Category: Block 1: Cybercultures

Week 3 Summary

Block 1: Cybercultures, Comments on other blogs, Pocket, Weekly Summary

This week I made more time to comment on my classmates posts. My peers’ lifestreams brought me in new directions of thought around the themes for this block, and it good to remind myslef that I’m not alone, see post on cyborg feminism here.

Readings; Donna Haraway’s “A cyborg manifesto” -my understanding is that she speaks about the blurring and transgression of boundaries – as an opportunity. The cyborg stands on the verge of those boundaries, it is neither male or female, human or animal, it is not politically aligned, no insecurities, no prejudices.  Despite the fact that the cyborg is the offspring of militarism and a masculinist culture (Haraway calls it a white capitalist patriarchy), they can help us find a world where there is no boundaries between minds and body, animal and machine, idealism and materialism, – “the cyborg appears in myth precisely where the boundary between human and animal is transgressed”. (Haraway 2007).

 Cyborg feminism comes with its own set of phrases. I’ve to add ‘partial connections’, informatics of domination’,‘actor network theory’, ‘encounter value’ and ‘the origin myth’ to my terminology table. I like the idea of the metaphor of partial connections. We have many loyalties and relationships and many arenas of power, but there is no pure state, we should get comfortable with being always partial and always multiple. I think this reflects true life and true networks. The cyborg is comfortable with partial identity and contradictory standpoints and can help us cooperate in a way that ”witches, engineers, elders, perverts, Christians mothers and Leninists” can hold together “long enough to disarm the state”. (Haraway 2007)

partial connect

In Jonathan Sterne’s ‘Histiography of Cyberculture’ he points out that while visual design is very much at the center of cyberculture studies, the auditory dimension is almost always left out. I wrote about that in my post here. I wonder if we could apply binaural or 3D audio to a geography class to allow students to hear the natural sounds that would accompany pictures of the space being learnt about.

After attending the google hangouts tutorial on Wednesday I was told about the Chrome pocket extension and the RSS feeds. The pocket extension means that I don’t have to route all of my web browsing through Twitter which will add a little diversity to the blog.

To end the week three and the Cyber cultures block,  I added my visual artefact here; another learning curve on a new audio visual tool but worth it.

Sterne J, The Historiography of Cyberculture in Silver, D., & Massanari, A. (Eds.). (2006). Critical cyberculture studies. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from ed on 2020-01-13 02:09:03.
Haraway, Donna, (2007) “A cyborg manifesto” from Bell, David; Kennedy, Barbara M (eds), The cybercultures reader pp.34-65, London: Routledge

Week 3 Artefact Adrienne

artefact, Articles, Block 1: Cybercultures, Lifestream, machine learning, visual artefact

A short clip on some of my musings for this block 1 of Cybercultures

https://media.heanet.ie/page/2be5a5d9a18d4b79908482d1cd8ff7aa

 

This clip is gathering of thoughts…..if there is a theme then it is networks.

A.I blurs the boundaries between robot and human. I found myself drawn towards the positive aspects of transhumanism and networked humans- where the augmented human may become an assemblence of biological intelligence merged with machine intelligence.

The theme of network came up a few times for me, we are networked in a web of ambient intimacy  (Amber case), and partial connections– (Harraway and Glabau). The cyborg helps us be comfortable with partial identity and contradictory standpoints, neither human or animal, male or female. However I pulled in images of male and female cyborgs because popular culture still depicts the male cyborg as strong and the female cyborg as vulnerable.

It is important to remain critical of how culture influences our use of tech- “information technology often presents itself to us as potentially liberating when in fact our actual interactions with it often reinforce conventional social structures of domination”. (Carl Sylvio). This applies too with the partial networks in education. The need for regulatory oversight over who benefits in the network, and who is victimised.

“The cyborg is a creature of social reality as well as of fiction” comes from Haraway’s paper.

Mainstream computer games, you tube and social media offer more realistic learning environments than our current classrooms, and VR headsets are additionally incorporating touch. I could have brought a last slide in there about VR but I ran out of time for this artefact.

Learning is a multisensory experience that the educational sphere could to well to observe how our young people are operating in the above arenas.

References

Sterne J, The Historiography of Cyberculture in Silver, D., & Massanari, A. (Eds.). (2006). Critical cyberculture studies. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from ed on 2020-01-13 02:09:03.
Haraway, Donna, (2007) “A cyborg manifesto” from Bell, David; Kennedy, Barbara M (eds), The cybercultures reader pp.34-65, London: Routledge

Realistic, Responsive Audio Is The Next Frontier In VR Innovation

Articles, Block 1: Cybercultures

In Jonathan Sterne’s ‘Histiography of Cyberculture’ he points out that while visual design is very much at the center of cyberculture studies, the auditory dimension is almost always left out. For example, in designing a Virtual Reality environment, one must ‘hear’ as well as ‘see’ the environment it to feel realistic. Virtuality is not simply a visual experience but a multisensory one.

Binaural audio is critical to an immersive experience within the context of VR. We consider audio to be 50 percent of the immersive experience.”
–Adam Somers, Engineering Manager of JauntVR

I wonder if we could apply this to a geography class for example. To not just see pictures of the natural space being learnt about but to hear the natural sounds that would accompany it.

Article Complet : https://www.cbinsights.com/research/vr-audio-tech/
via Pocket

Non human voices in the technological network

Block 1: Cybercultures, comments, Comments on other blogs, Lifestream, machine learning, Youtube

Thanks to my classmates Susanne and Val  for your posts on Cyborg Feminism.  It’s not just about the different ways that male and female cyborgs are popularly portrayed, it is the general questioning of power structures outside of male and female. Val linked to an article (Feminism and Cyberculture) which said “information technology often presents itself to us as potentially liberating when in fact our actual interactions with it often reinforce conventional social structures of domination”.

Carl Silvio Refiguring the Radical Cyborg in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell

 

Dr Glabau’s you tube talk linked from Susanne’s post then spoke about the actor network theory where it’s not just humans in a technological system but also non human laborers, who contribute example animals in the food chain. Some animals are doing the work, some enjoying the technology, some exploited in that network.  One of the questions cyborg feminism asks is who is creating these technologies, to what end, who is receiving opportunity or repression? Dr Glabau asks us to consider where are the voices of all beings represented in the network so that every voice is heard in designing technologies for the future. The motivation for implementing technology shouldn’t be just instrumental and economic. It’s not that straightforward.