Loose Ends

So, my semester is ending and this will be my last full-length blog post. I've decided to amalgamate some ideas I kicked around but never developed into essays. The post will be correspondingly rough. Hope it's not too bad.

Music Videos

Music videos are the most obvious pieces of Intermedia to me. They combine visuals, lyric poetry, and music. Sometimes the video matches the music and echoes the lyrical theme, (I think The Avalanches' videos reflect the musical muse clearly.) and sometimes the video is an extension of the music, an outgrowth of the music. (Spike Jonze videos are like this.)

That's all fine and good. And mundane. Google is helping directors create interactive videos with HTML 5, and the results are mind-expanding. The Wilderness Downtown video takes place in the viewers neighborhood by importing street view images from Google Earth. The Ro.me video lets the viewer guide the gaze, and sometimes the path, of the protagonist. Videos like this add an element of interactivity that elevates the medium to New Media.

Scalar

I always meant to make some sort of interactive diagram or infographic about the history of Intermedia, but I never found tools that would let me do it easily. If scalar had come out of beta, you can bet I'd have been all over that. (Also, Google Charts)

Intermedia?

Bennett, why does your blog claim to focus on Intermedia when it seems to be more about digital humanities?

Great question inner-interlocuter! When I was signing up for classes last semester I was slated to take AP Comparative Government. But I didn't want to take AP Comparative Government. I wanted free time to work on the fiction I was writing.

So, I signed up for an independent study with Mrs. Burwell, who said I would need a course syllabus. I spent some time googling and found a New School syllabus for Intermedia. Since I draft in Adobe Illustrator and heavily design my texts, Intermedia seemed a supple term I could bend to my benefit. I submitted the New School syllabus when I officially signed up for the class and enjoyed my break.

I began researching the avant-garde art movements associated with Intermedia, starting with Symbolism and going through Mail Art. I read all the manifestos and image searched relevant works. But I began to realize the Intermedia avant-garde continued online. So my studies shifted.



I created a syllabus for myself after the official proposal was accepted. It's a collage of real college syllabi. This is a scan of the original, but I made a few photocopies to get better acquainted with the techniques of Mail Art.


I became Facebook friends with Brad Troemel and added Aaron Koblin to my Google+ circles. But as historical surveys got harder to come by, I realized I was historically caught up. So I began to write expository blog posts about the modern possibilities for Intermedia, and then internet philosophy. You can roughly follow my learning by reading the posts chronologically. The first is a Futurist analysis of a Sufjan Stevens album (which I wish I could have made longer, but my word minimum is 500 and the essay was pushing 1000 when I decided the ROI was waning - that was before I realized bloggers broke big posts into parts) and the last one applies social contract theory to the internet.

I was following Intermedia into the present with a special focus on my interest in the design of literature.

Self-Evaluation?

Nothing says I have to evaluate myself, but it's involuntary. Overall, I'd say the writing probably goes from bad to worse with time, but the ideas improve. I'm decently proud of the Internet Social Contract post. A preliminary Google search returned no ideas exactly like it, so maybe it's original. That'd be a good sign I suppose.

The Reasons I Picked a Blog Over Paper Essays:

1. Hypertextuality lets me allude to things without confusing the reader. It also lets me insert a special type of pun.
2. The blog is public. It feels good to publish something to the world, even if the world is uninterested and the post is written badly.
3. Comments make blog posts living documents. If something I propose becomes irrelevant (or relevant), the silent listener may comment and correct things.

Of course, all the above presupposes readership, of which there is virtually (no pun) none. Google tells me the blog has had thirty unique visitors in the last four months. I imagine most of those are the immediate friends and family who think hits will encourage me. The average time per visit is less than five minutes, and I drive that up by reading a whole post to spell-check it. The point of this pity party is that you, the reader, should comment on something. It would make my day - probably my week. Maybe my month.

So do it. Comment. Please.

Link Whoring

http://rhizome.org/ - This seems to be the center of all online art nowadays. The site was too big for me to digest, but I often used it as a reference for net.art.

http://www.ubu.com/ - Another site with everything. Eclectic collections of sound recordings and writings and film involving everyone from Joyce to Higgins.

0100101110101101.org - Decently famous art duo. Never got a chance to mention them I don't think, but they're worth knowing.

Ergon Logos - Kinetic text project from Molleindustria.

Designing Literature - This is probably what I should have signed up for (not that the syllabus would've gotten my proposal accepted). From what I can tell, Jentery Sayers is my intellectual soul-mate.

Pseudonyms

I've always meant to write a post about pseudonyms in art, but never got the chance. Duchamp's implementation of pseudonyms could easily be extended to the internet. The Social Contract post tell you how to create a false identity.

Memes

Brad Troemel wrote somewhere that memes will replace language at some point. I think that's a decent idea. Sort of full circle on the hieroglyphics concept. The images themselves communicate more than the raw text; they communicate a context and tone with the image, which is recognized instantly by an experienced user, just as words are recognized by experienced readers.

Closing - Thanks for reading

It means more than anything to me that you've read this, especially if you're neither friend nor family. I'll end this post by inviting any comments about the blog itself (formal hypocrisy, critique of post length, etc) or any general good/bad feelings to be posted below.

Internet Social Contract (Part Two)

(Continued from Part One)

5. The Future of Revolution

Just as corporate power has been transferred to the internet, so too has the internet become a part of political change. China has been handling this friction for years, and the Arab Spring was only the first foam of this new wave of revolution. The protesters used the internet mainly as a tool for organization and press, agreeing to the terms of Twitter and Facebook in an effort to void their violated contract with the real-world state. But as power moves to the net, so will revolution.

It's only fair to address anarchists and crazies at this point because there hasn't been a full-blown political revolution on the internet yet, but even with a smaller audience, there's still much to say.

Users can opt not to sign any contracts, browse with Tor, and hack til curiosity's contented. This stateless contingent is not dead. Wikileaks sparked the closest thing to a net war when it leaked diplomatic cables, challenging the real world status quo, and endured the ensuing backlash, which disrupted the net's status quo. The post-leak politics proved hackers are at least as powerful as moneyed sites.

And hackers, who largely inhabit the aforementioned world of .onion addresses and BlackNets, simultaneously maintain a secure presence in web forums and the mainstream media by relying on pseudonymity, the employment of multiple fake identities, switched on and off at will to mask real-world identity. The cypher-punks used remailers to achieve pseudonymity, and everybody is free to create a second Google account when they logout of their first.

After watching only two YouTube videos and searching two other terms, this fake identity has personal search results that differ from the ones below, where I've selected to hide personal results (The selected globe in the top right, if you can see).

Integration has made this easier. I can create an account for Dan Cooper, fill out his profile, watch a few YouTube videos, search a few terms, and things will begin to move automatically. New videos and searches will be suggested; friends from his hometown will be suggested. The account will be bombarded with relevant adsense.

Cloned accounts can be created at other sites and soon a new person will begin to form, purely digital.

Creating a fake identity on Facebook explicitly violates their Terms of Service, confirming the exchange of anonymity for services proposed in Part One.

6. Life in Public

The anime Serial Experiments Lain explores the possibility of a digital life that creates a real-life analog (the inverse of current human behavior). Halfway through the series, the protagonist, Lain, learns she was originally digital and her physical existence is an extension of her digital locus. She then assumes the abilities a digital life would have: harnessing digital devices' hardware, saving herself to bot-net computers, and erasing the internet data so many people believe immortal.

But, most people aren't contented by speculation on the creation of a digital life not tethered to a body. Most people want to immortalize themselves, as they physically exist, online. So, they dump the data that defines them into blanks on social-networking sites in hopes of escaping a real emptiness, or even real mortality.

These users don't realize the digital world is not without death. As mentioned before, data can be erased; but online death is not inevitable. It's either murder or suicide.

Domain names can be cancelled and web time-machine can be duped. Brad Troemel's Tumblr, Jogging, was destroyed by suicide when the project Assembly violated Tumblr's terms of service by threatening web violence (DDoS) against other sites. (An example of justice on a contractual internet)

But stories of users like Breit Bart, whose web brand continues despite his death, still encourage people to escape the inevitable by putting themselves on the internet.

Hedonistic escapism is nothing new in cultural criticism. Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace have already addressed the special escape television offers.

In a way though, computers are worse because they trick users into thinking something has been achieved, when in reality nothing has changed.

Internet Social Contract (Part One)

1. The Right

If there are rights on the internet, they proceed from its purpose. The purpose of the internet is to share information; therefore, users have a right to share information. This right is natural because the purpose of the internet is intrinsic to its design.

2. The Original State

In the beginning there was the Department of Defense, and it was the bringer of technology and devastation. Fearing the coming winter, the Department of Defense sought out computer scientists and asked them for a new edge. It was then, in a place called California, that the internet was born; and it was made by computer experts for computer experts. The Department of Defense saw this and said, It is good; and it shared the internet with Man after fifteen years.

It was anarchy then. Not all sites had friendly names, so clunky link directories guided web traffic. Socio-politically speaking, this climate has a few anarchistic attributes.

1. The internet was less commercial because the population of skilled users was low.
2. The internet was potentially anonymous because web handles weren't tethered to a real identity.
3. Internet users had practically uninhibited access to content because most sites didn't have security, and most secure sites could be hacked.

3. The Signing

A social contract is an understanding, whether tacit or constitutional, between citizens and their government. The citizens sacrifice freedoms, and in exchange the government maintains the rights of the citizens. (See Hobbes, Locke, etc. for more)

The governments of the internet in this theoretical transposition are the sites that provide users services. The online organization of political power mirrors the Chomskian organization of power ruling the real world, specifically in places internet access is common. Citizens are users of these state-like sites. The citizens' real-world parallel is the post-industrial consumer.

The internet social contract has already been signed (well, no one signs things any more, so people haven't signed as much as clicked the contract's Agree button): users have given up anonymity and free mobility for services that let them exchange information more effectively.

Social networking software tethers identity, and internet actions are more easily tracked now that accounts across the web can be integrated (eg Facebook posts that I've listening on turntable.fm). And when power changed hands, the economic exclusivity inherent in things like paywalls began to segregate web traffic. These are the signs; the contract is signed.

4. The Contract

Facebook is contractual. Users abandon anonymity to redefine themselves with a feed of memes and aphorisms. Nothing they do is anonymous. Instead, it is linked to the profile they've created, the past they've chronicled, the posts they've approved. And with Facebook integration on the rise, the development of a cohesive online reputation is inevitable.

And reputation is power.

Reputation determines web traffic, which determines cultural influence and ad revenue. In this online surreality where culture is currency, cultural power is the only intrinsic power. Ad revenue translates to real world power and connects web power to real power.

But more often, real power is converted to web power, not the other way around. Internet marketplaces are the most obvious place to exchange real objects for real and digital returns, but new hardware like VR goggles and Twine, coupled with QR codes, will give more real world actions a digital analog.

The status quo is being extended to the net. No one wanted a revolution.

Hence my earlier choice of the word surreality. The internet has been integrated into the real world, nothing but a nice heads-up-display of the same old stuff, not at all what the chypher-punks dreamt in their emails almost twenty years ago, when the net was fresh.

2.3.4. What emerges from this is unclear, but I think it will be a form of anarcho-capitalist market system I call "crypto anarchy." (Voluntary communications only, with no third parties butting in.) --- The Cyphernomicon

Continued in Part Two . . .

Information on the Internet

"Connect it to google, khan academy, kickstarter, the ent[r]enched and the emerging. Access to find what you need to know over pooling it in one place. Contextual, decided by the individual. Appropriate for the individual." - Andrey

I suppose it was only a matter of time before I foisted my ideas upon this space without pretext. Many of these threads have already been mentioned on this blog, and they will definitely be alluded to in later posts. I see this site as a body of work, so forgive me if you find the interlinking a bit conservative.

 * * *

Information on the net is organized along the lines of early analytic semantics: there exist objects linked by relations. The objects are atomic pieces of information, specific and isolated; a definition, for instance. Relations are the thoughts that link objects. Objects exist in the analog world, and there is no way to digitally reduce the irreducible. But, relations will be handled differently in the future.

Designed Literature (Part Two)

(Continued from Part One)

At the convergence of these typographical trends, modern software lets an author design his own text. Certainly, writers have not absorbed all aspects of typography, and the actual crafting of fonts is still reserved for typographers. But page layout, typeface, proportions and color have all been left to the public by Adobe Suites and freeware.

The world of words is going the way of the music industry. An author can now self-publish by drafting in InDesign, exporting to .azm, and posting a file to Amazon for sale. Today, many authors self-publish, letting readers pay what they think the book is worth. (Additionally, if the bibliophile requires it, an ebook file can be printed for an upcharge by any number of sites that offer Print On-Demand services.)

This phenomena is certainly an economic boon for mainstream authors, but it carries with it the history of avant-garde self-publishing. Most art books of the last century were self-published, and even giants like Joyce personally printed their early works.

So, all this is unexciting. Digital self-publishing is a more convenient incarnation of past practice; nothing new. Certainly, this seems an adequate survey of the present.

But true art is created with the future in mind. So, in pursuit of relevance, I will mention some of the places I see literature meeting design in new ways.

Designed Literature (Part One)

Everything is designed. The keyboard I type on, the clothes I wear, the interface I toggle, the desk, the fridge magnets, the storebrand tea, etc etc. All designed. Humans, like all creatures, are always adjusting their environment to make survival more convenient.

Since the industrial revolution, the mass production of industrial designs has changed our landscape so much that neo-luddites (who prefer the term "environmentalists") call for an end to all industrialization, for the sake of "recovering the environment". But it's obvious that man has not destroyed "the environment"; he has made a new environment better suited to his needs.

The new landscape is here to stay, and it will only grow. We ought to accept design, and try to be discerning about it, rather than ignore or reject it, because it democratizes discovery, improving quality of life for everyone.

So, to focus on a field of design chronically behind the rest: literature. Any designed text is a work of typography, which is usually taught with graphic design. People who study typography may work printing posters, designing typefaces, or printing books. So, now that the connection's established, let's look at designed literature as a continuum.

The (Increasing) Importance of Intermedia: An Unjust Survey of Videogames

Art has recently tended toward medium melding: painters have been writing on their canvases; writers have been doodling on their manuscripts; and installations target all the senses, aiming for an unprecedented sort of participatory immersion. But, even the immersive installations are fast losing their edge, and new media promise a future of increasingly integrated art mediums.

I use the word melding because it fits the intermedial approach. As art evolves, we will see it, not as a sum of its parts, but as a whole. In the future, people won't think of film as a mix of music and pictures; they will think of it as film. Intermedia is art where a meeting of mediums achieves something that can't be done with one medium alone: a synergetic spirit must permeate the piece.

Dick Higgins intended this method of analysis when he defined intermedia, and later when he defended his word and distinguished it from multimedia. Multimedia is obsessed with the preconceived notion of media: we think in terms of what we already know. Indermedia asks us to look where mediums merge, to accept a piece as new.

Interestingly, or perhaps fittingly considering the decentralization of Fluxus and Mail Art, intermedial aesthetics are being adopted by low culture faster than they can be considered in ivory towers. Gamers, for instance, are beginning to demand narrative sophistication; and most players don't dissect their favorite games, evaluating music, dialogue, animation, and textures independently. They see a whole.