Realty- actual, potential and virtual

By Fion Tse

Virtual is something outside what we see and know? As what we have seen, advanced technology nowadays has caused great changes to our daily lives. Concepts of telepresence and telexistence has been applied, providing us the opportunity to experience virtual presence in remote communication environments. VR games, 3D movies and the use of CAD has become increasingly popular. However, due to the technical limitation on processing power, it is believed that there is difficulty in creating a high fidelity virtual reality experience.

Virtual reality development

“The World as Clock” by Murphie further explained this week’s topic on virtual reality. He talks about the network society through elaborating on transversality and transduction. It is important that we learn to think transversally (Guattari, 2000, 43). Guattari also emphasized that nature cannot be separated from culture. In my opinion, culture often affects the transversal nature of individualisations and for institutions such like universities, disciplines also restrict a potentially transdisciplinary materialism. According to my understanding, transduction is the ongoing process of individuation. We can see that media ecologies are not just neat collections of things that happen to be next to each other but rather something which can be converged and differentiated. The model Lobster On The March best illustrated the media ecologies. Messages are like lobsters marching in a line and they move and connect things together. Murphy’s reading tends to address that ecologies can be seen as of the self (actors), of the socius (the gallery, the audience, the technologies) and of the environment (the ants).

In today’s world, it is obvious that virtual reality is integrating into our lives. Technology allow us to extend our basic human rights as well as promoting ones freedom. Furthermore, the gradual migration of virtual space changes people way of thinking. Some people say virtual is just imagination but from my perspective, it is something waiting to be actualized and something in which we often head towards to replenish our lives.

Murphie, Andrew (2004) ‘The World’s Clock: The Network Society and Experimental ecologies’, Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 11, Spring

Global Mnemotechnics- Globalising Memory, Thinking and Action

By Fion Tse

The experience of memory is a dynamic relationship between remembering and forgetting, habit and conscious thought. According to a talk by Chalmers, he focused on explaining the extended mind. “When parts of the environment are coupled to a cognitive system in the right way, they become parts of the mind” (Chalmers, 2009). He also used iphone as an example when elaborating his concept. We no longer have to remember phone numbers and the phone can even make decisions for us. Hypomnesis is a kind of extended memory, more technical- recalling things through signs or technical devices. In other words, human’s memory is not natural but instead it is supplemented to technology.

Actually I believed that environment plays a significant role in people’s mind. Referring to the case of Otto and Inga, Inga’s memory is internally processed by the brain but Otto depends much on his notebook for memorizing the location of the museum. Therefore, we can say that notebook is considered as a source of memory in Otto’s mind.

An interview with Alva Noe further explains the meaning of perception and how people experience consciousness. He stated that experiencing consciousness is a temporary extended involvement which always necessarily spread out in time (Noe, 2008). Movement produce sensation and Noe emphasized dance as a beautiful modeling device.  I agree with what he is saying since dance is like talking in which requires engagement, flow, habits and skills. It models the environment around us.

The article on Anamnesis and Hypomnesis puts forward that human memory is originally exteriorized. Due to technological advancement, human rely much on computer, phone, GPS, etc. to memorize things and this eventually led to the loss of knowledge. These technical devices have fully controlled our lives and it is obviously seen that we are constantly in relations with mnemotechnological apparatuses of all kinds.

Chalmers, David (2009) ‘The Extended Mind Revisited [1/5], at Hong Kong, 2009’, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S149IVHhmc>

Noë, Alva and Solano, Marlon Barrios (2008) ‘dance as a way of knowing: interview with Alva Noë’, <http://www.dance-tech.net/video/1462368:Video:19594>

Stiegler, Bernard (n.d.) ‘Anamnesis and Hypomnesis: Plato as the first thinker of the proletarianisation’ <http://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis>

Ecologies- Media Ecologies/Other Ecologies

By Fion Tse

Media ecologies can be seen as the environment in which the codes of communication play a significant role in human’s life. It focuses on how technologies affect our behaviour as well as the way we act. Both Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman believed that objects and processes in media communication are interrelated. They structure what we see and say every day.  Media environments such as books, television, radios and computers nowadays have shaped our society.

Levinson and Fuller also gave us deeper insight on the definition of media ecologies through their readings.  Levinson emphasized the alphabetic success in conveying the monotheistic idea. It is necessary for us to look back into history since older modes of communication still has its own uniqueness. What we understand from Ikhnaton’s reform is that we are indeed an alphabetic culture.  The invention of phonetic alphabets gives us representation of which could not be expressed (Levinson, 1997, p.79).

The second reading by Fuller  illustrated media ecology as a euphemism for the allocation of informational roles in organizations and in computer-supported collaborative work (2005, p.3). In other words, it can also be described as a kind of environmentalism in which sustain people’s way of living. Media systems have shared codes and they are all interrelated. We need to understand how the system work.  Media ecologies can actually be broken down into many separate parts and processes. However, the final outcome depends on the cooperation of different elements.

Ecologists describe media ecology as a dynamic system. Every part has its connection with another. It is not simply an object but rather, it is regarded as a pattern. Guattari puts forward that ecology is far more than concern with the environment (Anon, 2008). The connectivity and network topography explains how the system works. When there is a balance throughout the whole system, people’s living standard will hence be raised.

Fuller, Matthew (2005) ‘Introduction: Media Ecologies’ in Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture Cambridge, MA; MIT Press: 1-12

Levinson, Paul (1997) ‘The First Digital Medium’ in Soft Edge; a natural history and future of the information revolution London: Routledge:11-20

Anon. (2008) ‘The Three Ecologies – Felix Guattari’, Media Ecologies and Digital Activism: thoughts about change for a changing world <http://mediaecologies.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/the-three-ecologies-felix-guattari/>