Post 5: Techno-dystopia

In case you're the sort of person who can't handle metal, the link above is to Fear Factory's 1998 album, Obsolete. It's a concept album following your generic techno-dystopian narrative about a world where machines have taken over and humans have been reduced to slaves who couldn't keep up with the times.

Techno-dystopia's quite common in sci-fi, and personally I think there's a good reason for that. Sure, it'd be sweet to have machines do everything, but we gotta consider the consequences.

Take those exercise devices we saw at the end of last week's seminar. Moov for example is only about $80. Compare that to the cost of a personal trainer, which is usually a minimum of $30 an hour. For now, people may prefer the face-to-face interaction that you get with an actual trainer and will be willing to pay the extra cost. But Moov will probably develop and become more advanced (and more afforable) over time. As we see with how often people use facebook chat these days (people in my own flat will sometimes prefer to talk through facebook chat when they can't be fucked getting out of their rooms) even if initially met with skepticism, people tend to get more comfortable and more reliant on the new technology over time. As such, if Moov were to somehow get more and more advanced (maybe one day turning into some sort of personal training android), it could do some damage to the personal training industry. The amount of damage will probably depend on how it, and similar devices develop over-time.

In a similar vein, I currently work a fast-food job making pizza and dough for Pizza Hut. If some genius were to make some automated dough-making machine, or pizza topping machine, you can be sure that Restaurant Brands is gonna jump on that bandwagon once they can afford to and boost profits by saving labour. At the same time, they'll be making people such as myself obsolete and needing to find a new job.

As argued by Winner in the first reading, people really don't give a shit as long as the dough's rolling. In the words of the almighty Wu-Tang Clan, "Cash Rules Everything Around Me, get the money, dolla, dolla bill y'all"

Post 4: Nothing's real anymore

Finally gave that systems theory reading a go after going through the first three chapters of Interface Fantasy for my book review and let's just say both readings have definitely warped the way I look at the world. Something tells me magic mushrooms were very strong in Luhmann's and Lacan's day...

Only a week from tackling Heidegger, I'd begun reading Nusselder's application of Lacanian psychoanalysis on interfaces, cyberspace and fantasy and found the argument that pretty much everything is a construction influenced by imagination and mediated by interfaces quite convincing.

Nek minnit, this Moeller guy's argues that everything actually is just a series of systems of communication, whether it be politics, economics or religion. It's not about who's involved, it's about what's happening, and his argument was pretty convincing as well.

So now, I'm not really sure which one to follow. There's definitely a lot of evidence to back up both world-views. Take their differing views on history for example. The consensus is that history's told differently depending on the messenger. From Nusselder's Lacanian perspective, it's because our understanding of history is shaped by subjectivity. History is made sense of by various individuals and communicate through a medium, whether it be language, TV, newspapers etc. But how we make sense of what's communicated is also affected by the world-view of the persons being communicated to.
Systems theory would focus less on the individuals in question, and believe that a person's conception of a historical event is the result of communication going on in systems such as legal systems, political systems or educational systems. In this sense, there is less emphasis on the individual's understanding and more on the structures around the individual.

Personally, I think individuality needs to be considered more so I'd lean towards the former. Systems theory seems kinda dehumanizing though it's backed up pretty well by Moeller and Luhmann. Either way, my mind is still slightly conflicted on how it should see the world.

Post 3: Transparency, and how televisions can avoid extinction

The act of watching TV is an embodied technological experience. The camera is an extension of our eyes, projecting its vision onto a screen. As this week's readings have pointed out, transparency is important for a technological design and as I pointed out last week, watching television is a way to experience a sort of fantasy. Therefore, in order to have the optimum experience, transparency has to be maximized.

Take film for example. In cinemas, the screen is gigantic and the sound is loud and atmospheric. It's easier to focus on the film because you are shut off from outside distractions. But when watching a movie on a shitty laptop for example (as I'm sure many of us students do), the screen is smaller, the sound quality is poorer, and its easier to be distracted. The same goes for portable devices. Because the interface is more visible, the experience becomes less transparent and thus becomes less immersive,  and (at least in my experience), you're more likely to lose focus. This is probably one reason cinemas still make money despite the rise of internet piracy.

Now consider live sport, an activity normally done with a crowd. Thus the goal is to immerse a large number of people into the programme. This is why the bloke hosting a viewing party for a test match for example, is normally the one with the biggest TV. There is less transparency when viewing on a shitty television or laptop, as the quality will be poorer and the interface (i.e. the borders of the TV or computer) is more visible. The bigger the screen, the easier it is to ignore the interface and focus more on the game. Furthermore, unlike a projector, which would require a level of darkness, televisions can be seen in a well-lit area that better simulates the social environment of a live game. Perhaps this is why people decide to buy bigger TVs rather than projectors, because they can still provide a level of transparency without compromising the viewing experience.

Therefore, though TV is becoming more digitized, TVs themselves can probably avoid extinction due to the viewing experience they provide, and their increasing affordability as opposed to projectors. I don't see them phasing out for a while, maybe when holographic TVs like in sci-fi becomes affordable...

Another somewhat relevant Cracked article

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-emotions-invented-by-internet/

Post 2: The live sport interface from the broadcast era to the post-broadcast era - giving power to the people

Nusselder described the Freudian idea that technology is a way to realize fantasy (11). In televised sport, the fantasy is the live game experience and television is the interface to this fantasy. As Drucker would say, the layout of the interface will have an important effect on the reception of the content (9). As such, the game (i.e. the fantasy) is always the dominant feature. Graphics such as the scoreboard or statistics will occasionally appear, but only cover an insignificant portion of the screen, allowing the audience to continually focus on the events of the game. Throughout the broadcast, a director controls the interface, deciding what camera angles to use and when to display certain graphics. The director has to continually change the interface based on the situation and his understanding of the audience's expectations. In turn, the expectations of the audience can also vary due to cultural factors (Drucker 11). An American broadcast for example is more likely to feature stats and corporate logos than an NZ broadcast, due to the popularity of fantasy sport and greater commercial influence in their sports leagues.

As we move into the post-broadcast era, a major trend appears to be personalization. A factor behind this is globalization. Rather than have broadcasters try to appeal to everyone at once, through interactive interfaces, users can have more control over their viewing experience and thus, more control over their realization of their fantasy. Examples in live-sport include digital viewing packages such as NFL GamePass or NHL Gamecenter. Non-sporting examples include Netflix or SkyGo. Like World of Warcraft in Galloway's chapter (42), they have additional interfaces within the main interface, featuring buttons that allow users to customize aspects of the interface such as camera angles, the visibility of certain graphics and commentary. To some extent, with live sport in particular, this can be seen as democratizing the broadcast, giving users certain directorial privileges that would not be available in the broadcast era (though they are still bound to the content provide by the broadcaster). Digital packages such as these are becoming exceedingly popular due to their convenience as well as customizability, and it will be interesting to see how they affect old media broadcasts in the long run.