Are they human or are they machine? I think popping, especially in the robot and animatronic genres, is one of the most visually compelling art forms which represents human/machine ambiguity. It’s often almost inconceivable that the human body can perform such movement. From my non-expert point of view there seem to be common themes in [...]
I am not a number
A stray into identity and morality in the digital world. (Which can’t be accessed on iphone or iPad – yet!)
Week 1 – review
I’m curious about the rhizomatic nature of this course. In searching for an appropriate opening image, I happened upon the Rhizome Radar. It fired off connections with this course for many reasons including: the reliance on technology; the input of a physically disparate group of people; the visualisation of information. Hand’s commentary on the political [...]
Men are grown mechanical in head and in heart, as well as in hand. They have lost faith in individual endeavour, and in natural force, of any kind. Not for internal perfection, but for external combinations and arrangements, for institutions, constitutions, for Mechanism of one sort or other, do they hope and struggle. Their whole efforts, attachments, opinions, turn on mechanism, and are of a mechanical character.Thomas Carlyle
It appears that the concerns about the ‘threats’ of technology have been around for an awful long time. Here, Thomas Carlyle, a Victorian historian, commentator and staunch supporter of the working classes, warns against the ‘mechanisation’ brought about by the Industrial Revolution and outlines its effect on society. This quote suggests that individual creativity and [...]
Evil Edna and capitalism
There are so many avenues to explore in this film – the evil TV persona of the TV (AKA Evil Edna – a most obvious metaphor for the evils of technology); the waste; the creeping introduction of less than desirable content etc. However I would like to build on some of the ideas discussed in [...]
Consumption
Whilst i agree with Michael that ‘I find this disgusting’, I’m also struck by how this clip could be seen as a commentary on some of the themes of digital culture. There’s a (very messy) blurring of Michael’s identity – is he human or is he a game character? If we see Michael as a [...]
Evgeny Morozov – technology and revolutions
After reading Martin Hand’s Hardware to everywhere: Narratives of promise and threat (2008) in which he outlines themes of technological utopia and dystopia in western democracies. I thought it would be interesting to look at some views of recent political/technological relationships and came across this article by Evgeny Morozov on the Arab Spring. (Admittedly, we aren’t talking [...]
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