All hark! The fresh turning of the solar system is neigh! As my original intent for this weblog has remained as an encompassing monologue generally regarding advancement and the future, it seems only fit to record a few predictions upon this new year and compile them into a 'top 10' list, as per fine blogging tradition. These should be seen as general predictions or thoughts about various aspects of society and how they might change in the next decade.
i. Economic leveling. By now it must be obvious that the global economy in the 2010s will be vastly different than the one that has characterized america's late-capitalistic phase. The BRIC countries are all slowly shoring up their economic bases, and by the end of the decade world commerce might just seem a lot more..let us say 'market-driven?'
ii The decline and slump of the american empire. The united states' half-century hegemony is beginning to recede. Related to i., this concept encompasses the global zeitgeist as both product and substrate for the economy. Cultural trends have gradually begun to show signs of shifting away from americanized capitalistic ideals, and the cultural rise of asia seems poised to make a dramatic impact in their wake.
iii. Neo-medicine. Stem cells, genomics, and more will allow for unprecedented medical advances. The technologies will force humans to wrestle with issues unlike any before (voluntary limb amputation, anyone?).
iv. Governmental shifts. Whether it's filibuster reform or coup d'état, governments are unstable, and there's no sign of settling.
v. The internet evolves. Having invented a means for every single human being on the planet to communicate effortlessly with one another, the challenge of the next decade will be defending the human right to internet access as vigorously as we defend the right to a free press. And now that we have this tool, what will we do with it?
{In the spirit of this celebration of liminal states, the latter half of this list will be published..in 2011! Joyous liminal celebration, everyone!!}
20101225
The Holographic Lewitt
Note well: this is a paper that i wrote this past semester. As part of this weblog, i would like to begin to unfold my personal artmaking techniques into a public realm. This particular paper is a 'part 1' of sorts. Stay tuned for the much more thorough 'part 2'
Walls are important things. Humans, from the wealthiest WASP on the East Coast to the most destitute resident of an Indonesian slum, spend their time in the constant presence of walls. It can reasonably be expected that the vast majority of humans are born with walls surrounding them, and that they will just as surely die with walls surrounding them. Walls not only surround humans at virtually all times, they also comprise the entirety of the furthest extent of said humans' field of vision at virtually all times. Thereby, while the physical presence of the wall dominates our locomotion, the visual presence of the wall dominates our vision.
Sol Lewitt seems to be dimly aware of this. His vast collection of wall drawings housed at MASS MoCA occupies acres of gallery space, taking up three floors of a large building. And yet something of a stagnant atmosphere seems to have settled in around the area. There is something unmistakably monotonous about his work when viewed as a whole. It is not for want of variety; the drawings range from the finest graphite detail barely discernible on a white surface to loud, saturated colors in shapes completely covering any hint of 'bare' wall underneath. It is not for an overstatement of ability or importance; the walls are humble and executed forthrightly. The culprit here is a distinct lack of imagination. The walls have all been treated in specific ways. They appear as varied as the animals in a zoo. But very few of them make anybody stop and stare, let alone gasp aloud.
Take the case of Wall Drawing 462. First executed in 1987, the description for 462 reads, “On four walls, one room, arcs 4 inches wide, from the midpoints of four sides, drawn with alternating bands of gray and black ink wash.” Predictably, the work presents as expected: it is a set of walls, each with concentric black and white circles originating at the midpoint of one of its sides. Coincidentally, this drawing is one of the only ones in which wall, pigment, and situation all meet to create a space that is not only notable for its rigorousness, but memorable for its perceptual impact. It seems in his years upon years of muted and impotent experimentation, Lewitt happened to stumble upon at least one design which actually maintains the ability to compel.
In this rather embarrassing ratio (one compelling piece to one entire building of walls), we can begin to trace the outlines of a helpful conclusion to take from Lewitt's work. Why is is that of all of the wall drawings on display, 462 seems to me to be the most enduring one? The answer is not simple, but it may be obvious. What Lewitt's other drawings lack in impact, 462 makes up for in the regimented execution of visual contrast. The simple shapes (circles), taken to a visual extreme (covering entire walls), impart a clear sense of dynamism. The piece achieves its perceptual domination through the effective leveraging of the walls it inhabits. To spend a few minutes engaged in this piece is to walk away dizzied and somewhat itchy. These aspects are by far the most successful of the piece, and they should rightfully be praised.
If 462 is most successful in its visual hegemony, it is the least successful in its poor execution at MASS MoCA. Instead of being presented in its entirety, the MASS installation is only a “detail” of the full piece, since the fourth wall required by Lewitt's stipulation is conspicuously absent. The drawing resides in a U-shaped alcove across from a window rather than in, as per the artist, “one room.” Not only must this have been a flagrant equivocation on the part of the artist himself (we were told that Lewitt participated prominently in the planning and execution of the gallery at MASS MoCA), it demonstrates a complete ignorance on the part of the artist of the power of his own work. That is to say, if Sol Lewitt knew intimately the qualities that make his work successful, he would never have allowed a drawing whose success relies so heavily on perceptually enveloping the viewer to be executed without that key fourth wall.
And why four? The main problem with Lewitt's work is that it is dreadfully unimaginative. Not only are the drawings he chooses to enact upon the various walls rather bland, the conception of the walls themselves is perhaps blander still. For a man who spent a large chunk of his career supposedly thinking about how to command draftsman to execute specific drawings onto walls, he seems to have given the walls themselves virtually no thought at all. Even when given three entire floors worth of open gallery space, the most Lewitt could bring himself to come up with was an orthogonal grid. An orthogonal grid. Sol Lewitt is presented with an entire building of gallery space for his walls and he decides to make cubicles. The man should have been an architect; that field would have loved him.
The time has come to attempt to distill something useful about this work. The intent of the artist is unclear; he seems to have been infatuated with the notion of leaving instructions for his wall drawings. These instructions encapsulate completely each drawing, and are presented along with the medium as information about the drawings in the gallery space. As relayed above, the instructions for 462 are primarily concerned with the arcs made and the midpoints used. Secondarily, there are specifications for the colors to be used, although they are vague on which kind of gray. Not surprisingly, the draftsman for this drawing had to step in on that aspect and make the gray very light (presumably) in order to make the drawing more interesting. In a case of deep irony, their decision may have been the only one that contributed positively to how compelling the final product is. It is important to note that this instruction-leaving aspect of the work is perhaps the most rigorous and distinct component of it (if John Cage hadn't done it some twenty or thirty years prior, it might even border on original!). This aspect, these instructions, can justifiably be seen as the de facto “actual” work of art, as authored by Lewitt, with the various executions of them seen as sort of deployments of this particular type of artistry.
It follows, then, that the way to truly activate Lewitt's work in the present day is to begin to challenge its assumptions. We can literally do this from the ground up. Why did Lewitt never create floor drawings? Floors are arguably more important than walls, and people are aware of them in a similar, though perpendicular, way. If Lewitt had included the floor in his instruction, not only would the viewer be presented with a significantly more thorough visual hegemony, but the room-ness of the piece would be absolutely necessary and no piddling three-wall half-attempts at reproduction could even be conceived. As for the walls themselves, stipulated and accounted for, we can immediately observe that never does Lewitt use a curved wall in any of his drawings. Why? Is Lewitt unaware that curved walls exist and in fact have existed for millennia? Why the flatness bias? Finally, there is no ceiling present in Wall Drawing 462, nor any other. The walls simply end, and there is a sizable gap between the end of the installation and the bottom of the floor above it (there are no dropped-ceilings in the gallery). If one wanted to be as rigorous with the concentric circles as possible, a ceiling would complete the viewer's perceptual sphere and make the disorientation complete.
The ultimate way to take Lewitt on at his word is to design a space that successfully combines a set of his instructions with a room that is designed specifically for them. This would allow for a sort of testing of the limits of his model, showing precisely what his instructions can and can't do. Over time, a given individual could embellish the room to their own taste, allowing for a sort of meta-art with a pivot point centered on any given wall drawing! In this way, Lewitt's work can be seen as a holographic image of sorts, with each given 2-dimensional wall drawing giving way to a full spectrum of 3-dimensional interpretations. A necessarily scientific act, this would be an engaging and intriguing take on an artist who is otherwise decidedly flat.
Walls are important things. Humans, from the wealthiest WASP on the East Coast to the most destitute resident of an Indonesian slum, spend their time in the constant presence of walls. It can reasonably be expected that the vast majority of humans are born with walls surrounding them, and that they will just as surely die with walls surrounding them. Walls not only surround humans at virtually all times, they also comprise the entirety of the furthest extent of said humans' field of vision at virtually all times. Thereby, while the physical presence of the wall dominates our locomotion, the visual presence of the wall dominates our vision.
Sol Lewitt seems to be dimly aware of this. His vast collection of wall drawings housed at MASS MoCA occupies acres of gallery space, taking up three floors of a large building. And yet something of a stagnant atmosphere seems to have settled in around the area. There is something unmistakably monotonous about his work when viewed as a whole. It is not for want of variety; the drawings range from the finest graphite detail barely discernible on a white surface to loud, saturated colors in shapes completely covering any hint of 'bare' wall underneath. It is not for an overstatement of ability or importance; the walls are humble and executed forthrightly. The culprit here is a distinct lack of imagination. The walls have all been treated in specific ways. They appear as varied as the animals in a zoo. But very few of them make anybody stop and stare, let alone gasp aloud.
Take the case of Wall Drawing 462. First executed in 1987, the description for 462 reads, “On four walls, one room, arcs 4 inches wide, from the midpoints of four sides, drawn with alternating bands of gray and black ink wash.” Predictably, the work presents as expected: it is a set of walls, each with concentric black and white circles originating at the midpoint of one of its sides. Coincidentally, this drawing is one of the only ones in which wall, pigment, and situation all meet to create a space that is not only notable for its rigorousness, but memorable for its perceptual impact. It seems in his years upon years of muted and impotent experimentation, Lewitt happened to stumble upon at least one design which actually maintains the ability to compel.
In this rather embarrassing ratio (one compelling piece to one entire building of walls), we can begin to trace the outlines of a helpful conclusion to take from Lewitt's work. Why is is that of all of the wall drawings on display, 462 seems to me to be the most enduring one? The answer is not simple, but it may be obvious. What Lewitt's other drawings lack in impact, 462 makes up for in the regimented execution of visual contrast. The simple shapes (circles), taken to a visual extreme (covering entire walls), impart a clear sense of dynamism. The piece achieves its perceptual domination through the effective leveraging of the walls it inhabits. To spend a few minutes engaged in this piece is to walk away dizzied and somewhat itchy. These aspects are by far the most successful of the piece, and they should rightfully be praised.
If 462 is most successful in its visual hegemony, it is the least successful in its poor execution at MASS MoCA. Instead of being presented in its entirety, the MASS installation is only a “detail” of the full piece, since the fourth wall required by Lewitt's stipulation is conspicuously absent. The drawing resides in a U-shaped alcove across from a window rather than in, as per the artist, “one room.” Not only must this have been a flagrant equivocation on the part of the artist himself (we were told that Lewitt participated prominently in the planning and execution of the gallery at MASS MoCA), it demonstrates a complete ignorance on the part of the artist of the power of his own work. That is to say, if Sol Lewitt knew intimately the qualities that make his work successful, he would never have allowed a drawing whose success relies so heavily on perceptually enveloping the viewer to be executed without that key fourth wall.
And why four? The main problem with Lewitt's work is that it is dreadfully unimaginative. Not only are the drawings he chooses to enact upon the various walls rather bland, the conception of the walls themselves is perhaps blander still. For a man who spent a large chunk of his career supposedly thinking about how to command draftsman to execute specific drawings onto walls, he seems to have given the walls themselves virtually no thought at all. Even when given three entire floors worth of open gallery space, the most Lewitt could bring himself to come up with was an orthogonal grid. An orthogonal grid. Sol Lewitt is presented with an entire building of gallery space for his walls and he decides to make cubicles. The man should have been an architect; that field would have loved him.
The time has come to attempt to distill something useful about this work. The intent of the artist is unclear; he seems to have been infatuated with the notion of leaving instructions for his wall drawings. These instructions encapsulate completely each drawing, and are presented along with the medium as information about the drawings in the gallery space. As relayed above, the instructions for 462 are primarily concerned with the arcs made and the midpoints used. Secondarily, there are specifications for the colors to be used, although they are vague on which kind of gray. Not surprisingly, the draftsman for this drawing had to step in on that aspect and make the gray very light (presumably) in order to make the drawing more interesting. In a case of deep irony, their decision may have been the only one that contributed positively to how compelling the final product is. It is important to note that this instruction-leaving aspect of the work is perhaps the most rigorous and distinct component of it (if John Cage hadn't done it some twenty or thirty years prior, it might even border on original!). This aspect, these instructions, can justifiably be seen as the de facto “actual” work of art, as authored by Lewitt, with the various executions of them seen as sort of deployments of this particular type of artistry.
It follows, then, that the way to truly activate Lewitt's work in the present day is to begin to challenge its assumptions. We can literally do this from the ground up. Why did Lewitt never create floor drawings? Floors are arguably more important than walls, and people are aware of them in a similar, though perpendicular, way. If Lewitt had included the floor in his instruction, not only would the viewer be presented with a significantly more thorough visual hegemony, but the room-ness of the piece would be absolutely necessary and no piddling three-wall half-attempts at reproduction could even be conceived. As for the walls themselves, stipulated and accounted for, we can immediately observe that never does Lewitt use a curved wall in any of his drawings. Why? Is Lewitt unaware that curved walls exist and in fact have existed for millennia? Why the flatness bias? Finally, there is no ceiling present in Wall Drawing 462, nor any other. The walls simply end, and there is a sizable gap between the end of the installation and the bottom of the floor above it (there are no dropped-ceilings in the gallery). If one wanted to be as rigorous with the concentric circles as possible, a ceiling would complete the viewer's perceptual sphere and make the disorientation complete.
The ultimate way to take Lewitt on at his word is to design a space that successfully combines a set of his instructions with a room that is designed specifically for them. This would allow for a sort of testing of the limits of his model, showing precisely what his instructions can and can't do. Over time, a given individual could embellish the room to their own taste, allowing for a sort of meta-art with a pivot point centered on any given wall drawing! In this way, Lewitt's work can be seen as a holographic image of sorts, with each given 2-dimensional wall drawing giving way to a full spectrum of 3-dimensional interpretations. A necessarily scientific act, this would be an engaging and intriguing take on an artist who is otherwise decidedly flat.
20101102
the horrific procedures of democracy
This election-eve, things are stirring. An odd manner of events have led to this particular point. The biggest picture being the election and subsequent administration of barack obama, along with the events having to do with its deployment legislatively (and the monumental oppositional hurtles forced by a stagnant, malicious minority party). The administration thus far has, in your editors view, felt overwhelmingly sombre and daunted, and it is very easy to see why. If we atomize our immediate history, one might claim that the deepwater horizon oil spill this summer was and endures as an appropriately apocalyptic image to summarize what has occurred in our country over the last decade. And even more recently, the flare-ups involving our muslim minority have pointedly emphasized the fear and instability that has become the new normal in is country. Undergirding all of these images and emotion and events is the deeply unsettling reality: this country is faced with an existential threat. Not from without, as the government and many other propagandists would have you believe, but from within.
Accurately portrayed in kos's American Taliban, the american rightists are for all intents and purposes an exceptionally powerful theocratic bloc in our politics. They believe that their god is implicit in this country's founding documents, and that our government must act accordingly. They believe wholeheartedly in willfully dismantling our government from the top down, arguing on the surface for states right but subliminally for the abolishment of virtually all social institutions. Alone, this would not be an especially remarkable position; the political right in this country has for years been oriented around those goals. What's new is the virulent anger, the mindless droning, the doublethink, and the complete unwillingness to deal in what people consider to be logical or factual. The right in this country is an epistemically closed system; fox news can legally call itself "news," and it can legally cite andrew brietbart as a source. They have the right to propagandize as they see fit, and, incredibly, they are not required to disclose that their parent company donates millions upon millions to the political right. What is the end result of epistemic closure? The american right has no method for entering new knowledge into their belief system. This was made manifest in an extremely visceral way when, in 2003, the country was swayed towards invading an actual other country based on fear and paranoia. When it quickly became apparent that those fears had been unfounded, the political right used its position of power to enforce its resolve and cultural relevance, and opposition to the Iraq war became virtually taboo among not only our politicians, but our public. We were forced to 'stay the course', watching helplessly, sometimes enthusiastically, as our citizens and theirs died for literally no reason.
What makes the american rightists so horrific is not their vehemency or passion. It is their complete rejection of the entire notion of thinking. Not only are their policy proposals far more radical than what had been generally deemed acceptable in American politics, but they directly participate in and encourage an entire culture of illogic, blind devotion, fear, and uneducatedness. They desire not a return to the reagan years, but to the feudal ones. Their thinking is a product of pre-renaissance ideals retrofitted and repurposed for the modern era. It is not so much that they consciously desire to be ruled over by a lord, its that they have never been presented with the facts about the things they have been told to believe. This is the greatest benefit of epistemic closure as a method of control: it is a sort of fascism of the mind. Citizens indoctrinated into the rightist ideology become inoculated against counter-argument. There is literally no arguing with them, because even if all of the people involved in a debate are courteous and civil, their philosophy allows them to write off all other participants as strange and nonsensical to their worldview. Because, simply, they are. No one using logic and reason can debate a contemporary Republican. Many of them running for office barely seem to hold anything even resembling a policy position, opting instead to run on what essentially amounts to fear, emotion, and good old-fashion throw-the-bums-out american mentality. How much can the system take? We live in a halfway approximation of democracy: representative government. It follows, then, that we might want somewhat more stringent standards for those who represent us. We must not be afraid of calling the insane in our midst precisely what they are: unable to be swayed by reason; un-sane, unfit for command, a form of mental illness by some metrics.
The eyes of a shark are dead to us because they are mindless automatons. They are perfect killing machines, engineered by evolution to consume everything around them as efficiently as possible. The actions of a shark are dictated only by consumption and self-preservation. They have no capacity to surprise observers, because a shark is a shark and a shark wants only one or two things. The logic of a shark is one of the most simple logics of the world. When we humans see these beasts in action, we look into those black sockets and see only darkness. An absence. The lack of a self, the lack of a compassion. The void, uncompromising and simple. A candidate in Nevada who can barely formulate a complete sentence. A candidate in Alaska who literally employs a suite of private guards because apparently such a thing is legal. A candidate in Delaware who has spent her life advocating for sexual abstinence. None of them say anything that bears any resemblance to actual knowledge or insight. The void, uncompromising and simple.
Vote early and often.
Accurately portrayed in kos's American Taliban, the american rightists are for all intents and purposes an exceptionally powerful theocratic bloc in our politics. They believe that their god is implicit in this country's founding documents, and that our government must act accordingly. They believe wholeheartedly in willfully dismantling our government from the top down, arguing on the surface for states right but subliminally for the abolishment of virtually all social institutions. Alone, this would not be an especially remarkable position; the political right in this country has for years been oriented around those goals. What's new is the virulent anger, the mindless droning, the doublethink, and the complete unwillingness to deal in what people consider to be logical or factual. The right in this country is an epistemically closed system; fox news can legally call itself "news," and it can legally cite andrew brietbart as a source. They have the right to propagandize as they see fit, and, incredibly, they are not required to disclose that their parent company donates millions upon millions to the political right. What is the end result of epistemic closure? The american right has no method for entering new knowledge into their belief system. This was made manifest in an extremely visceral way when, in 2003, the country was swayed towards invading an actual other country based on fear and paranoia. When it quickly became apparent that those fears had been unfounded, the political right used its position of power to enforce its resolve and cultural relevance, and opposition to the Iraq war became virtually taboo among not only our politicians, but our public. We were forced to 'stay the course', watching helplessly, sometimes enthusiastically, as our citizens and theirs died for literally no reason.
What makes the american rightists so horrific is not their vehemency or passion. It is their complete rejection of the entire notion of thinking. Not only are their policy proposals far more radical than what had been generally deemed acceptable in American politics, but they directly participate in and encourage an entire culture of illogic, blind devotion, fear, and uneducatedness. They desire not a return to the reagan years, but to the feudal ones. Their thinking is a product of pre-renaissance ideals retrofitted and repurposed for the modern era. It is not so much that they consciously desire to be ruled over by a lord, its that they have never been presented with the facts about the things they have been told to believe. This is the greatest benefit of epistemic closure as a method of control: it is a sort of fascism of the mind. Citizens indoctrinated into the rightist ideology become inoculated against counter-argument. There is literally no arguing with them, because even if all of the people involved in a debate are courteous and civil, their philosophy allows them to write off all other participants as strange and nonsensical to their worldview. Because, simply, they are. No one using logic and reason can debate a contemporary Republican. Many of them running for office barely seem to hold anything even resembling a policy position, opting instead to run on what essentially amounts to fear, emotion, and good old-fashion throw-the-bums-out american mentality. How much can the system take? We live in a halfway approximation of democracy: representative government. It follows, then, that we might want somewhat more stringent standards for those who represent us. We must not be afraid of calling the insane in our midst precisely what they are: unable to be swayed by reason; un-sane, unfit for command, a form of mental illness by some metrics.
The eyes of a shark are dead to us because they are mindless automatons. They are perfect killing machines, engineered by evolution to consume everything around them as efficiently as possible. The actions of a shark are dictated only by consumption and self-preservation. They have no capacity to surprise observers, because a shark is a shark and a shark wants only one or two things. The logic of a shark is one of the most simple logics of the world. When we humans see these beasts in action, we look into those black sockets and see only darkness. An absence. The lack of a self, the lack of a compassion. The void, uncompromising and simple. A candidate in Nevada who can barely formulate a complete sentence. A candidate in Alaska who literally employs a suite of private guards because apparently such a thing is legal. A candidate in Delaware who has spent her life advocating for sexual abstinence. None of them say anything that bears any resemblance to actual knowledge or insight. The void, uncompromising and simple.
Vote early and often.
20101005
sensing
Look! Especially the bit at the bottom.
What is the logical conclusion of camera design? A tiny spherical sensor that could capture all of the visual information all around it in a single photograph. A veritable tiny black hole of a thing. It is pleasing that such a device would replicate the "floating sphere in space" physical form of stars and planets. It always seems that the universe enjoys the replication of particular forms at various scales. It's all just fractals, all the way down (and up).
What is the logical conclusion of camera design? A tiny spherical sensor that could capture all of the visual information all around it in a single photograph. A veritable tiny black hole of a thing. It is pleasing that such a device would replicate the "floating sphere in space" physical form of stars and planets. It always seems that the universe enjoys the replication of particular forms at various scales. It's all just fractals, all the way down (and up).
20100908
information and the progressive distributions thereof
What is it, precisely, that allows for the entire project of human culture? What is it, precisely, that distinguishes our great cities from ant colonies?
What is it, precisely, that makes homo sapiens unique among the living objects on this particular planet? It is not our organizational ability, as a shoal of fish will tell you. It is not our efficient use of resources to expand our population base nor our complex building techniques, as an ant colony will tell you. And it is certainly not our emotional capacity, as any pet owner will surely testify.
Perhaps one of the few developed traits that truly distinguishes us from the rest of the known natural world is the conveyance of information unlimited by geography or time. With the invention of writing, homo sapiens struck out on a course of development completely unprecedented on this planet. Along the way, we have encountered a few inflection points that have radically altered the courses of civilizations.
Perhaps the most relatable of these inflections to the modern gaze is the invention of the printing press. Particularly notable is the manner in which this invention impacted the religious apparatus of the time. Before movable type was widespread, interpretation of religious doctrine was quite literally exclusive. A peasant seeking to know more about their world had precisely one option: to go to the cathedral. While it is often glossed over in architectural histories, the fact is that the old gothic church designs that some romanticize are incredibly complex pieces of architectural propaganda designed specifically to induce awe and faithfulness among the illiterate masses. So the people go to the church and the priest (who is can read) reads the bible to them. Inevitably, the content of the bible is parsed through the church's own ideology and priorities (and if memory serves, this process is actually formalized within the church doctrine). With the invention of the printing press, the exhausting process of prying exclusive knowledge from the few who possessed it began. Bibles could be printed for relatively little cost, and entire new sectors of the populace had access to the texts. The lutheran movement and the resulting schism followed in roughly a generation; the catholic church had lost its millennial grasp on its unified masses.
The printing press (along with wider literacy programs) allowed for the mass distribution of previously-exclusive information. People were suddenly able to digest their own sources of information and come up with opinions of their own. The fortress of the unquestionable heard for the first time the sounds of strange new weapons in the distance. [make no mistake, the fortress is still around: presently it's filled with fluorescent lighting and would like you to worry about your lawn. the logos abound and sales are final.] And it is for that reason that the internet is already as important an invention as the printing press.
It is simple to see how the internet is enabling more people more access to more information than they have ever had in their lives. So much so that it has become fashionable to somehow lament this fact. It is simple to recall the iranian elections and see how the internet can impact world events. Wikileaks.org is arguably one of the most important websites of our time, and its story has only just begun. It simple to see that wider distribution of information can only benefit humankind, and it is simple to see that the internet is fostering a whole new era of thought and culture.
What is it, precisely, that makes homo sapiens unique among the living objects on this particular planet? It is not our organizational ability, as a shoal of fish will tell you. It is not our efficient use of resources to expand our population base nor our complex building techniques, as an ant colony will tell you. And it is certainly not our emotional capacity, as any pet owner will surely testify.
Perhaps one of the few developed traits that truly distinguishes us from the rest of the known natural world is the conveyance of information unlimited by geography or time. With the invention of writing, homo sapiens struck out on a course of development completely unprecedented on this planet. Along the way, we have encountered a few inflection points that have radically altered the courses of civilizations.
Perhaps the most relatable of these inflections to the modern gaze is the invention of the printing press. Particularly notable is the manner in which this invention impacted the religious apparatus of the time. Before movable type was widespread, interpretation of religious doctrine was quite literally exclusive. A peasant seeking to know more about their world had precisely one option: to go to the cathedral. While it is often glossed over in architectural histories, the fact is that the old gothic church designs that some romanticize are incredibly complex pieces of architectural propaganda designed specifically to induce awe and faithfulness among the illiterate masses. So the people go to the church and the priest (who is can read) reads the bible to them. Inevitably, the content of the bible is parsed through the church's own ideology and priorities (and if memory serves, this process is actually formalized within the church doctrine). With the invention of the printing press, the exhausting process of prying exclusive knowledge from the few who possessed it began. Bibles could be printed for relatively little cost, and entire new sectors of the populace had access to the texts. The lutheran movement and the resulting schism followed in roughly a generation; the catholic church had lost its millennial grasp on its unified masses.
The printing press (along with wider literacy programs) allowed for the mass distribution of previously-exclusive information. People were suddenly able to digest their own sources of information and come up with opinions of their own. The fortress of the unquestionable heard for the first time the sounds of strange new weapons in the distance. [make no mistake, the fortress is still around: presently it's filled with fluorescent lighting and would like you to worry about your lawn. the logos abound and sales are final.] And it is for that reason that the internet is already as important an invention as the printing press.
It is simple to see how the internet is enabling more people more access to more information than they have ever had in their lives. So much so that it has become fashionable to somehow lament this fact. It is simple to recall the iranian elections and see how the internet can impact world events. Wikileaks.org is arguably one of the most important websites of our time, and its story has only just begun. It simple to see that wider distribution of information can only benefit humankind, and it is simple to see that the internet is fostering a whole new era of thought and culture.
20100901
panoptics and governance
Imagine for a second that every single time someone rolled a joint, they incurred a municipal fine. No matter what, no matter where they hid, every time someone did something that broke the law, they would be punished in some tangible way. Now consider why this idea is (presumably) offensive to you.
Ostensibly, privacy is an issue here. It certainly seems that the government being able to monitor its citizens' every action would infringe on personal liberty, does it not? But this presents the problem of what precisely the teleology of a system of laws entails. In this country, legally, your 'personal liberty' does not extend to breaking laws. If you can be proved to have broken a law (provided you end up in court), you are legally responsible and become a criminal. The end goal of our law is to enforce conduct that we deem appropriate. There are clearly certain ideas of what is appropriate that neigh universal in this day and age: don't kill humans, don't cheat, don't abuse. Of course, the list might not be as long as might be expected. Regardless, laws exist because humans generally agree that there are things that are wrong to do. The end result being that if you're caught speeding on a highway, a police officer gives you a ticket.
Of course, in our society, illegality and punishment have at best a tangential relationship. Our government has in effect failed in its endeavor to have a system of law. In fact you do not get a speeding ticket every time you push the needle. In fact many people do smoke cannabis as regular as going to the grocery store and live scot-free. What does this indicate? Does it imply poor vigilance on the part of the government? Or does it suggest that many of our laws are, for whatever reason, very ill-equipped to the lives that people lead? Our government, like most others, assumes that it can never catch all criminals all the time. And it probably can't. But the untold consequence of this fact is that our laws are increasingly unenforced. And unenforced laws not only undermine a citizenry's faith in their government, they completely negate the entire notion of having laws in the first place. It is for this reason that so much of our culture involves the image of government as an unwarranted intruder in our private lives. People's entire belief systems are bases around the assumption that government is unjust. And it is difficult to argue with these people, because much of the government we have in place right now does in fact rely on huge volumes of hypocrisy in order to exist. Unfortunately, in the past, this was necessarily the case on account of the physical impossibility of governance. But the time is rapidly approaching that actual just governance might be possible!
So! What if everything were monitored all the time in order to prevent any laws from being broken? What would happen? Well, this being a democracy, we would probably soon have many fewer laws! People do enjoy their freedom, and so a completely vigilant criminal justice system would quickly reveal those regulations that are ungainly or start to smell like totalitarianism. Of course, it would not be an easy process and so the system of litigation would necessarily have to be much more streamlined and easy to fend with. But digitization should help with that, no? We still live in a time prior to the government coming to terms with computers as a replacement for paper. Once that happens, the court system will become much less intimidating and inaccessible and perhaps the judicial wing of the american system will act in its appropriate role of regulating and mediating between the law and the citizenry in a reasonable fashion.
Now, this big brother utopia might still have a few problems to work out. But those are topics for the future!
Ostensibly, privacy is an issue here. It certainly seems that the government being able to monitor its citizens' every action would infringe on personal liberty, does it not? But this presents the problem of what precisely the teleology of a system of laws entails. In this country, legally, your 'personal liberty' does not extend to breaking laws. If you can be proved to have broken a law (provided you end up in court), you are legally responsible and become a criminal. The end goal of our law is to enforce conduct that we deem appropriate. There are clearly certain ideas of what is appropriate that neigh universal in this day and age: don't kill humans, don't cheat, don't abuse. Of course, the list might not be as long as might be expected. Regardless, laws exist because humans generally agree that there are things that are wrong to do. The end result being that if you're caught speeding on a highway, a police officer gives you a ticket.
Of course, in our society, illegality and punishment have at best a tangential relationship. Our government has in effect failed in its endeavor to have a system of law. In fact you do not get a speeding ticket every time you push the needle. In fact many people do smoke cannabis as regular as going to the grocery store and live scot-free. What does this indicate? Does it imply poor vigilance on the part of the government? Or does it suggest that many of our laws are, for whatever reason, very ill-equipped to the lives that people lead? Our government, like most others, assumes that it can never catch all criminals all the time. And it probably can't. But the untold consequence of this fact is that our laws are increasingly unenforced. And unenforced laws not only undermine a citizenry's faith in their government, they completely negate the entire notion of having laws in the first place. It is for this reason that so much of our culture involves the image of government as an unwarranted intruder in our private lives. People's entire belief systems are bases around the assumption that government is unjust. And it is difficult to argue with these people, because much of the government we have in place right now does in fact rely on huge volumes of hypocrisy in order to exist. Unfortunately, in the past, this was necessarily the case on account of the physical impossibility of governance. But the time is rapidly approaching that actual just governance might be possible!
So! What if everything were monitored all the time in order to prevent any laws from being broken? What would happen? Well, this being a democracy, we would probably soon have many fewer laws! People do enjoy their freedom, and so a completely vigilant criminal justice system would quickly reveal those regulations that are ungainly or start to smell like totalitarianism. Of course, it would not be an easy process and so the system of litigation would necessarily have to be much more streamlined and easy to fend with. But digitization should help with that, no? We still live in a time prior to the government coming to terms with computers as a replacement for paper. Once that happens, the court system will become much less intimidating and inaccessible and perhaps the judicial wing of the american system will act in its appropriate role of regulating and mediating between the law and the citizenry in a reasonable fashion.
Now, this big brother utopia might still have a few problems to work out. But those are topics for the future!
20100820
talkin' bout my generation
A person born in 1990 in this country can reasonably expect to have had potential access to a computer as a learning tool for most of their developing life. It seems as though the potential impacts of this reality have not been fully investigated.
Learning something from a computer is a very different process than learning something from a teacher or from a textbook. Because the lessons are usually structured as an exploration rather than an explanation, learning is presented and digested in a much more personal way than in the classroom. Right now, i am able to type fluently on an ipad because i was able to easily transition from typing on a physical keyboard -- the system i learned on -- to one that requires slightly different muscle memory but broadly similar keystrokes and thereby similar physical knowledge (of finger positioning and activation). One might argue that growing up with such a possibility is fundamentally different from not, and thereby it is easy to see this ability as unique to people roughly 20-25 years old or younger* ("millennials" as opposed to gen. x-ers).
Thus, it is easy to recognize what may well prove to be a massively disruptive social truth: as people born later and later gradually transition into positions of general social power and status, the norm for analytical ability and learning fluidity will gradually shift towards a higher degree of each, and society can (presumably) only benefit in response. These traits are beneficial because they (presumably) increase tolerance of change, dynamism, and responsiveness to environments. In a world increasingly characterized by change and swift realignments in norms, it can only serve us well to be more accustomed to such things, and the future is bright!
*whether or not this perception is demonstrably true is the purview of social scientists, not your humble editor.
Learning something from a computer is a very different process than learning something from a teacher or from a textbook. Because the lessons are usually structured as an exploration rather than an explanation, learning is presented and digested in a much more personal way than in the classroom. Right now, i am able to type fluently on an ipad because i was able to easily transition from typing on a physical keyboard -- the system i learned on -- to one that requires slightly different muscle memory but broadly similar keystrokes and thereby similar physical knowledge (of finger positioning and activation). One might argue that growing up with such a possibility is fundamentally different from not, and thereby it is easy to see this ability as unique to people roughly 20-25 years old or younger* ("millennials" as opposed to gen. x-ers).
Thus, it is easy to recognize what may well prove to be a massively disruptive social truth: as people born later and later gradually transition into positions of general social power and status, the norm for analytical ability and learning fluidity will gradually shift towards a higher degree of each, and society can (presumably) only benefit in response. These traits are beneficial because they (presumably) increase tolerance of change, dynamism, and responsiveness to environments. In a world increasingly characterized by change and swift realignments in norms, it can only serve us well to be more accustomed to such things, and the future is bright!
*whether or not this perception is demonstrably true is the purview of social scientists, not your humble editor.
Location:Syracuse
yikes!
and i apologize for the delay in content! in was spending my time having an elective surgery and moving many hundreds of miles across the nation to a giant strange house in the town where i attend university! but now your editor is all settled in and ready to spend the next indeterminate amount of time working in the most production manner possible. and so you should expect a rich seam of posts in the near-to-mid-term future! so let's get on with it, then!
20100809
"who might've lived one thousand years..."
How long do you expect to live? It is a slightly different question than how old do you expect to become. In fact, if you follow some of the research being done now to its logical conclusion, you might start to think that your answers to those questions might be quite a bit different than your parents'.
If we take for granted that most cultural traits that humans exhibit seem to develop at an exponential rate (with technology being perhaps the most easily recognizable), it seems reasonable to expect that the field of medicine will undergo radical changes in the next several decades. For instance, the recent arrival of the first synthetic self-replicating DNA is already being recognized as a milestone. Research like that coupled with the rapidly-advancing state of stem cell research means that the medical options available to doctors twenty years from now are going to be much, much different than the ones available to our contemporary physicians. And given that there seem to be creatures that basically don't age (forgive the website, just note the article they're posting was originally published in Discover), it seems feasible that we may one day be able to bestow that enviable trait upon ourselves. And why not? Who wouldn't want to live an extra century or two?
Bear in mind that this is merely the research being done right now. In one of the articles, they mention that the whole notion of stem cell research has only been around a decade, an extremely short time in the medical field. And the second decade of research is probably much richer than the first. If they are already replacing large patches of skin, corneas, and some organs, they're already treating leukemia and other blood things, what do the next ten years hold?
So if you're interested in the future, maybe do yourself a favor and try and exercise a little more in the meantime, and hope to live long enough that some day you won't have to. And always remember your Arthur Clarke: "Technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic."
If we take for granted that most cultural traits that humans exhibit seem to develop at an exponential rate (with technology being perhaps the most easily recognizable), it seems reasonable to expect that the field of medicine will undergo radical changes in the next several decades. For instance, the recent arrival of the first synthetic self-replicating DNA is already being recognized as a milestone. Research like that coupled with the rapidly-advancing state of stem cell research means that the medical options available to doctors twenty years from now are going to be much, much different than the ones available to our contemporary physicians. And given that there seem to be creatures that basically don't age (forgive the website, just note the article they're posting was originally published in Discover), it seems feasible that we may one day be able to bestow that enviable trait upon ourselves. And why not? Who wouldn't want to live an extra century or two?
Bear in mind that this is merely the research being done right now. In one of the articles, they mention that the whole notion of stem cell research has only been around a decade, an extremely short time in the medical field. And the second decade of research is probably much richer than the first. If they are already replacing large patches of skin, corneas, and some organs, they're already treating leukemia and other blood things, what do the next ten years hold?
So if you're interested in the future, maybe do yourself a favor and try and exercise a little more in the meantime, and hope to live long enough that some day you won't have to. And always remember your Arthur Clarke: "Technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic."
20100806
neo-democracy in the Digital Age
Here is a pressing question: why, in a period of time characterized by speed, digitalization, and interconnectedness, do we live in a constitutional republic?
Democracy is defined as government by the people, and democracy as we know it has virtually always been limited in some way. The normative democratic mode as has been practiced throughout most of western culture is republican in nature (in the constitutional republic sense, not the party-of-no sense). In a republic, representatives are elected to serve in a parliamentary body, which is usually charged with the dual task of proposing and refining laws. This is the system through which the American government exists, and we are thusly familiar with the process of electing our senators and representatives. Those representatives go on to serve in our parliament, which we happen to call congress and which happens to be arranged in a bifurcated way.
The idea is that the people express their opinions on what should happen by electing representatives who reflect those opinions, those representatives go on to propose and vote on bills, which, by gaining the support of a majority of other representatives, eventually become law. For our purposes, the checks and balances of the American system are unimportant. The gist is that the opinion of the majority of the population, through proxy of their representatives, becomes expressed in law. To refresh, a democracy is a system in which the majority opinion of the people is the determining factor in what ultimately governs those people. A republic is a form of democracy in which that majority opinion is expressed by proxy through elected representatives, who ultimately govern the people.
Now, reach in your pocket. Or train your eyes on the table next to you. Something. What do you find? If you're like most people, you find sort of tiny digital cellular device that you can use to make phone calls. Indeed, some might go so far as to call it a cell phone. The point here is that most of the conscious population in the year 2010 has one of these. Every individual typically has a unique number that they can be reached at so that they can exchange specific information with specific people with no regard for distance.
So we have devices that let us send information over long distances at very little cost, we each have a unique one of our own, why not use these things to vote? On, say, everything? Why do we tolerate living in a governmental system designed specifically for a time in which such a thing was simply not possible? Once you recall that the entire purpose of having a parliament is to enact the majority opinion of the people, why do the people even bother with a parliament any more? Gigantic national opinion polls are already conducted on 'the issues' regularly. Why not develop those polls to become more secure, more refined, and finally codified into a system of parliament? The technology to do such a thing already exists, and has existed for at least a few decades now. It is only a matter of time before the first western country adopts such a system, as such a system is the logical conclusion of democracy as we know it. America's people could be the first!
Democracy is defined as government by the people, and democracy as we know it has virtually always been limited in some way. The normative democratic mode as has been practiced throughout most of western culture is republican in nature (in the constitutional republic sense, not the party-of-no sense). In a republic, representatives are elected to serve in a parliamentary body, which is usually charged with the dual task of proposing and refining laws. This is the system through which the American government exists, and we are thusly familiar with the process of electing our senators and representatives. Those representatives go on to serve in our parliament, which we happen to call congress and which happens to be arranged in a bifurcated way.
The idea is that the people express their opinions on what should happen by electing representatives who reflect those opinions, those representatives go on to propose and vote on bills, which, by gaining the support of a majority of other representatives, eventually become law. For our purposes, the checks and balances of the American system are unimportant. The gist is that the opinion of the majority of the population, through proxy of their representatives, becomes expressed in law. To refresh, a democracy is a system in which the majority opinion of the people is the determining factor in what ultimately governs those people. A republic is a form of democracy in which that majority opinion is expressed by proxy through elected representatives, who ultimately govern the people.
Now, reach in your pocket. Or train your eyes on the table next to you. Something. What do you find? If you're like most people, you find sort of tiny digital cellular device that you can use to make phone calls. Indeed, some might go so far as to call it a cell phone. The point here is that most of the conscious population in the year 2010 has one of these. Every individual typically has a unique number that they can be reached at so that they can exchange specific information with specific people with no regard for distance.
So we have devices that let us send information over long distances at very little cost, we each have a unique one of our own, why not use these things to vote? On, say, everything? Why do we tolerate living in a governmental system designed specifically for a time in which such a thing was simply not possible? Once you recall that the entire purpose of having a parliament is to enact the majority opinion of the people, why do the people even bother with a parliament any more? Gigantic national opinion polls are already conducted on 'the issues' regularly. Why not develop those polls to become more secure, more refined, and finally codified into a system of parliament? The technology to do such a thing already exists, and has existed for at least a few decades now. It is only a matter of time before the first western country adopts such a system, as such a system is the logical conclusion of democracy as we know it. America's people could be the first!
20100803
because what else are you going to call it?
hello and welcome.
This is a blog written by me, jeffrey michael geiringer. My editorial direction will be simple. I will post things that interests me, and explain why. Within those parameters (mostly), my hope is that i will begin to articulate a vision characterized by large-scale societal analysis and uncompromising optimism about the future. The things that interest me are the ones that seem to hint at the deeper structures of society, although in some instances you may want to replace the concept of deepness with largeness (or just keep the both). I am interested in those structures because they seem to me to hold some clue as to where our society is headed, generally, and what the future will hold. I hope to play both weatherman and historian; i hope to analyze our society while participating in it.
The world that we live in right now is vastly different from the one you grew up in, whomever you are. Things are evolving quicker than ever. This is an incredibly important thing to keep in mind. If we as a species, as an existential unit, want to keep on existing at all, we must learn to not only live with change, but embrace it. The number of tragic things that simply happen because no one has ever bothered to do them differently is astounding. I believe that when we are actively shaping our societies and our selves, we will achieve a higher degree of freedom and prosperity than has ever been remotely conceived of.
These are my ideas,* these are the things that compel me. I hope that they will serve as commentary and analysis, an alternate opinion. It's hard to define the goal of such an endeavor, other than perhaps joining in the gigantic cultural conversation that exists in this form on the internet.
*in the sense that i am writing them down, not in the sense that they are originally "mine:" a topic for a future post that will probably address copyright law and the strange relationship between "originality" and innovation.
This is a blog written by me, jeffrey michael geiringer. My editorial direction will be simple. I will post things that interests me, and explain why. Within those parameters (mostly), my hope is that i will begin to articulate a vision characterized by large-scale societal analysis and uncompromising optimism about the future. The things that interest me are the ones that seem to hint at the deeper structures of society, although in some instances you may want to replace the concept of deepness with largeness (or just keep the both). I am interested in those structures because they seem to me to hold some clue as to where our society is headed, generally, and what the future will hold. I hope to play both weatherman and historian; i hope to analyze our society while participating in it.
The world that we live in right now is vastly different from the one you grew up in, whomever you are. Things are evolving quicker than ever. This is an incredibly important thing to keep in mind. If we as a species, as an existential unit, want to keep on existing at all, we must learn to not only live with change, but embrace it. The number of tragic things that simply happen because no one has ever bothered to do them differently is astounding. I believe that when we are actively shaping our societies and our selves, we will achieve a higher degree of freedom and prosperity than has ever been remotely conceived of.
These are my ideas,* these are the things that compel me. I hope that they will serve as commentary and analysis, an alternate opinion. It's hard to define the goal of such an endeavor, other than perhaps joining in the gigantic cultural conversation that exists in this form on the internet.
*in the sense that i am writing them down, not in the sense that they are originally "mine:" a topic for a future post that will probably address copyright law and the strange relationship between "originality" and innovation.
make it gold
make a change,
build it up,
fill it up,
and you can make it gold
make a flag,
sew it up,
raise it up,
and you can wave it high
make a sound,
turn it up,
turn it up,
and you can make it loud
-Nice Nice, "Make it Gold"
build it up,
fill it up,
and you can make it gold
make a flag,
sew it up,
raise it up,
and you can wave it high
make a sound,
turn it up,
turn it up,
and you can make it loud
-Nice Nice, "Make it Gold"
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