Versatile Actors & Negotiating The Uncanny Valley October 30, 2009

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ABOVE: 156 LED lights and Emily O’Brien, an actress undergoing high-res face scanning via Image Metric‘s Light Stage 5 device. The process is explained in this brief video.

The advent of digital cinema has brought more troubling (yet arguably unwarranted) fears to the fore. One of the worries spurred on by the rise of digital media is based around the idea that human actors will one day be displaced by their digital ‘superiors’. I think a lot of us tend to treat this particular anxiety with a certain degree of levity given that digital media’s now long-existent (and ever increasing) ubiquity has not yet dramatically compromised the necessity of actors. They’re still pretty popular and more or less essential. However, as the image above hints, this is not to say that absolutely nothing has changed…

In his article, “After Arnold: Narratives of the Posthuman Cinema”, Roger Beebe discusses the gradual death of the action hero at the hands of his tenacious nemesis, the digital morph (AKA the T-1000 from Terminator 2, who Beebe describes as the film’s “effective and affective center of interest and pleasure” [170]). T-1000 and his various successors and predecessors unsettled the once stable notion that wholly real human beings were the primary draw for moviegoing audiences. As Beebe reaffirms, “It is not the humanly embodied Patrick but rather the T-1000 (i.e., the morph and morphing technology) that is the center of interest in T2” (169). T2 can thereby be understood as just one out of many seminal moments in cinematic history that recur every now and then, if only to momentarily rekindle our latent anxieties about obsolete actors.

Looking toward another one of these seminal moments in Jurassic Park, Beebe notes the following:

“Jurassic Park (or, more properly, nearly a billion dollars in international box office receipts) shocked Hollywood into the realization that a blockbuster need not be either a star vehicle or even a narrative centered on the plights and adventures of a single human subject [...] when we return to Jurassic Park, we simply want to see more of the computergraphic dinosaurs” (171-172).

However, similar to the case of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Jurassic Park may have been revolutionary but it didn’t turn out to be a devastating blow to actors everywhere. It is certainly true that both films showcase the allure of digital cinema, wherein actors are not always the primary attraction (rather, we have: prehistoric beasts, spectral aliens, and Uncanny humans being brought to ‘life’). However, that doesn’t mean that either film totally rejects the importance of an actual, human element. Thus, while Sam Neil may not be responsible for Jurassic Park‘s record-breaking revenue, he and a variety of other actors were nonetheless integral to the film. That is, I think it is fair to say that a significant part of the film’s attraction was based on the collision between dinosaurs and man. As fantastic as the former may have looked, the film wouldn’t have been quite as exciting without its motley crew of disposable humans. This is a trend that is still continuing today, ensuring that human actors remain consistently relevant and alluring… even if they happen to be located within primarily digital expanses every once and a while (the latest example of this being the forthcoming Avatar). And when it comes to wholly synthetic ‘realities’ like that of Final Fantasy, wherein live-action actors are pretty much nonexistent (visually), the importance of high-profile voice actors ensures that a link to actual people is nonetheless maintained.

As for the practical benefits associated with replacing a costly star-system with a digital ersatz, they seem dubious at best. Not only is it highly doubtful that the public would want to wholly relinquish their fascination with a good, ‘old-fashioned’ performance, the cost-effectiveness of such an actor-less scenario is fraught with flaws. As Bebee notes:

“One of the more obvious of these dystopian aspects of the posthuman is that the shift away from the 1980s star system may simply represent Hollywood’s attempt to overcome its reliance on the troublesome human labor of stars. (Indeed, much of the panic over the use of computergraphic technologies seems to center on this possibility of the succession of actors and acting). Of course, this strategy has already begun to fail as, ironically, a number of ‘star animators’ have emerged who require the same costly investment in human labor as the action heroes that they helped to displace” (173).

Having considered the resilience of the human actor, I’m thinking that digital cinema is best understood as a partnership between actors and synthetic creations (rather than a straight-up, or inevitable, usurpation of the former by the latter). Even when it comes to those films dealing with exclusively synthetic ‘realities’, actors aren’t always demoted to voice-acting. As an example, consider the possibilities of Contour, a semi-recent step forward in motion capture technology developed by former-Apple engineer Steve Perlman (its possibilities and advantages are discussed in this article). The process involves applying a generous amount of phosphorescent powder onto actors’ faces, and then putting them before a couple of cameras that attend to the various details and nuances of their appearance. Then, as the article explains, “the captured images are transmitted to an array of computers that reassemble the three-dimensional shapes of the glowing areas”. This is the kind of technology that allowed Angelina Jolie to not only voice a digital character in Beowulf (Grendel’s mother) but also end up informing her look (however, a marker-based method of motion capture was used for that particular film). In other words, even if there were to be a sudden dearth of films oriented around live-action footage, actors seem to have already resiliently ingratiated themselves with the possibilities of digital cinema.

Thus, perhaps we can rest easy when it comes to our concerns regarding actors and labour vis-à-vis digital media (for now). However, that’s not to say that there aren’t a variety of other interesting issues related to digital cinema that are still worth diving into. This brings me to the second concern of my post, the Uncanny Valley, and its relation to the actress pictured above, Emily O’Brien. On one hand, she represents the adaptability that I have been talking about, wherein actors take digital cinema for the accommodating business opportunity that it is rather than some immovable obstacle. On the other hand, she also relates to a lot of interesting questions regarding the seeming insurmountability of the Uncanny Valley. Allow the following video to introduce her (or, moreso, her digital doppleganger), Image Metrics, and how the folks behind the company were able to capture her digital likeness without resorting to the old-school methods of powder or face markers:

Note the transition at the 1:30 mark, wherein the real Emily O’Brien is briefly revealed. When this video first hit the net a while back, I remember a lot of unchecked hype surrounding it. There was a healthy dose of doubt and cynicism, of course, but this video was treated by many as a significant blow against that seemingly indomitable force, the Uncanny Valley. For instance, check out this article and the exuberant reactions therein: “I’m one of the toughest critics of face capture, and even I have to admit, these guys have nailed it. This is the first virtual human animated sequence that completely bypasses all my subconscious warnings. I get the feeling of Emily as a person. All the subtlety is there. This is no hype job, it’s the real thing.” Really? It’s undeniably impressive and all but it’s certainly not perfect. Admittedly, the video I linked to in the caption underneath the image up-top really showcases the amount of detail Image Metrics was able to create. It was evidently a pain-staking process, performance analysis and all (i.e., analyzing Emily’s face to see how it moves and changes). It is all pretty astounding and their techniques are commendably innovative. But I’m still left feeling that something, unfortunately, falls short. A testament to the tenacity of the Uncanny Valley obstacle, perhaps.

I find that the video of Emily recalls the lesson learned from Michael Najjar‘s series of photographs (titled “Nexus Project Part 1″) that Joe introduced to us last class. Having edited their eyes, Najjar’s photographed subjects straddle that fine line between the real and the synthetic (wherein the eyes suddenly become a gateway to keenly felt eeriness, rather than the soul). While Digi-Emily’s eyes aren’t quite as vacuous as Najjar’s disconcerting creations, something about them seems nonetheless artificial and grafted on. A lot of Emily’s facial expressions were awkwardly rendered at times, as well. It’s pretty good, and I know that Image Metric was able to capture places (lips, tongue, teeth, etc.) with more finesse than prior modes of motion-capture, but the general awkwardness of the animation is still there.

Most of the problems I’m noticing with Emily’s video more or less cropped up in Final Fantasy, as well. While Final Fantasy looked arguably better than Emily’s digital clone at times, the film more often mirrored her off-putting, stilted quality. This NYTimes article notes a similar problem in regards to Beowulf, claiming that it is impossible to watch the film “without sensing that the ‘actors’ are being pushed around by invisible forces, not living and breathing on their own”. That would serve as an astute description of Final Fantasy as well, as I believe the film falls victim to the second Uncanny Valley pitfall mentioned during Tuesday’s class: mismatch of cue realism. This refers to an instance where digital characters fail to compel us because of the dissonance between the rich detail of their appearance (although there are problems there, too) and the awkwardness of their movements. Indeed, it often felt as if the attempts at natural movement and overall verisimilitude were more foregrounded than those intermittent instances where something actually seemed authentic. Dr. Sid ended up impressing me the most (although he wasn’t without his problems) — I attribute this partially to Donald Sutherland’s voice acting, and the fact that he, unlike Aki, wasn’t conspiculously clean and virtually free of any nuance or facial blemishes. In regards to this last point, I think Roger Ebert put it best in his review:

“Not for an instant do we believe that Dr. Aki Ross, the heroine, is a real human. But we concede she is lifelike, which is the whole point. She has an eerie presence that is at once subtly unreal and yet convincing. [...] The first closeup of her face and eyes is startling because the filmmakers are not afraid to give us a good, long look–they dare us not to admire their craft. If Aki is not as real as a human actress, she is about as real as a Playmate who has been retouched to a glossy perfection.“

Sounds about right to me. This is, of course, a problem shared by entirely synthetic, ‘original’ characters like Aki and those, like Emily, who are definitely informed by specific people (then again, Aki’s look may also be based on a specific person or several, I’m not sure). It seems that, while actors are not on their way to becoming obsolete, the technology that is bringing them into the digital realm still leaves something to be desired. Yet, perhaps the incessant comparisons to the real world only serve to obscure the possibilities already provided by our digital image-making technologies. As Ebert notes in his review: “Maybe someday I’ll actually be fooled by a computer-generated actor (but I doubt it). The point anyway is not to replace actors and the real world, but to transcend them–to penetrate into a new creative space based primarily on images and ideas.” The implication here is that we can move beyond exhausting, perpetual comparisons between the world we know and its synthetic counterparts. Such comparisons may be entirely futile exercises that keep us from enjoying the fascination, visual richness and creativity already awaiting us in the Uncanny Valley. Then again, it’s typical of human nature to tenaciously strive toward such ideals. Even if our continued attempts happen to be repeatedly beset by the dissonance between that which is real and that which can’t help but subtly betray its own artifice.

Works Cited:

Beebe, Roger. “After Arnold: Narratives of the Posthuman Cinema”. Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-Change. Ed. Sobchack, Vivian. Univeristy of Minnesota Press, 2000. 159-182.

A New Coat of Paint October 24, 2009

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Does the example of augmented reality (AR) pictured above seem farfetched to you? While the image itself may be a fake (you can find it and other similar images here), the concept behind it is pretty much feasible. In fact, the concept of AR seems to have set itself apart from the arguably platonic ideals associated with virtual reality by virtue of its very feasibility. If the prospect of VR has lost most of its credibility in a sea of rhetoric that may never substantiate itself, AR has aimed a little closer to the here and now. As Sconce’s warning from a few week’s back indicated, perhaps it’s worthwhile to momentarily unmoor ourselves from vapory speculation and consider the transformations that are already taking place today.

For instance, consider Layar. It’s an augmented reality browser that can be downloaded onto your cellphone (a variety of similar applications are available for the iPhone, as well):

This application definitely recalls the following bit from Lev Manovich’s “The Poetics of Augmented Space”:

“A tourist with AR glasses that overlay dynamically changing information about the sites in the city onto her visual field. In this new iteration, AR becomes conceptually similar to wireless location services. The idea shared by both is that when the user is in the vicinty of objects, buildings, or people, the information about them is delivered to the user—but in cell-space it is displayed on a cell phone or personal digital assitant (PDA), in AR it is laid over the user’s visual field” (79).

Given the existence of an application like Layar, perhaps we aren’t that far away from further, advanced manifestations of AR. One of the news blogs posting about Layar made special note of the fact that a fictional concept was finally becoming a reality (perhaps they were accustomed to VR musings that never leave the realm of abstract theories). This speaks to the possibility that, when it comes to AR, the gap between conceptual promises and their realization may be significantly smaller than that of VR. Submerging ourselves into a convincing, synthetic world certainly seems like more difficult a task than increasing AR’s presence.

Perhaps it is this very realization that accounts for the change Manovich notes in the following quote: “The demise of popularity of VR in mass media and the slow but steady rise in AR-related research in the last five years is one example of how the augmented space paradigm is taking over the virtual space paradigm” (79). While even the most hyperbolic VR ideals are certainly fascinating and worthy of consideration, their ostensible unattainability may account for the surge in AR research. Then again, it might have less to do with issues of feasibility and more to do with preference. Elaborating on the differences between AR and VR, Manovich notes:

“A typical VR system presents a user with a virtual space that has nothing to do with the immediate physical space of the user: in contrast, a typical AR system adds the information directly related to this immediate physical space [...] the display adds to your overall phenomenological experience but it does not take over. Thus, it all depends on how we understand the idea of addition: we may add additional information to our experiences—or we may add an altogether different experience” (79).

Thus, AR refers to a technologically mediated relationship with our reality that does not efface that reality. Whereas VR offers the murky—yet intriguing—possibility of escaping from that reality all together. Given that the prospect of such virtual escapism is usually wrapped up in ambivalence whenever it is discussed, perhaps the more pronounced presence of augmented space is indicative of our true desires. We don’t really want to escape reality, we just want to make it a little more interesting (thus, like the Kindle, AR tech is being used to give our increasingly ‘archaic’ books a digital facelift). This is not to say that the dream of bodily liberation is an ideal that we never really wanted, but that the implications of such an ideal are always going to be tempered by some pragmatic dissent. The popularity of AR may thereby be symptomatic of the fact that not all of us are quite so eager to jettison the body and fly forward into brave new (digital) worlds. AR offers a much more agreeable, yet nonetheless exciting, alternative insofar as it is a seemingly friendly compromise that A) isn’t bound by the frustratingly fanciful dreams of VR discourse, and B) refuses to totally eclipse a reality that we, more or less, quite enjoy (or are at least accustomed to).

However, while one of the principal charms of AR may be that it does not imply a disconcerting break from reality, that’s not to say that the transformations it delivers won’t end up being a point of concern for some. In fact, just yesterday the Montreal Gazette posted an article focusing on the prospect of AR that hints at some of its potential excesses and arguable misuses. Consider the following:

“Its proponents predict it will change everything, from education (point your camera at a church and read its history) to games (hunt zombies walking around in your house) to advertising (see the day’s sales when you aim your camera at a store) to training (gaze at the tangled bowels of an airplane engine and an animated screwdriver shows the part that needs to be replaced). Expect to hear a lot about it next year, observers say, as cellphones increase in sophistication and computing power, and as advertisers rush to jump in the newest trend in consumer technology.“

While the concept of AR has some built-in temperance (insofar as it doesn’t seek to entirely replace our reality with virtual spaces), it seems that it is nonetheless susceptible to appropriation by techno-fanatics who want to explore its every possibility. Considering this from a position of technological ambivalence, this might mean that while the concept of AR promises us that the world isn’t going to go anywhere, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will remain recognizable. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if doomsayers were already readying their cries of dissent. Some may be justifiably worried that the world we know and love will slowly change — turning itself into some sort of digital palimpsest where the once familair vestiges of reality become hazier and hazier. Then again, this is probably an extreme way of looking at things. Probably.

Regardless of the credibility of such pessimistic views, the fact remains that AR tech is (at least partially) being propelled by a voracious, profit-oriented mentality. It’s important to consider who is pulling the virtual strings whenever new and exciting technology comes along. After all, the last bolded bit in the quote above refers to AR as “the newest trend in consumer technology”. Of course, this recalls Manovich’s discussion of Rem Koolhaas and “‘brandscaping—promoting the brand by creating new spaces: ‘Brandscaping is the hot issue. The site at which goods are promoted has to reinvent itself by developing unique and unmistakable qualities‘” (89). Thus, insatiability, one of the themes from my last blog post, also comes to mind here. We generally aren’t fond of stasis and we thrive on new and exciting stimuli. Thus, AR tech is simply another way of ensuring that our products and our world doesn’t get stale. Or, as Manovich so astutely puts it:

“The space that symbolizes the information age is not a symmetrical and ornamental space of traditional architecture [....] rather, it is space whose shapes are inherently mutable, and whose soft contours act as a metaphor for the key quality of computer-driven representations and systems: variability” (88).

In other words, the dynamic nature of AR’s stimuli can be read as yet another means of combating the awful prospect of stagnation. The fact that commercial interests have co-opted these means and recognized an undercurrent of insatiability in consumers shouldn’t be all that surprising. As the philosophy that Manovich cites declares, “forget the goods, sell thrilling experience to the people” (90). The fact that the goods themselves aren’t sufficiently alluring anymore, but have instead become one component of a far more complex and alluring experience, only further evinces that insatiability. Consider this in relation to the following from the Gazette article:

“ABI Research predicts that revenue from AR will grow from $6 million (US) last year 2008 to more than $350 million (US) in 2014. The growth will come largely as advertisers pay software developers to create apps that promote a brand in some way. Lego is already doing this. At some stores in the US, a buyer can pick up a Lego box, point it at a screen, and see an animation of the assembled toy.”

Apparently kids were dissatisfied with the old method of picking up a Lego box and assembling it themselves. Reinvention seems to be the name of the game, and AR is the latest way of getting it done. The variability that Manovich claims is an integral aspect of AR aligns itself perfectly with the idea that we have tacitly demanded that the world remain in flux. Stasis is boring. With that in mind, consider this next bit from the Gazette article:

“When asked if AR is simply another hype like VR once was, its proponents are quick to swear to its long-term viability. ‘When you walk down the street it’s usually pretty boring,’ said Ori Inbar, founder of AR game maker Ogmento in New York City. In fact, he entered the field so he could find a way to blend his kids’ love of the computer screen with the outside world. ‘With AR, everything around you comes to life. You can be part of a story that you experience when you’re doing everyday tasks,’ he said.”

While Inbar’s comments certainly reflect this desire for flux and freshness, his enthusiasm is slightly infectious and understandable. There is an optimistic side to all this, after all. For one, applications like Layar and its inevitable successors will likely prove to be highly practical. Secondly, the idea that the physical world is becoming a virtual canvas of sorts that grants audiences a new level of participation and empowerment is certainly exciting (i.e., the user-controlled robotic searchlights in Mexico City that Manovich mentions on pg.87). However, there is also the question of who might dominate this canvas, or who we might have to share it with. As the Gazette’s article notes, corporations are already eager to utilize AR as a new trend in “consumer technology”. It might only be a short while before those same corporations use AR to flood our perspective with a whole new surfeit of annoyingly dynamic stimuli that more intensely demand our attention…

…Tom Cruise certainly doesn’t seem to be enjoying that scenario. While this clip (and this one, wherein his character enters a futuristic and excessively-ingratiating Gap store) isn’t necessarily reflective of the here and now, the partnership between commercial interests and AR tech makes it seem somewhat plausible. Perhaps one day Minority Report‘s take on futuristic advertising will be retroactively acknowledged for its prescience and these clips, like the image at the top of this post, will reflect concepts that are not only feasible but already here. After all, Manovich seems to be describing a similar scenario when he discusses the collision between surveillance and assistance, wherein “affective computing [...] take a more active role in assisting the user than the standard graphical user interface. By tracking the user—her mood, her pattern of work, her focus of attention, her interests, and so on—these interfaces acquire information that they use to help the user with their tasks and automate them” (77). Perhaps AR will usher us into a Minority Report-esque age where dynamic advertisements recognize us, and we can thereby no longer blithely ignore garish billboards or zap past annoying commercials.

Thus, as a virtual blanket of dynamic stimuli is slowly being laid over our physical world, I’m left wondering who will gain the most from these changes. As Manovich notes, “today’s electronic dynamic interactive displays make it possible for these messages to change continuously and to be the space of contestation and dialog, thus functioning as the material manifestation of the often invisible sphere” (87). In other words, perhaps the virtual canvas of multi-media information that AR is providing will set up an interesting tension between populist and other (i.e., commercial) interests. The fact that Koolhaas snuck a subtle criticism of consumer culture into his design for the Prada store (juxtaposing screens and actual clothes to ironically refer “to what everybody today knows: we buy objects not for themselves but in order to emulate the certain images and narratives presented by the advertisement of these objects” [89]) may be indicative of the fact that this new technology is not going to result in simple commercial co-optation.

Perhaps Manovich is correct in foreseeing an intriguing and complex dialogue, wherein the dynamism and possibilities AR provides are exploited and utilized by a variety of interests, whereby something other than the rote encouragement of sales will make its way out onto the canvas.

Technology-Addled Minds October 17, 2009

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Our reliance on technology in terms of work and recreation was one of the suggested topics presented during last Tuesday’s class. Given how prevalent technology has become, I feel like most of us, whether we want to admit it or not, do find our various devices of choice pretty essential (even Obama had trouble curbing his Blackberry addiction after he was elected). But while we enjoy working, communicating, and relaxing via technology, there’s obviously more than a couple compelling reasons to check our potential dependencies.

It’s certainly gotten to the point where it’s almost banal to note that the screen itself has become ubiquitous. That observation seems to have entered the realm of mundane facts a long time ago. We’re in front of screens when we need to do school work, when we need to communicate, when we feel like being creative, when we want to watch the latest episode of our favorite TV show, etc. If we let it, technology can help fill up our day quite easily.

This also means that old methods of getting down to work and recreation just don’t cut it anymore. For instance, with the soaring popularity of Amazon’s Kindle, the tactile allure of traditional (AKA “old”) media like books just won’t hold the same value for some. It’s cost-effective, sidesteps the cutting down of trees, eliminates the necessity for storage and distribution, and it stops you from having to worry about overloaded bookshelves or strained backpacks. On the other hand, its popularization (which will inevitably increase, what with rumours stating that Apple is interested in joining in on the craze) means that we have yet another screen to add to our already prodigious pile. Thus, I find myself returning to a question that most of these blog entries have been pushing me towards: is this a good thing? As the following blurb from a New Yorker article focusing on the Kindle indicates, every supposed upside comes with a downside:

A Kindle book arrives wirelessly: it’s untouchable; it exists on a higher, purer plane. It’s earth-friendly, too, supposedly. Yes, it’s made of exotic materials that are shipped all over the world’s oceans; yes, it requires electricity to operate and air-conditioned server farms to feed it; yes, it’s fragile and it duplicates what other machines do; yes, it’s difficult to recycle; yes, it will probably take a last boat ride to a Nigerian landfill in five years. But no tree farms are harvested to make a Kindle book; no ten-ton presses turn, no ink is spilled.

We do seem to prefer focusing on the upsides instead of the pesky downsides when it comes to our gadgetry. Yet, consider this brief article from Wired.com and the real-life example it presents: a physician who spends most of her workday interacting with electronic health records, only to return home and fill her down time with e-mails, Google Chat, blogs, video-game consoles, downloaded TV shows, and, of course, Facebook. In other words, the article may be right in noting that TheOnion’s recent headline (“90 percent of waking hours spent looking at glowing rectangles“) was an instance of their satiric humor hitting particularly close to reality.

Tracking down different views on this topic across the net, I came across The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, an inquiry into the woes of technological advancement written by Maggie Jackson. From what I gather, she believes an increased inability to focus is a direct result of our technology-tethered lives. The following blurb, taken from a review of the book, highlights some of her insights:

Addicted to instant-click access, we expect knowledge to come in quick fixes and easily digestible info-bits, trading depth and nuance for bullet points and sound bites– some books get taken off school reading lists if they don’t make for good PowerPoint presentations, Jackson notes– and swapping sustained thought and close attention for the shallow skimming and skipping encouraged by our online reading habits. The result, Jackson warns, is that “we are losing our capacity to create and preserve wisdom and slipping toward a time of ignorance that is paradoxically born amid an abundance of information and connectivity” (16).

Jackson’s concerns certainly recall Sconce’s comments about the acceleration of work from last week while also pointing toward the troubling (but not so shocking) possibility that our reliance on technology may be hurting us as much as it is helping us. Perhaps this isn’t something that most people want to spend too much thinking about, seeing as technology has found itself an indelible home in most of our lives. Even so, the increased concern over how our minds have been affected by our reliance on technology is definitely worth attending to.

Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” is a really great article to peruse if you’re interested in this topic. This is not only because it compliments Jackson’s apprehensions but because he offers himself as an example of the modern, technology-addled mind. Consider his confession:

Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

If we follow the teleological argument that says technology will only get bigger, better and faster, then we can only expect these subtle changes to our mind to become all the more evident. That’s a scary thought, mostly because the problems that Carr is discussing are troubling enough. Thus, we should probably consider what exactly is happening to our minds as technology invades both work (wherein traditional office meetings suddenly become extinct thanks to programs such as Skype) and the home. This next blurb from Carr’s sheds more light on this issue:

“The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets’reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they’re sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.”

In other words (and once again echoing Sconce and the others from last week), work isn’t quite what it used to be… but that doesn’t mean it’s any better. This quote is particularly interesting because it points to the actual allure of technology as well as the mentality that propels it forward: insatiability. After all, it seems a touch disingenuous to say that the progress of technology is all about hurtling us forward toward some far-off moment of satisfaction. Humans beings are difficult creatures to sate and, naturally, technology’s functions and progress will be informed by this fact. This is exactly why the Internet – ever updating, always evolving and offering new possibilities, is so damn popular. There’s no end goal, no satisfiable conclusion. As Joe mentioned in class, even Facebook just might be going the way of the dinosaur as people become increasingly bored by what was once their favorite social networking website. We may be reliant on technology, but we also expect it to impress us every now and then. It has to stay fresh and fast. Carr astutely observes and elaborates on this very point in relation to the Internet:

“As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

The rapidly accessible information and stimuli made available through technology has trained our minds to want what we want when we want it. The prospect of being able to complete our work faster (and arguably more thoroughly) is so alluring that some of us are bound to only perfunctorily consider the possible downsides. And with the uprise of services and features like the excessively pithy Twitter or the captions at the bottom of newscasts, perhaps we’re less keen on mulling over information so much as receiving and apprehending it as quickly as possible before moving on to the next juicy bit of stimulus.

Seeing as I find this to be an particularly fascinating topic, I can’t help but return to one more excerpt from Carr’s article. Especially since Carr’s statement recalls our discussion regarding the definition of technology — that is, whether we we should define it broadly (going all the way back to the caveman and his club; technology as tools) or categorically (electronic devices only). With that in mind, consider the following:

As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our “intellectual technologies”—the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities—we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies. The mechanical clock, which came into common use in the 14th century, provides a compelling example. In Technics and Civilization, the historian and cultural critic Lewis Mumford described how the clock “disassociated time from human events and helped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences.” The “abstract framework of divided time” became “the point of reference for both action and thought.”

This is an interesting way of considering any technology that falls under the broader definition. It indicates that even before we started feeling all ambivalent about our electronic technology, our old-school devices were already insidiously working away at our minds and shaping our outlooks. While a good bit of Mischa’s “Exit Meat: Digital Bodies In A Virtual World” considers the idea of physical changes to the body (or the outright abandonment of the body), it’s interesting to consider the idea that our reliance on technology is already changing our minds more subtly. These type of changes may not be visible or obvious but may nevertheless be operating under the surface.

And while the criticism that claims we are living in a pernicious age of distractions isn’t exactly a new one, it will inevitably become even more valid as time goes on. With technology propelling itself forward towards new heights and forms, all while stealthily transforming our minds, we can only expect such concerns to become all the more pronounced.

All Play And No Work… October 10, 2009

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“For those who herald cyberspace as the fulfillment of homo ludens, as the new sphere of the playful intellect, the disappearance of homo faber is considered an accomplished fact; postwork is taken as a given of the contemporary world” (Stanley Aronowitz, 137).

As technology increasingly transforms our conception of work, are we finding ourselves on the cusp of a new and more leisurely state of existence? Does the promise of a techno-utopia, wherein work is either made significantly easier or just outright eliminated, hold any weight? Maybe not. Far from asserting technology’s role as a force capable of liberating us from menial drudgery and all of our niggling problems, this week’s readings seemed more interested in scrutinizing, questioning and deflating the pieties surrounding technological progress.

Consider the following quote from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars: “They continued working on the habitats and talking through most of that night, too excited to fall asleep” (100).

Judging Red Mars based solely on these type of quotes might lead one to think that Robinson portrayed the expedition to Mars a little too lightly. After all, there isn’t a lot of talk about missing home, family, friends or any of the luxuries of terrestrial life anywhere in the assigned excerpt. The crew also apparently has everything they need, even if most of it happens to be simulated (i.e., “the milk made of powder mixed with water mined from the atmosphere (it tasted just the same)” [101]). Indeed, at first glance, this seems like a suspiciously utopian conception of a future where technology is very much our friend and we’re perhaps not that far away from the decadent leisure and automation pictured in the Wall-E posters above.

Of course, Robinson does temper this sense of optimism and adventure. Consider the following example: “Nadia and Samantha’s miner was more stubborn. In the whole afternoon they only managed to haul it a hundred meters, and they had to use the bulldozer attachment to scrape a rough road for it all the way. Just before sunset they returned through the lock into the habitat, their hands cold and aching with fatigue” (104).

Apparently, the same technology that allowed a crew to travel to Mars and begin cultivating the land hasn’t quite toned down the drudgery of work — obstacles and annoyances still abound. As far as Red Mars is concerned, human beings and technology actually haven’t converged comfortably yet. Instead, the former seems to view the latter as a suspect and occasionally inept ally (see bottom of 102-103 for another example). But… “’That’s life on Mars’” (104).

That resigned acceptance of technology’s limitations seems to speak to the idea that we shouldn’t place too much faith in the rhetoric of improvement surrounding technology. After all, there’s still an excessive amount of demanding labour going on in Red Mars — technology certainly isn’t pictured as a wholly liberating force. This fits in quite well with Jeffrey Sconce’s comment in “Tulip Theory”, wherein he emphasizes that technology can just as easily make problems as solve them:

“There has been much written about how computers change the act of writing itself, but if we were to boil this trend down for its impact on academic culture, we might consider if the ease of writing afforded by the computer is countered by a lack (or at least an acceleration) of critical reflection […] it may mean, in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, more and more of us will realize faster and faster that, in the end, we have less and less to say” (185-186).

Thus, whether technology is busy insidiously changing the way academics write and do research in ‘the real world’ or aggravating the tolerant crew of Red Mars, it’s not always given the kindest consideration. And maybe this is for good reason. Perhaps we need to be persistently reminded (and across different media, no less) that unchecked faith in the prowess of technology isn’t necessarily the best position to assume. After all, the possibility that technology will utterly subsume those occupations once dependent on human skill is still a significant source of anxiety for some. And while many might interpret this as a means towards ushering in a much needed era of leisure and self discovery, Aronowitz posits a different view wherein such an era would require the purging of arguably essential human qualities:

“We can rejoice at the possibility that humankind is being liberated from the oppressions of tradition, even of the newly eclipsed mechanical era. These include drudgery, boredom, repetitive mind-numbering operations, and many of the dangers of the old industrial factory. But computerization also entails the passing of a certain type of skill, that associated with the close coordination of feeling and reason, of intuition and calculation” (142).

Keeping in line with the aforementioned readings, Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina reaches similarly ambivalent conclusions.

Consider one of its primary tensions – whether Mitchell can better serve the world as a public servant or by embracing his unique abilities. Sconce’s article focuses on a similar tension, albeit transposed onto the obviously different context of academia. The questions these texts (along with Aronowitz’s) face remain fundamentally similar. Should we enthusiastically embrace new technologies or find solace in the comforts of tradition? Taken in this light, perhaps Mitchell’s rejection of his super powers is meant to encourage (or reflect?) a general hesitancy within society that might stall the excesses of the technological imperative. Of course, Ex Machina could just as easily be read as a strong proponent of the vapory technological utopias that the other readings questioned to varying extents. Even so, judging from the first volume alone, I have the sense that Ex Machina isn’t a series that is going to resolutely situate itself on one side of the fence or the other.

What’s particularly interesting about the series is that Mitchell’s dilemma isn’t entirely removed from reality. Vaughan may be encouraging his readership to consider the benefits and detriments associated with an increasingly plugged-in universe. Do we embrace the uncertainties of a new technological world — wherein our much lauded vaporware slowly materializes into something we may not have anticipated — or should we moor ourselves in the safe conventionality of the here and now? If we choose the latter, we might risk squandering an opportunity to let technology do all the heavy lifting for us, thereby liberating us into an unknown future. As Aronowitz notes, “the freeing of labor from routine and back-breaking labor in order to free subjective time” just might remedy the “estrangement of humans from their worlds” (137). Or perhaps the link that technology is threatening — the “coordination of feeling and reason, of intuition and calculation” (142) that Aronowitz associates with labour — should instead be safeguarded. After all, if technology continues to subsume a vast array of occupations — lines of work that some people might rely on for their conception of identity or self-worth — it’s easy to picture an imminent crisis.

As the presence of technology becomes more and more pronounced, it might be best to pause a little before wiring ourselves in deeper. After all, it’s certainly fortuitous that a guy who (presumably) has a decent sense of right and wrong got the techno-super powers in Ex Machina. This of course begs the question, what would someone else do with Mitchell’s abilities? Or, taking it one step further, what if the entire world could lay claim to such a communion with technology? As an ostensibly prescient work, one of the more disconcerting implications of Ex Machina is that its not-so-farfetched concept might one day become a reality. Perhaps we are already, slowly but surely, undergoing a Mitchell Hundred-like synthesis with technology that might one day culminate in easy control over all our myriad devices and networks. Considering our sense of security and our lives are increasingly bound up with technology, that doesn’t seem like the soundest prospect. In other words, the “gleaming Tomorrowlands of the techno-utopians” (Sconce, 189) just might be considerably murkier than advertised.

So, what does all this criticism, uncertainty and disillusionment amount to? If there is a moral that would sufficiently unite this week’s readings, it may have to something to do with the idea that a little hesitation just might be preferable to impetuously abandoning that which is allegedly archaic for the dubious promise of that which is new, shiny and alluring.

The Virtual You October 2, 2009

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Is the body a piece of baggage we secretly (or even openly) want to dispose of? This week’s readings touch on this idea to varying extents. What’s behind the need to jettison the flesh and move onto something (or anything) else and is this desire actually a good thing? Consider the following snippet from David Bell’s “Identities In Cyberculture”:

If we type ourselves into cyberspace, the argument goes, we can make and remake who we are endlessly, liberated from the ‘meat’ of our RL bodies and all the identity-markers they carry. (116)

Virtual realities and the highly customizable avatars therein could thereby be understood as being yet another step towards satisfying a long existent desire for malleable identities.

More than just being about the opportunity to act differently within anonymous circumstances, there also seems to be a great emphasis placed on cosmetic alterations when it comes to these virtual worlds (as manifested in games, films, and literature). Consider Bruce Willis’ lurid blonde hair in Surrogates or Jobe’s sudden sex appeal in The Lawnmower Man. Both of these films contribute to the discourse around virtual reality by implying that it’s at least partially about perfecting ourselves. The poster for Surrogates echoes this idea. This kind of ties into the fact that Tom’s (played by Bruce Willis) wife’s surrogate, and her excessively pristine/Uncanny Valley look, kept reminding me of botox laden celebrities. Perhaps you could say both methods (adopting a surrogate, opting for plastic surgery) are marked by the same vanity, artificiality and necessary self deception. Perhaps the impulse to purge/demote our bodily baggage has a little to do with trying to perfect one’s look. In that respect, consider the following blurb from this article:

The seven million or so inhabitants of Second Life, the three-dimensional online world, have spent millions of dollars on digital makeovers, clothing and other goods and services for their avatars.

That’s a great deal of money to spend on outfitting avatars, especially since the ones you can make in Second Life aren’t exactly the most realistic (see below). People are obviously willing to adopt a little willful disavowal when it comes to enjoying their secondary lives, though. It’s not quite real (yet), but it’s good enough. Perhaps this means there is a necessarily deceptive bottom line to most of these types of virtual excursions. After all, while these virtual worlds could grant someone the opportunity to finally express the real person that has been waiting inside of them, it could just as easily turn into one big masquerade.

The fascination with the prospect of virtual reality may also have something do with how it might be able to remedy that niggling gap between someone’s conception of themselves and who they actually are. Virtual worlds like that of Second Life or World Of Warcraft offer people an opportunity to ‘realize’ those dreams, fantasies, aspirations, or delusions (albeit virtually). But are the possibilities really that boundless? Does virtual reality promise that blank of a canvas? Consider the following from Bell’s article:

some critics have suggested that computer technology represents yet another space of exclusion or domination for women [...] At the same time, the possibilities of identity-play already signalled in this chapter mean for some theorists that gender will cease to carry its RL ideological loadings in cyberspace, or might cease to matter or even exist there. (122)

The idea that virtual reality can reinforce dominant power structures just as easily as it can facilitate change is something Anne Balsamo and Katherine Hayles discussed as well. Consider the following from Balsamo’s “The Virtual Body In Cyberspace”:

Fictional accounts of cyberspace play out the fantasy of casting off the body as an obsolete piece of meat, but, not surprisingly, these fictions do no eradicate body-based systems of differentiation and domination (128).

Or, as Hayles notes in “The Seductions of Cyberspace”:

issues of class, race, and gender are likely to be replayed in a different key, in which the mark of privilege is access to cyborg modifications. (310)

In other words, life outside of the flesh isn’t guaranteed to be an utopian escape from all our earthly and fleshy troubles. Regardless of technological advancements, the burdensome mores of life in the real world may just keep on following us into our virtual oases. Then again, I don’t want to sound totally pessimistic about the possibilities of VR… I’m just pretty ambivalent about the whole prospect. Maybe Surrogates‘ blunt disapproval of life via proxy (as well as its championing of actual, tactile connection) rubbed off on me. There’s a good part in Bell’s article that reflects the kind of anxiety most people probably feel when it comes to accepting and/or taking the plunge into virtuality (despite most of us already having one foot in the door):

a male psychiatrist masqueraded on-line as a disabled woman, and built up a close circle of online friends. When his conscience got the better of him, he decided to ‘kill off’ his online persona, ‘Julie’, and then came clean about the whole incident. Those who had befriended ‘Julie’ felt bitterly betrayed by the deception. (126)

While that’s somewhat of a tame example, it sums up the troubling contingencies of virtual worlds pretty well. While this type of deception may be exciting or cathartic for the person doing the masquerading, it’s a little more bothersome for the people who are used to having a surer sense of who they are interacting with. Surrogates certainly played this anxiety up when it revealed that the real person hiding behind a nubile, young girl might just be an excessively corpulent, grown man. That’s where I found the unsettling quality of Surrogates‘ universe to be most pointedly expressed, at least.

As a final note, I thought I’d post a few pictures from this slide-show showcasing various people and their virtual counterparts (as they exist across various game worlds, not just Second Life):

Looking at these, I’m thinking that perhaps it’s all just harmless fun and games. Maybe the ambivalent (or downright opposed) stance that most films assume when it comes to technology has influenced me too much. There’s obviously an element of fun and creativity here that’s easy to apprehend. Or are we actually just a few updates away from unshackling the untold (and ostensibly dangerous) potential of the mind, thereby allowing identities to become all the more fluid and capricious? That could mean giving people the opportunity to fully embrace/reveal their inner selves, but it might also mean having to continually struggle with the troubling dissonance between who we really are (or were) and who we pretend to be.