Blog presentation: Technologized bodies

"To what extent are we already experiencing a man -machine symbiosis that has turned us into cyborgs?" This is the question raised when more and more technology were added into our daily lives. One of the parts which were influenced may be the art. Nowadays there are many technology added into the artworks. Terms like ‘technologized body’ or ‘cyborg’ or ‘posthuman’ were created.

"In an era where technological innovations are appearing at an ever increasing pace the future of the human body is thrown into question. Art that makes its business keeping up with emerging technologies becomes an important arena to consider the outcomes of these advances.” [2] Years ago, art and technology were separated definitely. People in the past might not think that they can be combined to create a work. With the technologies proceed; it seemed everything can be done with technologies. Art seems not to be an exception.

Cyborg means cyber organisms. Katherine Hayles, the prominent theorists of the "technologized body", states in her book, How We Became Posthuman that “increasingly the question is not whether we will become posthuman, for posthumanity is already here. Rather, the question is what kind of posthumans we will be.” [3] Technologies had already invaded in our lives. To some extent, we are experiencing the fusion of body and machine. [4]

From a case study, we can see further about technologized body and see how we could benefit or be influenced.

[5]
Inter_Skin Project

Inter_Skin was created by Stahl Stenslie. He is a Norwegian born artist and he works with cognition and perception manipulative projects. [6] He started his work with cyber sex (for his work cyberSM in 1993) and he keen on exploring the human and technology relations. The Inter_Skin Project was his work created in 1994. It is a multi-user, tactile communication experiment. [7]

The Inter_Skin project is the interface for communication between the participants. It becomes an "interskin" to exchange and receive information. Participants of the project have to wear a sensoric outfit. That outfit is capable to transmit and receive different multi stimuli. The main emphasis of the communication in this project is ‘touch’. One participant touches his or her own body, the same touch will be transmitted to the partner and the partner will get the same feeling. The strength of the touch is designed by the duration of touch, i.e. the longer the touch, the stronger the stimuli will be felt. [8]

This work has created 2 interesting phenomenon. The first is autoerotic stimulation. If one touches the genitals, the partner will feel that. It is a direct form of communication. “The autoerotic, self-stimulating aspects of such a tactile system redirect communication to take place not only between two (or more) participants, but also to my very own body.” [8]

[9]

The first generation of Inter_Skin Project

The second is the shared virtual body. With the shared feelings of communication through autoerotic touch, an image of an abstract, virtual body is created.
[10]

Stenslie himself comments that the Inter_Skin Project towards the limits and possibilities of the virtual body.[11] For me, this is really an interesting work. One of the reasons for why I think it is interesting is because I seem to be an idiot for technology. It is too far for me on doing work using such high technology. Also, using technology in artwork is also complicated. The Inter_Skin project creates an interesting point of view, i.e. we can feel what the other feel. We usually have the feeling of ourselves but we never know what the other felt. By wearing this suit, we can feel the feelings of others. It is quite amazing. And I think this work can make people be more considerate through feeling what the other feel.

However, from the 2 interesting phenomenon mentioned before, it is not a good thing to some extent. The concept of autoerotic may not be accepted by all people. There may exist some problem of morality or be restricted by some religious background. The work may not be accepted by everyone if it makes people to have some nasty thinking, especially for some people with conservative thinking.

On the other hand, technology really helps us a lot in our daily lives. It can help us in different aspects and improve our living standards. But sometimes, it will create alienation between people. More technology may lead to less interaction. Or even less feeling…

The follows is the video of the exhibition of Stahl Stenslie, you can watch it if you are interested in his work, actually it is quite interesting and exciting.

Key quotes:
[1] Christiane Paul, Digital Art, p 166
[2] The Technologized Body, http://www.lacda.com/exhibits/technobody.html
[3] Christiane Paul, Digital Art, p 166
[4] Christiane Paul, Digital Art, p 167
[5] Image of Inter_Skin Project, Stahl Stenslie, 1992
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBFfi0n0HSXEDZZ6oD9HtyBnGvJM1qwdJlNuvgNWWg74EfbJ3M4rhxJOaZAwFJK1qX5d_oAmfR5bUquJFESz2ifm_F83CeVhEML-AH57M6LiF746Uq3P0zvjTG8C7Nl9jEONWdUPKAdMYp/s1600-h/interskin.gif
[6] Stahl Stenslie on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stahl_Stenslie
[7] CV of Stahl Stenslie, http://www.stenslie.net/stahl/
[8] Works presentation, http://www.stenslie.net/stahl/
[9] Image of the first generation Inter_Skin Project, http://art.tartu.ee/~raivo/meediakunst/slaidid/Telekomkunst_files/frame.htm#slide0033.htm [10] Image of Inter_Skin suit, http://www.art.tartu.ee/~raivo/meediakunst/slaidid/Telekomkunst_files/slide0032_image067.jpg[11] Stahl Stenslie, Wiring the Flesh; Towards the limits and possibilities of the virtual body, http://www.stenslie.net/stahl/txt/wirflesh.html

Key Links:
1. http://www.stenslie.net/stahl/ (website of Stahl Stenslie)
2. http://www.lacda.com/exhibits/exhibitshome.html (examples of technology and body)
3. http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/4/4017/2.html (Telepolis)
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE_uo_8CdBI (Stenslie’s exhibition)
5. http://desk.org:8080/ASU2/know.ElectronicArts (Intersections of Art, Technology, Science & Culture)

Key articles:
1. Christiane Paul, Digital Art,
2. http://www.lacda.com/exhibits/technobody.html (quite useful)
3. http://mlab.taik.fi/culturalusability/papers/Tikka_paper.html (comprehensive)
4. Stelarc, NeMe: FROM ZOMBIE TO CYBORG BODIES - Extra Ear, Exoskeleton and Avatars, November 2005 (article written by another performance artist Stelarc)
5. Rudolf Frieling, Reality / Mediality; Hybrid processes between art and life, http://mediaartnet.org/themes/overview_of_media_art/performance/print/ (time-spending but provoking)
6. Stahl Stenslie, Wiring the Flesh; Towards the limits and possibilities of the virtual body, http://www.stenslie.net/stahl/txt/wirflesh.html (detailed description of Stenslie's work)

Discussion of four important games - should we consider these as works of art?

•Feng Mengbo: Quake 4 U, 2002
•Cory Arcangel: Super-Mario Clouds, 2002
•Mary Flanagan: [domestic] 2003
•JODI: Untitled Games, SOD

Among these four games, I would like to choose Mary Flanagan: [domestic] 2003.

[picture from:http://www.maryflanagan.com/imagesvideos/]

I think the work of May Flanagan can be an art. In the videogame, the images are beautiful. For me, I quite agree with one of the definition of art from Wrnest W. Adams which is aesthetically interesting. I can find this element in [domestic]. Also, I think this work has contained some messsage and have the communication with the player.

Digital Games

VS

Should games be more like fantasy and less like real-world war?

In my opinion, games should be more fantasy and less like real-world war. For me, playing games is for fun and relaxation. When I feel under pressure, I will play games to relax. If the games are filled with elements of real-world war, I think it will add more presure to me. On the other hand, if the games are filled with fantasy elements like colorful design, wonderful music, it can really release my pressure.

Also, I think real-world war is too realistic. If people like those games, they will fall into the world of the games, they will become aggressive and violet. However, fantasy game is unrealistic, the world of the games is so perfect that people already knew that it is unreal. They can find fun and relax in the game.

Futhermore, I think to some extent that I support more fancy rather than real-world war is because those game can recall my memory of childhood.

My favourite digital game is Cooking Mama. I think most of you will know this game and know how to play it. Why I know this game is not because of its realness but just the opposite. I really do not know how to cook but in this game I can pretend to a good cooker. I can earn many achievability through this game.

Technologised Bodies

Film: I'm a cyborb, but that's OK

"To what extent are we already experienceing a man-machaine symbiosis that has turned us into cyborgs [or posthuman bodies]?" Christine Paul (Digital Art, p.166)

To a certain extent, we have already experiencing a man-manchine symbiosis. We can see nowadays we always depend on many technologies. Glasses may be a good example. It is an object independent with our human bodies. But after using the glasses, we can have a clear eye sight when our eyes have some problems like short-sighted or long-sighted. Also, the technologies used on medical is also helpful. When people lose their arms or legs after an accident, there are some technologies to help them to repair their arms or legs. This technologies have already added to our lives and eventually turned us into cyborgs.

Whar are some pros and cons of becoming a cyborg?

Pros:

• we can have longer lifespan
• our live standard will be better
• many problem can be solved easily
• our working efficiency will be improved
• we will not get hurt easily

Cons:

• less interaction between human
• less feelings
• less expereience of solving problem
• less expressions
• less emotion

What do you think of Stelarc's work?

Stelarc's work (from Stelarc's website, http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/)

"Stelarc is an Australian performance artist whose works focus heavily on futurism and extending the capabilities of the human body." (from Wikipedia, on Stelarc, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelarc)

Actually, I think it is quite disgusting when I saw some shots that showed he has done some action upon some organs like stomach. It is hard to accept those action and I can not imagine how he can do such work on his own body. When I see his work, I may think that he is challenging the limit of the human body. As the reference above said, he is focusing his work on futurism, he may tend to have different challenge towards the human body. Although his work is quite outstanding and can have many attention, it cannot be accepted by everyone.

How many online identities do you have?

I have 4 email accounts including yahoo, hotmail, gmail and one come Lingnan University(LU). And I have asked 3 classmates about their online identities.

Carol:

• 7 email accounts (yahoo, hotmail, gmail, LU, PolyU, hellokitty, my melody)
• 1 facebook account
• 1 xanga account
• 1 yahoo blog

Anna:

• 4 email accounts (yahoo, hotmail, gmail, LU)
• 1 xanga account
• 1 facebook account

Ching:

• more than 10 email accounts (abount 5 yahoo accounts, hotmail, gmail, etc.)
• 1 xanga account
• 1 facebook account
• 1 my space account
• 1 yahoo blog
• 1 nevigator blog

Ching has so many online identities.

Unusal Stop Motion

Share a funny video with you:)

The favourite networked digital art of today's lesson

Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki

Umbrella-net

What are some challenges digital art presents to the art world (ie galleries, exhibition goers, art critics and scholars)?

• digital art is difficult to be classified in the form of art and the range of art is very wide
• it will change in a very fast speed, it may hard to follow
• difficult to set up the exhibition, because many software and equipments will be needed
• the cost of setting up the exhibition is also high
• some digital art may not need gallery but on the other hand it will be less known by others
• the work may need more time to understand, it require more complicated understanding, it takes time
• digital art need the technical skills like computer skills or other skills of using specific software assist with the practical art skills
• the circulation of digital art may limited to only those who can access on the internet
• digital art may not be suitable for all ages group, teenagers may be the focused group for appreciating digital art
• it is easy to have the problem of copyright as it is too easy to find resources online and materials will be easy to be converted into another thing

"Mission to Earth"

It's the first time to watch digital cinema. The first impression of the film must be so special that there are not just one scene at the same time. The composition is different from the traditional cinema. I think this film, "Mission to Earth", has a different way of story telling when compared with thr traditional cinema. Besides the main scene which is showing the journey of the girl, there are also some small boxes associated with the main scene. Those small boxes are some paintings, designs, or just some colours...etc. This presentation is new for me. Sometimes, I can't concentrate on only just one scene. I can't follow the main story when I just put my focus on the small scene.

In my won opinion, I may think that the voice over is the main focus of the film and those scenes showed on the screen assist to tell the story. The voice over throughout the whole film is with the same tone. But I think he is just telling me something but not a story because it seems that he didn't put his own feeling in it. But with the association with the scenes, it help me to think more about what he is talking about. Although those scenes may not be exactly the samen with which he is talking, it help me to have more focus on the film. Otherwise, I will not continue to watch it. Furthermore, some small scenes are quite interesting, but some of them are difficult to understand. Sometimes, I will feel confuse because I will focus on one scene and try to think about what it is going to present.

For the music of the film, honestly, it is boring. But it quite match with the film or specifically match with the narrator. It creates a calm atmosphere. However, it will make people fell asleep easily.

After watching this digital film, I will still choose to watch traditional cinema because it is more interesting for me. I would like to search for other digital films to see whether I will still choose to watch traditional cinema.

Review: Youtube

Quote 1
“Environments supporting mass collaboration and social production such as annotated collections (GenBank), media sharing (Flickr, YouTube), wikis (Wikipedia), folksonomies (del.icio.us), and virtual worlds (Second Life) are other examples of social creativity. The diverse and collective stock of scientific content and artistic or stylistic ideas that individuals and communities share, re-interpret, and use as a basis for new ideas and visions constitutes the vital source of invention and creativity.”
(Fischer, G. and Giaccardi, E. (2007) Sustaining Social Creativity, Communications of the ACM, 50:12, pp. 28-29.)

• This quote is quite positive. Just like my feeling towards youtube. Youtube encourage many creative productions. It is a platform for gathering creative videos. We can find how creative the people are. And this became a culture of putting video online throughout the world.

Honda Accod commercial

Have you seen this before?

You must think that this commercial may have some digital effect. But I must tell you that this commercial did not produced with any help of computer. It takes 606 times for four days and nights. Those parts are took from the Accord. Including the crews put in the tire, every parts should be calculated carefully, one small mistake will affect the whole production. After 500 takes of the commercial, the production team called the parts as their friends.

This commercial help me to think that nowadays the technique of computer is so high that it seems all the things can be done by computer. We will ignore many handmade things. Actually, creative idea with human power can also perform well. May be we can consider more about what we can do without using computer technique.

Comments on online films

Youtube is a worldwide website let people to upload video freely. This is a new ability for us to make and widely distribute and respond to online films. There are both positive and negative comments about this.

Positive comments

• everyone can share the videos they made easily
• we can see the production of others online all over the world
• some people put their own film online became famous, it may be a good channel for people who wanted to be famous
• it can encourage creative production
• putting the films online can save the memory of the computer
• people can leave comment freely after watching the video
• making video is another way to express our feelings, upload the video online may help us to find somebody who have the same feeling with you as there are many videos which were made to response to the original one

Negative comments

• although the online video will make people become famous, it may also bring negative effect on people if they had done something bad or acting to be too extreme
• bad information will also be easy to transfer through this online films website
• there may be bad response to the video
• it may become a channel to attack others
• some video may be uploaded without others' permission, this will create the problem of privacy

Bus Uncle

It is a famous video which almost eveyone have heard about it. After the video has been posted on youtube, the rating of the video is high. It is about a conversation between a young man and a 'bus uncle'. The young man want to express his feelings of disturbing by the loud voice of bus uncle when he was talking on phone. After that, the bus uncle had a great response and the two men started an exicting conversation.

Bus uncle became famous among the media and it is a part of his interview:

Proprietary software and open source software

a) Is there any problem with simply using the products that these two companies(Microsoft and Apple) create for us?

• the software is not cheap at all
• the software has to be updated all the time
• we have to follow the rules or guide of the software
• we can do nothing to change the setup of the software
• some software of Microsoft cannot be used by the products of Apple

b) Why do some people choose to use open-source software such as Linux?

• the software is cheaper
• some people have the knowledge to access the code of the software, they can change the program easily because the code of the software is open to the public
• they can update the software by themselves
• they are more willing to share the software with others

c) Who owns the right to modify your digital tools? Does it matter at all? Why of why not?

Both the Microsoft and Apple owns the right to modify my digital tools. I always use the software of Microsoft to do my work. Also, I have use the products of Apple. As they are the proprietary operating system, I cannot change any of the content of the software because the code is not open for the public. Although I have no knowledge to do such changes but I think I am a passive user of those softwares. I must first pay for the software and follow the instructions of the software. I did not have the right to modify the digital tools. Nowadays, I think many products have to coporate with the softwares and many of them were not free. So the users like me were controlled by the software of these proprietary software because we do not have the right to modify the digital tools.

Amazing Sand Painting

What do you think so many digital artists choose open source software and/or operating systems?

Digital artists may have their own reasons for choosing open source softwares. As mentioned before, using open source softwares have more freedom. From my own opinion, artists may want to have more freedom and less restrictions. Because they will not want their art to be limited by many rules. With the open source softwares, they can do and change what they want without restrictions. It is more easy for them to develop thier ideas and works. And the space and range of their creations will be larger and wider. It encourages them to have more creative and outstanding works.

What philosophy is behind the open source movement?

• there is more freedom by using open source software
• people would like to share their work with others
• people did not want to be limited by others
• everyone can have the chance to change the works
• works can be changed to fit many people's preferences

Do you agree?Why or why not?

To some extent, I agree. If I have the knowledge to do such works, I would like to have more freedom to change the software in order to reach my own requirement for the software. And the contents can be changed freely if my preferences have changed. However, I did not have such knowledge and skills to do that. So I will choose to follow the rules of using the software. Although there is less freedom, it is quite good for me because there were already many resources in the software provided for me. I may change my mind if I finally have the skills on changing the data of the softwares.

Who is Steve Jobs?

Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955)

• American businessman
• co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc.
• former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios
• created one of the first commercially successful personal computers with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak
• the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface

• in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT because of losing the power struggle with the board of directors
• In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division
• early 2004, Jobs announced that the partnership between Pixar and NeXT will end once its contract with Disney expired
• in 1996, Jobs back to Apple Inc.
• the computer produced some famous products like Macintosh computers, OS X operating system, iPods, the iTunes online store, the iPhone

• MacOS X is a “proprietary operating system"

Source from: "Steve Jobs" Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Jobs)

Photoshop

Digital photography VS analog/traditional photography

Difference between digital photography and analog/traditional photography:

• digital photography is an electronic process where traditional photography is a mechanical process
• the tools for them were different; digital photography were taken by digital camera with memory card where traditional photography were taken by traditional camera with films
• for now, many setup can be done easily in the digital camera like lighting, but traditional camera is more difficult to do that, the environment is more important for taking photo
• digital photography can be deleted from the memory card easily but traditional photography cannot
• digital photography have less limited on numbers because it just depend on the capacity of the memory card but tradtional photography were limited by the numbers of films
• digital photography can be edited by some software like photoshop. Some effects can be added on the photo. Traditional photography cannot do such work easily. Special effects can only be done on the film directly
• digital photography can be seen on the computer but the traditional photography can only be seen after printing

Photos on 9 Sep

special effect??

Wikipedia VS Encyclopedia

Brief history of Wikipedia (search from Wikipedia):

• launched on 15 January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger
• the concept was came from Richard Stallman
• originally, it was a 'feeder' to the expert-written English-language encyclopedia project 'Nupedia'

source from: wikipedia in "History of Wikipedia", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia

Wikipedia (search from Wikipedia)

• a free web-based and collaborative multilingual encyclopedia project
• "wiki" means a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick" and encyclopedia
• it contains 13 million articles (3 million in English) which were written collaboratively by volunteers around the world
• articles can be edited by anyone who can access the Wikipedia website
• it is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet

source from: wikipedia in "Wikipedia", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

Wikipedia (search from Encyclopedia Britannica)

• "free, Internet-based encyclopaedia operating under an open-source management style"
• nonprofit
• it is collaborate with the software wiki
• there were more than one million articles in 2006 and more than two million in 2007
• it is an international project with many different languages, like French, German, Polish, Dutch, Hebrew, Chinese and Esperanto

source form: Encyclopedia Britannica in "Wikipedia", http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1192818/Wikipedia

Information Revolution

Short Video: Information Revolution


Technologies improved the way that knowledge is stored, created and shared.

In the past, the way to find information is mainly from books or some paperworks. It is time-consuming. To store the information is also space-demanding.

With the use of information technologies, we can search information through the internet. It is more fast and convinent. We can even know more knowledge because what we want to know can be found on the internet within a second. We do not need to search the informaion from different books any more. Just lilke the search engine, Google, just type a word you want and thousands, or even millions of information will be shown.

Websites, blogs can let people to create more information and at the same time, share more information to others. After an anticle has been posted online, many people can read and leave comments freely. If there is no restriction, everyone can share their own feelings. There is no limit for sharing. Technologies encourage more creation and sharing.

With the faster searching process, more time can be saved and it can help to improve the efficiency of work. So that technologies help to improve the way that knowledge is stored, created and shared and also help to improve the life of people.

On the other hand, information technology also bring some adverse effect. As it is easy to share things on internet, there may be some fake information shown online. Also, things post on the internet can be easily changed, it is easy to add or delete the words. So the reliability for the information online is uncertain.

What are some pros and cons of the internet and new computer technologies?

Pros:

• convenient
• fast
• it can search for different materials from different places
• help us to communicate with others easier
• it can use for learning

Cons:

• some computer products are expensive
• many products should be updated regularly, the cost is high
• there are virus, some data will lose
• there are hackers, private data will be stolen by others
• the cost for maintaince is also high

Hello

I'm Alison. This is my first post.