After class ponderings 9

After our discussion, I find that Pattern Recognition cares mostly for commercialization.  It is interesting that Cayce is allergic to Tommy Hilfiger but not Starbucks, as we talked about and also the kind of commercialization that is going on when she wears her 501s with no labels.  I’m relatively confident that most people can tell what are 501s regardless of a label simply by style, so I’m not sure if sanding off the labels is the best way for Cayce to treat her allergy.

Our discussion about the forum and footage cleared up a few things for me.  As I said in class, I would never call the footage art simply because anyone could do the same job that Nora was doing.  What made the footage noteworthy was the fact that Nora was braindamaged and could not express herself the same way her forum participants could.  I can understand Cayce not wanting the footage to be leaked to the mainstream because then the sanctity of the artist and the meaning of the footage would be compromised for Cayce. 

I think it’s equally important to point out how, when online, a person could be easily stalked.  Not that this is any new information to anyone, but I think that in a digital world in which Cayce was so comfortable and “at home”, she was easily stalked and almost manipulated.   Thus, I don’t believe that this footage could ever be held completely safe by the forum FFF.  It’s too easy to infiltrate and manipulate, especially online.

Pattern Recognition

What struck me most about this book is that it is set in the present though it has an extremely futuristic feel.  When I first began reading, I thought that everything was transpiring in a future world like that of The Diamond Age.  However, as I continued reading, it became more clear to me that the book was taking place in our time with things that should be recognizable to me.  I found myself asking myself how well do we, as participants in this generation, know what is going on around us?  I mean most of it, like getting up and brushing teeth (77) is normal and nothing new, but the fast paced world in which Cayce and Damian live made me feel slower.  Granted, I am not as comfortable with technology as Cayce seems to be, but I just felt like their lives were wound up by and in technology. 

Another interesting part of the novel was the attention Gibson spent telling us how Cayce enjoys living in a “design free zone” (8).  I thought that was intriguing because she is certainly the minority.  Today, it seems more people than ever are obsessed with logos and trademarks on their clothes, and very particular ones at that.  I can’t knock these people because I have a sick obsession with Ralph Lauren.   As a result, I laughed when I read the rant against Tommy Hilfiger who basically tried to copy the gloriousness of Ralph Lauren and couldn’t.  Tommy is a simulacra of Ralph who (I guess) is a simulacra of Brooks Brothers and so on.  I don’t care what anyone says, Ralph is a genius.  Anyway, with this logo hierarchy in effect today, I think it takes a certain strength not to whore yourself out for a label; case in point, Cayce.

I think the book is impressive in that it points out all the things we overlook in life.  The patterns if you will.  There are a million (it seems) ways that social protocol is shoved down our throats or willingly accepted with open arms and we don’t always notice it.  I think the most striking example and what I think is the crudest is at the end of the novel when Cayce picks up that piece of acrylic and there is a picture of the twin towers with the Coca Cola emblem emblazoned on it and the title We Remember.  With that cross merchandising method, are we remembering everyone who died in the towers or to drink Coca Cola?  I think this is demonstrative of the heavy capitalist hand in America and it seems that anything can be coupled with a logo to make it more marketable.  In the words of Parkaboy, it’s both a gift and a trap (22).

 

Annotated Bibliography

All of my sources thus far are useful because they discuss the interrelatedness of the network, media, literature and the book.  Much discussion is tied to us as participants in this shift from reading as we know it to something else.  Many of these articles call attention to how we communicate with each other and by what means and through what mediums. All of these tie into The Keep because of human’s dependence on technology and how that has come to squash imagination and how we, like the characters must deal with this.

 

Birkerts, Sven. “The Fate of the Book” The Antioch Review Vol. 54.3 (Summer, 1996): 259-270.

Birkerts discusses the importance of communication and thus, “communication is everything.”  Claim that there is a difference in structure and experience when reading or communicating via the network as opposed to human contact communication.  Definite shift of things becoming public and media centered.  Birkerts asserts that one can never be alone when online.

 

Blythe, Mark, Light, Ann, and Shaleph O’Neill. “Emerging Cultural Forms in the Digital Age.” Human Technology. 3.1 (Feb. 2007): 4-11.

Article split into conjecture on creativity, culture and technology.  Creativity shifts with cultural priorities.  Expression shifts with new technology and as communication becomes more streamlined.  “Sampling” and “mashing” techniques used with technology to create a new product from two old products; interconnectedness of the network.

 

Crispin, Jessa ed. “Interview with Jennifer Egan.” Bookslut Web Magazine. Dec. 2006 http://www.bookslut.com/features/2006_12_010343.php

Discusses human’s connectedness with technology and dependence on it.  Novel is a story about prison around the castle, told by a prisoner.  Egan notes “So often we are dealing with ephemera, and not actual people, and our measure of what it means to communicate is very different.”

 

Egan, Jennifer. The Keep. Anchor Books: New York, 2006.

The novel highlights our relationships with humans and technology.  Humans have come to rely heavily on technology as a way to be “connected” with other humans.  That connection is the relationship that has become front and center in today’s society.  With influx of technology and media in our lives, the network has infiltrated practically all spheres of society.  Novel calls attention to where the novel/canon lies in relation to the network and where creativity and imagination stem from with society’s new protocols.

 

Filreis, Al. On Frets About the Death of the Book  1997. 02 Apr. 2008 http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/sanders-etext.html

Article discusses the way electronic media alters the book and education.  Attention paid to an interweaving of media and book.  There is a difference in the “experience of authority” when reading books in hard print and those texts online. 

 

Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. The Anxiety of Obsolescence: The American Novel in the Age of Television. Vanderbilt University Press: Nashville, 2006.

Chapters of this novel deal fully with the concept of “network” and communication by and through that network.  Specific question of where literature falls in relation to competing technology.  Discussion of different mediums through which to communicate.

 

Hayles, N. Katherine. My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts.  University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2005.

Discourse on relationship between imagination and the network.  Attention to the specific protocol when communicating through the free network of ideas.  Hayles asserts that there are limitations of language in producing meaning as well as limitations of the code transmitting that meaning accurately.

 

“Jean Baudrillard.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Spring ed. 2007. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2007/entries/baudrillard/

In The Ecstasy of Communication, Baudrillard discusses how humans have become seduced by mass media, inhibiting creative thought and introspection. Post modern culture is a simulation of what is real.  Humans are becoming unable to distinguish between reality and this simulation.

 

Lawley, Elizabeth Lane. Computers and the Communication of Gender. 1993. 2 Apr. 2008  http://www.itcs.com/elawley/gender.html

Much of the article is generated towards gender issues in relation to technology.  However, great attention paid to the dehumanizing effect of technology on communication.  There is a “technological determinism” to exist outside parameters of scientific use and into mainstream culture and communication.

 

McLuhan, Marshall and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. Bantam Books: New York, 1967.

Due to the influx of technology, humans have become so lubricated by different forms of media that humans are taking shape based on the media.  Communication media affects us completely from what we think, act, and do. “All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered” (26). 

 

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.  New York: Penguin, 1985.

Emerging media controls how communication and content are carried person to person.  Language changes with new communication patterns.  The media influences how and what content is transmitted.  The medium and the means are interdependent.

 

After class ponderings 8…

I think what was most helpful to me about last night’s class was when Beth described her experience in reading Mark Amerika’s FilmText.   Beth had said that she suspended all her biases and went at Amerika simply to enjoy it, not “read” it.   In doing so, she engaged in viewership it seems, rather than the readership experience we would have when dealing with other texts.  After talking with Beth about this, perhaps we weren’t supposed to catch every single word, but rather weave the music, images and words together into something that works only when all three are bound together.  This is not at all what I did when I initially “read” Filmtext and is probably why I felt rushed and foundered my way through it.

I guess I can appreciate Patchwork Girl more after our discussion because I now understand that it is more of an acquired taste than something that is going to overtake the literary world.  I wouldn’t say I’m paranoid about the death of the book, but it definitely makes me a bit uneasy when I have to read text online, in any form.  Plus, I still argue that because Filmtext and Grammatron moved at their own pace, the reader had to change the way he/she typically read in order to be a participant.  I ran into that problem and I found that in having to curb or increase my speed of processing, I lost information along the way. 

The Kinder article was helpful in framing Amerika and Jackson, but like Lindsey, I used it in thinking about Diamond Age and Special Topics in Calamity Physics.  I’m currently thinking about how Murray may relate to The Keep, insofar as her discussion on videogames and how Danny became a different person when he was around technology and when he wasn’t.  So that’s where I am at, and brainstorming my exploratory draft!

Words aren’t supposed to move while I’m reading…

Well first of all, Katie must have loved Amerika with his references to Baudrillard!  Secondly, I now, more than ever, hate the idea of books online.  Reading has never been such a terrible experience.  My eyes kept reading things wrong on the screen so I kept having to go back and re-read and, though I feel I am a fast reader when it comes to actual books, I felt like the words/sentences on the screen went really fast and then they were gone.  I don’t like not being able to flip back easily and reference something.  I felt that this was a virtual reality of sorts in that I was definitely an outsider.  I really couldn’t begin to summarize what I read except that Baudrillard was in there and Amerika commented that many things in life don’t seem real.  Well, this whole experience didn’t seem real to me and it was creepy when Amerika said “I spread stories without even knowing it.”  That reminded me of diseases for some reason, I guess because of the phrasing, and it led me to wonder if everyone is able to access the same information at the exact same time as everybody else, are we all subjected to one another’s thoughts and ideas?  And if so, is there an off button?

I was happy to read Kinder because it was in hard copy in front of me with pretty white pages and black words that didn’t move or leave me.   I was interested mostly on page 4 when she discussed interactivity.  I understand that with online books there is different readership that is connected to author, reader, bloggers etc etc.  I guess that’s okay but it makes me think of fan fiction and where is the divide of authorship.  But anyway, then this reminded me of the Choose Your Own Adventure stories when you become a participant in the narrative like Kinder said.  I think that is important especially in children’s literature because it keeps one’s interest.  However, I don’t want to be sitting in my room reading pieces by Amerika and wondering who else is reading this with me, are they getting this more than me, and why are there all these links flashing at me.  I just think its stressful and unnecessary when reading a normal book is perfectly wonderful and beneficial.

Then I got wondering about hot spots.  Are hotspots the new text of social protest?  If so, I think they could be very useful in connecting people concerned with issues like global warming, women in Darfur and problems in the Middle East.  These hot spots seem to be unifying agents in a world society that seems very disconnected in thought.  But, with my lack of technological understanding, I may be putting too much emphasis on these hot spots.

As a side note, I think Murray is far too into technology and the way one should feel when interacting with/within it.  I think Murray was encouraging a good reaction to Amerika but I missed the boat on enjoying myself.  Overall, I just don’t see why a change in how we read is necessary and why these new means are better than what we already have.

After class ponderings 7…

Last night’s discussion was good in that it helped to frame up the entire narrative.  There really was so much going on, that to pinpoint the plot summary of any one story demanded at least a 30 second pause to think of what actually happened.   However, the discussion also made me question the piece more.  I think I find it more flawed than I did before last night’s class.

For instance, in this crazy age of technology, was no one aware of the Drummers, except those involved in the making of the Seed?  It just seemed like with all the technology and ’sites that everyone had in them, or surrounding them, how was that information never exposed.  I have that same question with the 60,000 girls on the boats.  How did no one know that Dr. X was planning and mid-execution of creating his own race?  There were a lot of caretakers on the boats as well…how was it ensured that they wouldn’t divulge the secret?

Here’s some more.  How was Hackworth able to communicate with Fiona while he was in the tunnels for ten years.  How could Fiona not have received some type of data that suggested he was not in a normal working sphere?   He was in a semi-conscious state for the ten years, yet was able to maintain conversations/lessons with Fiona that never alluded to his present state.  Weird. 

Also, Miranda with the Drummers at the end is still a bit confusing to me.  I understand her purpose there, to “birth the Seed” as Dr. Middleton said, yet I can’t grasp how the Seed is able to be used if Miranda ignites on fire and is burned to ashes.  Doesn’t the Seed get destroyed with her?  I think I’m literally just missing something here.

On a different note, I felt bad for Harv in the mental hospital scene when he told Nell to always remember that it was he who gave her the Primer.  That is suggesting that he was in part responsible for Nell’s success as an individual and future revolutionary.  At the same time, I wonder if it also suggests that Harv wishes he kept the Primer for himself.  I think he realized that he wasn’t going to live much longer and he seemed a bit wistful for another kind of life.  That, in turn, got me thinking as well.  What would happen if the Primer was given to a boy or if Harv had kept it for himself?  Would Miranda have bonded with Harv or was he too old to have benefitted from the fairy tales and lessons?  Was he already too experienced?

All in all, a very odd narrative that poses many significant questions about society and the capabilities of the individual.

The Diamond Age Part II

I think the most fascinating part of The Diamond Age belongs to the Drummers.   Their opening scene on p.255 led me to first believe it was a Jesus reference: “crown of leafy branches is twined around her head..thorns indenting her flesh…people surrounding her.”  But then, as the novel progressed, I kept going back to this initial scene.  The woman was willingly allowing her body to be used as a receptacle for the men.  At first, I couldn’t figure this out, but through Hackworth’s accounts of being in the tunnels and then when Miranda became the martyr/receptacle for the Drummers, it all became more clear, in my mind, at least.   The woman, as receptacle, takes into her body all the data and information that is unwanted and deemed disease-like and then is burned to ashes in order to destroy all that information, not propagate it.  Therefore, she is in a sense, a savior to the Drummers and to her followers, much like Jesus was.  I’m not saying to the same degree, but the woman gave herself to save humans from disease-like data. 

Therefore, when Nell finds Miranda at the end of the novel in the tunnels, about to have that ritual performed on her, Nell and Miranda switch roles.  For the great majority of Nell’s life, Miranda was the caretaker, mother-figure and nurturer.  She was Nell’s savior.  Miranda even spoke of her relationship with Nell throughout the book as comparable to “raising a child.”  However, at the end of the novel, Nell proves to be Miranda’s savior, as she rescues her from the tunnels and from impending death.

Nell demonstrates throughout the book that not only is her Primer different from Fiona’s or Elizabeth’s, but she has a different relationship with it.  Fiona and Elizabeth use their Primers for entertainment purposes, much like the Internet, YouTube, television and videogames are for this generation.  When they could not be entertained by their Primers, they could not focus at school, recall information, and became stagnant characters as well as people.  From their Primers, they learned action, not knowledge, which is why joined CryptNet and Dramatis Personae, respectively.  On the other hand, Nell, used her Primer for learning and to continue a relationship with her ractive, Miranda.  Nell used her imagination to travel through different lands in the Primer,  much like a Choose Your Own Adventure Story, but Nell’s response to most everything the Primer told her was “WHY?”  This is indicative of an eager mind wanting to learn, not be entertained.  As such, Nell proves her “otherness” by being the pensive child with the huge vocabulary and the experience behind her “feral eyes.”  She also proves the necessity of books in children’s lives.

Additionally, as X and Finkle-McGraw found out, family is a necessary component in a child’s life.  An entire race of children can not be raised on Primers alone.  The reason Nell is exempt from this is because Miranda, through the Primer was a mother to Nell, just not in the physical, tangible, traditional sense.  Similarly, Constable Moore came to father Nell while she attended school.  Moore, Miranda and the Primer provided structure in Nell’s life, which is what a family is supposed to do.  As a result of this, Nell was not at an extreme loss when all of her Night Friends began to fade away.  It reminded me of the child in the Puff the Magic Dragon song (child appropriate analysis.)

What I’m thinking…

For my paper, I want to explore how technology seems to have an effect on people that causes them to behave less humanely towards other people, nature and animals.  In essence, people become robotic in the physical and emotional form.  They are desensitized.  This can be traced back through history as well as through literature.  If the death of the book is indeed occuring due to the influx of technology, reading on the internet and hyperlinks, all resulting in a new kind of readership, will that create the same problem.  I think it will. I am thinking about the following works:

The Birthmark (Nathaniel Hawthorne)- wife treated as scientific project.  Tragic ends as a result.

The Tartarus of Maids (Herman Melville)- mill maids in Lowell, MA resembling the machines they work with.  Overseer doesn’t regard them as humans but as part of the factory system.

Convergence Culture- blogging about reality tv causes new online readership.  New type of communication happening here then with book clubs.  Role of authorship.  Transmedia storytelling in relation to fan fiction.  Who is the ultimate author/expert/authority.

The Keep- Danny uses technology as a crutch.  His cellphone and satellite dish are extentions of his person.  He feels disconnected from the world when he isn’t talking to someone online or on the phone.  What becomes real then?

Galatea 2.2- Powers, like the wife in The Birthmark, is an experiment for another person.  Powers is not regarded as a human but as a test.  Powers develops unnatural relationship with Helen. Disconnect with reality and desensitized.

The Diamond Age- humans become part machines. Unnatural relationships with pieces of technology.  Lack of safety.  Machines and technology overtaking people.  Zero sensitivity for other people except Nell for her stuffed animals because she does not know or understand technology.

 These are my rough ideas so far.  I feel there is a lot to talk about in relation to literature over the decades especially during the industrial revolution and presently.  Any thoughts are always welcome!

The Diamond Age=Awesomeness

There are so many neat things about the construction of this book as well as the interweaving stories, vocabulary and futuristic technology.  I think having multiple stories all tying together is important for a novel such as this because there is so much going on.

I think the whole landscape of the world has changed with the passing of time.  Now, in this setting, people are able to create their own islands complete with any type of living or inanimate things: “centaur”, “baby dinosaurs”, and a “road winding up another hill toward a ruined castle” (16).  That was just for Elizabeth’s birthday.  I thought the travel itself to get to this new Atlantis was remarkable, in that the airships seemed to be like cruise ships that flew just above the ocean and the lands.  Additionally, the people inhabiting Shanghai have found great convenience with using the M.C. to create in a matter of moments whatever they may need.  Nell and Harv used the M.C. frequently which shows that the technology is so streamlined that it is not even remotely challenging to figure out, if a person can read.  Additionally, the primer that Nell gets her hands on is quite the advancement in that the book not only teaches the reader, but coaches and encourages Nell to learn to spell and read.  I think that is useful because then reading is kept a solitary act, and the reader is holding the book in one’s hands, even if it does have a technological base.  People are still reading, and as demonstrated with Hackworth, many people are still reading the newspaper and choosing what they read from multiple publications.

While all the technological advancements seem extremely sophistocated, I think humans were turning themselves into robots.  This was clear to me when Bud was having the racting grid put into his head, or Miranda getting the impressive Jodie implant, or even the evidence expert for Judge Fang who was able to critically assess evidence in a matter of minutes, enabling Judge Fang to reach a verdict.  THough I think the technology is an exciting boost for assessing evidence, all the other implants seemed too over the top and unnecessary.  However, as Bud commented earlier, “media is the manipulator” and therefore, all these people felt the need to get the different implants to keep up with the social protocol of the time.

An interesting quote which reflects our generation is on page 48, the last paragraph where the corners of the fresco are outlined.  “The spirits of the past generations” is us, for we have seen all the things that are listed.  Plus, Hackworth, in a self-aggrandizing mood, believes that the spirits of the unborn children deserve sympathy because they haven’t known the capabilities of the nano engineer.  By this, Hackworth equates engineers with God, in that both have a crafting hand and are responsible for the rest of the world.

Additionally, this world also has its drawbacks.  Conversations constantly being interrupted by mediatrons is a continual problem.  There is also quite a bit of attention paid to the pollution problem.  Shanghai and Singapore are both depicted as having a thick haze in the air and there is the problem of mites.  Everything seems to have an air of a hazard and this world seems unsafe.  The only time I felt I could completely connect with the text was through Nell and her four stuffed “by hand” animals, Dinosaur, Duck, Peter Rabbit and Purple.  Nell is so likeable and naive and gives the reader a sense of humanness in this otherwise machine state.

After class ponderings 5…

Hey all-  I was really under the impression that I understood the majority of the book and that I liked it.  During class, I realized that not only did I completely miss a heaping portion of the book, but that I hate the entire thing.  All of it.  And, I don’t think Powers is all human because of his seamless marriage of literature and science.  I honestly found myself thinking about how much more I could like Pessl instead of Powers. 

The true showing of whether or not I understood something is by the quantity of note-taking in class.  I took copious amounts of notes.  That pretty much summed it up my lack of understanding for me.  I hate you Powers and your smug 300+ pages.

One thing that I thought was interesting was when we talked about how the author sometimes writes themselves into the work so they cannot die.  That’s a pretty good idea.  I found it appealing that Powers did not try to make himself look better through his character; instead he looked worse.  And in doing that, alongside his method of recursivity, I think he made himself a relatable human, insofar as we all need to go back to realize what we know and don’t know.  Aside from that, I find Powers to be a creepster with the ladies and entirely too obsessive with Helen.  (I would have shut off from him too.) 

I agree with Ester when she commented that Powers is trying to set up an unrealistic relationship between the humanities and the sciences.  This is apparent in that every experience he encodes into Helen chips away at his main arguments.  Therefore, I agree that this book is a record of self consciousness.