While the dérive is sometimes confused with the purposeless amble, the stroll, the questing journey, it is not simply any of these (though each could themselves be contained within the derive). There are something like rules –guidelines, at least. The dérive, as laid out by Debord in “Theory of the Dérive” is is game-like in structure – although it is unlike a game in that it rules are not easily stated: “written descriptions can be no more than passwords to this great game”. One learns to play by playing, it is through this play that one learns the rules of a game that are always changing.
Read MoreMaster Control Program
Operating in the tradition of Tron, this collection fights for the users, highlighting the action of renegade humans and the subversive systems they’ve designed to call into questions logics of dominance and control at the heart of the machine. As much as the ludic resistance of Flynn & Tron, this collection is informed by Rita Raley‘s observation of tactical media (in the text of the same name) what unites these “forms of critical intervention, dissent and resistance” is the critical function of disturbance. Each of the games has been selected as an example of tactical interventions disturbing the socially constructed values that lie behind many mass-market experiences of game and play through the detournement of play objects and common logics of those objects. Most specifically, each of these games, altering the mechanisms of play to highlight the embodied experience, disrupts the expected semiotic regime that severs the player from the world outside the structure of the game.
Read MoreAlready algorithmic?
To what extent are some artworks always already algorithmic?
To what extent are media forms infrastructural, or infrastructure a form of media?
An artform has an algorithmic potential to the extent that it can be calculated or is computable. There is a logic that underpins algorithmic computation which predates computation itself. Cinema is an inherently metric form, rooted in the industrial, mechanistic age that flowed from the principles of mathematics and physics; this logic is not only built into mechanism, it is indivisible from the mechanism. Going back yet further, the foundations of western tonal music (‘classical’ music) are not only metric and harmonic notation, but the classification of tones and pitches in logical scales, an application of the mathematical to the auditory. Some scholarship suggests that the origins of tonality can be found as early as the 16th century – synonymous with the western rediscovery of classic mathematical principles, as well as the widespread development of printing technologies.
J.S. Bach was writing his Mass in B minor in the same period Leonhard Euler was solving the seven bridges of Koenigsburg; both were working seventy years after Leibnitz and Newton, an age that gave birth to symbolic logic, calculus, geometry, statistics; foundations of modern physics and modern technology. Tonal music is mathematical not because math is an inherent property of the universe, but because the art form and the scientific and technical knowledge of its day arose from shared epistemic foundations. Are these epistemic foundations, then, also infrastructural?
To what extent does the existence of mathematical knowledge, and its diffusion into culture, make the extraordinary compositions of Bach possible? To what extent did both depend on the widespread advent of accessible, reproducible printing technologies? Are mathematical principles Is the printing press infrastructure, and sheet music a media form? Is the sheet music infrastructure for the pianist?
Returning to cinema in a modern incarnation, more closely examining the concept of the digital non-linear editor, we can see that editing is already algorithmic. A layer of abstraction -- patterned on the operations of traditional cinema editing -- masks a series of operations that are algorithmic in nature. Operating directly on the footage through programmatic methods peels back a layer of abstraction, permits new approaches forbidden by the rigid logics of industry editors, allows for formal experimentation that takes fuller advantage of the capacities of the machine. Is the editing software media, and the algorithmic layer an infrastructure? Are both infrastructure for the media industry?
Now wait for last year
SF as theory; the predictive, the prefigurative, and the retrospeculative; forgotten futures
Kim Stanley Robinson describes the action of SF as like 3D glasses; one lens an attempt to imagine a future which is plausible or possible, the other a metaphorical vision of the present.[1] Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. characterizes science fiction as “a mode of awareness, a complex hesitation about the relationship between imaginary conceptions and historical reality unfolding into the future”, relying on two hesitations –historical-logical (“how plausible is the conceivable”), and ethical (“how good/bad/altogether different are the transformations”).
Ciscery-Ronay justifies science fiction as theory in the instances of Philip K. Dick and JG Ballard. To that list, we could add Samuel Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia Butler – just as a beginning. Conversely, Ciscery-Ronay presents theory as inherently science fictional, looking explicitly to Jean Baudrillard or Donna Haraway. Other examples are ready to hand; Vilem Flusser’s farsighted speculations in Into the Universe of Technical Images. It can be found in Immanuel Kant’s proposal of a humanity emerging from “self-imposed nonage” into an age of enlightenment just on the horizon, studying the present moment and projecting a possible future (and how to arrive there). We could look to the slogan of the World Social Forum: “another world is possible”, or, in counterpoint, Rosa Luxemburg’s admonition that “society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism”[2].
To these two axes (plausible-metaphorical, historical-ethical), we might add a third that entangles with these modes – the anticipatory and the prefigurative. Prefigurative, from “prefigure”: “be an early indication or version of (something)”; “imagine beforehand”. From Latin praefigurare, “represent beforehand”, from prae (‘before’) + figurare (‘to form, fashion’). Anticipation from the Latin anticipat- (“acted in advance”), anticipare, from ante- (“before”), capare (“take”).
Mihai Nadin, in Anticipation and Computing, introduces a partial taxonomy of prefigurative knowledge – guessing (“selection from a well-defined series of choices”, 294), expectation (“evaluation of an outcome based on incomplete knowledge”, 296), prediction (“inference based on probability”, 298), forecasting (“infer from past data-based predictions to the future under involvement of self-generated data”, 304). He goes on to observe that while machines so far show some ability at these categories, anticipation itself is yet to be emulated by deterministic, machinic intelligence. Thus far, it seems to be a province belonging exclusively to the living. (To paraphrase Nadin, anticipation is the definitory characteristic of the living.)
On the one hand, science fiction as a mode of awareness attempts to anticipate, which is to say, guess, predict, forecast. It deals with the emergent, already nascent in the present. On the other hand, science fiction as a mode of awareness attempts to represent ahead of time, to create, to give an example of how the world might be. It deals with the emergent, the way that narratives can create possibilities, then probabilities, and thereafter realities.
The two symbolic faces of SF are often asserted to be Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, the fabulist and the moralist. An alternate juxtaposition: Willem Bilderdijk and Mary Shelley.
On the one hand, we have Bilderdijk’s Kort verhaal an eene aanmerkelijke luchtreis en nieuwe planeetontdekking[3] (1813), a story of a person whose experiment with a hot air balloon gets out of hand, stranding them on a new planet between Earth and Moon – a narrative rich with attention to technical detail, presented in a scholarly style, including figures and recreations of alien script. On the other hand, we have Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818), a well-known story, characterized by author Brian Aldiss as “the first true science fiction story”; a tale concerned with ethics, the questionable value of progress, the hazards and horrors awaiting us, a recognition that we do not merely act on matter, but sometimes, matter acts on us as well.
We have the world as it might be, and the world as it ought to be.
Science fiction offers a complex way of seeing the world as it is, as it could be, and as it should be. An anticipatory outlook that hopes to divine the possible from what is present, and a prefigurative vision for building possible tomorrows from the seeds of the present; visions of what technology makes possible, and admonitions of what is at risk.
[1] Robinson, Kim Stanley. “Q&A: ‘Utopian’ sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson”. Interview by Kerry Lengel. Azcentral.com. https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/books/2014/10/17/qa-utopian-sci-fi-author-kim-stanley-robinson/17399849/. 17 Oct 2014.
[2] The phrase is not a threat; it is a prediction. It is a promise.
[3] “Short account of a remarkable journey into the skies and discovery of a new planet.”
Works Cited:
Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Istvan. “The SF of Theory”. Science Fiction Studies. Issue 55, volume 18 part 3. November 1991.
Luxemburg, Rosa. "The Junius Pamphlet: The Crisis in German Social Democracy." Rosa Luxemburg: The Junius Pamphlet (1915). Marxists.org. 1915. Web. 04 Dec. 2017.
Nadin, Mihai. “Anticipation and Computation: Is Anticipatory Computing Possible?” From Anticipation Across Disciplines, edited by Mihai Nadin. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2016.
Robinson, Kim Stanley. “Q&A: ‘Utopian’ sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson”. Interview by Kerry Lengel. Azcentral.com. 17 Oct 2014. Web.
They bury cables, don't they?
media archaeology, reanimating infrastructure, the souls of the dead
Infrastructure (noun): “the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.”[1][2] The word first appears in English in the early 20th century.
The first documented appearance of the term ‘infrastructure’ can be found in French; a Parisian newspaper article in 1875, referring to the “excavation of a railway”. Also in France in 1875: Charles Garnier’s completion of the Palais Garnier opera house, final legacy of Napoleon III’s transformation of Paris into a modern city through a program of vast structural transformation; signing of the Constitutional Laws of 1875 inaugurating the Third French Republic; the successful Metre Convention, treaty that set up an international body for coordinating metrology and the metric system. (Notably, it was also one year before Alexander Graham Bell’s fateful telephone call to his assistant Mr. Watson, April 10, 1876.)
Infrastructure derives from two Latin elements, infra- and structura[3].
Structure is the more familiar term. The Latin origin – structura[4] -- has two uses, one suited to construction (‘a fitting together, adaptation, adjustment’); the other suited to language (‘an arrangement, order’).
Infra-[5], as in ‘below’. From inferus: ‘low’, ‘lowest’, ‘of hell’, ‘vile’; also, ‘those below the dead’[6]. What lies beneath; what supports, invisible. What is forgotten, what is below (our structures, our feet, our notice). The original use of the term ‘infrastructure’ refers to the ‘subgrade’[7] beneath railway beds; the ground beneath our feet once it has been transformed by human labor. Not just ‘the stuff you can kick’, but the stuff that holds up all your stuff; the stuff that gives you a place to stand so that you can kick.
But what is infrastructure? To take the analog telephone and the Bell System as an exemplar of such a complex socio-cultural assemblage – as I do – clearly the long lines and digital switching stations, the microwave transmission towers and the undersea cables, the telephone poles and the copper wire are all classic examples of infrastructures. But what other ‘structures and facilities’ are necessary for the ‘operation of [this] enterprise’?
Well, certainly, there are the fleets of maintenance vehicles, the buckets of equipment, the safety apparel – and there are the lineworkers themselves, and their formal and informal knowledge, their methods of professional organization. There are the systems that maintain an understanding of the integrity of the network and the dispatchers that serve as an interface between these systems and the lineworkers distributed across the system. There are the training materials, the systems of apprenticeship and management, the diagrams, schematics and instructional texts that make these infrastructures intelligible. And then there are the tools for planning the maintenance and extension of networks – animations, simulations, and other formal systems. Where do ‘infrastructures’ leave off, and ‘media’ or ‘media practices’ begin?
Elements such as knowledge and techniques of older technologies continue within the technologies that supersede them. Telephone poles – emblematic telephone company infrastructure – owe their existence to an earlier form of technology, the telegraph. Alexander Graham Bell conceived of his invention as a continuity with that earlier concept: “the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water and gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.”
My interest is in infrastructure, and infrastructural imaginaries – “ways of thinking about what infrastructures are, where they are located, who controls them, and what they do” (Parks, “Stuff You Can Kick”, 355). One path towards infrastructural intelligibility calls for developing and reading media with infrastructural dispositions (Parks 357). Vast yet dispersed socio-technical systems are difficult to visualize and comprehend, yet they are everywhere, holding up our way of life as the subgrade makes possible the railway line (and the railway line makes necessary the subgrade). Power, communication, transportation – taken-for-granted, yet critical to modern human existence.
Agriculture, energy, the extraction of natural resources – infrastructure provides the how-to for these technologies and practices that have extended the carrying capacity of planet earth and been central to the enframing of all nature as only ever standing-reserve (Heidegger, 14-21) – and now, through overuse or misuse, are threatening our species existentially, as well as threatening our ability to conceive of essence in any way other than through the enframing that enframes us as only ever an element of the standing-reserve (Heidegger 24-26).
Who controls our infrastructures? Who pays for them, and who benefits? What kind of resources, labor, techniques, practices are demanded to make our way of life possible?
[1] “infrastructure.” Oxford Living Dictionaries. 2017. Web.
[2] Unless noted otherwise, all definitions are from Oxford Living Dictionaries. OLD is used because the online Oxford English Dictionary costs $395.00/yr for an individual subscription, which is insane.
[3] “infrastructure.” Etymology. le Trésor de la langue française informatisé. Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales. 2017. www.cnrtl.fr/definition/infrastructure.
[4] “structura”. Latin Dictionary. 2017. Web and “structura”. Wikitionary.org. 2017. Web.
[5] “infra.” Latin Dictionary. 2017. Web, and “infra”. Wiktionary.org. 2017. Web.
[6] “inferus.” Latin Dictionary. 2017. Web, and “inferus”. Wiktionary.org. 2017. Web.
[7] Subgrade is what we call ‘native material’ (ie: earth, dirt, stones, mud; the ground) when it has been compacted, stabilized, processed. Literally the ground beneath our feet.
Works Cited:
Heidegger, Martin, and William Lovitt. The question concerning technology, and other essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
Parks, Lisa. “’Stuff You Can Kick’: Towards A Theory of Media Infrastructures”. Between the Humanities and the Digital. Ed. Patrik Svensson and David Theo Goldberg. ARTECA, 2015.