Wednesday, March 06, 2002

Experience Design   (Erik Davis) "Across the fields of art, architecture, media, music, pharmacology, even spirituality, we are moving towards the intentional and multi-dimensional stimulation and production of a complex range of increasingly immediate human responses, including the direct induction of classic "altered states of consciousness." These responses extend far beyond (and below) the traditional object of communication: the conscious human subject conceived as a rational agent and a reader of meanings. In other words, as science, pharmacology, and media technology deepen their understanding of how the human nervous system joins with the ever mercurial psyche to produce a lived sense of reality, these knowledges are becoming integrated into the engines of cultural production. To put it crudely, our cultural technologies are becoming less like books and songs, and more like rollercoasters or drugs." * * * "Media artists are uniquely placed to explore this emerging world of spirituality without falling into the dogmatic or New Age traps that swallow up so many true believers. Altered states of consciousness are real, and as our media technologies get better at drawing us in and out of them, artists and other non-coercive proponents of the human spirit (or whatever you want to call it) need to become familiar with these states, not simply as a source of inspiration, but as modes of expression, communication, and confrontation itself. By recognizing that the material that we are now focused on is not technology but human experience itself, then we take a step closer to that strange plateau where our inner lives unfold into an almost collective surface of shared sensation and reframed perception - a surface on which we may feel exposed and vulnerable, but beginning to awake." 11:17:32 PM    comment [] Information Wants to Be Worthless   (Bruce Sterling) "But one scenario was way too far-fetched and idealistic, even for the likes of us. What if it turned out that the Net was just plain too much for business to handle? That it was downright toxic to free enterprise? But look what happened. When was the last time that you saw commerce, global capitalism, competition, the profit motive, the real deal ... choking on advanced technology as if they'd swallowed a jalapeño? What a spectacle! It ranks with the beached gasping of Marxism-Leninism in 1989. "  * * * "Net types like to catfight about whether blogging is the Way Forward or utter self-indulgence. Since it is almost certainly both at once, blogging is quite the hot topic. So there will be some bloggery debate, with scowling, and finger-wagging, and pepper-gassing. Yes, blogging has its limitations. There isn't much in the way of original content, for instance. Weblogging consists mostly of logging one's websurfing activities, then making sardonic comments about whatever you see. An activity one's admirers find hilarious. Yet admirers rarely pay for this. Except in their admiration. " Am I blogrolling yet?  Can the center hold?  I can see how this could easily get all convoluted, vaguely incestuous and self-referential.  11:00:46 PM    comment []

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