Talk about razor’s edge…

Not quite done with the Latour article. The language is a lil bit painful… very Husserlian-like Phenomenology speak. My favorite part of this article thus far is that I can’t remember not knowing so many words and having to look up completely blind. I forget meaning all the time but it is rare to come across words you just have never visually seen before. Kudos to Bruno. Of course that contributes to a problem. I have to say for the first 15 pages I was feeling a lil undereducated in the discussion to read correctly. While I have heard their names everywhere, I have very limited knowledge of Whitehead and Popper (they are philosophy and weirdly do not enter the literary criticism discussion very often). Also, the article reads as if it is speaking to a problem or counter-argument that a reader involved in the discussion would know. Having reached deeper into the “negation of a position” (my term- Latour defines most of his ideas in opposition to others rather than positing them directly) this changed, epistemology is not really what he is talking about… Ontology is directly apparent. Just the fact that he has to reject language discussion while using “logos” and “graphy” as proofs brings philology and the philosophy of language to the table (his quip trying to put down Quine is as ineffective as it is misguided- this Quine bit is pure opinion on my part- most folk don’t like Quine). I’m reticent to throw down quotes ’cause his argument doubles back on itself so some concerns maybe assuaged by the end but my hypothesis now is that this argument is a shield for something really simple and may be way closer to a discussion of hermeneutics than Latour is comfortable with-

Who are we to judge the will of God…

Seems to be another way of interpreting Shaviro’s finale. Or maybe more accurately: the network really hasn’t changed much except the vantage of our perception. That’s a big statement that I won’t even attempt to qualify because it is too big. But I would like to touch on some other issues re: Connected… First, in response to Kevin’s comment on my last entry- I don’t really mind being told that I have a poor reading of a text… But you gotta tell me why with textual examples- I trust that Shaviro (and would be depressed if this isn’t the case) is not intending to be an MTV VJ of literary and cultural allusions whose content mixes have nothing more then a cursory and popular content association but rather his product “beat matching” intent and theoretical basis. However “cool,” and Shaviro is interested in coolness, there are a lot of pop cultural and academic holes plus political bias here- the question isn’t whether they are there but whether they are justified. You say you it’s “more of a primer,” for what? If anything is important to lit and comp lit academics it is having textual proof (if that is not clear from his tremendous and thorough references). So while you suggest I should “think less of what he left out, what he’s missed, and what he’s try to weave and put together-” it seems clear from his extensive research that it might be important what he knowingly left out especially considering his particular interest in the “in-between,” “other,” and “power relations.” Maybe not… Tell me.

Shaviro’s text is engaging, fast-paced, and impressively contextualized. There are a number of lacking points that shed some doubt on the rest of the project though. Descartes project and Drugs being two. Shaviro discusses the Cartesian Evil Genius and a Just God in the build up to discussing the choice Neo has to make in The Matrix. When discussing the fantasy world created by the Evil Genius: “Descartes only proposes this fantasy as a thought experiment; he advances in order to disprove it, thereby establishing beyond all doubt the existence of a material world and the veracity of the word of God.” (89) Shaviro is not dishonest here but leaves out an important piece as to why Descartes engaged in the project at all: the advancement of science. Descartes is less interested in being a philosophical set up (much less a cinematic one) then proving to the Vatican that he should be allowed to engage in scientific experiments without being labelled a heretic. In the lineage of fantasy writing for explicating the present this seems key but more importantly as a primary step in the direction that led up to the possibility of a networked society. Why leave out? Agency might have something to do with it- all of Shaviro’s highlighted characters are acted on, always victims- but maybe a larger problem is that I haven’t read all these books, engaged all this media- how do I know what he has left out? Especially re: Femme Fatale. I can’t argue against Asia Argento being a sex object that obscures and transcends sex roles having not seen the film “New Rose Hotel” but I am highly sceptical that a Hollywood movie (even a B one) accomplishes this…  Also, his lack of use of Alan Turing, who should be all over this book and is in many ways just not explicitly, is strange. I was waiting for a 100 or so pages for him to turn up and he is gone in 2 or 3. Seems the father of AI and Modern Computing may have some unacknowledged influence here. Maybe the failure of the Turing Machine is counterproductive to Shaviro’s project?

God love him, Shaviro shows his true colors no where better then his almost haphazard side step into drug use and its representative meanings on today’s society. Firstly, his dig at Rand and Thatcher are testosterone driven women seems counterproductive- though funny. It supposes a lot about gender roles that have gone thoroughly unexplored in his account. Why? As for LSD, DMT, Testosterone, and Cocaine- he is really showing his age by choosing LSD. I would really like to have a conversation about his contentions in class because they seem so agenda based as opposed to relevant to the text. Also, he is making assumptions that seem sophmoric in many ways.

Finally, I was quite disappointed in the end. Really felt for all his exuberance he would finish stronger. He seems to fall into assumptions about the deplorable term the “human condition,” why all the science fiction stuff? He comes to an end that is more easily found in notions of place and time in Oedipus Rex. Why? Also, it’s odd how much me picks on Bill Gates. Not that he shouldn’t be picked on but you’d think he’d throw some aggression at content producers like Murdoch and News Corp or Sumner Redstone and Viacom.

Quick note on Values

Really quickly, just cause it keeps striking me and I add more as I finish the book, many of the contentions and positions taken in this book explicitly or implicitly rely on a value system or morality supplied by Shaviro’s prejudice. While politically I tend to agree with him (though sometimes dubious of his particular pop cultural taste and/or interpretations), his critique suffers greatly from his need to inject these politics to make his points. Becomes dogmatic and highly skewe(re)d. His need to define artists as people who do things a certain way is antithetical to the point he’d like to be making i.e. making a value judgement on how “actual artists” (65) feel about copyright. Especially in light of turning almost immediately around and taking Andy Warhol’s words at face value to prove his point “every emotional state is really just a performance.” (72) How can you take Warhol at word but call Beck an ironic hipster vagrant? Who makes that cultural judgement? Shaviro. He seems to be positioning himself as the ultimate academic hipster- player and player hater. Mixing pop culture and theory is dangerous. Needs hands off approach. Del the Funky Homo Sapien, whether Shaviro knows it or not, happens to be Ice Cube’s cousin. Access/Commerce become really important. Before even considering taste. Also, I am still slightly confused by his TS Eliot association. Does he identify with the “Wasteland?”

All whimper; No bang

Shaviro’s Connected is an interesting endeavor into literature of the future to account for the present. Obviously, not finished with the book yet but here are some things that have struck as worrying and/or fascinating that I hope will be addressed further has I move through the text.

Firstly, as measured against a number of the readings we have done thus far, Shaviro is not explicitly writing a balance or counter-balance to prevailing academia. He may actually refer to theory and other texts more than any author we have encountered (it would require some serious background to follow it all), though he seems to distill it quite well and use it to great effect in purpose. Not stringing out a balance or counter-balance does not mean he doesn’t have one or intend to present one but the form in which he, smartly, chooses to write requires a reflection of networked society… in its pace, scattered development, and juxtaposition such that to posit a lengthy theoretical presume would disengage his position.

As for form, the brief rapid topics without chapters and sometimes without any logical connection between parts replicate our networked existence quite well for an academic book. The irony of engaging this form is that the environment of manic information sharing gets recreated in his own work. Some very deep thoughts points get dropped in less than 300 words. Much is forgettable. Jack Spicer may have been under-examined. And his constant use of Burroughs is slightly problematic because much of Burroughs work it concerned with physical interaction with material but Shaviro seems to want to steer away from the visceral and focus on the cerebral. The most prescient example is in the Body and Screen (6-7) when he is describing the physical relationship, or servitude, to the desktop computer- his level of hyperbole is peaking or he seems to think that the desktop has agency over him. Odd. Melodramatic. Thus far, I think this book is very ambitious, very interesting but he seems to be falling for the trap of a lot of science fiction’s reflections in allowing the artificially constructed world of the author maintain a 1-to-1 relationship to the RL- taking the metaphor too far. Many a Christian and Muslim have this problem too with their particular science fiction. If he doesn’t make big moves to assuage this for me… I’m gonna be suspect. Especially since it shouldn’t be that hard considering the amount of names he is invoking and/or inverting.

Frisson- 2nd half of Tsing

It’s been a busy week and I’m just now plowing through the end of this book. Not too long to go- I’m in “Movements.” I’m presenting tomorrow so I am just gonna throw out some ideas about the second half. In terms of striving to map a ideology or progression I’m kinda with her. The partisan debate can ignore vital signs (although there is something to be said for the dialectic). In the introduction she does a lot of interesting speculation on the inability of policy and reflection to adequately assess the present or the past. Considering Kevin’s endorsement this morning and the endeavor of this class, it seems apt (even if classless) to draw comparisons to McCain and Obama. A quick comment on leadership. McCain is more the black/white, good/evil, Reagan era. In a world of New Media (let’s forget everything else for brevity’s purpose) this approach is dangerously inadequate. While Obama is by no means Tsing’s ideal, he is an attempt at balance in approach to multi-faceted situations- a step way from stare down competitions. Most voting for McCain, I suspect, truly believe in the black/white.

Anyway, as for form in Tsing’s book- it is garish, not environmentally conscious (as in it is much longer than the material warrants), and condescending. It’s one thing to condescend academics or your subjects or your readers… but to do all three? Obnoxious. Here, drawing back on earlier readings, is exactly why it is important to have a firmer methodology for academic work. As I read, I am tempted to critique it as a journal or memoir. In which case she would not be doing very well. Actually, to be honest, it would be better if it were a journal and least then I might pretend she didn’t realize other people were going to read it. I’m thinking specifically about “Weediness” and on…. who knows, I’ll go finish it now and maybe change my mind but her writing is irritating when she veers away from academic topics.

Ethnography Proposal II

Going from the general to the specific… slightly changing course with this- more focus. I recently finished a sustainable urban architecture design competition with some friends. I was in charge of video and written material. Essentially communication design. Jason you know about this… If anyone else is remotely interested I’ll share cause it was a lot of work. We wanna do more.

I am taking a class in Parsons Design and Tech department called “Do What I Mean- Usability.” For the major project in this class I am working on creating a Usability test geared toward discovering more about how architects view the aesthetics of video in the context of a competition design submission. Vast. Am pairing it down. But I’d like to combine the project for this class with that one. Idea being that I’d test people in RL and SL with similar background knowledge (such as http://archsl.wordpress.com/) and see if I can assess a difference in approach between physically and virtually testing people. Needs a lot of refinement but I think much more doable than broad social psyche studies, like my last suggestion. Thoughts? Lame? Too technical? Theoretically, will make both projects stronger.

Ethnography Proposal

This is very under-formulated so I’ll throw it out there and see if it plays at all. As I was discussing in my last SL post, I have lost interest in looking at SL as a model for the interest of sexual fantasy and capital gain cause it’s just too big and kinda difficult to get to the bottom of in a virtual environment. I’d prefer to incorporate the RL anyway. So as I was exploring SL sex clubs etc… I started wondering how Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and  History of Sexuality pt. 1 apply to a virtual world. In terms of socialization through the panopticon and endorsing sexual activity via supposed repression of it. (If you haven’t read these, in brief the panopticon is society self regulating through social humiliation and structural guilt and the sex activity thing is about society promoting restraint measures that actually encourage the “deviant” behavior that they are suppose to be fighting- ex. in the 90s, the DARE program, said to prevent drug use, taught a generation of 3rd graders what drugs look like, how much they cost, where to get them, and what they do… peaking many an interest where they would have otherwise known no better) I would like to see how this translates in the virtual world. Potentially, and anonymously, interview long time users of SL and get some neophytes to explore SL with the purpose of observing how RL moral/taste codes translate into SL. I’ve always thought that in a virtual world you should be a thief cause why not? I’d like to see how that plays out- transferable or is conception of self not applicable in the same metric while in SL. Thoughts?

Conspicuous (Dis)Engagement

Jason Pine’s article on Aesthetics of Engagement is a difficult one to approach for the obvious across-the-table reasons but more because this article uses theory to move through academic paradigms kind of like a check list so that it can entertain style of engagement. The issue at hand is not theoretical approach (which seems to be in order) but on-the-fly verbal communication design. Before moving on, regarding our class discussion in class about personal vs. academic form: this article didn’t need personal pronouns. Easily translatable either way. Emotion does not heavily factor into the study- on paper anyway.

As for the study, it’s cool. I don’t have much context for Neopolitan culture personally but the cultural reactions to video reminded me of a number of the affects employed in popular American rap/hip hop. Specifically, I’m thinking about Ole Dirty Bastard collecting welfare checks on MTV or staged gun fights/beefs or whatever public show connects artists with the “street.” Proving your hustle by selling your music legally and illegally simultaneously. To be (un)willing to be (anti)industry or the (anti)man. There could have been a lil more explanation as to how the undercover academic as music video producer became unmasked and accepted but this ties into the question of style…

This study is suggesting an approach or methodology required to adequately engage a given subject. Pine seems to want to make explicit what would be a part of all interview situations: personalities. I totally agree. Tactful engagement is how things get done in and out of academics. A problem arises from an academic prospective though… aesthetics is a question of taste. Not at school so no OED but Merriam-Webster defines as: pl. a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. This pulls us in a philosophical debate that is never ending. But to stay away from pure philosophy, what if Pine did not of the moxie to engage Antonio? Or the correct respect of irony? His personality allows him to engage these particular subjects… Now allow me some generalities, please. I lived in Italy for a while, granted not Southern Italy, and men were very sexually forward with the women I was with- And from the description of Antonio and his associates they fit the stereotype of the macho, hyper heterosexual Italian. For our purposes, we’ll say they do… Had Pine been a woman, this interaction would have taken an entirely different course. Maybe to the same end- can’t be sure but we can say that the on-the-fly engagement would be vastly different. How does one prepare? Can one? You can’t teach funny. Or tact. Or discretion. Tis a question of poetics. Is a drastic methodological shift, which I applaud generally but for anthropology am not convinced it is appropriate.

Sex/Love/Money- SL Style II

As I was saying, she (let’s call her Kat) took me back to this quite dope apartment. I have yet to really understand how money works, or more importantly how to assess how much something costs, but this was a fairly swanky place. She hooked me up with some clothes and was explaining some of the dos and don’ts of Second Life. I told her I heard people have sex on SL. She giggled (Kat did that a lot). I asked her how that worked. Kat said she would call her “girlfriend” and then she’d show me. 30 seconds later an impressive looking avatar showed up and they went into a corner. I like to think of this mysterious avatar as a “digital pimp.” Kat returned and the other avatar disappeared. I asked Kat what were they doing. She said, “I needed to get some programs, sit still.” Next thing I know she has attached an anatomically impossiblly large penis to my avatar. Over my clothes. Hilarious. She strips and proceeds to engage me in time tested as well as gravity defying sexual acts. I don’t do anything as she moves me around the room, into a hot tub, and onto the wall. The initial shock and humor of this wears off almost immediately. Gets quite boring really. Kat is typing in a lot of dirty images though… funny. I think Kat starts to feel my malaise and says if I want to “cum” I have to pay. I turn her down. She gets dressed and takes my penis away. Suddenly, the walls of this apartment turn into advertisements for Asian porn sites. Everywhere. Kat, or the fat man in Texas, says they are all her and that I should go visit her site. I tell her thanks and leave.

Conclusions: This whole sex/money is a little bit boring. Given the medium, I’m going to have a hard time understanding the sex thing and the money can’t be that different from any material item except that in SL it is easier to convince oneself that money is not as present as it is. The one thing I found is that writing about this made me think about how I am going to come across to the people in class. I could have been a lot more explicit about what this “girl” said and did but it didn’t seem to matter to why I was there… though I also would have been concerned even more about how I’d be interpreted in class. Obviously, I didn’t worry enough not to write about it but it did make me think about how Foucault’s “History of Sexuality” might be applied here. With only a very abstract overseer- how are sexual understandings-of-self developed in virtual worlds? Vis a vis the RL. I’m going to try to gear my proposal around this concept. Not exactly sure how yet but we’ll see.

Reading Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity

Oxford English Dictionary-

Auto-     repr. Gr.

- ‘self, one’s own, by oneself, independent-ly,’ combining form of self. Exceedingly common in Gr.; in L. only in a few words adopted from Gr. without analysis, as autochthones, autographus, automatus; more common in med.L.; and largely used in the mod. langs. In Eng., to a certain extent, a living element, prefixable to scientific terms denoting action or operation, whence occasionally to others, in combinations that are more or less nonce-words. In free composition as a prefix element, its chief meanings are: (a) of oneself, one’s own; self-; (b) self-produced or -induced (pathologically) within the body or organism; (c) spontaneous, self-acting, automatic (cf. esp. b below).

Ethnography- The scientific description of nations or races of men, with their customs, habits, and points of difference.

I opened this article wondering what autoethnography really means. My colloquial understanding suggested that an enthography is a study of a certain people and culture at a given time and that auto would make this study self reflexive at first and then broadened beyond oneself. This felt like a contradiction. Is it an academic diary? Are there principles to this form that allow people to understand each other ’cause I will have a very difficult time understanding a 40 year old female academic as my personal experience and emotional history will have been drastically different. Are they asking for empathetic understanding in the form of academy? Wasn’t sure. I decided to consult the OED for a lil guidance before I started. To my dismay, autoethnography is not yet recognized as an English word so I took the definitions for ethnography and auto- which left me with the same earlier speculations. Decided to record my feeling as I went- see how that played.

Didn’t care for the beginning because it took a very long time to make a quick point. Gonna show not tell. Check. The quote “we can ask why authors aren’t encouraged to write academic articles in the first person” troubled me for a couple reasons: (1) why do I explicitly care about first person perspective, (2) Derrida would suggest you are “always already” writing a personal narrative, and (3) why write more personal academics instead of writing more academic personal narratives?

As I read on, I was troubled to discover the authors using Barthes, Baktin, Derrida, and Foucault to justify the personal approach. Each troubling for their own reason- not the least of which being that while Barthes’ Camera Lucida is interesting philosophically (and maybe a lil suspect academically)- it is painfully boring to read because his first person perspective requires that he qualify everything- even more than usual. Sometimes loses itself in the need to explain itself. What this Barthes thought told me was- I’m going to have to be explicit about my point of view so I don’t have to qualify.

Next troubling quote: “we need a form that will allow readers to feel the moral dilemmas, think with our story instead of about it, join actively in the decision points that define an autoethnography project, and consider how their own lives can be made a story worth telling.” Bullshit. I was slightly heartened by the beginning… voicing a need to have a form that will make this autoethnography translateable- however vast I thought that project might be… But the “story worth telling” line, their mindset is a toss up: kindergarten, two pot smoking kids just discovering Kerouac, a Tony Robbins event, or just a screenwriting workshop.

I start “Introduction to Autoethnography” and feel completely condescended to. Don’t do that. Do you think you’re breaking some new fuckin’ ground here? I can’t get through it. I skip to the next section. I wonder whether Jason will be annoyed by this-

Hayano, credited with originating the term autoethnography, “limited the term to cultural-level by anthropologists of their “own people,” in which the researcher is a full insider by virtue of being “native,” acquiring an intimate familiarity with the group, or achieving full membership in the group being studied.” This presumes a lot about culture. Geography. What is a group? How does one gain entrance to or exit from a group. Tons of tall red-headed white dudes that I wouldn’t be able to acquire initimate familiarity on these facts while there are tons of short black women that I can. No sexual intention there- point being this approach is starting to feel exceptionally naive. This quote is followed by a series of… got distracted for a while by a political argument about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac- not that great- but this person was claiming- wait, maybe not relevant… references that are highly academic in intention but not synthesized or qualified. How many people know these names? Are the authors so egocentric as to just name drop without anything else?

Arrogance is now engaged. Reflexive ethnographies as greater insight into other cultures? Fanon is kinda over, eh? Edward Said just flinched in his grave. As I move along, just too many references to be effective. Focus. Or are you letting out some truth about your cognition?

“Personal writing akin to evocative narrative has recently proliferated in the mainstream press, in New Journalism, in creative non-fiction, and in genres of literary memoir, autobiography, and autopathology seem to have turned toward more more intimate, personal, and self-conscious.” Well some people like shit sex, doesn’t mean it is going to work for you… or your purposes. Seriously, what box have they been hiding in? New Journalism? The form is based on personal experience. Hence the new genre- New Journalism, not journalism that has evolved into something completely different. All of these genres’ stated purpose is to do what these authors seem to want to do. Are they hung up on needing it to be under the sub-text of anthropology? Are we somewhere between academic snobbery and childish indigence? Do they need their peers approval? Cause if so then they are missing the point of the genres they are trying to appropriate.

The now try to answer some questions. First, “To what kind of truth do these stories aspire?” I sense that they should have this answer in postmodernism but don’t give that one. Then they start talking about the belittled therapeutic qualities of personal academic writing and I can no longer take them seriously… at all. I skim through the conference- am pained by more of the writing… am realizing I have to write my own autoethnography about sexual escapism in SL. Of course, I’ve been writing an autoethnography all this time but I have questioned whether I should discuss it in writing. Also, will Jason accept it as my ethnography cause I have class in two hours? Truth is I’d like to know if my criticisms of the weakness on this form were shown more then told? That was my intention. I wonder if that is clear? My direct questioning is generally directed at the authors personal assessments but I also attempted to poke holes in the form as being useless academically. My intention anyway… does it play?