how stupid is this: the library is only open from one to five on Cup Day. this is right in the middle of exam/essay period. and instead of opening in the morning and nicking off to Cup parties in the pm, they're open during the peak socialisation/racing times. so I can't pop over in the morning and grab my books. fools.

just a thought: could the graphics/human factor split in VR be analogous to the phenomenology/existentialist debate a la husserl V Heidegger?

and do I have the knowledge to make that point coherently?

books to find and look at:

Popper’s original writings on theory of three “worlds”

Jay David Bolter writing space – is it relevant to this essay?


things to find in readings and quotes :

ideas on how technology mediates presence and how vr is or is not a limitless environment.

the “there’s no there, there” quote

“consensual hallucination” – Gibson

definitions/good writing on intersubjectivity. problem of other minds?

did phenomenology focus on stuff or the minds themselves?

was it Derrida who said the reader produces the text?

husband is nicking off with the laptop for three days, so I won't have a computer unless he spends the next two hours setting up the desktop.
so I'll just bung my latest drafty thoughts here in case I need them.

essay framework



interactivity: factors and definitions.

what is interacting with what? the human with something else (at this point at least)

we can interact with (see the theory of three different worlds)

-other people
-machines (computers)
-the natural world

does interactivity require intersubjectivity? is it/would it be different with intersubjectivity. is it more “real” with intersubjectivity? why?

key terms to define: presence and telepresence.
telepresence: other people can be “here” or we can feel ourselves “there” (and how is there a “there, there”, anyway?)
sub-topic: how presence is mediated by technology (see reading that suggested tech was an unlimited world: find quotes on this)
technology issues around telepresence are basically media issues. the “media” of telepresence can be:
- print-slash-textual, ranging from sending a letter to participating in a complex mud (see early readings, my essay ),
-visual/avatar based, like video games
-verbal/aural
-haptic and other futuristic interfaces.

where does telepresence “happen”? in cyberspace? if cyberspace is a “consensual hallucination” then it is really inside our heads, isn’t it?

another key term: interactivity

not really room to go into the full literary theory on interpretation here (but make some passing references).

there is (reference) an argument that interactivity exists in even the smallest act of interpretation. perfect “communication” can only exist in a noiseless environment. computers may be capable of it, within tightly defined parameters, but people aren’t.

so interactivity is integral to human communication. we can’t filter out noise, or define our terms as closely as computers do. instead, we set up feedback loops to maximise the level of shared understanding.

this is where intersubjectivity comes in. we can’t know for sure there are other minds, but we can act as if there are (see Andrew’s mind book again for this one)

by cheerfully assuming other people are real, we open the way to discussions about the world we find ourselves in. Heidegger said this tendency to be aware of our existence made us “dasein”, that for which its existence was an issue.

by doing this, unlike the phenomenologists he refocussed the question away from what the world objectively was, to how we actually interact with it, what we are within it.

the computer-mediated world (or Popper’s “third world” of artefacts) is no different. we, in our basic existence, are no different when we’re interacting with a moving cursor to when we’re walking down the street.

and it’s these pre-existing tendencies that determine how we experience interactivity.

interactivity is not something that can be defined as, say, “an application or Web site that allows the user to change things within it”. if those changes are predetermined (and the user knows it), it’s not really a world, but a series of rules.

but many interactive (computer-mediated) experiences do have that characteristic of allowing the user to affect what appears on the screen. it certainly helps people feel that they’re interacting.


to go back to the earlier literary theories of how the user (reader) “interacts” or “produces” the text (is this Derrida) – we have to ask if there’s a line that’s crossed, or if it’s all a continuum of the same thing.

the factors that might exist in an interactive “experience”, to greater or lesser degree, include the control you have over:
-what actions you can take (in a modernist novel, none; you’re supposed to read from front to end. in a massively multiplayer game, if you do nothing, nothing happens)
-your world (in a modernist novel, a little, in that you imagine the setting. in a “realistic” animated movie, like Final Fantasy, almost none)
-other actors: that might appear to be sentient, or might not.
-your avatar, if you have one.


from a manual on how to assemble a piece of furniture, which is supposed to provide almost pure information subject to no interpretation whatsoever, through to a modernist novel like … that claims to completely “tell” the story, to a self-conscious and knowing “interactive” book like Pale Fire that encourages the reader to skip around, to read the book out of “order” and to actively question the truth of what is on the page – in effect, to construct their own meaning, although itself a carefully predetermined one, to the “interactive” cartoon that lets you choose which character’s perspective you see the action from (reactive.com.au) to say a TV show that takes “votes” from viewers to create the impression they are participants, to a text-based environment where they write the spaces, to a massively multiplayer gaming environment where a player takes on the role of a soldier on a battlefield - all these are interactive.

the common factor, it seems to me, is that the person taking part makes certain assumptions or accepts certain “hallucinations” about the world of the book/tv show/game.

the interactivity subsists (??) in the engagement of a human being with a world.

and (reference to movie-theatre theory guy) that belief or hallucination is not dependent on the quality of the graphics, but the quality of the concepts involved.

this is why the Turing test is of enduring interest. it strips “human” down to the condensed or mediated content of a mind, via words.

a robot or wax figure that looked and moved exactly like a human is entirely unconvincing if it can’t have an argument about the football. Alice (reference) is interesting because she pretends to live in the same world as us.

Hairy Mclairy from Donaldson’s Dairy engages kids more than a photograph of a real dog.

so, the logic goes: interactivity and intersubjectivity form a loop. you believe in one, it creates and strengthens the illusion of the other.

it’s oral in that ti’s aobut doing something to someone, and being “done-to” by a real or imagined someone.

whereas writing and reading are “cool” and set us back into ourselves. so reading a book online is nowhere near as interactive as killing someone online is.

therefore, interactivity is not essential to what the web is. you can have a web site that is barely interactive. but a site that isn’t interactive really is just a new medium channelling and old one (reference: mcluhan?)

it’s not doing anything interesting.

link-based writing (hypertext) is as predetermined as Pale Fire. it’s not doing anything new for the reader.

link-based writing (blogging/publishing) however, is a form of “reading” that allows us to create and control our own virtual world, defined by what we link to.

in that sense, self-publishing is a form of interactivity, in that it lets you control your world.

things that work online: sex. communities. some shopping, but mostly that which simply channels real world shopping. books work – you can show content – but clothes don’t.

because the web is a set of computers, and because computers are virtuality machines, it’s hard to see what it really does.

it’s highly transparent. at the moment we can say it’s something we access on PCs, but even PCs are not perfect computers, virtuality machines.

as the interface disappears, we’ll be able to see more clearly what the Web is actually for.

the real question is: is it new? if interactivity and intersubjectivity, the illusion of realness, is what it does, and we already have that in RL, then it’s a kind of parallel, cyber-interactivity. what will we use that for? to be the same humans, just in a superficially different world?

and to make an appt to see darren.

and I need to meet up with grumpy girl sometime. she's straying into that territory of self/voice/authorship that interests me about blogs. not that that is what my essay is on; that's for a future subject, or more likely my thesis.

I think I'll have to stop all other reading and get serious about attacking this, even if there's only half an hour or so. my new due date is November 18, and I'm assuming an e-filing is OK. so I have up to nine free days to do it. it's 3000 words, half a masters' subject. I guess that's do-able.
so this blog will henceforth be filled with all kinds of irrelevant bits and pieces, as I try to fumble my way through chaos to order.

essay writing step one: panic.
step two: ask for extension
step three: waste extension period
step four: panic again
step five: sort out papers. realise there is no order
step six: hope it will work itself out.



and I really need to pass, or my employer won't refund half the course fees.
also need to apply for some leave next year so I can re-enrol in two subjects for Semester 1, 2003.

I know all the relevant notes are in my blog, my notebooks etc; I just don't know how to bring them together. I also know there are several more books I need to get/read. the first being Jay David Bolter, I think.
so I need also to get to the uni bookshop, or maybe Readings' in Carlton. and I need to have enough pre-writing time to actually do the reading.

aargh.

but now I have a commitment to go out for dinner. it is Saturday night after all.

reading notes: Benedikt.
strikes me that the more I read, the more different models of cyberspace and being I have to grapple with.
he's used Karl Popper's theory of "worlds" which I hadn't come across before. I think it's all a bit tenuous. plus it seems to subscribe to the "objective world" theory, and I'm much more interested in the world-as perceived. and Benedikt seems to overlook that cyberspace is not pure data, but highly mediated by technologies - whether you call that "the real world" or just a restraint - and is therefore not some utopian realm where anything we can imagine, can be.

I do like the idea that a good cyberspace will free us up to appreciate reality for what it does best. a kind of return to nature and the humanness of being human thing. that idea of new things helping redefine the real essence of the old is a useful one.

but that's only the first 3 pages. and I woke up at 5.30 am - damn sunrise! - and don't think I can read more right now. yawn.

class report: got my first essay back. got a D for distinction. couldn't read the comments on account of Darren's handwriting being so awful and in red pen.
essay proposal below is apparently OK.
spent most of class supposedly being in an online virtual space, ie hanging around in a lame online "irish pub." but got to come home early. bonus.

Hi Darren,

my essay idea is currently about four handwritten foolscap pages long and in serious need of refinement.

but basically, I think I'd like to tackle a version of question nine: "How essential is interactivity to new communications environments such as the World Wide Web?"

from an angle along the lines of "how does interactivity make it a different medium, how does interactivity create engagement in people, and is interactivity the defining characteristic that makes the Web (Internet?) different from its predecessors?"

the sorts of things I've got down to look into are: what constitutes interactivity and how do different media fulfil those criteria (on this, I'm thinking of a kind of grid with examples on one axis and characteristics of interactivity on the other, so it might start at a novel like Pale Fire and go through an oral performance, a movie, a virtual community, an online shop, a multiplayer game; though this is really just first thoughts).

then I'd like to trawl some of the consciousness/philosophy texts to sort out why people seem to like interactivity, how it creates a sense of intersubjectivity, again how different media satisfy that need (perhaps something on McLuhan's hot/cool media), and how Internet-based media can respond to that (does it matter if you're playing a person or a bot in a game? why do we get so hung up about the Turing Test)? this would also go into that stuff about whether "real" virtual reality is better made by having great graphics or great stories/interactivity.

then look at how previous media might be the "content" of the Web and where it differs - eg it has plain print-style pages, but are they made any different by being put online?

I think a lot of it might come down to the Web/Internet being, because they're accessed via computers, virtuality machines - more complicated than any medium before, but also more capable of being transparent and simulating/supplanting "real life", and interactivity is/is not essential to that. of course there's some stuff about new interfaces that would have to go in there.

don't have a whole lot of references to get into yet, apart from the set readings, a few consciousness texts, plus McLuhan etc; I'm finding a few Web sites about this and maybe in a week or so could consult you on where I could draw material from.

does all that make sense? it's very preliminary but it's stuff that I'd like to get straight and I hope can pull together in the essay. I'mh appy to talk by email if you like, or maybe over the phone during the week; maybe after I start shaping it a bit more I could come and see you if there's stuff to sort out.

see you Monday,

Jenny

after a quick 45 minute brainstorm on essay topics I typed interactivity subjectivity web medium computers into Google and got this thesis page. 'nuf said.
now I just have to: sort out references. find other writings on the Web. fix my blog. write 3000 words. easy.

an interactive comic in Melbourne, also stolen from grumpygirl

things to do on the blog: make a list of regular sites to check.
make better links to permanent resources

a thought about the problems of Web research; you end up with lots of links and lists of links, but it's hard to know where to finish, and sometimes we're all just talking about the things the others are talking about.
not exactly a narrative problem, but a hypertext problem; is there/will there be a sensible way to approach hypertextual documents, of which the Web is one big document?
blogs seem to help. maybe Ted Nelson has the answer. I just wish I could understand what he's saying.

some thoughts about the nature of voice and story on the web. stolen from grumpygirl, whom I really must meet sometime.

but the interesting bits are interactive. it's certainly essential to it reaching its full potential; the diy web is the good bit.
not that the e-commerce etc aren't interesting, and aren't paying for it to be built. and then there's cybersex...

key points drawn from questions: text. what is communication really? how things compare to how they used to be. how do things compare to/interact with "reality"?

q 9: how essential is interactivity? it is and it isn't. for those parts that are like tv and radio, it's not at all. for online gaming, it is. b/c the web is the computer of communications devices; it is a virtual space and we are moving to ways of making it just like rl.

HAM 517 CULTURAL CONVERGENCE

SUGGESTED ESSAY QUESTIONS


As I have suggested previously, these are merely suggested topics. I am eager for people to formulate their own topics in consultation with me. However you may choose one of these, or alternatively modify one to suit you particular interests. Regardless of which option you choose, I will be consulting with everyone in due course to discuss an essay plan.

1). Critically evaluate the contention that writing is the foundation of cyberculture.

2). Critically evaluate the contention that writing forms the basis of the new on-line
communications environments made available by formations such as the Internet.

3). Communications theory emphasizes the importance of the interplay of the senses in
any given communications environment. Discuss McLuhan’s “sense ratios”, or Ong’s “
“sensorium” .

4). Take any example of new media we have discussed (hypertext, virtual reality), and
comment on the ways it alters our sensory engagement with the world.

5). Take any concept we have discussed (telepresence, hypermedia, post-symbolic
communication) and critically evaluate its contribution to the field of communication
studies.

6). Evaluate any example of new media in the light of McLuhan’s contention that the content
of any new medium is the work of an old one.

7). Will humans inhabit a “city of bits”?

8). Critically evaluate the viability of on-line communications spaces (such as Multi-User
Domains) as new forms of social interaction.

9). How essential is interactivity to new communications environments such as the
World Wide Web?

10). Will humans ever transcend speech and text as fundamental modes of communication?
Is “post-symbolic communication” possible?

resources for electronic authors, via Jenny Weight (geniwate)

my favourite piece of net art from tonight's site: rice

net art thing

is game design obsessed by space?

stuff

chris crawford

The Electronic Labyrinth; looks chock-full of good stuff.