11.30 Reading Response
Memes are such a powerful communication tool. As I was reading this, I was trying to reflect on the way that I read and process memes. There’s something about the static (often familiar, or at least evocative/associative) image and the disconnect with the text that forces viewers to draw connections themselves. We as readers are piecing the puzzle together, thus rationalizing or trying to understand it to some degree — even when the text or assertions are things we’d otherwise disagree with. There is also something about the way it’s presented on different platforms as if it is a joke, or something to “get.” I find myself trying, to not only piece together how the text relates to the images, but what the punchline is, to be “in” on the joke.
Unlike articles or documentaries, which usually ask reader-viewers to consider some sort of context, memes are inherently isolated and fragmented. It is possible for us to have slightly different readings of the same meme and for memes to thus take on different meanings over time. They are divorced from the original “source” material, but still impacted by it. For example, whenever a meme uses a Spongebob image, I will associate it with what I know of Spongebob characters, how the show makes me feel, the tone of the show, even though it obviously wasn’t taken from a Spongebob episode. Or, more darkly, out of context quotes by and references to racists and fascists placed on a Spongebob image, I am more likely to be “open” to receiving that quote. There is also something about the repetitive reference to, repeated circulation of elements of the meme that makes it feel familiar or relatable without you having to seek out context. Suddenly, I get “ok, these people think Stirner is awesome, this is a Stirner/Marx thing” and I am not necessarily inspired to actually look up Stirner to get more context. It is, by design, relatable, colloquial, and doesn’t ask for nuance or further research.
11.23 Reading Response
I appreciated the lessen on the lineage of the troll, but connecting the character of the 2020 troll to, say, trickster gods feels like a stretch.
In culture jamming we spent most of the semester parsing out the mechanics counter-culture creative strategies and the actual repercussions of such actions. I feel in that class we came to some value-based agreement related to meaningful structural / embodied / material change as being a goal for folks creatively disrupting the status quo in the name of “hacker” or “jammer.” If the prank leads people to change their behavior, seek further information, question the status quo, that can lead to real-world change. But, the troll as described, is sort of this shut-down mechanism, to discourage (rather than encourage) nuanced discourse, to limit curiosity and compassion. It’s harmful and destructive, and of whom? Power dynamics must be considered. Is the person trolling someone working hard to make ends meet or someone with significant political and economic power? I feel like this article strips a lot of socio-economic context away and doesn’t factor that into the question it posits about value and relevancy. Obviously humor and shock are worthwhile tools, but it depends who is employing them against whom and to what end.
11.16 Reading Response
I love the webcomic approach to disseminating this information. Having the naive cartoonist character was helpful, and I liked that they started with “self” rather than writing about it from a objective distance. It felt really relatable. Again, it feels like we’re given some, not enough, information and some, not enough direction. Like the call to action, really, is to spread this information to every person in our network. Or support education efforts in protecting personal data and data hygiene. Really disappointing ending. So much apathy! How can we combat!
11.2 Reading Response
I studied Sociology in undergrad, so I enjoy this kind of reading. I really appreciated the call for a more comprehensive, nuanced methodology of exploring today’s digital landscape. The approach as one of “materiality,” looking at the internet as a “colonized space,” contextualizing hashtags as “contagious objects” that have the power to “de-territorialize” the internet injected a lot of complexity in the typical way power dynamics of social media sites and users are portrayed.
10.26 Reading Response
This was a useful breakdown of some architectures. It allows me to envision how to use the web as a medium in new ways, because a lot of the architecture is otherwise “invisible” to me (ie: “this is water).
Are we still in Web 2.0? It seems that we’re still dealing with a lot of these concerns, particularly around data ownership, and the “conversational mass of overlapping communities” that O’Reilly imagined doesn’t feel quite as relevant anymore, considering the extreme silo-ing of communication and mass manipulation occurring through these services (ie: Facebook, was still in it’s infancy!). And yet, we are 15 years out from this writing. So much has changed in terms of data-mining, mass communication, surveillance, and how the web can be weaponized.
On a semantic note, I feel a little confused about “package” v “service” definition…. Because, as we’ve discussed in the past, web access itself is not truly open-source or universally accessible. And even “free services” come at a cost (ie: allowing data collection). I guess, I associate “package” with things that I buy — for example, Apps that are available for purchase, or streaming accounts. I guess in that sense Google Docs, then, would be a service. If you have internet access, you can access Google Drive and it’s collaborative editing capabilities (as predicted by O’Reilly). Signal and Slack I’m also thinking of as new “services” that allow collaborative editing.
10.19 Reading Response
The Garden Registry is a great example of using virtual services to make physical change.
10.14.20 Reading Response
I love this reading. It is a really comprehensive call to action for media makers (and data analysts!) today. It is critical, but energizing; realistic, and hopeful. I’d like to read the whole book.
I liked that the starting place is from where we should all start — a commitment to liberation (true, co-liberation). That must be where we begin from. It reminds me of the foundational texts from Third Cinema class; the medium is tool for something larger.
“Emancipitory designs are not only possible, they already exist”
Such a hopeful message — it’s about looking to abolitionists of the past to learn how to apply those strategies to our current context, which is still governed and limited by white supremacy and capitalism, just in more “adept” ways. This is particularly important today, when abolition has become a trendy term alongside calls for “Police Reform.” Just as Trump’s practice of family separation angered the masses in ways that engaged newcomers but overshadowed the insidious practices of family separation that has been happening for a long time (deportations and incarcerations, themselves), it is vital that we not take a flat, profile perspective of oppression today, but a nuanced, informed engagement that challenges all the slithering arms of the oppressive state.
This chapter also calls for not only conceptual literacy — a common language of liberation and what that means — but tech and data literacy for the average person who engages with this technology. This is so important and feels like such a steep challenge, because it requires whistleblowers and experts to disseminate information the layperson (myself, for example), doesn’t have ready access to (as the system was “designed”).
10.5.20 Reading Response
Wow! This is a dense reading. I feel like I need to read it several more times and annotate.
Initial thoughts:
Since the writing of this article, there have been decades in which capitalistic 1% have used media to further their interests and encourage an acceptance by “the masses” of the status quo. It does seem, from my limited perspective, that the “New Left” has not had the same gains in media control/manipulation as the capitalistic forces have. We are so far into this proposed scenario that it is challenging for the layperson to tease out how interconnected they are. And, there is a false/counter narrative that social media allows for everyone to be a producer when, in reality, much of it is used a la Society of the Spectacle to generate capital, perpetuate the status quo, make everyone “a printer.” People who use social media to educate and mobilize folks are often targets of censorship.
I was interested in the conversation around advertisements and not the invention of false needs, but the falsification of real needs. This is where media-in-service-of-capital has made so much gain. In The Great Hack, the documentarians explain how corporations such as Facebook collect data about people’s preferences and behavior, which at first glance seems cursory (“I don’t care if they have my data, the ads I get are more relavant!”). But, when used strategically, they are exploited to manipulate the media you consume, thus impacting how you think and behave. By studying patterns of human behavior and pleasure, Cambridge Analytica was able to make mass manipulations that had HUGE political consequences.
What Enzenberger calls the “New Left,” has made media inroads too, but has had arguably less control/manipulation of media. Tools like Signal and Slack allow for encrypted share of information, thus shifting real-world organizing tactics. And there has recently been some growth in the value of injecting pleasure, desire, meeting real needs, into social movements (adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism, for example).
Related concepts:
I was reminded of theories I read in Third Cinema and Culture Jamming, but this article was also somewhat counter to that. I realize it was written around the time of Third Cinema was becoming a movement — revolutionaries in Argentina calling for film and media to be used to educate the masses about political uprisings and a need to change political structures. Third Cinema has no one definition, so I think some theorists who practice Third Cinema would relate to Enzenberger’s ideas, while others would take issue with Enzenberger writing off populism and access as lesser priorities. It seems that Enzenberger is writing from more of a Western, colonizer perspective.
I think there is a lot of commonality between Enzenberger’s thoughts and the perspectives of some Culture Jammers — that a useful strategy is to lean in to the media as a medium (rather than shirk away from it), and that there is some “privileged” perspective that needs to be disseminated to awaken the dull, spoonfed masses (Culture Jamming was historically practiced by people with privilege within and access to the system).
9.21.20 Reading Response
Bush:
I love this reading — I read it in EM2 and have been holding onto the term “associative indexing” throughout my time at IMA. It feels like such a great leading principle for research and structural backbone for nonfiction work in general. Particularly since I find myself drawn to essay work rather than character-driven narratives.
This read-around I felt kind of sad reading about the great catalog Bush imagines. It’s so driven by pursuit of knowledge and scientific inquiry, interdisciplinary collaboration, with a desire for finding truth. It feels so optimistic and naive in today’s climate. Of course, much of this has come to be, which is promising. The internet has made it possible for people in all fields — and young people and laypeople — to have access to information that can contextualize and inspire new lines of inquiry and technological advancements.
But, the “logic” by which these machines think is not objective. Every inventor, researcher, coder, etc, has biases evidenced in the parameters of their logic, which governs the machines. And the regulators and providers of the internet (in the US – as explained in the second reading) have capitalistic agendas that influence the sharing, cataloging, and promotion of discourse. Rather than having a purely encyclopedic, academic, objective account of history and science, we have a much more complex network that is influenced and curtailed by power structures uninterested in or actively sabotaging such moral pursuits.
9.13.20 Reading Response
Forester:
I really enjoyed this reading, especially after the more academic Sontag reading.
So much about this piece was salient to me… The social norms discouraging curiosity. The idea that objectivity reigns, subjectivity is bad, and that in order to gain objectivity we must be far, far removed from what we observe. It ignores lived experience as meaningful knowledge. The elitist hierarchy that values “advanced thinkers,” a la academia, above and beyond practical, meaningful action, and criticism. The worshipping of ideals that is just as dogmatic as religion, though religion is ironically poo-poo’d. The adherence to algorithms versus spontaneous, unexpected thought. The prioritization of human brains over all else, vs. an interconnectedness with land, animals, histories. The systemic inability to dream beyond. The increased communication simultaneous with extreme siloing.
And to think it was written in the early 20th century!
Sontag:
My big take away from this article is the importance of context when viewing images. Sontag argues that, though we consider photographs to be evidentiary or convey some kind of truth, there are so many layers of mediation that it is impossible for there to be one reality in a photograph. Instead we must consider who took the photograph, where, what they chose to place in-frame vs. off-frame, where is the image now, who is it for? In her conclusion, she asks us to consider our relationship to “aesthetic consumerism,” to challenge the “mental pollution” we experience as “image junkies,” and perhaps make something more than.
This is a useful critique to consider as we begin working in web-format, which affords us some answers to Sontag’s critiques. We have the ability to offer more context than just showing an image, so that the viewer can relate to what they see/hear in multiple ways that may be affirming or contradictory. This also allows the audience to have a more active — or perhaps just more conscious — engagement with the work, because it requires some physical interaction to move through.
Emerging Media 1 