Random Journeys

2014-02-08T08:16:00.001-08:00

From Edmund Burke in the 18th Century there has been concern about man and his increasing dislocation from his environment. With much of the communication in the present day taking place in cyberspace how much more are we at a distance from the reality around us? If you make links between the 'hypereal' of the internet and the discoveries in science which question whether or no what we see is only a limitation in our perspective then the line between realities becomes even more blurred. So how how real then are our concerns about modern life with its increasing levels of separateness from our world and each other when reality itself comes under question?
Answers on a postcard.....

2013-12-21T14:00:00.002-08:00

From the New Scientist: Our experiences of the world, and our sense of our place in it, may soon be very different – not just from how we perceive it now, but also from how our neighbours do. Will sharing our thoughts and experiences bring us together? Or will we end up living in worlds of our own?

I thought that this quote from New Scientist magazine was pertinant to some of our discussions. How do you feel about the future of humanity given our increasing disassociation from the natural world and each other?

2013-11-28T05:59:00.001-08:00

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world

This is an article about the effect of the internet on the production of music and the ability of musicians to find an outlet if music production is controlled by a monopoly - that recorded music will only be available through one on-line monolithic source.
The author also shows concern for all artistic production being narrowed down to one single point of access. This is a concern which is already being voiced as textual work is losing many of the more individual outlets as publishers are concerned with sales rather than quality. This is not to say that writers are losing outlets because of the internet as it has increased their ability to publish due to the differing formats available on the internet.
The concern is that anyone, no matter how good, or more importantly, how bad can have work published so that any quality control/moralistic control is diminished. And if the internet becomes more controlled by outside bodies will writers find them selves in the same position as musicians?
What will that do to the integrity of the writer if there is only one outlet for fictional text and those who control that outlet decide that only hypertext novels can have an existence on the internet because of market forces?
Mmm. No answers, just more questions as usual - but this article is interesting.

2013-11-16T02:30:00.000-08:00

This piece from Wikipedia really explains hypertext for me and forms a cohesive link to what we've been doing for the last few weeks.

[Hypertext writing has developed its own style of fiction, coinciding with the growth and proliferation of hypertext development software and the emergence of electronic networks. Two software programs specifically designed for literary hypertext, Storyspace and Intermedia became available in the 1990s.

Storyspace 2.0, a professional level hypertext development tool, is available from Eastgate Systems, which has also published many notable works of electronic literature, including Michael Joyce's afternoon, a story, Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl, Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, Bill Bly's "We Descend", Deena Larsen's "Samplers", and Judy Malloy's its name was Penelope,Forward Anywhere. Other works include Julio Cortázar's Rayuela and Milorad Pavić's Dictionary of the Khazars. The first Italian hypertextual novel by Lorenzo Miglioli, "Ra-Dio", was written using Storyspace.

On the other hand, always concerning the Italian production, the hypertext s000t000d by Filippo Rosso (2002), was intended to lead the reader (with the help of a three dimensional map) in a web page interface, and was written in html and php.

An advantage of writing a narrative using hypertext technology is that the meaning of the story can be conveyed through a sense of spatiality and perspective that is arguably unique to digitally networked environments. An author's creative use of nodes, the self-contained units of meaning in a hypertextual narrative, can play with the reader's orientation and add meaning to the text.

One of the most successful computer games of all time, Myst, was first written in Hypercard. The game was constructed as a series of Ages, each Age consisting of a separate Hypercard stack. The full stack of the game consists of over 2500 cards. In some ways Myst redefined interactive fiction, using puzzles and exploration as a replacement for hypertextual narrative.^[9]

Critics of hypertext claim that it inhibits the old, linear, reader experience by creating several different tracks to read on, and that this in turn contributes to a postmodernist fragmentation of worlds. In some cases, hypertext may be detrimental to the development of appealing stories (in the case of hypertext Gamebooks), where ease of linking fragments may lead to non-cohesive or incomprehensible narratives.^[10] However, they do see value in its ability to present several different views on the same subject in a simple way.^[11] This echoes the arguments of 'medium theorists' like Marshall McLuhan who look at the social and psychological impacts of the media. New media can become so dominant in public culture that they effectively create a "paradigm shift"^[12] as people have shifted their perceptions, understanding of the world and ways of interacting with the world and each other in relation to new technologies and media. So hypertext signifies a change from linear, structured and hierarchical forms of representing and understanding the world into fractured, decentralized and changeable media based on the technological concept of hypertext links.]

It also links into gaming I think, where the narrative is all action, i.e. Assassins Creed, each pathway is chosen by the player much as in an interactive story.

2013-10-19T04:36:00.002-07:00

http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/2013/10/the-biggest-scam-in-the-history-of-mankind-debt-ceiling-truth.html

Whilst this video uses the model of the U.S. monetary system, it is a description of the world monetary system and explains the inbuilt iniquity. It is the appeal to share the video at its end which is an example of the possibilities of freedom through sharing of information through the world wide web. However, I suspect that the majority of the world populations are not interested in the world monetary system and that government relies on that, otherwise this video would disappear from the web.

2013-10-13T02:54:00.003-07:00

A view of how some view media - as a tool of propaganda.

2013-10-12T00:39:00.000-07:00

I've just watched a clip on YouTube which I put up on the English Studies Fb page, (I didn't know how to get it on here!) and what he was saying appeared to be that the whole business model as we know it can change if you are prepared to embrace the new technologies through social media sites. That we can be in charge of our own lives/destinies instead of being controlled by those who currently have power over us.
I did find it interesting but feel rather ambivalent about it as few people could start with his advantage (he had a previous inherited business). However it did point up the opportunities of which new media is capable of providing and this goes back to what Sally said in her blog about people not liking change, it takes a lot of courage to step into new territory. If humanity did not have curiosity though, we would never have moved from our beginnings in Africa and would we as a species have survived?
I always seem to find new questions rather than answers and that I think is an answer in itself...

2013-10-04T06:08:00.001-07:00

A collective conscious, a hive, working for the good of all. An unconscious altruism, or- working for the benefit of whoever is in control, that control being directed through media. As it stands- buy this, eat this, drink this, fit-in, wear this, think like this. Corporate control it would seem.
We are predisposed to a certain level of altruism, to work together to protect the survival of the species and there has always been a certain amount of control through various mediums; the priest as representing the church, bureaucracy the state, but there have been the conscious changing independent thinkers too.
And how do those in control view us? Cicero saw slaves not as fellow human beings but as 'instrumentum vocale' (I'm not sure if the latin is right, but you get the drift...) during the Roman Empire. I don't see the view of the mass of humanity of whoever is in control as being that different. If you keep the population uncertain of employment, but through media, control consumer aspirations whilst demonising the poor and feeding mass entertainment at the lowest common denominator then the majority of the population are going to be aquiescent. (couldn't find the correct spelling in the dictionary!)
However this doesn't work for the whole population, only the urbs/masses, those who are a physical danger. New technology has the capacity to unite what were single dissenting voices, to release information of oppression, to organise opposition.
Where that leaves 'the media is the message', or even where this is going, I'm unsure, but it will be interesting exploring what is, for me, the unexplored.

2013-09-27T04:42:00.002-07:00

Well I have my blog, unfortunately I don't think as yet anyone can read it due to my technical ineptitude. Now I like technology. I find it fascinating and I'm well aware of its benefits. However it does have a downside. Despite the advances in domestic technology,( some of which even sing and talk to you) which have freed women from physical drudgery, women are, in the majority, the place where the domestic buck stops and starts.
The time spent doing housework has been dramatically shortened freeing women to enjoy a career. This coupled with paid maternity leave has enabled those careers to have continuity. It was the lack of continuity which was a complaint voiced by both women and employers which eventually drove the advent of paid maternity leave and what is wrong with that?
Nothing at all whilst it still left women with the choice between being a stay-at-home Mum or being a working Mum, but that choice has largely receded into the past. Society now has the expectation that women will return to work whilst their children are still comparatively young and this puts huge pressures on women. Guilt about their children being a major one.
There are huge knock on effects from this. If women work they will have to rely on microwaves. This seems to be the thinking behind the lack of teaching of Domestic Science which at GCSE level asks schools to teach children to design ready meals rather than teaches them how to cook. Lack of cooking skills creates a reliance on ready meals which are high in fats and salt. Obesity has become a huge health problem in the UK.
Whilst lack of cooking skills is not universal it does serve to highlight where technology is seen to solve one problem and in doing so creates others.
As an argument all of this is rather unfocussed because it is following my train of thought. These are random travels which are the title of my blog and whilst they may seem to be rather self indulgent they do, in my experience, lead to some interesting and surprising places. As I become more practised these travels will become more skillfully mapped.
Thank you for indulging me and for your time.