Posted 11:53 by Mark Federman permanent link
Stark Message for the Legacy Media

Jay Rosen's PressThink has a Stark Message for the Legacy Media - essentially that, using our language, "you are obsolescent." There is no objectivity, because objectivity necessitates figure without ground, and that precludes meaning. And more than "just the facts, ma'am," we turn to our various sources of information to make meaning. This casts the reportage over the U.S. election - a.k.a. feeding time in the shark pool - in an entirely new light. Increasingly, the so-called legacy media are looking like the P.R. firms for two "elephantine" (and "ass-inine?") marketing organizations. The election of the leader of the most powerful nation on earth rewritten as Cola Wars? News coverage as product placements? When cast against this ground, the unravelling of Dan Rather seems to make more sense.
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Posted 16:13 by Mark Federman permanent link
More Fundamentally...

While we in Canada are considering whether blocking Adbusters's access to television advertising is an infringement of a fundamental freedom, let us have a moment of silence for our American cousins, who lost theirs, shall we say, PATRIOTically.

(Thanks, AKMA)
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Posted 23:30 by Mark Federman permanent link
CFP: Negotiations Between Oral and Written Traditions, 1450-1650

This cross-disciplinary symposium, being held at Victoria University at University of Toronto on Saturday, 26 February, 2005, invites scholars to consider how orally-based processes of artistic creation and communication continued to function alongside, and in conjunction with, literate forms of expression. Accessing oral culture from the early modern period presents a research challenge, yet historical texts still carry the imprint of oral practices and can provide a basis for exploring negotiations between orality and literacy.

The aim of this symposium is to generate scholarship and debate on the
following questions:

* What contemporary genres or activities had a significant foundation in oral tradition?
* In what ways did orality influence the creation of written works?
* What are the indications of oral practices when embedded in written form?
* In what ways were oral traditions altered in the process of being
committed to written form?

Topics of inquiry can include, but need not be limited to: theatre, music, speeches, processions, public rituals, rhetoric, print culture, epic dialogue, letters, humanist academies, modes of education, and political discourse.

Conference organisers invite submissions for 20-minute papers in either English or French. Abstracts should be between 150 and 200 words, and may be submitted electronically or in print, accompanied by a one-page c.v., before 30 September 2004. Address all submissions to:

Maureen Epp and Stephanie Treloar
c/o Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies
Victoria University
Toronto M5S 1K7




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Posted 13:38 by Mark Federman permanent link
Freedom of Speech, or Ground of Mass Media?

Today's Globe and Mail has this article (registration required, indicating either the desperation or cluelessness of the Globe's management) describing how Adbusters is suing several mass media companies that will not air its anti-consumerism commercials. Adbusters uses "culture jamming" to probe the ground of consumerist culture using what, for us at the McLuhan Program, are standard sorts of "cliché-probing" techniques. But for the mass media companies, like CBC, CanWest Global, Bell Globemedia and CHUM Ltd., Adbusters's commercials are simply

"bad for business. ... a CHUM representative is quoted as saying the ads "were so blatantly against television and that is our entire core business. ... You know we can't be selling our airtime and then telling people to turn their TVs off." Another executive at CTV said the idea of Buy Nothing Day would go over "like a lead balloon" with major retail advertisers."

While Adbusters is planning to argue their Charter rights of free speech, that argument hinges on whether or not the mass media companies are acting as arms of government. No private person or company is obliged to allow the range of speech to which the Charter obligates the government. The argument made by Adbusters's lawyer, civil rights superstar, Clayton Ruby, will likely revolve around the government's regulation of the airwaves via the CRTC being the key link. But the CRTC, as we have seen in recent decisions, seems to play slightly fast and loose with their regulatory power in response to political pressures. And, with the coming ubiquity of bandwidth, spectrum and connectivity, the notion of regulated vs. non-regulated "broadcasting" quickly becomes anachronistic. As I commented several times shortly after the last round of CRTC hearings, the CRTC may well be the gatekeeper, but the fence is down. It is even difficult to argue that, in an age of ubiquitous connectivity, and culture transmission via meme as opposed to mass-media, Adbusters's voice is at all compromised. Jammed yes - and therein lies the difference. Sauce for the gander, anyone?
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Posted 09:44 by Mark Federman permanent link
CFS: SIGGROUP on Virtual Communities - The Political Economics of Power

Jason Nolan, one of our Senior McLuhan Fellows, is involved with SIGGROUP's Call For Submissions for a special bulletin issue on Virtual Communities: "Less of You, More of Us: The Political Economy of Power in Virtual Communities"

The goal is to bring into the dialogue a number of researchers on virtual community who are looking at the borders and peripheral locations that are ignored, unknown or explicitly overlooked. Within the notion that community, often the walls we build around ourselves form mechanism of power and preference, this issue will examine online communities that are excluded or self-excluding from the dominant forms, norms and discourses. For example, there are a large number of researchers inquiring into the recent blogging phenomenon, but I have heard many explicitly exclude technologies/communities such as LiveJournal.com with his 3.8 million users (1.7 active), and discount the value of teenage bloggers, who are mostly female (67% of Livejournal users). Because researchers tend to cover familiar territories, we encourage authors to explore alternatives. Our issue will provide researchers with the opportunity to expose the readership to a wider sense of virtual community and what is going on at the edges of the event horizon.

Some of the anticipated themes are: hacking virtual community; the overlooked, broken down, subverted or reconceptualized virtual communities; borders and breaches, the ordering of virtual community; hacktivism; sexually focused virtual communities; questioning the value of online community; collective intelligence is just the fordism of the mind; the Slash Fiction communities; MOOs the early forgotten virtual communities; and the code beneath the community - exploring programmer and system administrative communities.

Submissions are due January 15, 2005, and should be sent to both Jason Nolan, Knowledge Media Design Institute, University of Toronto, and Jeremy Hunsinger, Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, Virginia Tech.
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Posted 12:27 by Mark Federman permanent link
Exposing Ubicomp

Among my various travels, I'm finding Anne Galloway as one of the most lucid thinkers on Ubicomp. In this extract from an interview, Anne provides a great tour of the landscape of thinking of ubicomp - or ubiquitous computing. So what, specifically, are you looking at, Anne?

My own research draws a great deal from the work of people like Latour (especially for his notions about collectives of humans and non-humans), Adrian Mackenzie (for ideas about transduction, space and culture), and Deleuze & Guattari (for notions of mobility and becoming). One thing they all have in common is a blurring of the traditional boundaries between subjects and objects, which automatically reframes the issue of social agency.

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Posted 15:39 by Mark Federman permanent link
Why Remix and Sampling is So Important

Meaning emerges when figure interacts with ground. As the ground, or environment, is comprised of ever-changing processes, the dynamics of change creates new meanings, even when the figure is held constant.

Change the context, and you create new understanding through new probes, which is exactly what remix and sampling attempts to do. George W Bush's "rendition" of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday is a case in point.

Thanks, Ben!
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Posted 14:24 by Mark Federman permanent link
Sleight of Hand - The Obsolescence of "Seeing is Believing"

There is a huge bruhaha over documents reported on by CBS newsmagazine, 60 Minutes, that allegedly reveal the strings pulled to permit Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard instead of Vietnam. The bruhaha is not over the content of the documents, but the medium of the typed page itself. Specifically, the issue has to do with whether the documents are authentic, or recently recreated on a word processor and doctored to look old(er).

When we used to exclaim, "I can't believe my eyes!" we meant that we believed what we saw, but what we saw was remarkable to the point of incredulity. But now, "I can't believe my eyes" speaks to the obsolescence of visual dominance in the age of instantaneous communication, pervasive proximity, and the emergent transparency that is one of its messages.

Side note to those who would remind me of the ubiquity of visual media, and the hypnotic effects of visual representations on television for the masses: All of these effects are specifically indicative of the Laws of Media tetrad quadrant of obsolescence.

So many interesting questions. Are the documents forged? If so, were they forged by Democrats who want to discredit Bush? Or were they forged by Republicans, expecting that the forgery would be discovered in order to discredit Democrats who would be accused of planting the forgery? Or, is the entire episode an example of the continued distraction of America away from the clear and present issues facing the nation?

Magicians Penn and Teller have a great routine called, "Looks Simple," in which Teller apparently lights a cigarette, takes a puff, and discards it, all to illustrate the seven principles of magic: Palm, Switch, Simulation, Misdirection, Load, Steal, and Ditch. Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like this election campaign.
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Posted 08:37 by Mark Federman permanent link
Bush vs. Jesus

Atrios has picked up a piece from Mad Magazine that asks not, "What Would Jesus Do?" but rather, "What Would Bush Do?" if he was running against Jesus. Sacrilicious!

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Posted 15:12 by Mark Federman permanent link
Election 2004: "The World Speaks"

Is it any wonder that the world is watching the upcoming election in the United States with great interest. In spite of some in the U.S. who say that it's none of the world's business, the reality is that the President of the United States wields considerable muscle and economic influence that does affect the rest of us. The need to speak out to Americans is palpable, as evidenced by a number of websites that have sprung up over the past year. These sites all share essentially the same theme - look beyond parochial interests, consider carefully the choices and their implications for the rest of the world and vote responsibly. The Global Village is all too real - what someone does "over there" affects us "over here" because there is no "there"; it's all here.

The World Speaks is a joint initiative that brings together the five main "write to America" sites.

The World Speaks is a collaboration between Earth to America, Talk to US, Voices '04, The World Votes, and openDemocracy.net's My America: Letters to Americans.

We're absolutely non-partisan. But we share a belief that:

* The outcome of the US presidential election affects all world citizens
* Free and open discussion across national borders fosters understanding
* The internet is revolutionizing communication between US voters and non-US citizens

Go read, write, and participate.
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Posted 19:26 by Mark Federman permanent link
We Stand On Guard... Don't We?

Michael Geist asks Canada's Industry Minister, David Emerson, to "Please Protect the Public Interest" by developing Canada's own policy on the rights of the broadcast industry. In the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America successfully lobbied Congress to impose the "Broadcast Flag," that essentially gives the broadcast and content industries control over how you watch what you watch, the devices that you use to watch, and what may and may not be developed or even invented in the future. Ahh, the American way...

Here in Canada, some bureaucrats believe that as goes the U.S., so goes Canada. Certainly the broadcast industry here would like them to believe that. But as Geist points out,

Even more troubling are the serious copyright, privacy, consumer, and marketplace concerns raised by the broadcast flag proposal. By providing broadcasters with increased control over the copying of their broadcasts, the rules may eliminate many rights users take for granted, such as the ability to "time shift" a program by copying a broadcast for future, personal viewing. Moreover, the rules do not account for public domain or political broadcasts. While fair dealing (or fair use in the United States) might allow use of this content under certain circumstances, the broadcast flag will enable broadcasters to restrict all manner of uses, even those to which users are entitled under the law.

The United States has undertaken a deliberate program, at the behest of those whose interests are vested in the intellectual property (e.g. content) business, to stifle innovation and technological advancement to privilege legacy businesses. That those businesses refuse to realize that their success today is a result of the very provisions they are trying to eradicate (e.g. the new INDUCE Act that undoes the Betamax decision) is indicative of blindness induced by greed and laziness. This will place the United States at a competitive disadvantage compared to the rest of the world - one that is already becoming evident in both technology AND content.

Let's hope that David Emerson is paying close attention - this is truly an issue for Canadian culture and identity.

(Thanks Paul)

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Posted 23:13 by Mark Federman permanent link
Phases of Electricity

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned Derrick de Kerckhove's panel at Ars Electronica. He presented a short talk that outlined some of the characteristics and effects emerging from our experiences of the phases of electricity. I listened in to the webcast, and filled in a couple of the items based on some thinking that we've been sharing at the Program. Here's an admittedly cryptic chart that outlines some of our ideas:

Analog	Digital	Quantum
Muscular	Cognitive	Existential
Heat, light, motion; Extension of body via electromechanical devices	Connected, emergent consciousness; Obsolescence of body as it becomes smaller relative to its extensions in digital space	Emergent beings formed via pervasive proximity (infinitely many entities packed into zero space)
Cyborg (pre-cyber); the interface boundary is ground	Cyber (post-cyborg); interface is obviously evident (moves from ground to figure), becoming ubiquitous and hence, obsolescent	Transcendent (post-cyber; i.e. no distinction in reality between cyber and physical)
Surveillance	Dataveillance	Emergent transparency (reversal of dataveillance)
Non-reality is ground effect; “on the air, man becomes no-body”	Remote control is ground effect; our digiSelves become the voodoo dolls through which we are controlled and manipulated.	Mysticism is ground effect; connection to the “higher consciousness” that exists in the plasma of simultaneous experience
Public identity; celebrity (inflection point of obsolescence of privacy; e.g. paparazzi)	Digital persona; publicy	Emergent identity(ies) as an attribute of tribal affiliation(s).

Clearly, there's more to come in the coming weeks and months on this theme!
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Posted 22:37 by Mark Federman permanent link
Panel on Citizen Engagement in E-Democracy

The Knowledge Media Design Institute and the McLuhan Program invite everyone to a Panel on Citizen Engagement in E-Democracy, on Thursday, September 9th from 17:30 - 19:30, at the Bahen Building, 40 St George Street, Toronto, room BA1210. The panel features commentary from Alexandra Samuel (who recently completed her Ph.D. at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, entitled Hacktivism and the Future of Political Participation), Liss Jeffrey and others. If you are interested in new media and policy, and grassroots initiatives in e-democracy and emergent transparency, this event is for you!
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Posted 15:36 by Mark Federman permanent link
Existentialist Chestnuts

I was contemplating Derrick de Kerckhove's ideas on the effects of the phases of electricity (today, webcast from Ars Electronica) when that old chestnut came to mind:
"To be is to do" - Philosopher A
"To do is to be" - Philosopher B
"Do be do be do be do" - Frank Sinatra

But, of course, I couldn't remember specifically who were Philosophers A and B. So off to Google I went. The results: Choices for Philosopher A included Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Kant, Sartre, Descartes, Voltaire, Lao-Tzu, Shakespeare and Nietzche. Choices for Philosopher B included Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Sartre, Descartes, and Voltaire. At least everyone agrees on Frankie! Does anyone happen to know the real sources?
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Posted 18:20 by Mark Federman permanent link
Corporate Voices

Corporations have no soul, and, until recently, their only voice was that of the P.R. or Marketing departments - equally soulless. But, increasingly, individuals - real flesh-and-blood human beings - are beginning to show the humanity that lies beneath the cold, metallic shell.

Microsoft has its well-known Scobleizer as geek blogger, and more recently, we hear from the top of the house at Sun Microsystems. Now, I've come across a name-changed-to-protect-the-innocent blogger at telecom giant AT&T. Marie's Musings provides a unique view that spans technology, business and some of behemoth's internal workings. For anyone interested in an unvarnished - and very human - story from within the telecom business, it's worth a read.

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Posted 09:46 by Mark Federman permanent link
Listen to the Man

Whether you support the Democrats or the Republicans in the upcoming election, you should at least listen to the President. Go here and click on the link that says, "George W. Bush: Words Speak Louder than Actions."
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Posted 11:31 by Mark Federman permanent link
From Fragments to the Whole

Howard Lovy's The Kabbalah Nanotech Connection appeals to me on a number of levels. As some of you know, I am drawn to things mystical for their ability to reveal - or to be a tad more precise, to make us aware of - connections among the various things we conceive and create in our world, in other words, our media. And some of you who have dropped by the McLuhan Program Coach House (and if you are ever visiting Toronto, please do so) may have even participated in an impromptu session that explores the relationships among mystical traditions and McLuhan's own voyages of perceptive discovery.

Our modern, and post-modern, penchant for fragmenting, categorizing, and breaking down integral processes into their supposed component parts in order to understand them is, as McLuhan observes, an artefact of the mechanical age. That age began in the history of communication with the Gutenberg press turning a handicraft - manuscript writing - into a factory process that ultimately divides and conquers - not only tasks, but, as we have discovered through the 20th century, humanity as well.

The beginning of the electric age of communication that was marked by the first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861 began the process of reversal from fragmentation back to integration - the tail-end of which we are experiencing now. But reversal occurs when a medium is extended beyond the limit of its potential: As we continue to fragment ourselves and our world into ever smaller and more numerous components, like some Sorceror's Apprentice gone mad, we come to a point at which the fragments, taken in toto, recombine into a new integral form, sparked into a new life as if by some mystical process. Some call the process pattern recognition or emergence, and some call it sh'china. Some see this process as that of nanotechnology, and relate it to spiritual perception:

But the smaller you get, the more you see the logic and order break down. The laws of physics seem to change. The smaller the size, the deeper the mystery and the more the orderly turns chaotic. It all meets on the nanoscale and below, where spirit/spirituality meets the individual components of organisms, where sand meets wave, where analog meets digital, where spirit meets matter.

The Kabbalah teaches that the universe was created perfect, yet then was blown to smithereens, its sparks of perfection scattered to the winds and hidden by husks that comprise today's reality. The duty of humankind is to gather the sparks back together.

There are many paths toward achieving the awareness of the integral nature of our world - scientific, philosophical, spiritual, artistic, among many others. McLuhan awareness is one such path that is mutually complementary with the others, and is the one that we contemplate, play with, and share with the folks who find their way to the Program, regardless of the fragmented discipline or occupation from which they come.
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