J.J. Little &amp; Co. Astor Place, NY: 1891).<br />
<br />
*[[Kaplan, Justin]] ''When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age.'' (New York : Penguin, 2007). ISBN 978-0670037698<br />
<br />
*[[Morgenroth, Lynda]], ''Boston Firsts: 40 Feats of Innovation and Invention that Happened First in Boston and Helped Make America Great'', (Boston : Beacon Press, 2006). ISBN 978-0807071304<br />
<br />
*[[Pattison, F. A.]] ''Interior wiring.'' (International Textbook Company, 1929). ASIN B00086O264<br />
<br />
*[[Schneider, Norman Hugh]] ''How to install electric bells, annunciators, and alarms.'' (New York/London : Spon &amp; Chamberlain, 1910). <br />
<br />
*[[Weber, E.D.]], ''Practical wiring of buildings: for incandescent electric lighting, electric gas lighting, electric burglar alarms, electric house and hotel annunciators, bells, etc., etc.'', (New York : The Comenius Press, 1895). Call number 621.345 W382<br />
<br />
*[[Zielinski, Seigfried]] &quot;Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means.&quot; The MIT Press, 2006.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Parrots_%26_Birds_as_Symbols_of_Surveillance&diff=12565
Parrots & Birds as Symbols of Surveillance
2010-11-24T05:36:28Z
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== Parrots &amp; Birds as Symbols of Surveillance ==<br />
This dossier examines both “birds” (generally) and “parrots” (specifically) as cultural tropes. Here I will explore the existence of such a cultural symbol as evidence of a cultural yearning for a not yet realized media of surveillance that stems from the human instinct to spy and eavesdrop. <br />
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<br />
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb114/denizthemeniz/2988695596_491da114b3_b2.jpg<br />
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an image from Banksy's &quot;The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill&quot;(http://thevillagepetstoreandcharcoalgrill.com/)<br />
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== Idioms ==<br />
“A little birdy told me so”, as well as, “to watch [someone] like a hawk” are both widely used idioms in the English language. The bird as a symbol of surveillance can be traced as far back as the Bible. “Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your bedroom, because a bird of the air may carry your words, and a bird on the wing may report what you say.” (Ecclesiastes 10:20) <br />
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== Popular Culture ==<br />
Parrots have been widely used as storytelling tropes in popular culture. They are often used to reveal an important secret about a character. This role of the parrot can be traced back to folktales from the Far East. In these tales, the talking parrot warns the deceived. In China, for example, the representation of a parrot was used as a symbolic warning to women to be faithful to their husbands. It pointed back to the legend of a pearl merchant in the province of Kiangsi who was at the point of ruin by the intrigues of his faithless wife, when, suddenly, the state of affairs was made known to him by a talking parrot. (Rowland)<br />
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A variety of modern day examples of the telltale parrot can be found in films, TV shows and commercials. Timing is a key factor in these narratives.<br />
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-In a Bud Light Commercial, a guy and a girl are on their first date and they enter her apartment. She leaves the room for a minute and while she is gone the guy’s phone rings. He answers his phone, and confides in the caller, “she’s a little annoying, but I’m desperate.” The girl comes back into the room and asks the man if he’s met Coop. The man looks up to discover Coop the parrot, who suddenly repeats the phrase, “she’s a little annoying, but I’m desperate”. Thanks to Coop, the girl is made aware of the guy’s true intentions, and kicks him out of her apartment. 5<br />
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-In an episode of the TV show Frasier, Niles' pet cockatoo ruins his chances with the neighbors when it repeats things he and Frasier have said about his dinner guests. 4<br />
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-In an early episode of the TV show Small Wonder, the Lawson’s have the Brindles as uninvited houseguests after the latter family's house burns down. Naturally, the Brindles' parrot reveals the real cause of the fire. 4<br />
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-In an episode of Dexter’s Laboratory, Dexter creates a robot-parrot to keep around the lab. It backfires in short order as the parrot begins to mimic Deedee, then escapes the lab and threatens to blab about it to the rest of the family. 4<br />
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-On The Nanny, a parrot exposes that Fran told Val about Cher secretly staying at the Sheffields'.4<br />
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-In the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, a parrot repeating what the villain said provides the vital clue to allow Bond to track down the villain's whereabouts.4<br />
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-Cap'n Fear, one of Batman’s foes, had a robot parrot that was designed to randomly record and repeat phrases said around it. Capturing the parrot and accessing its memory provided Robin with information to allow him to track down the pirate's hideout.4<br />
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-The Far Side mocks this cultural trope in a cartoon where a group of mobsters are discussing the location of their new hideout in a pet shop full of parrots. &quot;Alright, let's repeat the address a hundred times or so to make sure we all get it.&quot;4<br />
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== In the News ==<br />
Although most of the cultural role of parrots as a media of surveillance is imagined, there are several examples of real-life incidents where a parrot functioned in this role. The following is an excerpt from a story published in The New York Times on January 18th, 2006, about a parrot in London who exposed a cheating wife. (Lyall)<br />
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&quot;Hiya, Gary!&quot; the parrot trilled flirtatiously whenever Chris Taylor's girlfriend answered her cell phone.<br />
But Mr. Taylor, the owner of the parrot, did not know anyone named Gary. And his girlfriend, Suzy Collins, who had moved into his apartment a year earlier, swore that she didn't, either. She stuck to her story even after the parrot, Ziggy, began making lovey-dovey, smooching noises when it heard the name Gary on television.<br />
And so it went until the fateful day just before Christmas when, as Mr. Taylor and Ms. Collins snuggled together on the sofa, Ziggy blurted out, &quot;I love you, Gary,&quot; his voice a dead ringer for Ms. Collins's.<br />
&quot;It sent a chill down my spine,&quot; Mr. Taylor, a 30-year-old computer programmer from Leeds, told British reporters on Monday. &quot;I started laughing, but when I looked at Suzy I could tell something was up. Her face was like beet root and she started to cry.&quot;<br />
Gary, it turned out, was Ms. Collins's former colleague and current secret lover.''<br />
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A similar story also appeared in Harper’s Magazine on November 24th, 2005. Stating that a German woman named Petra Ficker threw her husband, Frank Ficker, out of the house after her parrot cried out the name of Mr. Ficker's mistress, Uta. “It's just me and my parrot now,” said Petra. (Ford)<br />
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== Surveillance ==<br />
The partnership of humans and animals for companionship and protection has ancient roots, and may have existed for over 100,000 years in one form or another. In the book “Understanding Surveillance Technologies”, there is an entire chapter dedicated to Animals. Birds have a large role in this chapter. They have been used as surveillance partners because they can fly, they are cooperative, they can live a long time, and some of them have strong homing instincts. Some birds, such as cockatoos, have been used for their alarm calls, which can be heard from long distances, and is useful when it encounters intruders. (Petersen)<br />
The Carrier pigeon is another example. They were used for sending messages, but were ruthlessly hunted to extinction around 1914. (Petersen) Although the carrier pigeon is best known for its delivery of messages, they also had a more sinister role as spies. Below is an excerpt from the dossier on Homing Pigeons.<br />
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''<br />
One extremely literal example of this homing pigeon function occurred during the two world wars, when they were utilized as spies: “A camera set to automatic shutter, which was hung around their necks, helped in the reconnoitering of enemy positions…of the hundreds of thousands of spy carrier pigeons deployed, ‘95% completed their missions’” (Dee 1). These pigeon spies continued their service through the 1950s, “earning more medals of honor than any other animal” (Dee 1). Here, we see a homing pigeon not only acting as a medium for humans by carrying messages, but also performing the seemingly exclusive human task of photography, and for a specific purpose - to aid the eyes of the government.''<br />
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== Eavesdropping ==<br />
The impulse to listen in on other people’s conversations is powerful and widespread and has been around since long before the early days of the telegraph and telephone. This primal impulse is the reason for the popularity of the parrot as a house pet, beginning in the 18th century. (Petersen)<br />
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== Parrots as Pets ==<br />
Evidence from many sources suggests that the number of parrots in France, as well as some other European countries, increased dramatically during the eighteenth century. This increase was in part due to the increase in colonial trade, as well as the growing popularity of exotic pets in general. (Robbins p.29) Until the 19th century, parrots were not bred in Europe, but were imported mainly from Africa and South America. Following canaries, parrots were the second most popular exotic pets of the time. For-sale notices always advertised the Parrot’s speech above all else. “Young Amazon parrot just arrived from Le Havre and starting to talk”, and “pretty parakeet that speaks well.” (Robbins, p.143) In an explanation of the appeals of the parrot, Buffon writes, “…sometimes surprising us by their justice….” (Robbins, p.146)<br />
Parrot anecdotes and poems utilized the parrots “mimicry” as a humorous way “to cut through facades to reveal normally hidden social or political truths.” (Robbins, p.165) <br />
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== Audio Recording Technology &amp; Wiretapping ==<br />
One of the closest descendants of human spying and eavesdropping is audio recording technology. This field has mainly developed to enhance or replace the human ear. The development of this field in the early 1900’s coincides with a fall in popularity of the parrot as a pet. The first technology-based equivalent of eavesdropping is the tapping of telephone lines, also known as “wiretapping”. (Petersen, p. 14-15) The police departments in major cities had installed telephone systems by the early 1900’s. Bell had a monopoly on the system, which resulted in a uniformity of hardware and services. This uniformity impacted phone surveillance by making it very easy to eavesdrop on telephone communications. There were no statutes in the US to regulate wiretapping at this time. (Petersen, p. 14-15)One of the first instances of wiretapping on record was in 1916, when a New York mayor authorized it in order to aid an investigation of charity-fraud involving Catholic priests. During an examination of this case, it was discovered that police could tap any line in the New York Telephone Company. They had been listening to many confidential conversations. (Petersen, p. 2-26)<br />
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== What Next? ==<br />
Although surveillance technology seems to have answered this cultural need symbolized by the parrot and the bird, the envisioned media has not yet been fully realized. Surveillance today still lacks the sense of timing and the ability of selection that are key aspects of the parrot’s role as surveillor. Audio and visual recorders do not have the capability of selecting the event of importance out of their recorded content. A human is still needed to watch or listen to the many hours of recording in order to weed out or locate the right moment. Surveillance is increasingly becoming more closely associated with personal and everyday use. This is similar to the symbolism of the parrot, which appears in more personal situations, such as between husband and wife. By examining the cultural role of the parrot, we can see what direction our surveillance technology will take. This can allow us to inspect our culture more closely, and question the reasons for our need for such technologies. Perhaps our paranoia is evidence of a culture of selfishness, where each individual is secretly unconcerned with what is best for the community. <br />
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== Works Cited ==<br />
1. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotInFrontOfTheParrot<br />
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2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ydJrp-Moo<br />
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3. Dossier on Homing Pigeons <br />
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http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/Homing_Pigeons<br />
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Dee, Jim. &quot;Museum of Spies.&quot; Foreign Policy in Focus. Albuquerque: Jan 25, 2007.<br />
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4. Image from: <br />
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-Rowland, Beryl. Birds with human souls. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1978. (p. 123)<br />
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-Petersen, Julie K. Understanding Surveillance Technologies. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2001. <br />
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-Boehrer, Bruce Thomas. Parrot Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. <br />
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-Lyall, Sarah. “Kiss and Tell: She Kisses and the Parrot Tells”. The New York Times, January 18th 2006.<br />
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-Ford, Paul. “Weekly Review”. Harper’s Magazine. November 24th, 2005.<br />
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-Robbins, Louise E. Elephant slaves and pampered parrots: exotic animals in eighteenth-century Paris. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Mnemonics&diff=12564
Mnemonics
2010-11-24T05:36:22Z
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&lt;div style=&quot;text-align:center;&quot;&gt;&quot;'''M'''nemonics '''N'''eatly '''E'''liminate '''M'''an's '''O'''nly '''N'''emesis ('''I'''nsufficient '''C'''erebral '''S'''torage)&quot;&lt;/div&gt;<br />
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Mnemonics, or the art of memory, is today regarded as an arcane intellectual interest. It functions on the periphery of popular culture, largely through a literature of self-help designed to bolster the confidence of those insecure about their powers of recollection. If it is a useful skill, it is not an essential one in a civilization whose collective memory is securely stored in the printed word and, more recently, in digital media. Today’s archive exists in the library or the personal computer, not in the depths of a well-ordered mind. <br />
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Most of the mnemonic devices and techniques that remain today are simple and standardized. They are tools for remembering sequences of information, especially for recall in testing situations. Rather than learning general mnemonic tricks, students are left with specific rhymes or sentences to remember, for example: &quot;Roy G. Biv&quot; to remember the colors of the rainbow; &quot;Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally&quot; for the algebraic order of operations; and &quot;lefty, loosey; righty, tighty&quot; for mechanics. Despite the longevity of some of these specific mnemonics, however, they are but a mere suggestion of the much more complex and widespread mnemonic strategies of yesteryear: from the wandering rhapsody of ancient Greece who enthralled listeners with the epic tales of Homer to the philosophers of the Renaissance who constructed imaginary memory palaces to present their intricate designs of the cosmos. This dossier will explore mnemonics as a mode of mediation that stored knowledge in a world invested in the authority of the spoken word, and strove to represent and control the historically black-boxed functioning of human memory.<br />
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[[File:Erinnern.jpg|right|]]<br />
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==Historical Sketch of Old Works on Mnemonics==<br />
[[File:10133 vico dipintura.gif|400px|thumb|left|Cover image from Giambattista Vico's book ''The New Science''. Each symbol was mean to help the reader recall all of the ideas in the book.]]<br />
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“A memory consists in the awareness, first, of the diminished intensity of an impression, second, of its increased ease, and third, of the connections it entertains with other impressions” (Kittler 1999, 31).<br />
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Long before transcription existed, there have been oral records of events in history: genealogies. In medieval Iceland, administrators of the law had to commit their entire juridical system to memory (Fentress and Wickham, 1992). In Ireland, bards would study for twelve years in order to memorize over 500 stories, as well as genealogies of all the leading Irish families (MacManus, 1967).<br />
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Reflecting back on this mnemonic oral tradition, the 18th century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico contends that key to understanding of the nature of memory is derived from the direct correspondence between image and idea in primitive poetic language. In the beginnings of civilization, image and idea were one. Primitive peoples possessed robust memories because of the inseparable association they made between images and ideas in their comprehension of the world. They thought metaphorically, and the metaphors that they uttered were easily mimicked and remembered because they were richly expressive, grandiose, and full of wonder at the world. Vico revealed that the link between human imagination and the universe that the Renaissance Neoplatonists had sought to discover magically was in fact born historically in the development of human consciousness (Verene, 101). <br />
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The source of mnemonist’s method is visible in the poetic logic of Vico’s theory of the emergence of human consciousness. That theory, too, involves the relationship between places and images, which Vico labels ''topics'' and ''tropes''. Topics were the poetic of formulae through which primitive people identified the phenomena of the world. As imaginative representations of particular aspects of realty, they provided common places or fixed points of reference amidst the flux of sense experience (Yates, 31). Considered in this context, Vico’s new art of memory becomes a retrospective search for connection between our present conceptions and the lost poetic images out of which they were born. In the logic of Vichian poetics, the new art of memory is a reconstruction of the imaginative process by which the poets of antiquity gave shape to their perception of the world. Therein the imaginative sources of our present ideas are to be found. The original topic might be linked to a palimpsest, repeatedly covered over with more abstract imagery as the human mind historically ascended the tropological gradient of linguistic expression. Vico’s art of memory was to decipher each tropological layer along the way until the original metaphorical topic, long forgotten, was recalled to mind (Hutton, 379).<br />
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=== Freud's theory as a reverse mnemonics ===<br />
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If mnemonics lay at the source of Romantic soul-searching (both personal and collective), the techniques themselves were only rarely the subject of introspective comment. It was left to Sigmund Freud at the turn of the 20th century to explain the role of memory in introspection in terms of a mnemonic code (Hutton, 386). In his theory of screen memories, Freud posits the constructive power of the unconscious mind to shape recollection. Forgetting rather than remembering is what we wish to do, he argues, because it is easier to live with a screen of fantasies rather than face the reality of our past. To use his terminology, memory is tendentious in that it reflects unconscious psychic intent. In this respect the Unconscious is the guardian of memory, legislating the selection of what is remembered, and what is repressed or hidden away. As an art of memory, therefore, psychoanalysis is a technique for deciphering the psychic intent encoded in screen memories (Hutton, 388). As we elaborate below, Freud's theory of the Unconscious, and of the forces of repression and trauma that affect the psyche, is incompatible with the classical lineage of mnemonics that assumes the individual's conscious control over his or her memory.<br />
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==The Technology of Memory==<br />
[[File:Room 07 Fludd0002.jpg|thumb|computerized memory theater]]<br />
===How Mnemonics Work===<br />
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Mnemonics may be viewed as storage devices for information in the human mind. The brain, however, is like a black box, and has been throughout human history: many of its operations are a mystery, and we are still just uncovering how it accomplishes many of the tasks we take for granted. Memory is one such process that captured the imaginations of pre-modern thinkers, and that contemporary scientists are still trying to understand. However, there are a few things that have been discovered over the years about how mnemonics function. The process of remembering is split up into different steps: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Mnemonics are involved with encoding. The best way to learn things, or encode them, is to associate them with other things. In people's mind, &quot;apple&quot; will often be associated with &quot;red&quot; and &quot;round.&quot; By retrieving the concept of &quot;red,&quot; the memory of &quot;apple&quot; will also be triggered. Mnemonics capitalize on this principle by creating more entry points to different pieces of information.<br />
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At first glance, mnemonics may seem rather counter-intuitive because they require one to remember more information in order to solve the problem of remembering something else entirely. Rather than simply remembering one date, 1492 for example, mnemonics ask that you remember a poem: &quot;In 1492 / Columbus sailed the ocean blue.&quot; More information is required in an attempt to lodge an initial piece of information in one's mind. While this technique seems rather contradictory, it works because it creates associations, or configurations of information more likely to stick in one's memory. A useful metaphor may be that a memory is a series of files. Mnemonics store bits of information in a number of different files through which to access the information.<br />
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===Arbitrariness and the Cake-Mix Effect===<br />
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In many mnemonic systems, the specifics of the &quot;extra&quot; information one learns to create associations is often entirely arbitrary and can be adapted for each individual. Much like pre-packaged cake mix, mnemonic techniques offer a basic structure, but the particular words and connections that will best work for an individual mind must be added to the formula for it to function. For example, a common strategy for remembering an ordered list is to remember the first letter of each item and put together a new sentence in which each of the words starts with one of the letters needing to be remembered, in the proper order. So if one wanted to remember biological taxonomic classifications from broadest to most specific ('''K'''ingdom, '''P'''hylum, '''C'''lass, '''O'''rder, '''F'''amily, '''G'''enus, '''S'''pecies, '''V'''ariety), one need construct a new sentence in which each subsequent word starts with the next letter in order (K,P,C,O,F,G,S,V). Each individual might have a different sentence that works best for him or her, however. So while one student might find it most advantageous to remember &quot;'''K'''ing '''P'''hilip's '''C'''lassic '''O'''rder: '''F'''amily '''G'''enius - '''S'''pecial '''V'''alue'&quot; another might find it easier to remember &quot;'''K'''indly '''P'''lace '''C'''over '''O'''n '''F'''resh '''G'''reen '''S'''pring '''V'''egetables.&quot; This flexibility makes mnemonics a useful set of strategies, and the failure of these techniques is often dependent on the arbitrary information filled into the system. If someone fails to remember the order of the taxonomical classes it is usually because the sentence used is not the best for the user. Many mnemonic systems work in this manner, tailored to the individual mind. One prime historical example of this is the memory palace.<br />
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==Method of Loci==<br />
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A poetic, time-honored example of the method of loci may be found in the cosmology of Australian aborigines, whose ancestors are said to have sung the world into existence (Cambor, 2001). Every rock and crevice of the outback has a song associated with it, and the traveler knows their location exactly by their place in the song, the words of which corresponds to their physical surroundings. These songs have been transcribed to aid in the understanding of the geology of the continent. Across the globe, in Ancient Rome, mnemonics were used by lawyers to remember the points they wanted to make in a lawsuit. The method of loci was first formally described by Quitilian, a first century Roman rhetorician. As the historian Frances Yates describes in her book ''The Art of Memory'', the most common forms of the method of loci are memory palaces, memory theaters, and memory gardens. <br />
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===Case Study or Trace Study of the Memory Palace===<br />
[[File:Fludd-the-art-of-memory-89.jpg|thumb|right|Engraving by Robert Fludd revealing memory attached to images]]<br />
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Memory Palaces are methods of loci which use an imagined architecture to structure a speech based on associations of symbols. They are a spatialized remediation of association. Before memory palaces were implemented, hieroglyphs and other forms of picture writing were already using symbols to stand in for words and ideas. Memory palaces abstract this notion of association and complicate it in order to allow one to remember hundreds of ideas. While mnemonics can be written down, the memory palace is completely imagined, and therefore the process and the media is black boxed within the mind of the subject, and like Iris, the message or information is internalized. The memory palace is evoked, in the same way the muse used to be evoked, in order to help the speaker remember his or her message. This method was developed out of a human lack, and the need to remember large amounts of information. When using the memory palace, one needs only to remember the symbols, after which the encoded information becomes unlocked like the chirograph which connects to its counterpart. Memory palaces were constructed out of an anxiety for memory being lost, but in reality it is always already lost. <br />
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This mode of mediation is based on location, but it itself has no location and exists as a non-space that stores imagined data. The subject that uses the memory palace becomes split and is forced to inhabit two realities as one must imagine walking through the memory palace and picking up each predetermined object while simultaneously being rooted in a physical space and delivering a live speech to an audience. The subject must navigate the memory palace like an automaton on automatic pilot but cannot get fully immersed or lost in it. Discipline of the mind and the body is necessary since the subject cannot think, but must become a machine and instrument for the reading of memory. <br />
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====The Mechanization of Memory====<br />
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Hegel discusses memory in two terms: “Erinnerung” and “Gedächtnis.” Erinnerung for Hegel is recollection, memory based on learning and internalization. It therefore has a relationship to the past and to a missing Other. Gedächtnis is the forgetting of meaning in favor of memorization and technologized memory, just as the technologization of speech through the act of writing represents the erasure of speech and the marking of its becoming forgotten. Gedächtnis acts as the simulacrum and mechanical reproduction of memory but empties it of its original meaning (Ronell, 2010). Memory palaces fall under Gedächtnis, as they are a phantom crutch or prosthetic for remembering which can be easily dismantled and forgotten. The technique does reflect Erinnerung in that it calls to its missing Other which is the real house, but, because reality of the memory palace is artificially constructed, it has no relationship to the past. The associations within the memory palace are also artificial, revealing the manipulation of memory which becomes something external that can be altered and changed. Derrida writes, “What Plato is attacking in sophistics, therefore, is not simply recourse to memory but, within such recourse, the substitution of the mnemonic device for live memory, of the prosthesis for the organ; the perversion that consists of replacing a limb by a thing, here, substituting the passive, mechanical ‘by-heart’ for the active reanimation of knowledge, for its reproduction in the present. The boundary (between inside and outside, living and nonliving) separates not only speech from writing but also memory as an unveiling (re-)producing a presence from re-memoration as the mere repetition of a monument…(Derrida 109).” Paul de Man elaborates on the contradictory nature of Gedächtnis and Erinnerung, “Memory effaces remembrance (or recollection) just as the I effaces itself. The faculty that enables thought to exist also makes its preservation impossible. The art, the ''techné'', of writing which cannot be separated from thought and from memorization can only be preserved in the figural mode of the symbol, the very mode it has to do away with if it is to occur at all (de Man 102).” Here, Gedächtnis effaces Erinnerung, like mechanical reproduction effaces the original, and writing effaces speech.<br />
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====Memory Palace as Afterimage and Trace====<br />
[[File:Afterimage1.JPG|thumb|left|Purkyně's &quot;artery figure&quot; taken from Zielinksi's ''Deep Time of the Media'']]<br />
The effacing of Erinnerung caused by Gedächtnis also speaks to the idea of an afterimage which effaces the original image. The memory palace is an afterimage and faint impression of one’s home which it replaces. Jonathan Crary writes that the afterimage “…allowed one to conceive of sensory perception as cut from any necessary link with an external referent. The afterimage – the presence of sensation in the absence of a stimulus – and its subsequent modulations posed a theoretical and empirical demonstration of autonomous vision, of an optical experience that was produced by and within the subject (Crary 98).” The afterimage of the memory palace is detachable, once it is created the originary house isn’t necessary to evoke it, rather it can be evoked independently by the subject. Derrida’s concept of the “trace” is essentially the afterimage of a sign. While memory palaces are the navigation of symbols within a space, where space itself is also a symbol, the nature of these symbols are imagined and therefore nonpresent. Derrida saw signs as related to living memory, and the “trace” as having to do with dead memory Derrida writes, “The trace is not a presence but is rather the simulacrum of a presence that dislocates, displaces, and refers beyond itself. The trace has, properly speaking, no place, for effacement belongs to the very structure of the trace. Effacement must always be able to overtake the trace; otherwise it would not be a trace but an indestructible and monumental substance (Derrida 156).” The trace refers to that which is no longer present, leaving only the relics and remains to be read.<br />
<br />
<br />
====Memory as Archive and Crypt====<br />
[[File:044MemoryBook200.jpg|thumb|right|human brain as memory archive]]<br />
Memory palaces are a static archive of files. Cornelia Vismann links the structure of fixed archives to tombs which seal and bury files. Vismann writes, “The immobile tomes are their own tombs...The immobilization amounts to a musealization, creating a work of art out of files (Vismann 161-162).” The memory palace echoes this sentiment and acts more as a mausoleum than a museum. The frozen architecture of the memory palace is doubled by the frozen images within it, turning the palace into a crypt. The shaping of the memory palace into a petrified and dead picture reveals the artifice of constructed memory. Its static and spectral quality lends it to the space of the crypt and removes it from the space of the living. It is the dead memory that must be summoned by the speaker, called to as the missing Other, and resurrected into the present.<br />
<br />
====Forgetting====<br />
Memory Palaces must be practiced, otherwise they are prone to being forgotten. Practice and performance keeps artificial memory alive, otherwise it returns to the crypt. They are meant to be remembered for a specific event, such as a specific speech, but once the event has passed, the memory palace recedes, shatters, and erases itself into the depths of the mystic writing pad’s unconscious. The memory palace, then, is made to be forgotten. Vismann writes, “With one sharp and one blunt end, the stylus unites writing and erasing, those two fundamental chancery operations, in one instrument. Herein lies an analogy to the workings of memory: just as the Greek verb hypomnematizesthai equates filing and remembering, its opposite, exaleiphein, combines a practical act and a function of memory by referring both to forgetting and wiping off (Vismann 55).” In this sense the memory palace is obliterated and becomes buried as a trace and remnant. Memory and forgetting work as though in a circuit, the production of one is almost always the production of the other, to remember one thing often causes one to forget another less relevant thing. Vismann also discusses forgetting as enabling memory, just as the afterimage or trace enables the original image, or the second gives birth to the first. Mechanical reproduction also enables the original, revealing the necessity of the copy and the negation in order to preserve the referent. There is only so much space in the human brain, therefore acquiring new information or new memories must also imply a certain amount of forgetting.<br />
<br />
==Mnemonic Expression: Writing Secrets and Speaking the Mind==<br />
<br />
''The art of memory is like an inner writing'' - Frances Yates.<br />
<br />
While mnemonic techniques were designed for oral performance without visible written aid, they were, from a Derridean perspective, systems of representation organized by writing. Rather than utilizing writing to externalize memory, mnemonics structured texts to correlate with the (variously imagined) inner mechanisms of the psyche. Mnemonics shaped poetics via rhyme and meter, for instance, rendering the text structurally uniform so that it might be more easily remembered and spoken. Mnemonic technique thus interfaced between speech and writing, presence and trace. In the same vein, mnemonics mediated between the interior mind and the external world, articulating both. Mnemonics are thus not simply storage techniques but expression: a form of writing (or ''art'' of memory) that reveals historically deviant memories and, in attempting to control its input and output, represents the persistently black-boxed functioning of the human mind.<br />
<br />
===Mnemonics as cryptography===<br />
<br />
As a mode of mediation, mnemonics represent a curious combination of semiotics and functional nonsense. Mnemonic signs (images, places, phrases) must be nearly evacuated of meaning in order to cue—but not replace—the desired information actively attached to (or associated with) them. From this perspective, articulated above [http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/Mnemonics#Arbitrariness_and_the_Cake-Mix_Effect], mnemonics functioned as a storage technique comprised of arbitrary signifiers (like Roy G. Biv) rather than a communicative semantic system. The seemingly nonsensical functioning of mnemonics, however, leaves open the opportunity for obfuscation. If mnemonics could be 'objectively' coded for memory, then they could also perform as encrypted transmission.<br />
<br />
====Giordano Bruno's magic mnemonics====<br />
<br />
Giordano Bruno, a Dominican friar and peripatetic philosopher famous for his “amazing powers of recollection” (Zielinski 72) provides a historical example of the cryptographic, communicative potential of mnemonics in the late 16th century. Bruno was eventually burned at the stake during the Inquisition for his use of magic and allegiance to hermeticism: a philosophy named for Hermes and Thoth and based in Egyptian astrology, which, needless to say, clashed with Christian doctrine. In ''Deep Time of The Media'', Siegfried Zielinski links hermetic tradition (which persisted into the Renaissance but had to be promulgated secretly) to the “subhistory” stemming from “the passion for encrypting and deciphering texts runs through the sciences” since the 13th century (Zielinski 73). He also notes that cryptography made particular demands on memory and was thus bound to mnemonic ability (83). Bruno took this relationship one step further. In his writings and teachings, Bruno endeavored to both transmit and internalize hermetic secrets through mnemonic technique. <br />
[[Image: bruno_memory_wheel.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|Frances Yates' rendition of Giordano Bruno's mnemonic wheel described in ''Shadows'' (1582).]] “The secret was the combination of the Hermetic beliefs with the techniques of the art of memory” (Yates 305) writes Frances Yates, so that these “memory systems” became “a mode of transmitting a religion, or an ethic, or some message of universal import” (387). <br />
<br />
Bruno’s system of “magic mnemonics” (Yates 223) hinged on his belief that the memorization of significant images enabled the &quot;harnessing of the inner world of the imagination to the stars, or reproducing the the celestial world within&quot; (215). Memory, for Bruno, was thus a dioptric medium, allowing the passage of the sublime order of the heavens into the individual psyche, &quot;arriving at the vision within of the One light diffused through all&quot; (230). This divine lumen, however, was guarded by catoptric technique. Bruno's mnemonic system was based the arrangement of intricate wheels of astral symbols and magic images. Bruno's first book on the art of memory is aptly titled ''Shadows'': as Yates observes, there is “Circaean mystification at the heart of this memory treatise” (247). Bruno’s mnemonic code thus had a dual function to reveal and conceal. He sought to at once unify the human imagination and the celestial order through memory, and to keep this mnemonic recipe secret, decipherable only by those who understood hermetic principles and believed in magic.<br />
<br />
===Written in wax===<br />
<br />
Wax—the inscription media associated with classical rhetoric and art of memory—was remediated in recording technology and psychoanalytic discourse at the turn of the 20th century. Through a brief comparison of modern and antique articulations of wax as the material substrate of memory, we may glimpse how the rise and fall of mnemonics is subject to the imagined materiality—and malleability—of the mind.<br />
<br />
====Antique imaginary: the obvious====<br />
<br />
Cicero’s ''De oratore'' (finished in 55 B.C.E.) is among the earliest treatises describing mnemonics as a rhetorical art (Yates 17). Cicero credits Simonides with the invention of the art of memory, when, with “with almost divine powers of memory,” he “wrote down what he wanted to remember in certain places in his possession by means of images, just as if he were describing letters on wax” (qtd. in Yates 19). Yates interprets Cicero’s portrayal of the origin of mnemonics as “an inner writing on wax” (19): Simonides internalizes the wax tablet, the medium for recording speech that Phaedrus famously concealed under his cloak in Plato’s dialogue. Cornelia Vismann identifies wax as the key medium in the shift from oral to written legal and administrative culture in the West. “To synchronize speech and writing,” Vismann describes, “the speedwriters or exceptores responsible for files and protocols drew their letters in wax, which, in Quintilian’s words, puts up as little resistance to inscribing as it does to erasing” (Vismann 55). These speedwriters were also employed to take down the senate minutes, which “in search for the aura of the authentic,” “aim[ed] for [a] presentist effect” (54). Mnemonic systems were likewise designed to uphold these cultural values of presence and authenticity, and were analogous to wax in their ability to suture oral performance and written record.<br />
[[Image: waxtablet.jpg|left|300px|thumb|A Grecian wax tablet.]]<br />
Wax was thus the obvious material through (and on) which to describe mnemonics, which interfaced between speech and writing. The metaphor has an additional layer: as a malleable, hand-held medium, the wax tablet suggests that the memory is also easily manipulable by an autonomous author. Cicero renders Simonides as the authorial agent of his inner wax tablet, and thus in control of his memory. Nearly two millennia later, during the modern turn, the idea that one could rely on—let alone control—one’s memory was undercut by the development of recording technologies and the rise of psychoanalytic theories of trauma and repression. Curiously, at this historical moment, the connection between wax and memory that once portrayed both mnemonics and the inner-workings of the classical mind is again applied to mental faculties. This later incarnation of inner wax, however, is not subject to authorial intent, but inscribed upon by machines and the Unconscious.<br />
<br />
====Modern memory: the return of the repressed?====<br />
<br />
Two notable depictions of wax as the material substrate of memory bracket Kittler’s year 1900: Jean-Marie Guyau’s Memory and Phonograph (1880) and Sigmund Freud’s Note Upon the ‘Mystic-Writing Pad’ (1925). “What good are the poetic mnemonic techniques of rhyme and meter when wax rolls can store not only substance and tone but real sounds?” (Kittler 1992, 236), Kittler asks in ''Discourse Networks, 1800/1900''. Guyau addressed this anxiety of the inferiority of human memory and the limits of language early on by claiming the phonograph as the most exact metaphor for man’s ability to record and recite—to read, write, and speak. Notions of manipulating the memory with images, places, and signs is replaced with a techno-scientific inscription in Guyau’s comparison: “Upon speaking into a phonograph, the vibrations of one’s voice are transferred into a point that engraves lines on a metal plate…in analogous ways, invisible lines are incessantly carved into the brain cells” (qtd. in Kittler 1999, 30-31). In Guyau's view, the materiality of the modern mind must be akin to the phonograph's metal plate and wax rolls, because, unlike the wax tablet which can only record spoke words, these mechanisms can fix unwritable data flows and capture the noise of modern life.<br />
<br />
Freud’s use of the [[mystic-writing pad]] as an analogy for the psyche also revises the idea of memory and inscription. Freud dismisses mnemonics right off the bat: “If I distrust my memory,” he begins, “I am able to supplement and guarantee its working by making a note in writing” (Freud 227). External “devices to aid memory” (228) are imperfect compared to our own sensory apparatus, however, which “has an unlimited receptive capacity for new perceptions and nevertheless lays down permanent—even though not unalterable—memory-traces of them” (228). Though he distrusts his memory, Freud echoes the ancient Greeks in imagining the psychic apparatus as a remediation of the wax tablet: the mystic-writing pad. Unlike the imagined mnemonic tablet, however, Freud’s pad is not consciously inscribed, but “receives perceptions (which are accompanied by consciousness)and passes the excitation on to the unconscious mnemic systems” (231). In Freud's illustration of the psyche, it is not the individual who consciously writes upon his or her memory, but the semi-conscious (and potentially traumatic) perceptions that exceed language which mark the material substrate of the mind.<br />
<br />
Though these modern articulations of the mind destabilize the ability of human memory (assumed by mnemonics) and man’s conscious, literate power over it (and symbolized by wax), they are haunted by the idea of control and power that they repress. Guyau and Freud participate in the same endeavor to represent the black box of the mind, reiterating the art of memory via technological and psycho-scientific metaphor.<br />
<br />
==Obsolescence and the Changing Thinker==<br />
<br />
<br />
According to Yates, the quest for improved memory through artificial mnemonic systems emerges as a critical part of our attempt to organize knowledge and impose a comprehensible order on our chaotic world. Perhaps the decline of these time-honored techniques is simply due to the fact that it is decreasingly relevant or important to remember things. The way we interact with information has changed drastically since a time before writing, thus changing the way we think. As Nietzsche observed, &quot;our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts&quot; ([http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/ Carr]). When the printing press was invented by Johann Gutenberg in the early 1450s, memory techniques started to lose their prominence. People were suddenly able to record history, genealogies, law codes and stories without committing them to memory. <br />
<br />
With easy access to computer databases and the Internet, the need for mnemonic devices is has faded even further. This shift in thinking was pointed out in a recent article published in the New York Times: &quot;Why bother remembering the clever poem that tells the value of pi to 21 places (3.141592653589793238462) when you can look it up online and get a virtual googol of places? Why is it necessary in this information age to remember most thing, except maybe your user name and password(s)?&quot; ([http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17ONLANGUAGE.html Rosenthal]). Clive Thompson summed up the change in thinking even more succinctly in [http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-10/st_thompson ''Wired''] magazine: &quot;Almost without noticing it, we've outsourced important peripheral brain functions to the silicon around us.&quot; In a time when memory was the only storage device or at least one of the most efficient, mnemonics were an obvious form of mediation, but as new technologies have become available making it simple to find almost any fact in a few quick keystrokes and a quick skimming of a web page, those old strategies have become less necessary. As Crary observes, audiences must be trained to use new mediums and technologies (Crary 6), and through our re-training, it is not surprising mnemonics have largely disappeared. We have been schooled in new ways of solving the problem of retaining important details, with external resources in hand. Perhaps this modern resistance to memorization masks an anxiety caused by a diminished sense of our own mnemonic capabilities (Cambor 2001) due to developments in technology and the emergence of psychoanalysis at the turn of the modern era, or perhaps memory itself is a dying medium.<br />
<br />
==References==<br />
* Carr, Nicholas. [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/ &quot;Is Google Making Us Stupid?&quot;] ''The Atlantic''. The Atlantic Monthly Group, July-Aug. 2008. Web. 10 Apr. 2010.<br />
* Crary, Jonathan. ''Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century''. Boston: MIT Press, 1992.<br />
* de Man, Paul. ''Aesthetic Ideology''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.<br />
* Derrida, Jacques. ''Dissemination''. New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 2004.<br />
* Derrida, Jacques. ''Speech and phenomena: and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs''. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973. <br />
* Donald Phillip Verene, Vico’s Science of Imagination (Ithaca, 1981), 96-126<br />
* Fentress, James and Chris Wickham (1992) Social Memory. Oxford: Blackwell. <br />
* Freud, Sigmund. ''The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud''. Ed. James Strachey. London: The Hogarth Press, 1961.<br />
* Kittler, Friedrich A. ''Discourse Networks, 1800/1900''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992.<br />
* --. ''Gramophone, Film, Typewriter''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.<br />
* Patrick H. Hutton. ''The Art of Memory Reconceived: From Rhetoric to Psychoanalysis''. Journal of the History of Ideas, 48(3), 371-392<br />
* Patrick H. Hutton, &quot;The new science of giambattista Vico: Historicism in its Relation to Poetics&quot; ''Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'', 30 (1972), 362-64<br />
* Rosenthal, Jack. [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17ONLANGUAGE.html &quot;Mnemonics.&quot;] ''New York Times''. New York Times Company, 17 July 2005. Web. 11 Apr. 2010.<br />
* Ronell, Avital. &quot;Scoring Literature: The Drug Culture&quot;. (Lecture, NYU, 4/8/10).<br />
* Thompson, Clive. [http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-10/st_thompson &quot;Your Outboard Brain Knows All&quot;] ''Wired''. Conde Nast Digital, 25 Sept. 2007. Web. 11. Apr. 2010.<br />
* Vismann, Cornelia. ''Files: Law and Media Technology''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.<br />
* Yates, Frances A. ''The Art of Memory''. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966.<br />
* Zielinski, Siegfried. ''Deep Time of the Media''. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.<br />
<br />
==External Links==<br />
* [http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/_mnframe.htm Mnemonics] - a list of a number of standardized mnemonic devices<br />
* [http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-memory.htm How Human Memory Works] - a simple overview of the mental process<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]<br />
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[[Category:Spring 2010]]<br />
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[[Category: Memory]]<br />
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[[Category: Representation]]</div>
Egugecuge
http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=The_Victrola&diff=12563
The Victrola
2010-11-24T05:35:21Z
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[[Image:diagram.jpg|right|Portable Victrola|]]<br />
== Physical Description of the Victrola ==<br />
[[Image:victrolaimage.jpg|left|Portable Victrola|]]<br />
The portable Victrola is designed as a container for the playback of sound. It is contained in a hard suitcase for the purpose of mobility and the protection from possible damages that would arise from being in transit. There is a handle which is semiotically associated with a brief case, and affords the ability to carry it in motion. The exterior of the portable Victrola cannot be differentiated from any other briefcase. The crank is located on the side of the machine that juts out when in use. The crank can be taken out, and stored in the case. On the corner of the case there is a container for storing needles. There is a place to store the records in order to carry around many at a time. The horn is not visible, and cannot be accessed.<br />
<br />
== Material Affordances of the Portable Victrola ==<br />
<br />
The portable Victrola has a partially predetermined volume. There is no tool for the mechanical adjustment of volume within the device itself. However, if one were to close the container slightly, the sound would diminish. Although this is ostensibly an inconvenience of the device, in other competing phonographs, where the user is given control over the volume, the clarity of the recording is simultaneously altered. The fixed high volume level of the portable Victrola suggests that it was meant be used outdoors. In competing formats such as the gramophone, the adjusting spring could be tightened or loosened allowing variation in volume and clarity and the tone would become less clear as the volume grew louder. (Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past, 215) However, in the Victrola, the user can increase the volume by replacing a sharp needle with a dull one. This creates a louder volume, accompanied by a less articulated tone. Thus it is up to the user to decide how s/he would prefer to hear the recording. In this manner pre-recorded sound could be expressed in a multiplicity of ways, and afforded consumer preference and active involvement in the perception of the recording. In a sense, there was a collaboration between the studio engineers, and the listeners. By eliminating certain aspects of the original recording event, and augmenting others, the user could partially manipulate the way in which the recording was heard. For example, Jonathan Sterne notes that if one were to point the machine towards the wall, the bass sound would increase. The portable model of the Victrola afforded it to be positioned according to the user’s preference, and placed in an infinite variety of acoustic situations. The user of the Victrola had to mechanically wind the machine in order for it to work. The more that the machine was wound, the longer it would play. However, the duration of the recording itself determined the length of the playback, and therefore the length of the sonic expression was mechanized.The portable Victrola allowed the user to hear the record being played back at different intervals of speed. Therefore it was up to the listener to determine how s/he wanted to hear the recording. However, the device symbolically suggests that the middle level would be the most accurate and truthful expression of the original sound recording event. <br />
<br />
=== Material Substrate and Sonic Representation ===<br />
If one were to listen to the early phonographic recordings, one would notice that they sound somewhat flat or “tinny” and contain “pops and hisses.” This is due to the process and materials used to record the sound. The early recordings on wax surface were unsuccessful in capturing the heavy bass notes, and notes from the top end of the spectrum. “Loud sounds would force the stylus to the edge of the groove and sometimes beyond it, ruining the record.” (Sterne, 200) In the earliest recordings, music was captured by the phonograph’s horn and then channeled to the recording stylus. Sometimes the elements captured the sound accurately, and other times the material used in the construction of the instrument, the room’s size and dimensions, noise from outside, would all get incorporated into the recording. The earliest phonographic recordings were impractical, in that they could only hold two minutes worth of sound. (Steffen, 27) Wax was used as the material substrate for recording, because it allowed for a more defined and sharper recording, because the grooving was closer together than that of tinfoil. However, recordings on wax were significantly softer then tin foil. (ibid, 28) This phenomenon leaves it up to the listener to imagine the music as if it were without the &quot;pops and hisses,&quot; as a smooth coherent whole.<br />
<br />
== Precursors to the Victrola ==<br />
<br />
The Victrola is situated in a technological history of automated devices that mediated sonic performance, from the the music box, to the piano roll. The mediation comes from machines meant to read inscriptions and codes and thus to mechanize a sonic event. The automation would produce “live music” and could only be repeated using the machines that were present. The Musical Box was one of the first automatic instruments. It was manufactured in Switzerland in 1814 and was the first use of the cylinder in the production of music. There was a winding lever, and a “fan-shaped governor” to regulate the speed. With one winding, the instrument could run by itself for two hours. (Science &gt; Vol. 12, No. 306 (Dec., 1888), pp. 286-288) The Victrola is a remediation of the Musical Box, using much of the same technology in its process of automation. The winding lever is present in the mechanical Victrolas, as well as the ability to regulate speed. The telegraph is another invention that directly preceded the creation of the phonograph. It was invented by Samuel Morse in 1844 and was the first invention to provide instantaneous communication of information through space. The telegraph created the possibility of disembodied communication, where face-to-face interaction was no longer necessary for interaction. It is possible to see the first instantiation of disembodied performance as the telegraph operator could make patterns that were broadcasted elsewhere. <br />
=== Stenography and the Encoding and Decoding of Messages ===<br />
Stenography can be seen as a precursor to the earlier forms of audio/visual representation, as well as a cultural paradigm from which Edison’s initial intention for the phonograph developed. Stenography, also known as “short hand,” was a system of representation used prior to the phonograph, and was replaced by the phonograph. Its function was to capture live testimonials, and transcribe them verbatim. Eventually stenography evolved into phonography, which was a more advanced version of the former. Stenography was taught to students, and used widely by teachers. It was taught to students because it was known to utilize intellect as well as mechanical dexterity. (Headline: One of the Marvels of the Nineteenth Century. Sound Recording Itself; Article Type: News/Opinion Paper: Porcupine's Gazette, published as The Pittsfield Sun; Date: 10-31-1861; Volume: LXII; Issue: 3189; Page: [1]; Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) In combination with still photographs, stenography was used as a method of recording history. (Gitelman, 25) It attempted to capture and edify aspects of oral expression, and evolved to focus on the vocal element as opposed to the spelling of the word. (Gitelman, 25) The logic of capturing oral expression was extended into the subsequent invention of the Phonoautograph. This device was invented by M.L. Scott and purported to visibally fix sound on a tablet. In the representation of sound on a tablet, each sound could be seen as visually distinct. Human voice was able to be distinguished from the sound produced by musical instruments. The acoustic vocabulary of tones and frequencies were employed to show how different sounds were represented visually on the tablet. This is a remediation of stenography as it attempted to capture the ephemeral sonic event, and to represent this event visually in a semiotic system. However, stenography employed writing, and the language used was the alphabet. It relied almost exclusively on the human labor of the stenographer. The Phonoautograph relied on the interface between sound and machinery much like the camera did with visual material substrate. There was an attempt to transcribe the graphic representation of sonic waves back into words, thus mimicking the process of stenography, however, this proved to be impossible, as all words looked visually different. “It is difficult to imagine the importance of the discovery, whether in respect it be in respect to the unimpeachable accuracy of the process, the entire absence or trouble and expense in reporting any articulate sounds, or the great saving of time, and exhausting labors of parliamentary reporters.” (Porcupine’s Gazette)The Phonograph extended the notion of converting oral experience into evidence. (26) The notion of short-hand used in order to capture oral experience is seen in the 18th. Century. “..The fallies of imagination and the falutary advise of wisdom and experience would die with their professors, and be unavailing to posterity.” “By it we can make the copious effusions of animated oratory our own, catch the beautiful or the sublime, from the lips of the speaker we admire.”Headline: On the Art of Common, and That of Stenography or Short Writing; Article Type: News/Opinion Paper: State Gazette of South-Carolina; Date: 12-17-1793; Volume: LV; Issue: 4296; Page: [3];) The Phonograph solved the problem of stenography in that it got rid of the anxiety of inaccuracy due to fallibility of the stenographers. Stenography evolved into another form of writing called Phonography, which was intended for teachers. The use of the word Phonography first appeared in 1845. The art of Phonography was “intended to benefit mankind.” (Headline: Pursuit of Knowledge; Article Type: News/Opinion Paper: Sun, published as The Pittsfield Sun.; Date: 07-15-1847; Volume: XLVII; Issue: 2443; Page: [1]; Location: Pittsfield, Massachusetts)<br />
<br />
=== The Early Phonograph ===<br />
In the late 19th century, there were many competing formats for sound recording and reproduction. The Victrola took the successful elements from of the technology employed by both the early phonograph, and the gramophone. The phonograph was invented by Edison in 1877. Edison came up with the idea for the phonograph initially, while thinking of ways to speed up the telegraph. He wanted to speed up the process of the telegraph in order to increase the amount of messages and the speed at which they could be sent. In doing so he realized that he had to rid the process of the human component, as people could only work at a finite speed. In order to automate the process, he saw the necessity for recording the coded messages. (Steffen: From Edison to Marconi) The initial phonograph was used in order to permanently record the human voice and other sounds, from which the sounds could then be reproduced and rendered audible at another time. (phonograph patent) Like the photograph, the phonograph engaged in the freezing of a moment of time, and displacing it into the future. <br />
=== The Phonograph V.S. The Gramophone ===<br />
The original patent shows the process for mechanical reproduction of audio: “the record, if it be upon tinfoil, may be stereotyped by means of the ‘plaster of paris’ process, and from the stereotype multiple copies may be made expeditiously and cheaply by casting or by pressing tin-foil or other material on it. “ (Patent 200521) According to information from the patents, Edison’s phonograph used a stylus attached to a vibratory diaphragm to indent a traveling sheet of tinfoil. The stylus would indent the substrate (tinfoil or other substrates that could be indented) and its imprints were to a debth that depended on the amplitude of the sound waves. Emile Berliner, who invented the gramophone, saw the Edison’s phonograph as defective, and sought to improve upon the method of mechanical reproduction. He argued that this method was defective because of the weak force of the vibrations therein, and saw the weakness as a defect for its lack of volume. Additionally he believed that the vibrations had to overcome the resistance in the material substrate, which would lead to a modification in the imprints, and a less accurate reproduction. He argued that Edison’s invention, due to issues with the material substrate, would not be able to pick up the voice of a loud speaker. Berliner overcame this in his gramophone, by positioning the stylus parallel to the substrate, so that there would be minimal friction, and the substrate used would have minimal resistance. “The vibrations were then engraved onto metal and could stand an infinite number of reproductions without altering its accuracy.” (patent 372786) At this point, the cylinder was still being used to support the surface that was recorded on. Berliner switched to the flat disc because the surface had to be straightened in the photo-engraving copy process. (patent 564586) He used the side to side cut method as opposed to the vertical cut, where the needle moved up and down in order to reproduce the signal. Edison’s original invention of the phonograph was used for both recording and for playback. He employed the use of the cylinder as opposed to the disc found in the Victrolas and the Gramophones. In 1889 Edison created the phonograph that separated the instruments used for recording, and playback. He claimed to have done this because he feared that the stylus used to record onto the surface, would “obliterate” the record if used for playback. He made the reproducing point thinner than the recording point. As the phonograph was reproduced by tracing a groove in the surface of a wax cylinder, this produced a considerably low volume, but was ostensibly more pleasing to the ear. The gramophone used a rubber record which was reproduced by scratching a tack in the granulated groove. This had a higher volume. Volume was framed as a class issue where higher volume was deemed as more suitable for teenagers. (Sterne, 279) Johnson and Berliner developed a way to mass produce the disk. This was done by stamping discs from a malleable material such as rubber or wax. (Steffen, 48) In the 1880s, Berliner’s gramophone was distinguished from the phonograph in its loud volume. There was a competing aesthetic that was mixed in corporate interests: some people criticized the gramophone for its loudness.<br />
<br />
== The Uniqueness of the Victrola ==<br />
[[Image:victorlapic1.gif|right|Unique Victrola|]]<br />
The consolidated Talking Machine Company was the precursor to Victor Talking Machine Company, which later became RCA Victor. The Victor Talking Machine Company began in 1901. There was no standardization of equipment or software and the companies as well as the consumers had to choose between cylinder or disk. In 1901, Eldridge Johnson of the Talking Machine Company created the Victrola. The Victrola is a type of early phonograph that used an internal horn. It was patented by the Victor Talking Machine Company, and only refers to internal horned phonographs. The Victrola is a direct descendant of the gramophone in that it uses the same technology of a flat record disk. (Patent, 781429) These disks revolved at 78 RPM (rotations per minute) and used the lateral side to side cut method. The Victrola produced sound into the environment through a reverse process of its inscription: “The needle would track the groove, the vibration is coupled into the sound-box, which holds the diaphragm. The diaphragm vibrates the air molecules into a hollow “tonearm” and mechanical energy is converted into acoustical energy.” (official Victrola website) The tonearm then routes the sound into the horn, which is hidden in the box. The horn then directs the waves into the listening environment. (official Victrola website) While the record spins, the stylus tracks the groove which contains the acoustical signal. The stylus vibrates and the vibrations hold the frequency and amplitude information of the audio signal. The diaphragm then converts the mechanical energy into acoustical energy, which excites the column of air in the tonearm. The company saw the gramophones as inconvenient due to the large horn that would just out in order to amplify sound. The prevailing attitude was that it had a dominating presence and was unsuitable for the middle class family’s parlors, which the company sought to market to. (Official Victrola Website) In 1905 the company invented the cabinet sound-producing machine. This consisted of an internal horn folded downward into a large floor standing cabinet. The horn opening was placed below the turntable. (Patent, 1159978) The cabinet was used to block the visual of the horn, and as a “crude volume control,” where if closed made the volume louder, and if opened, softer. At first, the unique model of the Victrola was its design as a “cabinet sound-producing machine.” These were expensive, and the company designed tabletop versions in 1909 for the average American home.<br />
=== The Cabinet Producing Machine and Home Entertainment ===<br />
[[Image:cabinet.jpg|left|Cabinet Victrola|]]<br />
The first Victor-Victrola was advertised for the wealthy as it was costly to produce, and sold at $200. The Cabinet Producing machine is described in an advertisement created in 1908 as follows: &quot;The Horn and all moving parts are entirely concealed in a handsome mahogany cabinet, and the music is made loud or soft by opening or closing the small doors.&quot; (Advertisement 3--No title, Outlook (1893-1924); Nov 7, 1908; 90, 10; APS online) Advertising suggested the value of the talking machine for home entertainment. The Phonograph replaced the piano as the dominant form of entertainment in the household. Playing the piano was time consuming and an active process. With the advent of the Phonograph, entertainment could now be a passive process, and more efficient, as almost no energy had to be emitted to hear pre-recorded music. It was redefined as a parlor instrument to bring culture, education, and social status into the household. The phonograph suited the middle class household, and was targeted specifically towards women. Thus the first designs of the Victrola’s “cabinet sound reproducing machines,” were designed in order to blend in with household furniture. The phonograph initially was associated with low-brow culture, because it was only seen in nickelodeons and archades. It was viewed as a novelty. Advertisers sought to transform its image into one that would be acceptable for an in-home market. In doing so, the industry had to promote its ability to play “high class music.” Early advertisements mimicked campaigns for home products such as the piano to cleaning supplies, hoping to change the image of the phonograph. The ads promised to provide culture, education, and upward social mobility. (Creating a home culture for the phonograph: Women and the rise of sound recordings in the United States,1877--1913, Bowers, Nathan David. Proquest Dissertations And Theses 2007. Section 0178, Part 0323 321 pages; [Ph.D. dissertation].United States -- Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh; 2007. Publication Number: AAT 3270123., 72)<br />
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=== The Orthophonic Victrola ===<br />
The Mechanical Victrola evolved into the Orthophonic Victrola (1924) This was a device designed to sound more like radio. Radio used electricity to transmit sound across space. The Orthophonic Victrola used an electric recording process with an electric speaker which could pick up more treble and base. In 1929 the company was bought by the RCA corporation. The Orthophonic Victrola eventually was replaced by Vinyl record players.<br />
<br />
== Historical Context of Mass Reproduction ==<br />
Sound media was part of an emerging field of mass communication and culture oriented towards the middle class. (Benjamin, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction) “The technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.” (ibid) The 19th Century saw a trend towards mass culture which was characterized by high volume, low unit-cost production. This was reflected in the high-speed printing press, newspapers, and books that could be sold cheaply. Content was popularized, and became more democratic. (Hoover) At the same time, there was a need for the democratization of culture. The salient attitude was that “music was a powerful cultural and moral force, and that Americans sadly lacked access to it…” The American ideal was that all members of society should have access to “the highest forms of human culture.” (Making America More Musical through the Phonograph, 1900-1930, by Mark Katz American Music © 1998 University of Illinois Press) The Phonograph and public taste and popular culture: The phonograph allowed the working class American to access “high culture” by providing them with mass produced music. In the beginning of the mass production of records, “records were sold by volume and not by subject, much less by title or artist. The customer bought a dozen mixed records instead of choosing the songs he or she preffered. “ (sterne, 33) Thus it could be said that the record companies became the taste-makers of audio culture. Advertisements would speak to the fact that people could now hear &quot;The world's greatest artists&quot; in their own home.<br />
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== Acoustic Realism and the Marketing of High Fidelity ==<br />
[[Image:vicad.jpg|right|Advertisement for the Cabinet Victrola: <br />
Advertisement 3 -- No Title<br />
Outlook (1893-1924). New York:Nov 7, 1908. Vol. 90, Iss. 10, p. 0_2 (1 pp.)|]]<br />
<br />
=== The Original Use of the Phonograph ===<br />
Music was not Edison’s preferred application of the Phonograph. Edison wanted &quot;to preserve for future generations the voices as well as the words of our Washingtons, our Lincolns, our Gladstones, etc.. their utterances transmitted to posterity, centuries afterwards, as freshly and forcibly as if those later generations heard his living accents.&quot; (As Quoted by Steffen) “The Sun says nothing could be more incredible than the likelihood of hearing the voice of the dead, yet the invention of the new instrument is said to render this possible hearafter.” The interest in hearing the voices of the dead also came from a desire to preserve cultures that the U.S. government wished to destroy. (Sterne) Edison initially intended the invention to be used in order to record voices, and as a business machine. He stated that it could be used for stenography, teaching and preservation of language, recording of lectures and instructions from teachers and professors, capturing the dying words of family and friends, voice clocks that would announce the hour, an attachment to Bell’s telephone, talking books for the blind, talking dolls, and music boxes. (Steffen, 26)f) The Phonograph was first considered by the public as an improvement on the telephone. Not only did it receive sound but kept it “corked up in a coil of electric wire until it is wanted.” “The state ought to order thousands with which to bottle up the eloquence of our legislators this winter for the edification of posterity.” (Headline: [State]; Article Type: News/Opinion Paper: New Orleans Times, published as The New Orleans Times; Date: 11-14-1877; Volume: XIV; Issue: 7464; Page: 4; Location: New Orleans, Louisiana) The phonograph was seen by Edison as a device for the storage of public knowledge. (Gitelman, 13) Thus it can be seen that the initial usage of the phonograph was for posterity and common historical knowledge of public affairs. At the same time, it was also seen as a device for personal and private affairs, where dying family members could record their voices, and leave messages for their future family members. In this sense the recording of voices allowed for the first time, the voice to be separated from the body, but to contain a trace of bodily identity. <br />
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=== The Pursuit of High Fidelity ===<br />
Advertisements were geared at fidelity. Whether or not a person could tell the difference between the real and its reproduction. The relations between sounds made by people and those made by machines were called into question. (216, Sterne) This notion comes from the perspective that reproduced sound is a mediation of live sounds that occur in face-to-face presence and live musical performance. (218, ibid) The recording technology was supposed to be a “vanishing mediator” as if it were not there. <br />
b) This nostalgia for capturing the original voice speaks directly to Benjamin’s essay “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” There is a sense of nostalgia that accompanies reproduction. “When speech fails to protect presence, writing becomes necessary.” (Derrida, Of Grammatology 144) Writing is commonly understood as supplementing speech. Edison accepted the illusion of presence, believing that the phonograph would transmit to our perception the sonic event exactly as if it was present at the instant of its perception. This thought process is also mimicked in the belief in the fidelity of the photograph, as the captures the objective reality. Edison believed in the transparent communication. The phonograph was a way of preserving the illusion of presence, and exemplifies Derrida’s concept of logo-centrism. The voice was supposed to be the marker of origin and identity.<br />
=== Sound and Time in the 19th Century ===<br />
The Bourgeoisie conception of time was that it was something that could be measured, objectified, repeated, and saved. (Sterne, 300) Sound recordings dealt with time in this manner. According to Kittler, in the 19th century the “real” took the place of the symbolic. Kittler is referring to time as the primary mode of measurement as opposed to length. With the advent of the phonograph the notion of frequency was changed. “The measure of length is replaced by time as an independent variable. It is a physical time removed from the meters and rhythms of music.” (Kittler, 24) What was objectified were sonic vibrations, and the length of time. In this sense, the recording of sound can be viewed as repeatable, but within in a physically bounded frame that could only exist in a unique space. “Phonographic time was the outgrowth of a culture that had learned to can, to embalm, in order to ‘protect’ itself from seemingly inevitable decay.” (Sterne, 311) The act of recording sounds, is a process of extraction. The extraction of a particular spacio-temporal moment can then be stored and repeated any number of times. However, there would always be qualitative differences in the playback of the original sounds, that would be contingent upon the particular situational context of the payback. Although there was a creative act of recording (as in the selection of the event, and the artificial conditions that were constructed, the creative act extended to the domain of the listener, and did not stop with the original performance. Sterne argues that the sound reproduction was inherently a studio art and therefore bound up with the reproduction technologies. He argues that the main point of Benjamin’s essay is that reproduction precedes originality. People performed for the machines, capturing reality suitable for reproduction. “Considered as a product, reproduced sound might appear mobile, de-contextualized, disembodied. Considered as a technology, sound reproduction might appear mobile, dehumanized, and mechanical.” (Sterne, 236) The listener that was enmeshed in a discourse of fidelity and authenticity saw the noises made by the machines as exterior to the sound. There was an effort on the part of the listener to ignore the pops and hisses that came from the recording. There was a discourse of realism surrounding reproduction devices. The record was supposed to reflect sound as opposed to shaping it.<br />
<br />
=== Analogue v.s. Digital ===<br />
<br />
The groove of a phonograph record is a spatial analogue of the sound emitted by the original performing medium. In early automatic instruments, there is no spatial representation, but rather an indirect representation of the live performance. Analogue recording technologies have an authentic relation to the original because there is a causal relation between the sound and the analog recording. This is in contradistinction to digital recording that converts sound into zeros and ones, to be reconstructed as sound at the moment of production. Therefore, Sterne argues that analog and digital are ontologically different in terms of live recording.<br />
<br />
== The Successors to the Portable Victrola ==<br />
[[Image:boombox.jpg|right|Boombox|]]<br />
The first successor to the portable Victrola was the portable Stereophonic Record Player patented in 1964. This record player had an automatic record changer and delivered sound waves through independent amplifiers. This was a remediation of the portable Victrola because of its design. &quot;It is another object of the present invention to provide an assemblage of speakers and automatic record changer whereby they can be quickly and easily assembled together into a compact portable unit and can at the same time be very quickly and easily set up in proper physical separation for stereophonic reproduction.&quot;(Patent 3135837) This is a successor because of its design and its affordances. Another successor is the &quot;Magnetic Recording and Reproducing Machine&quot; or the tape recorder. The advantage of the tape recorder was its ability to be reused indefinitely. Another successor to the portable Victrola is the portable stereo system, also known as the &quot;boombox.&quot; This was a system used in the 1980s that played at a high volume either cassette tapes or compact discs. As it was designed for public outdoor use, it can be said to be a current incarnation of the the portable Victrola.<br />
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===Portability: From Group to Individual Listening===<br />
[[Image:mister_disc1.png|left]]<br />
<br />
Although the portable Victrola was easily transportable by design, its intended use remained open-air and group playback. Portability was a value not yet associated with individualized listening, as would become customary with later portable technologies that employed headphones. The Victrola was instead marketed as a device which could be easily taken from place to place for open-air playback, not a device which could offer playback en route. This was a function of both the issues of volume control mentioned earlier as well as the obvious difficulty in handling rather clumsy and large material recordings. Indeed, the problem of analogue, carved inscription (wax records), as compared to analogue, magnetic recording (cassettes), rendered portable playback on one's person illusory for some time. Radio technology lent itself more immediately to portable use (in the 1950's car, for instance). The Victrola and subsequent record players, on the other hand, required a stable platform upon which to sit during use, lest the needle jump. Stability was key. That said, a number of ill-fated devices did emerge which attempted to solve this problem. Portability would thus become synonymous with individualized and isolated playback: the walkman, the discman, and, more recently, the iPod. An early forerunner to such technologies, introduced well after the advent of both the eight-track and subsequent audiocassettes, presented itself in 1983 as the &quot;personal portable phono system.&quot; This was the the Mister Disc pictured above.<br />
<br />
=== References ===<br />
<br />
Jonathan Sterne, &quot;The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction,&quot; Duke University, copyright 2003<br />
<br />
Lisa Gitelman, &quot;Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era,&quot; Stanford Press, copyright 1999<br />
<br />
Friedrich Kittler, &quot;Gramophone, Film, Typewriter,&quot; Stanford University, 1986<br />
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S. Hoover, &quot;Religion in the Media Age,&quot; Routledge, copyright 2006<br />
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David Steffen, &quot;From Edison to Marconi: The First 30 Years of Recorded Music,&quot; Minnesota, Copyright 2005<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
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http://www.cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php?title=Pneumatic_Tubes&diff=12562
Pneumatic Tubes
2010-11-24T05:35:20Z
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'''Pneumatic Tubes''' are networks of hollow tubes through which cylindrical containers carrying small items (i.e. mail) are sent, driven by the force of compressed air, which is usually generated by an engine or water. These tubes can be constructed in any number of ways, using various metals and wood.<br />
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==The Beginnings: Pressurized Air and Patents==<br />
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Although pneumatic tubes in their physical form were not invented until the late 1800s, the idea that pressurized air could be used to propel objects through empty vessels has been explored since antiquity. One of the earliest instances of such research occurred in Ancient Greece, when Hero of Alexandria completed his treatise on pneumatics. Exactly when ''The Pneumatics'' (or ''Pneumatica'') of [[Hero of Alexandria]] was published is still up for debate, though most scholars agree that he lived in the first century BC. Regardless, Hero of Alexandria’s ''Pneumatica'' assumed that “…air is matter. The air when set in motion becomes wind, (for wind is nothing else but air in motion)” (Hero of Alexandria 2). He found that “if from the application of force of the particles of air be divided and a vacuum be produced larger than is natural, the particles unite again afterwards; for bodies will have a rapid motion through a vacuum, where there is nothing to obstruct or repel them, until they are in contact” (Hero of Alexandria 3). In other words, air is excessively dense yet its particles are extremely flexible; when it is compressed, it will fall into empty spaces from the pressure exerted upon its particles. This creates a “vacuum” which, as Hero of Alexandria explores in his book, can put objects and machines in motion by the force of air.<br />
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[[Image:Brisbane.jpg|thumb|left|Fig. 1: The original, rectangular pneumatic &quot;tube.&quot; / Fig. 2: Albert Brisbane's improvement, and the tube we recognize today.]]<br />
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While none of the nineteenth-century patents or articles dealing with pneumatic tubes cite Hero of Alexandria’s treatise, one can infer that his research informed the workings of this dead medium over one thousand years later. In a way, the pneumatic tube is a remediation of Hero of Alexandria’s early pneumatic devices. But even though we can trace pneumatics into antiquity, the actual “invention” of the pneumatic tube has a history that is complicated and confusing. The pneumatic tube’s invention cannot be traced back to a sole “inventor,” but rather a baffling hodge-podge of patents and improvements. This surge of innovation speaks to the moment of mass invention and production associated with the late 1800s and the Industrial Revolution; there are literally hundreds of patents involving pneumatic tubes between 1870 and 1900 alone.<br />
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Despite this puzzling array of information, one man is credited with “inventing” the pneumatic tube that coiled itself ‘round the world: Albert Brisbane. An American from New York City, Brisbane patented the “Improved Pneumatic Tube for Transporting Goods” (U.S. Patent No. 91513; Dated June 22, 1869). The language of this patent makes it plain that he did not invent this technology, but instead made vast improvements upon the original, which consisted of an oddly shaped “rectangular pneumatic tube or box, containing a hollow cylinder, running on rails, for the transportation of mails and merchandise” (U.S. Patent No. 91513). It is no wonder, then, why several newspapers at the time accredited Brisbane with inventing the pneumatic tube – he essentially remediated a rectangular box with rails into a pragmatic “round pneumatic tube, containing a hollow sphere or ball” for transporting goods (U.S. Patent No. 91513). <br />
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From the perspective of media archaeology, one can sense that this remediation had strong economic motivations. Basic physics reveals that a spherical object sent down a round tube will create less friction than a cylinder sent down a rectangular “tube” on rails. Time is clearly of the essence here; this technology would have been utterly useless had it not been extremely timesaving. Additionally, Brisbane’s patent addresses preventing air leakage by narrowing the sides of the hollow spheres, further emphasizing timesaving strategies. Less air leakage meant more air pressure applied to a narrower space, pushing the object down at much quicker speeds. And of course, one cannot forget the strongest economic motivation in improving a medium: money. Brisbane’s patent goes the extra mile by making suggestions for the “cheapest” structure of his pneumatic tube.<br />
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==Limitations: The Tube Strikes Back==<br />
<br />
[[Image:PneumaticTubeFuture.jpg|thumb|right|&quot;The Pneumatic Tube of the Future&quot; from New York to Boston (The Atlanta Constitution, 1896). Though many saw &quot;great&quot; possibilities for the pneumatic tube, endeavors like this were never realized due to practical limitations of the technology.]] <br />
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Like any medium, the pneumatic tube has certain limitations within itself. We cannot then just focus on the people and events surrounding the medium, but also the traits of the material object itself – traits that will fight back. It is plain that the physical (the visible and tangible) are favored in this medium, since a physical object (i.e. a written letter) must be placed within a “carrier” which is then sent through a tube to a certain destination. This clearly had its advantages: quick communication over short distances that had a personal touch to boot. At the same time, however, this meant that restrictions had to be placed upon the object itself and where it could be sent. Initially, before realizing the drawbacks of the technology, many imagined that long pipelines of pneumatic tubes could be constructed from say, New York to California. Soon enough, people realized that the “pneumatic plan…proved to be practicable when applied to short distances,” such as within a metropolitan area (Chicago Daily Tribune). This realization also arose out of economic hindrances; a short central line cost £14,000 to build in London in 1860, before the surge of popularity in pneumatic tubes that followed their improvements. Taking this into consideration, one can only imagine how much a fully functioning pneumatic tube system would cost to build and maintain nowadays. <br />
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The length of the tubes did not only inhibit communication, but additionally pieces of mail had to fit within a pneumatic tube parcel or otherwise travel by regular post. While this limitation may not seem too pressing, since other avenues of quick communication were available at the time, it actually had significant impacts. In 1925, the ''New York Times'' reported one particularly dramatic instance, wherein a Parisian man killed himself after his girlfriend failed to send him a letter by pneumatic tube. The ''Times'' claimed that when this man parted from “an English girl whom he loved, she said she would either send him a ‘pneumatique’ (special delivery) message within three hours or never see him again.” This woman made the unfortunate mistake of placing the letter “in an envelope too large for the Paris pneumatic tube system for fast mail,” and it “arrived by ordinary post too late to prevent the suicide” (New York Times). <br />
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This medium was also problematic in that it literally clogged up during times of high traffic. Frequently a parcel would become “arrested in its course, causing an obstruction, the locality of which it is very difficult to ascertain” (Scientific American). This ''Scientific American'' article from 1873, entitled “Novel Mode of Locating Obstructions in Pneumatic Tubes” describes a method of isolating pneumatic tube obstructions utilizing sound waves. Another article in ''Scientific American'', “Pneumatic Tubes,” outlines how the tubes could be unclogged: “…the whole force of the compressed air is then turned into the pipe. If that be insufficient, a head of water fifty feet in height is added” to remove the obstruction. The fact that this medium clogged speaks to the sheer popularity of pneumatic tubes, and simultaneously indicates just how impractical they were. Interestingly enough, this phenomenon is reminiscent of high Internet “traffic” in the modern world. Though wireless signals and telephone lines aren’t physically “clogged” with parcels, servers do become overwhelmed with requests, slowing down the system as a whole. (Though it would probably be a really, really bad idea to shoot water into your router.)<br />
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==Pneumatic Mail in Europe==<br />
[[Image:Picture 2.png|thumb|right|From Scientific American 1884 Paris's Pneumatic Tubes and operator. One pair of tubes indicates out going leters and other welcomes the arriving ones.]]<br />
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The ''Tubes Pneumatique'' of Paris date as far back as 1867, but the pneumatic system was originally introduced in London in 1858 (Morss). The first tubes connected the Bourse or stock exchange and the Grand Hotel beginning what would become an enormous system several hundred miles in tubes (Scientific American 1884). Like the system used in America, the tube is filled with compressed air in a partial vacuum. Instead of using air pumps or any engines, the Parisian system worked using power from the city's reservoir. Originally there were three large connected iron plated vessels that could hold 1,200 gallons each. The first vessel was filled with water, which was pushed into the other two vessels, which were filled with air. The air becomes compressed and once a valve was opened the air escaped rushing with force into the tubes (London Engineer).<br />
[[Image:0052a.jpg|thumb|right|Prague's central office featuring its historical working pneumatic post system.]]<br />
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The height of pneumatic post in Paris was in the 1930's where a letter, which the French called a ''pneu'' could get anywhere in the city in about an hour. 240 miles of tubing, just a few meters under the ground, created the net like system that laid just underneath Paris, carrying letter at an average speed of 40 m.p.h. The pneumatic systems were also created in the French cities Lyons and Marseilles as well as in Berlin since 1866 and Vienna since 1875(Morss). After World War II the system was expanded and modernized but eventually began to decline and the Parisian pneumatic postal system ended in 1984. Now Parisians are offered &quot;same day&quot; delivery post express to replace the pneumatique, which costs two to three times more than sending a pneu, which would arrive not just in the same day but in an hour or at maximum two hours (Vinocur). <br />
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The Prague pneumatic post was completed in 1899 with 60 kilometers that could transport letter, documents, and small parcel at 30 m.p.h. Prague's pneumatic post is the only working historical model left in the world. Today not much has changed except the number of parcel sent which use to number in the millions each year and now has dwindled into thousands every month. The post employs fifteen people altogether¬– nine workers and six dispatchers. Incoming parcels are indicated by a blinking red light and outgoing parcels by a green light. Every parcel must make a stop on Jindrisska street as the network is star shaped (Drake).<br />
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==Telegrams vs. Pneumatic Post==<br />
[[Image:Picture 10.png|thumb|left|A female dispatcher sending Antoine's letter via the pnuematique from ''Stolen Kisses'']]<br />
The telegram and pneumatic post are in many ways very similar. Both send messages floating on various airwaves, but it was because of the traffic over the electrical lines that ''pneumatic telegraph'' was quickly and widely popular in Paris. For a while to relieve the heavy pressure on telegraphs, telegrams were delivered by couriers on bicycles, every fifteen minutes to and from the Bourse during business hours. After a line was created connecting the Bourse and the Grand Hotel, approximately 700 meters, the next line connected the Grand Hotel to central station on rue de Grenelle St. Germain and that station back to the Bourse. New lines connecting major stations grew rapidly and thousands of telegrams were sent over pneumatic tubes daily (Morss).<br />
[[Image:Picture 11.png|thumb|right|The underground tubes racing below the city along coordinating streets from ''Stolen Kisses'']]<br />
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Telegrams and pneus were responsible for informing generations of births, deaths, marriages, lottery winners, and broken dates. Pneus were best used sending theatre tickets or contracts, which could not only hold small pieces of paper but could be written in someone's own handwriting (Vinocur). Telegrams had their own language of quickness and saturated content because of the cost per word. As 'tele-' means far in Greek and 'gram' means written or writing, 'pneuma' means soul or vital spirit. In François Truffaut's 1968 film [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLEJbFKTyQI Baisers Volès (Stolen Kisses)], a letter is sent through the rattling pipes in the sewers. The film follows the letter as it place in a slot labeled, ''Pneumatiques'' and passes through the hands of female dispatchers and placed in the tubes. The film follows the pipes containing the small letter as it races through the underground tunnels that coordinate with the above streets. The pneu passes through the underground Rue de Richelieu and the Champs Elysees before arriving at it's destination, only to be responsible for uniting two unusual lovers. Pneumatic tubes held a spiritual meaning. In theology, &quot;pneumatology&quot; was the belief in &quot;intermediary spirits&quot; whether between person and person or a person and God (Steinweg).<br />
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==Pneumatic Scandal in NYC==<br />
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Although the company was unsuccessful in creating a permanent method of transportation, the case of the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company in NYC is of utmost interest in that it brought into the realm of law and politics the problems of a pneumatic system. The Beach Pneumatic Transit Company rode on an amendment to an old bill, to begin building their tunnels without attracting particular attention to their project. Although they didn’t run into problems initially they would soon find them selves in a legal battle. The New York Times reported, “The mayor has some doubts as to whether the legislature can give a company the right to excavate beneath a street, and thus, in some measure, to place both public and private property in danger.” (New York Times 2) The Beach Pneumatic Transit Company even released propaganda in order to create positive spin, to help with the government blockage. This incident widely publicized pneumatics and got way more coverage in newspapers. The Beach Company published a pamphlet through S.W. Green Printer that resembles a press packet, including detailed description of the system and articles from other newspapers, which gave the company a positive spin. The fact that the pamphlet doesn’t even mention the Beach Company until well into it, gives the whole thing an air of deception. This problem indicated a severe limitation in pneumatic systems, in that the necessity of constructing on both public and private property is inherent to the design of the system.<br />
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==Pneumatic Transportation==<br />
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What stands out about the pneumatic railway is the fact that it is essentially exactly the same as the pneumatic post, except constructed on a different scale. <br />
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In an editorial appearing in the Boston Transcript May 23, 1870 and aptly titled ‘A Peep Into The Future’ a relative newbie to the world of pneumatic mail described the confusion that transpired during his first encounter with the newfangled system. While in Glasgow he found that he must have made an error in a telegram he sent to London. When he requests to see the telegram he is baffled by the fact that his message is in fact not where he dropped it off, but in the London Post Office. After requesting it be returned he is amazed that it is back in his hands only five minutes later. The thought process that occurred next is what is of more interest, then his general amazement with a new technology. “If I could only go to Boston with the same relative speed, you might count on my passing an evening every week at 124 Beacon Street, and returning home to sleep. Who know but we may be conveyed in this marvelous manner before many years?” (Chicago Tribune 0_1). The immediate leap to using the pneumatic mail system for transportation (to pass evenings at the home of poet Charles Stoddard) was a quick one for someone unfamiliar with pneumatic systems.<br />
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Scientific American on October 5, 1861 featured an editorial that described the construction of a Pneumatic Dispatch system intended to carry packages quickly through a quarter mile tube into London. “Two gentleman occupied the carriages during the first trip. They lay on their backs on mattresses with horsecloths for coverings, and appeared to be perfectly satisfied with their journey.” (Scientific American 209) I think that the severity of the public’s obsession with putting people into pneumatic tubes can be exemplified by the fact that the first time that this particular system was used at all, it was not for used the purpose it was built for. This unintended use of the pneumatic dispatch system, in a big way overshadowed its intended use, which would soon be developed into the Pneumatic Railway.<br />
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Why was it about pneumatic tubes that caused people to want to jump inside and use them for travel, especially since steam engine trains were already invented? I think one major reason can be gathered from the fact that railway plans were nearly exclusively for use in metropolitan areas. No one, to my knowledge suggested a transcontinental pneumatic railway. They were seen as a way to put trains underground in highly congested areas, due to the fact that it would be problematic to put steam engines underground. Additionally I would contend that pneumatic transit was appealing due to a certain mystique that must have come along with watching something be moved by an invisible force. <br />
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Is it a coincidence that the subways of NYC actually resemble the Pneumatic Railway? It’s hard to claim that modern NYC subways wouldn’t use cylindrical tunnels had it not been for it’s predecessor. However, the technology for building steel tunnels, patented by Joseph Dixon for the Pneumatic Railway, undoubtedly was referenced by modern subway builders (Dixon).<br />
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==&quot;The Pneumatic Age&quot;==<br />
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The public’s obsession with pneumatic tubes was undeniable. An ad for Luna Park even boasted a pneumatic tube ride, which would project the rider at speeds up to 3,500 feet per second. This was a prime example that the public’s interest in pneumatic tubes was not restricted to it’s utility as a mail system. <br />
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An article from the Chicago Tribune read “People passing the vicinity of the corner of Washington and LaSalle streets yesterday might have notice a peculiar mechanical operation going on, and on inquiry would have been told that a “pneumatic tube” was being constructed…”(Chicago Trubune 0_3) This first person account records what must have been a very odd experience of seeing these tubes actually being installed. This construction and placement of tubes made tangible the conceptual idea of a media network, in a very physical way.<br />
Interestingly it is currently popular to create more clean networks, which aren’t realized physically, we have adopted wireless networks, in lieu of cumbersome tubes. However, even though they don’t manifest them in the same way we are in fact using pneumatic tubes sending breaths of information as we send text messages and emails through our PDAs. <br />
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The comic depicting a man in an empty hotel room may be amusing if only for the fact that it depicts inflatable furniture, a technology that was in fact realized later on. (Chicago Daily Tribune 36) What is most important however is that the pneumatic system has found its way not only into a new facet of human life, more particularly the comic, a lens through which to view the world. Also interesting is the fact that all this pneumatic hype has found its way into a very unpneumatic newspaper. <br />
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[[Image:pneumatic_meals.jpg|thumb|left|Mmm...]]<br />
What is probably most captivating about the concept of using pneumatic post to send food, appears in the very last sentence of the article from Modern Mechanix Magazine, “the fame of German women for tasty cooking may soon pass into obscurity.” (Modern Mechanix 41) Here the idea of what it means to be a German woman is being modified by an adaptation of a media technology. What would German women be if they weren’t great cooks? The same question can be applied to mail sent through pneumatic tubes, what will your message mean if it is delivered so far from you and so rapidly, but still in an analog way? Unlike the telegraph, which digitizes messages, the pneumatic letter retains analog meaning, which could range from your handwriting to the type of stationary you use. How do these meanings change when they rush away and are made separate and apart from you at amazing speeds? <br />
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On November 10, 1893 The Washington Post declared “The present era is likely to be known to history as the pneumatic age. What with pneumatic tubes and pneumatic tires pneumatic bells and pneumatic guns…” These are all accurate and categorical list of several inventions all revolving around wind. However, the Post makes a significant jump when it continues “…to say nothing of pneumatic orators in congress, the wind works seem to be coming to the front.” (The Washington Post 4) While the list of pneumatic was clearly intended to point out the pneumatic trend in recent history, the article takes an even more significant leap when it uses pneumatics as a context to describe politicians, an entity completely separate from the technology. Although I can’t begin to chronicle history of the saying “windy speaker” This article makes blatant the way pneumatic technology began to dictate the way people viewed their world.<br />
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==Ghastly Remnants of a Dead Medium (Post-Victorian/Modern)==<br />
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Today, you cannot walk into a post office and ask to express-mail something using pneumatic tubes. However, this technology has not become completely obsolete. Pneumatic tubes are still in use on an extremely small, localized scale, in many banks and large stores for instance. Old buildings still carry traces of the Victorian era with constructed, yet unused, pneumatic tubes. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were numerous inventions utilizing pneumatic tubes for hospitals. These were created namely for nurses to send specimens, blood samples, prescriptions and chart copies to a floor clerk, who would dispatch them appropriately (Allen).<br />
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In 2001, the ''New York Times'' published an article entitled “Underground Mail Road; Modern Plans for All-but-Forgotten Delivery System” by Robin Pogrebin. The ''Times'' reported here that a man named Randolph Stark wished to revive the pneumatic tube postal system beneath New York City, unused for nearly a century; clearly, this dream was never realized. What’s interesting to note, however, is the language still used around this dead medium, and how it truly is seen as a ghastly, unexplored presence that still lurks beneath our city’s streets. This twenty-first century article also sheds light on why the pneumatic tube mail system stopped: “The service continued in most cities until 1918, when the high costs of maintenance – $17,000 per mile per year – were thought to be impractical for the small volume of mail transported” (Pogrebin). Ultimately, the pneumatic tube’s impracticalities, limitations, and economic unfeasibility led to its “death” as a medium, though it still lies dormant underneath city streets worldwide.<br />
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==Limited Rebirth==<br />
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Many hospitals, including Stanford Hospital, have found use for pneumatic tubes in the modern era. Today many medial centers use tubes to transport blood and tissue samples from patient areas to hospital labs for testing. This system has become vital to the working of hospitals as they increase in size. The tubes allow them to reduce low-level staff costs as well as increase the speed at which biological samples are able to be tested. This is particularly useful for materials that must be kept at specific temperatures or have other rapid expiration conditions.<br />
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These modern pneumatic tubes have been designed with modern innovations such as digital monitoring systems and less jarring stops. This allows such sensitive materials to be transferred without risk of damage.<br />
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==Works Cited==<br />
*“A Peep Into The Future” Chicago Tribune (1860 - 1872); May 23, 1870; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (18495 - 1986) pg. 0_1<br />
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*Allen, Rex W. &quot;Designed for Nursing.&quot; The American Journal of Nursing, Vol. 64, No. 2. (Feb., 1964), pp. 91-93.<br />
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*&quot;A Practical Pneumatic Tube.&quot; Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963); Apr. 12, 1874; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849-1986) pg. 8<br />
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*Brisbane, Albert. &quot;Improved Pneumatic Tube for Transporting Goods.&quot; United States Patent No. 91513; June 11, 1869.<br />
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*“Comic 3 – No Title” Chicago Daily Tribune (1872 - 1963); ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986) pg. 36<br />
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*Drake, James. &quot;A Relic That Hasn't Gone Down the Tubes.&quot; Business Week, October 8, 2001, Business Week International Editions; Letter From Prague; Number 3752; Pg. 4, 1435 words.<br />
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*&quot;Grandson of Bret Harte Ends Life in Paris; Girl's Reconciliation Note Came Too Late.&quot; New York Times (1857-Current file); Nov. 21, 1925; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2004) pg. 1<br />
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*“Here and There” The Washington Post (1877 - 1954); Nov 10, 1893; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post (1877 - 1991) pg.4<br />
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*Hero of Alexandria. &quot;The Pneumatics.&quot; Translated by Bennet Woodcroft. London: Taylor Walton and Mayberry, 1851.<br />
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*“Illustrated Description of the Broadway Pneumatic Underground Railway” New York: 1871; S.W. Green. Printer 16 &amp; 18 Jacob Street<br />
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*“Improvement In Tunnels” Joseph Dixon; U.S. Paten 67849; Aug 20, 1867; Google Patent Search<br />
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*London Engineer. &quot;The Pneumatic Dispatch Tube in Paris.&quot; New York Observer and Chronicle (1833-1912); May 16, 1867; 45, 20; APS Online pg. 157.<br />
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*Morss, Samuel E. &quot;The Pneumatic Telegraphs of Paris,&quot; The American Architect and Building News (1876-1908); Feb 16, 1895; 47, 999; APS Online pg. 74<br />
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*&quot;Novel Mode of Locating Obstructions in Pneumatic Tubes.&quot; Scientific American (1845-1908); Aug. 16, 1873; Vol. XXIX, No. 7, APS Online pg. 98<br />
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*“Pneumatic Dispatch” Scientific American (1845 - 1908); October 5, 1861; VOL. V., NO. 14.; APS Online p. 209<br />
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*&quot;Pneumatic Tubes.&quot; Scientific American (1845-1908); Apr. 12, 1871; Vol. XXIV, No. 17, APS Online pg. 259<br />
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*“Pneumatic Tubes Shoot Hot meals to Homes” Modern Mechanix; April Issue 1935; pg. 41<br />
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*Pogrebin, Robin. &quot;Underground Mail Road; Modern Plans for All-but-Forgotten Delivery System.&quot; The New York Times, May 7, 2001; Section B, Column 2, Metropolitan Desk, Pg. 1<br />
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*Steinweg, Muhammad Hasan. &quot;Time When Hot Air was Used to Ferry Mail.&quot; New Straights Times, September 4, 1995, Need to Know Kelantanese dealer, pg. 7.<br />
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*&quot;The Pneumatic Telegraph Lines of Paris.&quot; Scientific American (1845-1908); Dec13, 1884: Vol.LI, No. 24; APS Online pg. 395<br />
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*“The Pneumatic Tube” Chicago Tribune (1860 - 1872); Nov 3, 1869; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1986) pg. 0_3<br />
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*“The Pneumatic Tube on Broadway—Further Action of Mayor Hall” New York Times (1857 - Current file); Jan 5, 1870; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004) pg. 2<br />
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*&quot;Transmission of Parcels Through Pneumatic Tubes.&quot; Littell's Living Age (1844-1896); Jul. 14, 1860; APS Online pg. 120<br />
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*Vinocur, John. &quot;Paris Pneumatique is Now a Dead Letter.&quot; The New York Times, March 31, 1984, Saturday, Late City Final Edition, Section 1; Page 29, Column 2; Style Desk, 723 words.<br />
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*Waters, Theodore. &quot;Modern Pneumatics.&quot; The Atlanta Constitution (1881-2001); Jul. 19 1896; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Atlanta Constitution (1868-1939) pg. A27<br />
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*Wykes, Sara. &quot;Gone with the wind: Tubes are whisking samples across hospital.&quot; Inside Stanford Medicine, January 11, 2010; [http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2010/january/tubes-0111.html Link].<br />
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[[Category:Dossier]]</div>
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