Community Response Week 10: cyberNETics

Many of us perhaps have gotten CAUGHT UP in the what without a thorough reason for the why. And, perhaps, I do not understand either. One blogger noted from a previous week that hyperlinks can be overwhelming. Indeed, that is the case with the lectures. However, they are necessary for understanding the genre.  MermaidGhost menti0ned the article referred to cyberpunk being connected by cybernetics. The identity in cyberpunk, therefore, is related to technology. Quite often, there is a blur between technological advancement and the human experience. In reference to Bobby’s dangerous connection to Chrome when Gibson writes, she was “a member of the local Mob subsidiary. Word was, she’d gotten started as a dealer, back when pituitary hormones were still proscribed” (140). In cybernetics, the human and the machine are a hybrid. If there is a strong connection between human and machine, then it should not surprise us/me (even though I do not understand what the story is about), that there could also be an identity forged between the human with machine. Identity is connected to the technology.

While we do live in the days of information, cyberpunk deals with those who are on the margins of society. Lemon Lewis noticed, “There was very little in the way of character development, and I had a hard time keeping the players straight,…and I couldn’t tell what was real and what was fiction.” Interestingly enough, The Cyberpunk Project declares, the genre “seeks to…break down the separation between the organic and the artificial” (para. 1). Within this break down, I was reminded of our recent study of cut-ups, mash-ups, textual intervention and collages. A new meaning is forged from what has been merged. MermaidGhost said that she did not see how the explanation of cyber punk has to do with the punk himself (ladies, I’ll exclude you from this description!). This aforementioned article breaks down the components of what a punk is- “criminals, outcasts, visionaries”  (para.3). While it is unclear to me, I get the idea of Chrome as one associated with either pornography, prostitution, drugs or all three (140). And Bobby went regularly to Gentleman Loser (136). Yes, I’d say this fits the bill of someone who is on the margins of society.

Fire and I.C.E.:

Through the various lecture blogs, I still know very little about cyberpunk. Therefore, I cannot speak intelligently about the stories, at least by plot line. I did not follow the story very well. However, I do understand a little about WHY THEY ARE WRITTEN. Perhaps the difficulty for me is to have the plot inseparable from what is being made. I would liken this to modern art without a ready-made. The focus is on the object, not the subject. Characters are usually subjects. In Cyberpunk, the object is the subject- not the individual. Or is it?

According to the article, “Cyberpunk as a Science Fiction Genre.” the genre is usually based around unusual characters who are deeply connected to their technology (The Cyberpunk Project, 2004). That is their identity. For example, If Bobby did not do well at Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics, he would chase women (129) (130). In William Gibson’s, Burning Chrome, Bobby and Jack are characters who do not exist without their matrix. And, of course, a matrix is an illusion of objects or people that are permeated with appearances. Little by little, therefore, the story’s purpose  makes more sense. Marshall McLuhan can help us. In The Medium is the Massage, on page 26, he states, “All media is an extension of the human nervous system- either physical or psychic.” One must remember that people create the atmosphere, and the atmosphere establishes a need for something to be generated. In Burning Chrome, it would be the matrix. Therefore, environments are created by society (marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/sayings, The Medium is the Message, 1974). The Cyberpunk Project says that the tension is between what is real and what is manufactured (para. 1). If people are marginalized, they are being pushed along by a social need- in this case, espionage or protection.

http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/scifi.html

The On Time Delay

With the recent talk of re/construction and de/construction, and de/construction round two, with recent textual intervention, collage , mash-ups and cut-ups, I am trying to make sense, and sense is being made in a few areas, albeit rather sparingly. The interesting idea about all this is the feverish attempt to re/create meaning. I have long since been disgusted by deconstruction, for its founder had a bash Western ideology ideology about him, so prowlingly, as if absolutes were things to be avoided and shunned. However, William Blake and Emily Dickinson brought out the art of duplicity, tension and satire. As long as ideas are not so antagonistic, I believe an allowance can be made for discovering other themes. For example, in Dickinson’s death poetry, is the theme about heaven or earth, or- (hard dash)- perhaps both at the same time? Or, there is a state of reflections about life when talking about burial, or funerals. There is an awareness of what is otherworldly. In William Blake Songs of Innocence, the exploration of other hidden truths is a worthwhile exercise. An instance of this occurs in a poem titled, The Chimney Sweep. A six year-old boy is looking up at the nine-year-old and says, ” ‘weep, ‘weep” instead of sweep, sweep. The intended sweep is a deliberate pun to suggest crying, for what we know, the reader, about history, is that the nine year old will likely die of lung disease of some sort. So when he speaks of “Jesus” or “Heaven” or “Angels”, the sad implication is he is referring to his impending death. Therefore, the “Innocence” is not so innocent after all. Something similar happens in Paradise Lost, when Satan appears to Adam and Eve in Milton’s epic. The tempter comes to Eve as if she has already sinned, or as if the anticipation of the fall, since we know it is coming, deceives our minds to thinking that it has happened before it has. I believe the term is prolepsis- the anticipation, in the readers’ minds, about what is coming, as if it is already there or has already happened.  Therefore, the idea of anticipation serves in a similar fashion to Derrida’s principle of delaying the absolute s temporarily. Why, though, do our minds go in predictable directions with certain texts? Milton was on to something with our anticipation of the Fall, because we are familiar with the event, unfortunately. However, this does make me scratch my head and ask if the discovery of alternative *AS IN OTHER POSSIBLE MEANINGS ONLY FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF FINDING OTHER MEANINGS WHICH DO NOT COMPETE OR SUPERCEDE PREIOUS MEANINGS) are valid or worth exploring.

In other news, with Lobsters, it was refreshing to see the technology being put to useful work to protect from problems at a macro- level.  While most of the reading was very difficult, and I did not understand much, the use of technology to benefit the characters was helpful. So much of what we use is either misused, mistreated, wasted or used irresponsibly.

Thank you, Mr. Walter, for providing an alternative reading.

For the reading of The Chimney Sweep, look for what is not equally as strong as what is. Below is a solid analysis of the underlining truth behind the “innocence” of the poem.

http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/blakes-two-chimney-sweepers

Participation Post Three Week Nine

As I was responding to a former blogger from Group One, I asked him, What if …my textual cut-up were the original? What if I did a cut-up as my original (blog)? Okay here we go: Actually it is a hybrid (sorry) of a cut-up and deconstruction, adding some nots in there to create antitheses of certain principles and laugh at bashing principals.

What if I were to do a blog on an original collage? If Group One, responded to a former blogger, what would they say? I have learned that nothing I have learned is familiar, and everything is alternative! What if the secret of genius is forgetting against whom you plagiarized? I have been made to feel good about who I have not been! I am a fan of creative-critical paradise, because it always winds up blowing in the wind as critical. Does anybody not see intervening in texts as an exercise in hubris? Is this political incorrectness> The alternative is the preferred!

Pope and the Counter-agenda Agendas

What you need to know about me is that I really am a laid-back fun-loving kind of guy. However, in reading Rob Pope’s Preludes, there is a part of me that sardonically says, Everything you have learned, self, is wasted. Everything that I have argued has an equally valid counterargument.  I hope that in textual intervention or cut-ups, that we do not spit on the essay or criticism- for in creativity, creative writing causes problems. Criticism is finding the answer- minus the s. Why is finding the answer something to be frowned upon? As a matter of fact, I have been made to feel bad that I am who I am (2).  However, what happens in intervention (of someone else’s writing)? Are we not looking for new meaning or alternative meanings? Meanings relate to answers (criticism). I thought deconstruction died many years ago. Evidently not. Part of the problem with deconstruction is that it kept falling on itself again and again. While Pope’s example of magazine advertising brings out the levity a bit more easily, other issues are more serious. In the fourth reading, “Re-writing Texts,” in textual intervention, Pope refers to intervention as a “hybrid” between the old and the new (112). This is a tribute to the old, at least partially! And again, in Preludes, Pope writes, “The emphasis throughout is exploring possible permutations and realisations of texts in and out of their original contexts” (1).  If one wants to recreate a text, why move back in to context? Stay out completely! Pope boldly asks, “What if the text were different?” (4). What write do eye have to change a text a round?!

Tech No! Community Response Week Nine

It was nice to hear that several (at least three) of you wrote on the inevitable issue of technology, or media, as McLuhan would call it. I would like to start with Kyziah‘s blog. She got my brain all riled up, when she stated that technology is used as an outlet for one to express oneself. Identity, indeed, is an important, inescapable in textual intervention, interpretation and reader response. And our identity is shaped partially (a big partially) by our environments (society).  When Kyziah warns us that we must be much more than gifted readers and writers, she is referring to the digital education we receive, within or without pedagogy. I think our learning and instructing is broadened in the exchange, due to media. In other words, we simply have more outlets. And if I am reading Kyziah correctly, the media culture is changing our learning, so we must adjust to it. Otherwise, we will not be able to learn with it.  I believe McLuhan emphasizes our involvement so strongly because everything is moving in this direction. It doesn’t matter if we like it or loathe it- we move with it or else.

Englisher12 rightly observed that technology can affect the classroom setting from the student’s perspective.  I have found this to be the case in my Strategies class at my institute. I think it’s comical that we use an e-book with all kinds of exciting gadgets. However, if the book goes down due to a technical glitch, I have to scramble to come up with a backup plan, loosely related to an assignment. Our cell phones have become distractions in classroom. Technology must be used, therefore, with caution and purpose. Anquasia, am I E-literate? In answering that, I told my wife I am using Scalar the Unscaleable! For me, it’s all about time and timing. I am a turtle in a hare’s world. However, this class is divinely provided for me, just as I am teaching a class with an e-book. I am learning while I am teaching. As a result, I move from fear to confidence. It’s funny that e-literate sounds like illiterate! Ha! Perhaps we need to be well-rounded (toward the future and back into history).

Now, Chris Davis and Digitize Rhetoric, your blogs were also thought-provoking when dealing with cut-uos and textual intervention. I love the way DigitizeRhetoric carved a path with the words and caused a literal distance. In reference to discovery, how is discovery made without attachment to one’s culture. I believe culture and interpretation are inseparable.  Chris Davis, this is a bit weird, but, what if we were to write a poem that we cut up as if it were the original?  That is, we wrote the original as the cut-up. Then, would there be anything subliminal or subconsious? It would go from covert to overt in a flash. What would Freud think about that?!

Why Now, How Later

Mr. Walter has done a great job of stirring our thoughts around with these recent readings (as of the last three weeks). No extra credit is needed!

I wish to provide in this blog the reason for textual intervention and reader response. What happens BETWEEN the reader and the writer is the reader’s response, whether it is a reader response theory or a postcolonialist theory, or subconscious hypersexual theory or whatever. The thought of the reader not responding, to overstate the obvious, is impossible. Rare are the days we just enjoy the novel without fitting the writer into a particular category or school of thought. Pope mentions Fish. I believe this is Stanley Fish, the one who critiqued the reader experience in Paradise Lost, speaking of prolepsis- the delay of action as if it were so, intensifying anticipation. In this case, he is referring to the fall of humanity. It’s as though Satan appeared to them in the garden as a tempter before the temptation actually happened. He argued that Milton set it up that way. It is at this juncture, though, that we, as Pope, examine another aspect of the reading experience: the culture (185). We are products of our society,  subculture, or ethnicity. This is why we are trained and counter-trained to examine parts of literature in a traditional way (a white way, which I thought was utterly ridiculous) or within a “black, women or minority” perspective (185). That is the beautiful and hideous nature of de-/re-construction, collage and textual intervention. As a culture, we have become restless. Certain groups of readers  actively look for alternative perspectives or hidden aspects within a text. The point is , whether its traditional or oppositional, both interpretations are done because off societal underpinnings.  These, according to Fish, as Pope mentions, are “interpretive communities” (185). Pope says that readers bring in their present history to evaluate text through a filtered lens (186). Writers too use their culture and set of experiences to the forefront with any body of work. Consequently, I do not understand why the departments of Anthropology and English are continually separated. I think the gap is closing quickly, and rightfully so. America is more and more pluralistic.

This brings me to Mark Twain. So much of his work was/is considered offensive.  Here is how culture works: Huckleberry Finn was divisive in society’s response to it. Some have rewritten to make it more user-friendly while others choose to permit it as freedom of speech or reality. Quite frankly, I believe Samuel Clemens intended for us to be speaking about unity, division, race relations, ethnocentricity, and so-on for many years to come. He too was teasing us about the ugliness of our own culture in the Restoration (Is that the right term?). And therefore, I, too, am pulled in both directions. I am offended at about how passive Jim was; and 2) We do not have a right to rewrite the novel. Let it offend us. It will improve our culture. What are your thoughts?

 

The Creatic

My mind has begun to wander in unintended directions. In ROb Pope’s, Re-writing Texts, Re-constructing the Subject, contradictions abound. Is interpretation invasive? Does it stalk restlessly on the ghosts of a stale tradition? Does it mock the spirit of the former by acting as a cut-up and recreating it in a new way? That sounds rather invasive to me. At the end of Mr. Walter’s recent lecture on re-texting, he leaves us with a teasing question, Why?. I suppose that’s for us to discover. The traditional writer as critic has always hung his/her hat on having the best interpretation out there in literary criticism. That’s what critical means- finding the best answer. Once the reader reads, the answers are out of the writer at that point. Therefore, is interpretation a plagiarism of sorts? Isn’t our deliberate spin on certain popular texts we put in comfortable genres, or rather, genres or schools of thought in which we are comfortable, invasive? I do not know the why- the motive- in which Mr. Walter tells us. What is the purpose in surgery and compositional restructuring of pieces in ways we prefer?  On page 112, Pope suggests that collage (the cut-ups) in mixing and rearrangement look for potentially important aspects of the story to juxtapose. By whose standard? If you are taking away the original context to create a new one, then who is to say which aspects are important in the original or the new effort? The instances and story lines between Chaucer and Walker remain very similar at key points. Therefore, why does the rest have to be different and the key elements remain the same?! Therefore, principles 6 and 7 are “problem”atic (108). In de/construction, the suspension of superior values delay the virtue and themes even that much stronger. When one pulls the plot back in, the superior themes (Yes I am occidental, and I will not apologize.) come to the forefront that much stronger. Emily Dickenson has structured her poetry in such a way that is very difficult to establish absolutes or deconstruction. In many of her poems, she places heaven and earth and the afterlife and spirit consciousness or conscientiousness at equal levels. Therefore the binaries are neither weaker or stronger meaning you cannot lessen or strengthen one, even temporarily.  In my humble opinion, I’m really not a fan of compositional collage1. Unless- we decide to re-write our own work. The key, here, is allowance. One recent article mentions the inconsistent and hypocritical standard of plagiarism’s terms. If we allow ourselves to take a passage and rearrange or omit certain phrases, the atmosphere changes. the classroom changes, because the instructor is the one manipulating. The act of re-texting is definitively creative. What does creative mean? One makes problems. Hence, we have a creatic. One who restructures something old to find something new. “Hybrids” though shoot the idea of deconstruction in the foot, because they are similar to the original ( 112). Deconstruction is not looking for any meaning. In re-constructionism, we are building new possibilities. I can hear McLuhan whisper or moan, from The Medium is the Massage, “Our time is a time for crossing barriers…for probing around” (10, PDF). What was familiar, though,  is long gone.

http://0-www.jstor.org.library.winthrop.edu/stable/10.2307/437045?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=deconstruction&searchText=theory&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Ddeconstruction%2Btheory%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff

Respondez S’il Vous Plez: The Mixer

Things are becoming foggier the more and more I read. Did I hear recent authors say that traditional composition is to be disregarded? Not necessarily. Did I read that modern media is exponentially better than an old-fashioned book? Digital archiving snubs out that idea. Is complex technology automatically better than something simpler? Is an automatic flush toilet more effective than an old fashioned kind, requiring us to pull the lever? I digress. This fascinating, intriguing essay from Johnson-Eilola and Selber, titled, Plagiarism, Originality, assemblage has raised some interesting questions and critical thinking determinations: Does decoupage equal cutting and pasting? Does a research paper mean a collection of secondary sources? Do secondary resources equate with plagiarism, since plagiarism constitutes something as not original?! Do ready-mades mean cheap art? Perhaps Du Champ’s Mona Lisa With a Goatee is indeed anti-art. The rest, though, is a bit blended. However, these articles have caused me to redefine or more carefully define these terms mean for us as educators and students. Perhaps I am yet again divided by my other personality. My creative side says that remixing former articles and essays is the work of genius! (380). Then, the honest cynic would respond, “The secret of genius is forgetting against whom you plagiarized!”  My creative side is almost persuaded when the authors say, “Performance…is based on something extremely limited and outdated version of originality” (380). This demands my contemplation. My terditional side would scream, “Go home with your anarchic, traditional face slapping, in the same vain as Ginsburg and Whitman. Hopefully, this has been thought–provoking and humorous at the same time. Either way, RSVP, SVP…

Saving My Face and My Education: How High is the “Low-Bridge”?!

Once again, these articles are fascinating and brainscratching. There’s so much McLuhanism here, that I would like to rename Michael Anderson either Michael McLuhan or Marshall Anderson! What the article, The Low-Bridge to High Benefits, is to discuss the advantages of interactive media to incorporate into Scalar. Anderson seem to put into balance two extremes within modern and traditional pedagogy. Those who fear technology prefer traditional literacy. Those who love technological media believe that it is absolutely world-changing. May I humbly piggyback on Anderson’s idea that both perspectives are extreme and rather flawed? (41). Both seem way out of line. That’s comforting to know, because I am one to be a tad on the scared side when it comes to things like Scalar. However, I know that when I come through a successful class (Right now, I’m in the middle of a big war.), my confidence in publishing or composing is going to soar. What keeps me going is to know that I have a purpose. To be honest, Scalar is terrifying.  However, I will conquer it in time!! What’s even scarier is that several times, Anderson talks about introducing Scalar-ic technology into the classroom as something that is rather easy to figure out. Uh-oh, there goes my confidence. How high is low? Why do I find it difficult? [You guessed it. I don’t mind being vulnerable.]. Several months ago, I did not know how to upload a link. What Anderson is seeing (for the most part) is the purpose behind education is exhilarating. The new model unraveled is technology/experiment/education or reflection last (43 ). I do not get jazzed at something like Scalar until I have figured oot how to work the toys. Needless to say, I have a well-written word woven  paper prepared for the project! Ha! I would lean toward an education that says education first/try some things/reflect on it or throw the blooming computer in the ocean! The latter is not the better principle. However, either way, the education is salvaged. When I do a Scalar project, I see the images and videos and links as supplements to the learning experience. For example, McLuhan (and Anderson) say that people create the environment, which establishes the media, which brings forth the interaction. (How COOL is that?). That’s what principle 2 is all about (45). If McLuhan saw the cool aspects of media mainly from TV and cartoons, how exponentially true are his predictions today?

http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/sayings/1965-hot-and-cool-media.php