camelism

2008-03-03T06:17:00.000-08:00

This clip available on youtube and was taken by Mike Wesch and fellow students of Kansas State University. They present a compact study of the average life of a student. With the conclusion: We did not create the problems. But they are our problems.

some aspects the study reveals:

My average class size is 115
18 % of my teachers know my name
I complete 49 % of the readings assigned to me
Only 26 % of what is taught is relevant for my life
I will write 42 pages for class this semester… and over 500 pages of emails
I spend 3 ½ hours online each day…..

Okay. Let’s examine the meaning of this survey! Rather than the individual messages we should consider the intention as a whole? Is it that university students live their lives predominantly online? That Facebook is the unbeatable competitor of higher education? Is this a viable way of disseminating ideas? Might this type of media form part of how we form or change opinions?
Is time running. Do we need a few extra hours to combine cyber life and university life? Does Academia has an expiry date?
I don’t know. In fact a friend told me yesterday that it is possible to download university lectures as podcasts on my itune store. That is pretty wicked I guess. To get free access to listen to lectures who I would probably never have a chance to hear in real life. If this post becomes a critical reflection on the benefits and drawbacks of the cyberworld as a university student, I will insist on its opportunities. (Obviously in a critical manner). Second life for example also offers students the chance to meet online as groups for online lectures. (as a matter of fact the question reveals if itis actually yourself behind your Avator –but then who cares in real life for your attendance??) It is an opportunity. Also publishing your dissertation online is an opportunity to my mind, in the sense that one is immediately in the position of accessing relevant information. I like it. But again, in this relation, it would be quite urgent to get some more efficient tools to prevent the excessive (and very tempting) possibility of plagiarism.
I truly think that the integration of Internet resources is unavoidable in an Academic framework. Platforms of interactions, the distribution of learning materials or a sphere where administrative content is being published is beneficial for lifelong learning.

2008-02-24T16:55:00.000-08:00

In his book ‘Imagined Communities', Benedict Anderson argues that

‘Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuiness, but by the style in which they are imagined’

On this level we could equally discuss virtual communities… What about Second life for example?…
With more than 11 million users called residents (or Avators) and owned by California based Linden Lab; Second life is just as much a phenomenon as the other MMOE (Massive Multiperson Online Environments) platforms like wikipedia, ebay, facebook, or myspace are.
These platforms emerged out of the blue and within a short period of time their value and significance increased tremdiously. Second Life's core difference is probably only ‘the way it is imagined’... regarding its tools, usabilty and visuality...

It’s the dialectical interplay between structure and action, which I excessively discussed in previous posts… the blackbox which connects the two. the complex question I am failing to answer but aiming to discuss. The structure is transparent, linden lab is the creator, the almighty in position of power to define and change the ultimate conditions of second life. The Avators, like me, mimidiegans (as my second life counterpart is called) however are the ones who are the actors who essentially influence these structures.

Second life is a world of its own, with its own currency and its own written and unwritten rules and codes of behaviour… Linden lab created the ‘Linden Dollar,’ a somewhat equivalent of the US Dollar. It touches upon the American dream of ‘everything is possible’ it is just a matter of how much time you are willing to spend, how much money you have and which skills you possess.
Avators are just as much producers as consumers since they are the producer and creator of their very own self at first place. But how will one find recognition? Who actually cares for you?
Well. Second life is rather a market place. At Help Island, Avators immediatly learn the formost lession, namely how to purchase an item.

It s a world created by its people, manipulating and rearranging shapes and objects.
It s just another online networking platform where individuals use the medium as an extension of themselves to travel around cyberspace, and without physical barriers just interact with those who will be carefully selected.

The great difference is the visual landscape, the visualization of a virtual identity. It kind of personifies the ‘you’, and the coded language of html interaction appears like a virtual but recognizable landscape. You probably know this from real life. And what about your chosen identity? The way you look. Is it really that important? Does it make any difference? It s quite impersonal anyway.

I ask myself what ten somewhat million users around this world actually are searching for. What?
it?

Second life is a virtual community. There was is no obvious goal at first place, but simply to built a virtual world, which has no functionality either since it is simply virtual. But the whole dream of capitalism is flourishing, and has taking over the interactions of its users. The competition. In a culture of consumers. The sexyness of your chosen virtual existence. We might not be attractive in real life but I haven t meet anyone on second life who I found particularly ugly. Looks are certainly important. They look at their best.

I aim to emphazise on the coded language behind second life, which exactly works with the aspects of eroticism/aestheticism and commercial character. On the same hand the whole interaction is based on coded language of computer language, which evolves from the information of ‘one’ and ‘zero’ and is used as an extension of our self to act as an agent of desire in the virtual culture.Interaction is the key element. You are a member of many communities. Teleporting yourself from here to there. You are your own factory. The customized-ready made selves. Stimulating our visual senses. Ready to go. Always ready. Ready to interact. Fast and efficient. The homo oeconmicus. Self tailored, who functions perfectly in every respect because of rationally following its will in real time without interruption.

My first three encounters all had sexual implications. In fact my Second Life experience was incredibly scary, and I’d rather not go back…

‘You can buy penises and vaginas’, my first friend on second life let me know, as if it was the most essential information about this virtual sphere. We went to Amsterdam together – just teleported ourselves within a few seconds.
‘Now you must swollow it,’ the second one shouted at me and stalked me wherever I went. He was particularly threatening, in a way I would have never imagined a virtual encounter could… I was scared, couldn’t even fly... we were alone there was nowhere to hide, and I knew my only possibility would be to teleport myself somewhere else as fast as I could.
On my third session I finally got it. ‘I can’t help starring at your breasts,’ number three said. ‘So is it all about sex,’ I asked, realizing that I just found the answer myself.

There are those who are just curious. Those who stay and interact in their specific communities and follow a particular goal. Which is customized and individualized. So... that it might be imagined is entirely irrelevant in the whole world of Second Life just as much as in its real life counterpart...

2008-02-17T11:55:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading the Introduction of Zygmund Baumann’s book ‘Consuming Life’ (2007). His view offers quite a few interesting points about Internet behaviour in relation to general consumer behaviour and gives me the chance to broaden my reflections on unconscious web-based interaction.

In whichever way we choose to interact in the Internet we are juxtaposed to certain expectations. There are some unwritten rules and invisible relationships between the client as the ‘well trained consumer’ and the company’s website we access through the web. What we have to emphasize on (and this equally applies to social networking platforms) is our position as a consumer. ‘Consumers are not expected to swear loyalty to the objects they obtain with the intention to consume.’ (p21)

The general tendency of individualism or self-drivenness reveals during these practices for example in the way how people think about their personal relationships, Baumann mentions Internet dating as an example of presenting ourselves as a commodity. ‘The company of flesh-and-blood human beings makes the habitual clients of internet dating agencies, properly primed by commodity market practices, fell ill at ease.’ (p16)

What I found very appropriate is Baumann’s discussion of a Guardian article from the 2 March 2006, which announced that ‘in the past 12 months, “social networking” has gone from being the next big thing to the thing itself.’ (p1)
In that sense social networking sites are “like opening of the latest uptown bar” in real life (or maybe ‘Second life’?) these sites can be compared to what we know from the one plus one of business studies and what is called a product cycle. If the product fails to consistently redefine its shape and attraction, we will impatiently move on to the next ‘hottest’ and ‘superhottest’ available thing on the market. And so do –according to Baumann- Experts on internet fashion simply state at least 40 per cent of this year’s top ten will be nowhere this time next year.” (p1)

A drastic change can be observed regarding the speed of how things emerge and then suddenly vanish forever as an on going hype. Relating to my post on the structures behind social networking again what I am actually referring to is very much linked to the principles of our economic market structures, namely capitalism, and namely the bases of exponential growth and constant expansion, in order to keep the economy growing…. We used to have a black and white television, but our economy needs us so I might as well buy a colour TV, and then a bigger one as a next step, then one for the bed room just because, and then I slowly replace them all with lcd-screen tv’s, although my old are still working, I will give them away, because I can, and because I learned to belief that this is right…

Even though the Internet allows immediate borderless communication through its technological possibilities Baumann points out that the way in which social networking sites are used is very much dependent on locality. He argues that in Britain for example users can ‘still trust ‘social networking’ to manifest their freedom of choice, and even believe it to be a means of youthful rebellion’ just because parents in general would act as some sort of watch dogs for their children, and define restrictions just as well as such sites would be banned from school. Contrary so is the attitude of youngsters in South Korea, ‘where most ‘social life’ is conducted primarily in the company of computer, iPod or mobile.’ (p2)
What Baumann aims to stress that depending on what your ultimate surrounding world expects from you, in many cases young people then don’t have a choice of where to live their social life: ‘Living social life electronically is no longer a choice, but a ‘taking it or leaving it’ necessity,’ which consequently results in ‘social death,’ for those who fail to join. (p2)

In another case study Baumann reflects upon the Guardian information that ‘computer systems are being used to snub you more effectively, depending on your value to the company you’re calling.’ (p3) Your customer value determines the way your phone call will be dealt with. You can expect to be wait in the queue or will automatically be connected to the relevant department, it simply depends on the computer based records the company holds regarding your relevance as a customer.
In that respect Baumann’s argumentation is that technology can hardly be blamed for such new practices however because in actual facts it just enables to deal with tasks in a more efficient way.

The Internet and all the technologic tools it requires (in some cases very simple HTML codes) help to rationalize and optimize consumers’ choice. Even though we might generally be confronted with information overloads on the Internet at the same time company site’s clearly aim to reduce their content to specifically reach their target audience. This actually also relates to the discussion on good and bad web design. Good web design does not have to look simply ‘pretty’ it has to qualify to reach its defined target audience on the highest possible level.

Baumann, Zygmunt (2007), Consuming life. Cambridge: Polity Press.

2008-02-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

I just read an article in the Economist (Number 8566, Feb-9th-15th, p12) about technology and the development, following a recent report published by the World Bank regarding the impacts of new technologies. In particular it refers to the aspect – which might actually sound quite obvious – that new technologies are relying and dependent on the presence of old technologies. The philosophical battle would be the question of whether a society can immediately enter a postmodern conscious by simply skipping the modern state of mind, but in this case the question seems to be slightly more delicate. In many areas of the world, which are considered as less developed regarding their economic standards and infrastructure, devices like mobile phones or laptops (eg the legendary 100 $ notebook) seem to become increasingly popular. It is questionable, however, to assume that eg African countries can – though probably engaging with new technologies- have overcome times of struggle in the face of famine or insufficient infrastructure (for example issues like access to hot water, health care…)
The article mentioned an Ethiopian project, which intended to provide Internet access in every local hospital. Eventually the project was abandoned with the argumentation that Ethiopian hospitals probably have greater problems to deal with than the lack of Internet connection.
Manuell Castell, on the other hand fears that through new technologies and the overall tendency of globalization there is the treat of constructing something like a forth world. This world consists of those billions of individuals which can’t afford, because of which ever reason, to participate in this global networking process.

This is a somewhat counter argument to the Economist article. I definitely what to emphasise on the fact, that African countries do have greater worries than checking their Facebook entries. The aspect I want to point out however, is that by not knowing how to use these new technologies, by not trying to teach these countries how to engage with these technologies, or world order is very unlikely to change. Rather it seems, that these countries, then, will be simply neglected and excluded from any outside interaction, as if they don’t exist. Which brings me back to my recent post, in which I aimed to stress the necessity that new technologies can be very beneficial as long as they are accompanied by relevant education.

critical debates: MC churches and so on

2008-02-07T13:18:00.001-08:00

From the writings of Max Weber, in particular ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ we learn how religious ethics has influenced the emergence of Modern Western Captialism. (Giddens, 1971 p. 169)

Weber sees Protestantism as the main drive for economic rationality since ‘labour in the material world, for the Calvinist, becomes attributed with the highest positive ethical evaluation.’ (ibid, p.127)

Weber claims that ‘Protestant beliefs and codes of behaviour’ is ‘to stimulate economic activity.’ (ibid, p. 125) ‘Belief in the value of efficient performance’ dominates man consequently by “acquisition as the purpose of his life” yet combined with “the avoidance of personal enjoyment.” (Weber in Giddens 1971 p.126) Performance of ‘good workers’ became a ‘sign’ of election for eternal salvation.

Considering Weber’s notion of the protestant ethic in the 21^st century one can contemplate the following:

Thus the book of reference, namely the holy bible, remained the same source of wisdom, religion adapted to new logics of contemporary society in some way or another. At the same time the significance and function of religion changed and gain new meaning.

Whilst Weber argued that religion was the main motivation for the emergence of capitalism, by today his theory can be turned from upside down; today it is the economic system, which is ruling over religious life. Consumption -as the main principle to sustain capitalist society -has determined our purpose of life into ‘consuming Life’ (Bauman 2007).

‘Consumers’ ‘subjectivity’ is made out of shopping choices – choices made by the subject and the subject’s prospective purchasers; its description takes the form of the shopping list. What is assumed to be the materialization of the inner truth of the self is in fact an idealization of the material – objectified – traces of consumer choice.’ (Baumann, 2007, p15)

‘Left behind: Eternal forces’ is a Christian video game released in 2006. The game is based on the bestselling apocalyptic book series ‘Eternal forces’. It is a virtual recreation of New York City and the game’s aim is to convert non-believers into Christians through a ‘pray button’ or alternatively kill Antichrist’s forces with military units. (Bray 2006)

The controversial subject matter of interactive religiously motivated warfare obviously leaves broad room for criticism. However my intention is primarily to emphasise on the aspect how religion is consumed as an entertaining commodity.

‘Left behind’ is religious action-packed mass entertainment in real-time. It is sold in video stores just as it is in churches; ‘pastors as well as youth leaders recommend the game to their parishioners.’ (Greene 2006)

The Promotional trailer describes the ultimate challenge of the game and equally sums up the fears of contemporary society, ‘terror and confusion has ran the world over, for those left behind, the apocalypse has just begun.’ Chief executive of the game Troy Lyndon argues the intention behind this game is to spread messages of the bible to a whole new generation as well as giving ‘parents and gamers an option for an action-packed title’, that also gets players thinking ‘about eternal matters.’ (Lyndon in Musgrove 2006)

Also Co-founder Jeffrey Frincher emphasize on the relationship between virtual entertainment and religious belief: “people are drawn to things that provide answers. My personal position is that the Bible provides all those answers.”(Greene 2006)

Man’s ‘search for meaning’ (Frankl 1977) is a fundamental element of our conscious, likewise our ultimate seek for control, security and guidance. Mission and purpose of religion is not only to create meaning but also to cope with our fears. As the example ‘Eternal Forces’ indicates, apocalyptic fears are sold to us and consumed by us, as spectacles in a society of spectacles. (Debord 1967) At the same time the videogame however presents possible solutions of how to handle these fears, through the obedience of Christian belief.

Consequently consumption of fear ultimately urges for a cure of those fears. Our fears did not vanish even though we consume. We consume because that’s what we have learned but that doesn’t mean we gain any further certainty through it and we live in a world where uncertainty is probably our biggest fear. We live in a society, which is constantly bombarding us with news messages of horror, terrorism, devastation, and diseases subliminally suggesting that the end is not far from our doorstep. ‘We are living in a world that is beyond controllability,’ as Ulrich Beck argues, and ‘there is nothing taken for granted’ for the risks we are permanently opposed to; they are ‘somehow universal and unspecific. One hears or reads about them.’ (Beck 1992, p. 53)

Spectacles operate on the level of fear, with all the uncertainties our society is confronted on a daily bases. As Debord argues ‘The spectacle is a permanent opium war designed to force people to equate goods with commodities and to equate satisfaction with a survival that expands according to its own laws.’ (1967, p. 44)

Some fears are more private, some concern society as a whole. We learn to believe that life in this world is dangerous, through the commodity knowledge; the possibility of an apocalypse is within reach. We seek for security in our daily struggle of uncertainty, and we are ready to consume this security from wherever it is available. And when rationality and knowledge might not be enough, spiritual thinking becomes quite a satisfying alternative. Yet remains the economy’s role as the ‘material basis of social life,’ (ibid, p.41) so it must be survival which is consumable.

And when touching upon the aspect of ‘coping with the symptoms and symbols of risk’ (Beck 1992, p. 57) then religion comes into the game. It might -in contemporary society- not only serve to hope for salvation in Heaven, but probably and simply to make life on Earth more controllable, and more predictable. Too much knowledge of the world creates too much uncertainty at the same time, like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave tells us, ‘the visible world becomes a mere shadow, a reflection of a reality that by nature escapes our possible knowledge’ (ibid, p. 73). We seek for simpler answers to this world than the ones we get and we need more security.

Following the writings of the holy bible is a sensible solution to fight against the apocalyptic uncertainty we are daily confronted by the media. Religion offers answers to the question our ‘information Society’ (May 2002) is unable to answer, because it simply stops asking. Creationism will neglect the issue of global warming and religious conservatism. Then sexual abstinence would be the simplest solution to the spread of sexually transmittable diseases.

Religion has well adapted to the expectations of consumer culture. It presents it self in the bigger better more style of ready made mass entertainment with the happy ever after feel good factor. There is a religious adaptation to every imaginable available consumer product. Additionally the consumer gets the feeling of actually doing something good for him- or herself (like consuming Coke light, or sugar free chocolate). Religion is translated into the language of consumption. Religious television, religious a newspaper, religious Hip-Hop, makes it easier for us to keep the faith, yet make life controllable through preaching the ethics of the bible.

Not only are religious messages of how to be a good believer lightly transmitted to the audience through the media, also the church has adapted to the expectations of religious entertainment policy. As Pastor Osteen from Lakewood church remarks: "Other churches have not kept up, and they loose people by not changing with the times." (Goodmanson 2005) Arguably the changing times he is touching upon is on one hand the aspect to be entertained and to feel good about yourself and on the other hand to run institutions like businesses in order to smoothly function.

Principles once parodied in a Simpson episode when super capitalist Mr Burns transforms the local church into an entertainment park has become highly popular in real life:

Through the practices of ‘evangelical entrepreneur’ Pastor Osteen has ‘has nearly quadrupled attendance.’ (Symonds 2005) Churchgoing becomes a spectacle for the masses. Churchgoer come to see Paster Osteen, who is a well known face from Sunday sermons on cable network and best-seller author of a book called ‘your best life now.’ Churchgoers become the audience of their entertainer and celebrity figure Paster Osteen. Believers are the target group of Pastor Osteen’s marketing messages in the shopping mall called ‘megachurch’ with the size of a massive stadium. They come to consume ready-made answers on LCD screens; a coffee at the church café or to buy fashionably designed religious symbols.

Churches are run like business and approach the audience through target-orientated marketing strategies. Niche-marketing practices of the Bapist convention create churches for specific target groups. The Baptist church is ready to adapt to the consumer behaviour of its 16.4 million-members; "Cowboy churches for people working on ranches, country music churches, or motorcycle churches aimed at bikers." (Martin King in Symonds 2005)

However such Mega-churches just seem to proof the assertions of ‘rather than making America more Christian,’ the mega-churches have simply succeeded in, ‘making Christianity more American, through the ‘Disneyfication of religion.’’ (Goodmanson 2005)

Umberto Eco’s notion on Disneyland as ‘hyper-real’ can easily be applied to these mega churches, where ‘in search for instances where the American imagination demands the real thing and, to attain it must fabricate the absolute fake; where the boundaries between game and illusion are blurred.’ (Eco, 1985 p. 8) It became the creation of a place people feel ‘homesick’ to, the commercial perfect amusement part of the authentic fake. (ibid, p. 48). ‘They keep their buildings open seven days a week, from dawn to dusk, and deliver a truly catholic array of services.’ Some of those mega-church complexes ‘house banks, pharmacies and schools.’ (Goodmanson 2005)

Religion under these premises is a logical consumer choice in the urge for security. But what is your option otherwise? The end of the world is just a doorstep away from you, and you better be good.

Bibliography

Baumann, Z (2007) Consuming life, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Beck, U (1992) ‘Risk Society Towards a New Modernity’ London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Bray, H ‘Groups urge chain to drop Christian Game’ Bosten Globe, 13 December 2006,

[online] Available from: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/12/13/groups_urge_chain_to_drop_christian_game?mode=PF (Accessed on March 8th 2008)

Debord, G (1967) The Society of the Spectacle (1967) Available from Bureau of Public secrets http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/2.htm

ECO, U (1986) Travels in Hyper-Reality, London: Picador.

Frankl, V (1977) ‘Man's Search for Meaning,’ New York: Pocket Books.

Giddens, A (1971) Capitalism and modern social theory: An analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber, Cambridge University Press.

Goodmanson, G (2005) ‘Churches as businesses’ The Economist 20 December 2005

Greene, R ‘Christian video game draws anger’, BBC News, [online] Available from

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6178055.stm (Accessed on March 8th 2008)

May, C (2002) The information Society: A sceptical view, Polity Press Malden.

Musgrove, M. ‘Fire and Brimstone, Guns and Ammo’, Washington Post August 17 2006

[online] Available from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081601764_2.html (Accessed on March 8th 2008)

Promotional trailer ‘Eternal forces’ [online] Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi334U5oHc8

Symonds, W. ‘Earthly Empires’, Business Week [online] May 23 2005 Available from: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_21/b3934001_mz001.htm

(Accessed on March 8th 2008)

The Simpsons: ‘She of little faith’ Season Thirteen [TV programme] Fox. 16/12/2001

2008-02-05T15:01:00.001-08:00

I will aim to reflect on danah boyd’s post on The Economist Debate on the following proposition:
"Social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to
educational methods, in and out of the classroom"

On one hand she questions the educational potential of these sites, on the other hand she criticises those approaches which simply dismiss technologic tools without the attempt to discover advantages. I agree with her remarks and on stressing the power of the individual to be capable of interacting with technologies, rather than being ruled by them. This should actually be the approach we should aim for, to strengthen our personal capacity of shaping rather than being shaped.

… there is nothing good or bad about technology, it’s just as Marshall McLuhan argued in his technological determinist view ‘we shape our tools and they shape us’. Technology in a sense is neutral, it enables communication, what we have to consider is the way we are using these tools or new technologies.
As a matter of fact SNSs just touch upon how or society is structured, namely on growth, in a quantitative manner, because essentially this is what keeps our economy going… we permanently have to define and establish new structures, products and ideas, we permanently have to consume these structures, otherwise the effects would be horrible and the economy would simply break down….

Reconsidering social networking once more there remains so much more to be said and examined…
I want to be constructive this time… How can I befriend myself with SNSs?… I am trying to gather aspects, and I am trying to distance myself from apocalyptic world prognoses. (there might be the potential for destruction but there probably always was.. and weapons of mass destruction are definitely more dangerous and until this moment the world citizens were clever enough not to use them, so there is plenty of hope)
No, this world should be a happy place and the sun should always shine. And I should have faith in its citizens, and their rational reasoning… Social networking platforms can be good… if only we are conscious about the usability…
We have to identify it s actual benefit, and not only its ultimate stimulation... Chicken cottage might taste really great and it is sooo cheap but going a bit further with the examination we easily see that on the long run it is not particularly beneficial for our well-being and healthy nutrition…
So, without becoming to abstract now, the functionality of these platforms is tightly determined by what we expect from them. Do we want to establish new spheres of communication? Do we want to use SNSs to create a new (or a few) cyber personalities, do we want to redefine ourselves newly because we are unhappy with our real-life experiences? Can this new, subpersonality, or superpersonality be better than the real-life personality?
And like with everything in life, we can emphasise on the positive or the negative aspects. Is technology sociable? Can technology be sociable? It depends…
Experience is experience.. and there is no substitute for any experience… Viewing an art Gallery on Second Life is not the same as visiting an exhibition at the Whitechapel gallery. That doesn’t mean the Whitechapel is necessarily better than the cyber-experience, but it is not really comparable…
What does it mean to be sociable? When can something be seen as socially beneficial, or more beneficial than something else? Certainly an aspect would be that the experiences we have engage our personal activity within the situation, not to plainly and passively consume. At the same time this means, to experience something new, if an experience becomes a repetitive habit, than our own reactions are pretty defined anyway, we don’t expect to learn anything new out of an action.

So I guess we still and simply have to learn how to engage with SNSs in a responsible way. And since this technological phenomenon just emerged we are not capable of defining and realizing its potential yet- its communicative benefits. We are always on the edge of abusing it. In that sense, I think to integrate SNSs in institutionalized educational learning would be a reasonable approach of learning to use these technology effectively. We should learn how to shape, and how to use our voice, because our voice is important.

Social Networking revisited

2008-02-01T15:58:00.000-08:00

thank you for the criticism, nogbad...I agree
My emotional explanations about social networking were not only cynical but also superficial and unqualified since I don’t engage in Facebooking.

my assertions were not based on serious research but on a critical attitude towards social networking platforms in general. Most of my friends, however, are very active on these sites either on Facebook or on its German counterpart Studi-VZ. Not only are there different types of Massive Multiperson Online Environments there also are millions of different individuals enganging, with different intentions,expectations and habits, which clearly distinguishes them...

What remains the same is that interaction is taking place in a virtual reality.
The most difficult question, however is to find out the ultimate goal of these virtual communities, the greater sense behind it, the stimulation which attracts such a huge number of users to participate. The sense has to be questioned on a number of levels. As probably in real life, you create something, but you create it in a virutal sphere, it doesn’t really exist.
I don’t intend holding an - anti-attitude, justified pathetic statements without serious attempts of reasoning myself in an adequate way.

It is not that I don’t understand why people are using Facebook. For sure. It’s a great thing to find these people you lost touch with through networking sites, and probably catch up again.
I am not sure having your friends stored and listed on a remote server, should replace real life experience. And I just see that it certainly does to a great extent, and I don’t like what I see, and I want to be critical about this. It’s nice to share funny daily experiences with your friends, small stories from life, write little notes, which show you care. Living abroad myself, away from family and friends I certainly understand the benefits of these platforms as a convenient and cheap way to keep in touch, sensing belonging to the people one is close to…on the other hand it won’t replace the fact of not physically being close… and I think we are cheating ourselves in that sense that we are able to overcome geographical barriers.

Referring back to the Guardian article, I don’t think it can replace real-life friendships. Like a photograph of a tree can’t replace actually seeing it, touching it, smelling it, understanding the surrounding area, in which it exists. When Walter Benjamin talked about the loss of the ‘Aura’ in his book ‘The work of art in the Age of Mechanical reproduction’ it has never been so true in this case. The most substantial information gets lost in these cyber-interactions, namely the purely and authentic emotional involvement.
These sites offer great possibilities of certain interest groups gathering together, exchanging information about certain topics, regardless of time and space. This simply was impossible before.

My other arguement, which I failed to explain properly is the political economy behind these platforms as the integral structures, which enable the process of communication. We risk to forget posing the question of who we are sharing our thoughts with somehow...
So we have to give a second thought to the structures of social networking platforms, and we have to consider who finances them, and question the intentions of the financiers…
Yes, and back to my statement based on pure emotionalism- the idea that for the providers of this platform it is so easy to enter my closest interactions and emotions- the idea of constantly being watched (and I am aware that currently I am living in the city with the most CCTV cameras in the world) simply scares me. It reminds me on George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’, and his vision of total control which is also being reinforced by this transparent mode of interaction.

We should definitely be happy about the great aspects the Internet in general offers us, but we mustn’t forget the threats of it equally. I like technology. I couldn’t say anything else, because I am simultaneously using it, doing so is my choice in a sense. At the same time I am wondering of where we are going with our technological development. With the overall tendency of more and faster. I would prefer not to give up my physical existence, but I can’t help myself to realize there is the simple tendency of doing so. Another book, in that respect, which comes to my mind and is incredibly scary, is Michel Houellebeque’s world vision in ‘The possibility of an Island’. Namely, that we replace physical existence- by simply transforming into computerbased-artifical intelligence. I can see the fictional element within his ideas, but I can also se the general development of our society living life predominately in front of the computer.

‘Rejecting the incomplete paradigm of form, we aspire to rejoin the universe of countless potentialities. Closing the brackets on becoming, we are from now on in unlimited, indefinite stasis,’ as Houelleberque describes the new physiceness we gradually risk transforming into...

In that sense my self-reflective conclusion is that one should remain self-reflective, and critical, also of his or her own words as I just experienced myself...

Social Networking

2008-01-29T14:46:00.000-08:00

‘Social networking’ seems to be today’s trendy word as well as today’s trendy thing..
and no matter of whether it is done as a cyber activity or a real life interactivity… the principle is the same.. to gather contacts, constantly enlarge your addressbook because you never know how valueable an aquaintance might turn out…
The following Guarding article about social networking discusses the impacts of this highly fashionable activity and questions to which extent this cyber hobby actually replaces the value of real life friend-ships, which it namely doesn’t…

What it certainly does, however is to directly and indirectly feed corporate’s interests..
The idea of Facebook and MySpace is easily explained; namely to collect as many acquaintances as possible and then to interact... the thing we are not only aware of, is that we are not only enlarging our cyber-friend-circle for ourselves but for countless numbers of corperates, who -thanks to the existence of WebPages- can easily access our profile, ideas, tastes and preferences via mouse click, and find out these information about us, they once would have had to expensive market researches…. So apart from keeping in touch with your loved ones, each new member helps of these social networking sites help to increase the value of the platform which is is owned by media-moguls such as Rupert Murdoch who certainly don’t need any more money…
I’m not on facebook, as I prefer the real life acquaintances to the hyperreal-ones… the only thing, which is left to me, is some jealous glance at my school mates in the computer-rooms who constantly edit their profiles, add information and make new friends through their cyber identity….

reflections

2008-01-27T15:04:00.000-08:00

i still didn't manage to reflect properly...

a self-reflective attitude certainly is important, to critically assess oneself, look back, what you achieved, how you approached things, what you could do better next time...to write about it is another thing..

the beauty about it... however (and i am still waiting for the beauty to enter my brain) is when there is self reflection, but still you are one with your thoughts, and stop constantly thinking about the actual process of reflection, which on the other hand can become a big fat monster which is trying to censor you, which is trying to tell you that your thoughts are not good enought, that you have to be more critical, that you have to sound more clever, that you have to be just that tiny step ahead of all those millions of millions of individuals who are just doing the same... typing for the sake of it and filling the blank screen with symbols which then become words and sentences, and which should imply meaning...

what makes you want to read all this my friend, from far away...

what distinguishes me from the rest, and is it actually necessary to be distinguished? is it really always asked to be different to point out your uniqueness expose yourself once more in this web-internet- to tell the secrets you don't even want to admit to yourself....

i don't see you but yet i know you, and yes... we create our identity... simultaneously on the computer screen... for whom?.. for you, for me, for the world.?.. the hyperreal which we certainly don't understand... which doesn't exist anywhere else but our imagination...

only do I know that I constantly get caught up on the internet... yet my online-identity is far less critical and picky than the one i aim to express in real life..

then there is the obvious blurring of real life and cyberlife, and I find it good and bad at the same time, and I know i certainly can't change it, but the least i could do is be conscious about it, aware of this transformation process, the shift in spheres of interaction, which brings me back to my initial challenge to write about self reflection, which has to do with all or nothing, and as a matter of expierence and perception is constantly changing as well, for the good or the bad, or the ugly and evil, unhappy, positive, negative... everything at the same time... or the sublimeness of life and attitude towards things... that was me from my little sailing boat down on the ocean

2008-01-27T05:20:00.000-08:00

It’s such a thing with taste I know… If we like something is very subjective, and the actual reason behind as discussed by many theorists such as Bourdieu mainly stays unconscious, is maybe class-based and influenced by our level of education and knowlege…

However, there are guidelines, or general notions of what is good and what is bad, just like in Music (could we maybe say that we don’t like Mozart, but actually can’t we easily deny his genius musical talent) or in Art (of course should we express our subjective taste, but we have to acknowledge the revolutionizing effects which particular art-pieces had on society, in technique and style as well as the notion of art in general) Analyzing the websites is not much different in that respect… Obviously most website’s don’t aim to qualify as an art piece, no, rather do we have to examine them on the level of functionality. A particular content needs be delivered to a specific target group. So this is one aspect which, to my opinion is central. Accordingly a website which is dedicated for children would be designed in a much more playful way than a corperate’s profile. The principle however stays the same… To define my personal taste, I would say that mostly simple is good, and I prefer simplicity to overloaded pages with excessive special effects… Anyway, as I already pointed, the layout has to fit…

The starting page on my Power Book is the Apple website.

It is created by and for designers, so obviously the website has to come up to high expectations of aestheticism as well as to deliver relevant Apple-related content. Still one can clearly see that the designer’s of the pages aimed to keep the page as simple as possible, leaving the background colour white and keeping the content as compact as possible. The general colour selction of the Webdesign is a variation of grey-tones, again not to distract the viewer with to many colours.

The FrontPage visibly is divided into different frame sections, and the returning customer clearly knows where to recover particular content.
In the center of the page Apple provides the ‘Top Stories’ section, with all the relevant Apple-related news stories which are constantly updated. There is a clear list of links on the front page leading the customer to wherever he or she intends to go.
This site is purely commercial, however a distinction between product-related adverts and external adverbs is not easy for the visitor, who is simply bombarded with products.
Consequently, my conclusion on this website: it works for its purpose (and it would be quite sad if it didn’t, because I am sure Apple invests heavily in the design)

Our university website
Another example, which I actually quite like, and obviously regularly visit is our University website, www.arts.ac.uk.

I do like the design, because, again it is very simple and generally pretty clear, however do I know that I sometimes struggle in finding the content I am looking for.
The starting page of the site explicitly indicates the different college of the the University, in a table-like design, which by clicking on the them will bring the visitor to the individual colleges... the background colour of the front page is white, the only images provided are to distinguish the different colleges from each other… The page clearly emphasizes on its artistic mission, so… yes, I guess it works…

Another example, which I personally find quite horrible, is the celebrity gossip site people.com.

The page is overloaded with information, the design is not very appealing, but I guess it does work for the target group this way… The excessive advertising is very disturbing. The site seems very aggressive, with its blue background colour and suggests to sell the the hottest stories of the minute to its audience… I am sure they invested heavily in the design of the site, and the structure is quite clear….

my favourite things

2008-01-20T10:12:00.000-08:00

So there we go. After travelling the endless and chaotic spheres of the world of blogging for millions of lightyears I completed a tiny selection of interesting blogs (to be continued)
With the overall conclusion (to be continued) that language barriers are definitely something, which need to be overcome …
Secondly. Yes I like blogging

A taste of Minsk…
Foto-Griffoneurei is an amazing blog by the 23-year old Xenia Awimova from White Russia… insights of everyday life- congratulating every attempt of self-reflection and critical thinking...yet truly visual…
http://ak-bara.livejournal.com/

Raising awareness…
Winner in the French category of Best of Blog-Award ... Cédric Kalonji’s blog is an indicative example of blogging’s position in a public arena of discourse... He bloggs about recent developments and day-to-day experiences in the Democratic Republic of Kogo. Offering an insight description of the countries horrific struggles and misrepresentation through international news coverage....Kalonji’s blog can be seen as representative of how local individuals become a counter voice for internationally neglected and underrepresented groups...
http://www.congoblog.net/

weird and incredibly fascinating are the images of this blog about Russian wood architecture
http://community.livejournal.com/ru_woodarch/

save the lunch!
For some lighter entertainment… I found the german blog with reflections on food..
http://www.rettet-das-mittagessen.de

music blog... funny... inspiring.. Author Dr. Benedikt Köhler’s selection of popmusic and fun comments.. in german again...
http://www.eigenarbeit.org/pop

Yes i like blogging… to discover the far away beauty on my computer screen… makes me wanna swallow all the bits and bites of visual sublimeness..

into the wild

2008-01-20T07:42:00.000-08:00

first steps into

the wild and unknown spheres of the world of blogging....

‘I thought it was yesterday,’ remarked

the clumsy butterfly
on its first attempt
to fly.
The gold teeth culture
seems so far away and yet
do I feel so blessed with
the smile of yesterday’s
memories.
yes it's me Alice the Camel