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.

Futurism in Stevens' Age of Adz

Sufjan Stevens' 2010 album, The Age of Adz, was inspired, in part, by the art of Royal Robertson. The schizophrenic's art was characterized by apocalyptic assurances (motivated largely by his ex-wife) and "futuristic images". To sonically realize Robertson's sci-fi scrawlings, Stevens incorporates portions of the Futurist musical program.

Video Essay at TriQuarterly

Digital lit mags make intermedial art easier to publish. With luck, this new trend will be a pleasant BLAST! from the past.

http://triquarterly.org/essay/on-the-form-of-video-essay