This week my blog has been focusing on the idea of the cyborg and whether the addition of superhuman parts makes them less human. Is this physical addition stripping the human of what Muris (2003) refers to as physical embodiment – the spirit, conciousness and identity? I don’t think that this is so as in essence it is the addition of a physical peice, but perhaps the person who has the addition to their body may experience feelings of alienation because of their difference to others? This may then effect their own feelings of embodiment with the part of the body that has been replaced? Pickering (2005) discusses academics carving up the sciences into human and non human and suggests the addition of non human to human creates non human. Pickering wants to focus on the interface between the human and non human – where they overlap. This suggests that the body part is not actually human if it is a prosthetic, however it is being controlled by the same spirit and conciencse that the other parts are being controlled by – so why is this so. What can be judged as human ability and what as non human and where is the line drawn? In the case of the Olympics size of the prosthetic affected what was classed as non human ability. “In a post-race interview Pistorius said it was “an unfair race” because Oliveira was wearing elongated running blades which added about four inches to his height and, more pertinently, his stride length.An IPC spokesman says the blades of all the athletes were measured prior to the Games and all were deemed to be within the rules” (a)

Is the fact that the body part is controlled by humans mind what makes it a human body part? The artist Stelarc experimented with the idea of the body as obsolete and allowed others to electrically control his muscular movement. If he were to compete in the Olympics but his body and muscles were controlled by others would he be allowed to participate in the “normal” olympics or the paraolympics and would it be considered as an equal competition?

I am not sure where this all fits in but my mind is going crazy with ideas and with the most conceptually difficult of readings

I have also been focusing more on the idea of the meme, which links in well with this discussion on what is and isn’t human. I have looked at he idea that the meme has an identity and this identity can be parasitic or enhancing. But how is the meme supported? Do we have an actual part in our brains which supports the replicator. And if so how human is the meme?

Muri, A. (2003). Of Shit and the Soul: Tropes of Cybernetic Disembodiment in Contemporary Culture. Body & Society, 9/3
Pickering, A. (2005). Asian eels and global warming: a posthumanist perspective on society and the environment. Ethics and the Environment, 10(2), 29-43
(a) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/paralympic-sport/9517576/Oscar-Pistorius-controversy-Alan-Oliveiras-blades-dont-look-right.html

This weeks blog has focused mainly on the film festival and reactions to the Mooc – my own and others.
The films helped revisit the ideas of utopia and dystopian societies, and linked with Bell’s (2001) idea of dronoeconomics, the suffering of the people building the internet and the capitalist control from the government figures at the top. Also the idea of re-finding the real world and introducing nature. Identifying what is actually important and what are the things we want to hold onto.

I have been reflecting on the enormity of the The Edcmooc experience, which was fantastic, very exciting but also very bewildering.

One of the thing I really enjoyed was the real time shared activities I felt like it reduced feelings of isolation and lack of purpose and direction. Twitter was very good for maintaining these links I also found it manageable as I could scroll back easily and see everything #tagged.

I liked the idea of Utopian and Dystopian futures from the films and as I discuss I decided to go with a musical representation a Sound track to the mooc based on the ideas of the sound track to the future as represented by the people on the course, I loved that people responded to my question and I really felt a member of community because of the interactions. Although the response rate to my twitter question and retweets from course tutors was limited considering how many participants there were on the course.

My original idea was to blend all the songs together to create a soundtrack, a mash up of the mooc. But I kept receiving ideas till late on Friday afternoon and the “song” I created was so rubbish and ear bleeding I decided I couldn’t make it public I was very disappointed, but think perhaps it was too ambitious, I felt part of something big and felt inspired to do something bigger than my capabilites!

I began to think of alternate representations of the information which I had received either as Youtube links or names and lists from tweets. It needed to be multi-model with varying entry points after the weeks readings identifying us as coming from various different starting points. I chose Glogster, It looked like a picture yet showed video’s, people could start where every they wanted, depending on their interests – perhaps they had heard of the artist before, like the image, liked the look of the band. They could listen to the songs and watch the video’s in any order as they were not linearly represented. The guest was then invited to vote for their favourite.

I liked what I had done, it was not what I set out to do but seemed to work
Perhaps I should have just used this:
The ultimate soundtrack to the future

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was struggling to think of how to describe what would make a perfect sound track to the future.
perhaps discordant, Jarring, ethereal, haunting, powerful, strong – even the words are contradictory

I wondered what other people thought would be a good sound track to the future and decided to use twitter to get instant responses.

Anabel Drought ‏@Edin_Ana
What sound track would you have for your vision of the future movie? #digitalartefact #edcmooc #ededc

I will compile a list and try to create a montage of the music or vote for the most awesome song!!!!!

@pete_wh – started the ball rolling

Dystopian Burial’s Distant Lights

Click here to view the embedded video.

Utopian Eno’s An Ending

Click here to view the embedded video.

@giraf87 suggested Koyaanisqatsi – “The Grand Illusion”

Click here to view the embedded video.

and @jar found Janelle Monae’s Wondaland creepy/catchy…

‏@dickvestdijk suggested #soundtrack for #digitalartifact – I ‘d like to make it myself, part music part spoken word, part silence. #edcmooc

So what’s mine? Grimes – Genesis – a bit cyberpunk, a bit future, a bit ethereal

Click here to view the embedded video.

Please leave your suggestions here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think as these are private sector companies the time would be made available, or perhaps a person would be assigned to creating the material for use in lessons and the teachers role becomes more of a deliver of material. I guess this fits with Eric Mazur’s idea of the flipped classroom – where the students / others create or research the information and the tutors just help when they need to move their ideas and thinking on

Bell, D (2001) Storying cyberspace 1: material and symbolic stories, chapter 2 of An introduction to cybercultures. Abingdon: Routledge. pp6-29. [e-book] [PDF] (To access the e-book, choose ‘UK Access management federation’ from the drop down menu and click Go. Log in with EASE.)

Through the cinematic journey we firstly focused on control and access to information eXistenZ: the restaurant sequence. We then looked at Toyota GT86: the ‘real deal’ which represented the idea of breaking free from the digital Worlds as though it was something we needed to escape from. Once the real world had collapsed we focused on the recreation of the old world in World builder. The focus being on the detail especially in nature re stimulating the senses. This then led onto the aspect of control that many of the films portrayed.Frightened Rabbit: I feel better – represents the idea that now with technologies help we have so many more choices about what we can do, but yet we still want to make our own choices it shows the character breaking away from the path that he is being led to and allowing himself free choice rather than predictable life plan set out before him

Jordan’s (1999)made a distinction between, Gibsonian cyberspace which is the purely symbolic version of cyberspace found in fiction and film;
and Barlovian cyberspace which joins together the visions of cyberpunk to the reality of networks creates a concept of cyberspace as a place that currently exists. The distinction is becoming less apparent as the reality of technology is becoming more and more actual as Bell (2009) quoted (Davis 1998) Counterculture has a way of leading and moving on technology into a direction in which it wasn’t initially planned, it is moving from symbolic and representative to actual. So the ideas in many of the films we have watched have actually become reality to a certain extent through the addition of a kind of subversive cultural movement.

The ongoing negative themes are perhaps societies anxieties about the future of cyberspace actualised through film in the reverse process that is moving forward technology?

Bell, D (2001) Storying cyberspace 1: material and symbolic stories, chapter 2 of An introduction to cybercultures. Abingdon: Routledge. pp6-29.

Davis, E. (1998) TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information
London : Serpent ‘s Tail.

Jordan, T (1999) Cyberpower: the culture and politics of cyberspace and the Internet,
London: Routledge.

This weeks readings have looked at the terminology and driving forces for technology in films and books, Bell (2001) suggested that counterculture was the force behind adaption and was influential in driving forward new technology.

This is evident in recent films which have shown “futuristic” technology which has then gone on to be made in real life
Folding LCD screen – Minority report
Exoskeleton suit – Iron man
Invisibility cloak – Predator

It also appears as though “gamification” has come into ‘play’ now and is the biggest drive in technology, mainly because of the revenue brought in from successful games and the virtual life experience of engaging with the technology.

top ten gadgets in movies that inspires and excites us | mikeshoutsmikeshouts.

Just watched the Hunger games – fantastic film yet such a disturbing view of the impact of social hierarchy. Two kids from a poor district competing – life or death against other children for big brother style entertainment. The game controllers deciding the fate of what challenges and opportunities the children happen upon.

Running man – Criminals are given the opportunity of freedom if they play for survival in a game show against stalkers who are sent to kill them. Basically a very similar premise to the Hunger games when a victim is forced into violence for entertainment.

Both films show a future based upon an uneven power balance and the worst kind of social control – ‘ the relationship between technology and society is bound up with capitalist modes of production and the associated political, economic and social relations which underlie capitalism’ Dodge and Kitchin (200 1: 26)
Hunger Games is death by equals under the control of a more powerful other and Running Man is death at the hands of professionals – which is worse? I think death by equals is worse as any natural feeling of bonding with humanity is lost or subject to condition.

Martin Dodge and Rob Kitchin (200 1) Mappina Cyberspace, London: Routledge.

Both great films that drive my fear for humanity!!!!

I loved this advert for the Toyota GT86. I like the digital imagery, the reminiscence of playing Grand Theft Auto and the Truman Show.

I thought it was interesting that it attempted to show a physical response of goose pimples in the digital characters, yet acknowledged of the lack of emotional feeling in the digital world.

It supported the idea of Escapism from a world we are not actually in – a false reality “Once you feel it, there is no going back”

It also links into the idea from the other film as part of the film festival – World Builder – creating real from unreal

The attention to detail in the World the man made for his girlfriend was based around making real the unreal.

The man goes back to the flower, knowing the women would linger over it and adds further detail, other than just appearance. He adds the things that make it real – the scent, the attention to colour and the way it springs back.

This fits with Johnstone (2009) linking the metaphors of the Internet is destruction with the Internet is salvation metaphors. The film showed that technology was able to “perform saving acts” to recreate positive memories for this women in comatose state.

The suggestion is that Utopia is associated with real world, nature, slight chaos, freedom and dystopia is control, machines, order. How far do we go in making the world unreal before we choose to make it real again?

Johnston, R (2009) Salvation or destruction: metaphors of the internet. First Monday, 14(4). [web site

I have been focusing on the idea of Utopian and Dystopian societies through film. Having recently watched Hunger games – a fantastic representation of a Dystopian society. Pitching people against themselves, with an outside agency controlling the situation to make better entertainment.

There are many films which represent dystopia, and it is usually control by society on the individual and the fight the individual has against it. It is a very popular genre of film, and focuses on what is real and what is unreal. The usual outcome is nature overcomes everything.

I began to think about films which represented a Utopian society, this is more difficult……………..
It appears that Utopia for some is dystopia for others, and the representation of a Utopia come from an escape from a Dystopian reality.

How does this relate to digital culture?

Well many of the Dystopian films are based in the future and rely heavily on the addition of “Technology” to represent the future. They show an inevitability of what will happen when people have power and control that is separated from actual real world real self interactions. There is an implication that people want to break free or find the real or replicate the real rather than an enjoyment of the being – suppose it wouldn’t be a very good film if everyone was happy and went about their daily lives incorporating technology to support them in their day to day!