Writing Assignment 1 Steve Rushton

Flusser

Flusser's argument lies in the basis of the interpretation of human experience through epochs based around technological innovations. The 'pre-history' period relates to the time before the discovery of writing. The 'History' period starts with writing, as we are then able to parse our thoughts into the written word, changing from an oral tradition (feedback loop) to a linear model where events based on causality structure the interpretation of the passage of time. Currently, the technological innovations of the present have placed human experience into a new epoch, a non-linear representation of data that articulates our thought processes. This new epoch represents an opportunity for a new philosophy images, a departure from Platonic thought that distrusted the image as a simulation of thought – a now outdated principle given that the digital now represents models and projections and thereby extensions of our thought processes. The written word has become outdated in the sense that it is not complex enough to represent contemporary ideas. New codes (in the sense of the written word being a code) are being developed to represent this new paradigm. Furthermore, the implicit causality of language has also become redundant, where the data epoch allows for a rhizomatic structure to take its place. The complex within this novel system, however, is represented in two modes through technology. Fundamentally based on the interface paradigm, structural complexity obscures interior relationships and presents the user with simple control functionality, whereas functional complexity implies an inherent intricacy within discrete parts, each function accessible to the user. As each epoch in human history is defined by the technological relationship to the body, previously it has related to extending the mechanical functionality of the human anatomy, where here Flusser argues that this time it is an extension of the sensory aspects of the human experience, the nervous system.

Mcluhan

Mcluhan's ubiquitous statement that "the medium is the message" posits that the structural systems that make up the technology of information formulate the environment in which the data is transferred and in effect massively influence the interpretation of the transmitted data. The printed word, the transmitted television signal, the voice on the other side of the phone call, all become constituent parts of the delivery mechanism involved the transmission of information. Ultimately, these technologies have a far greater effect on society than any specific information they transmit. While information can change our interactions, the medium in which they are delivered fundamentally changes the scale of these interactions. For example, in the act of reading the user becomes highly selective in formulating the meaning behind each word and in turn this process effects the greater consciousness of the user thereby giving them greater powers of decision making, as practised through this process. Within television, the user becomes passive and is a receiver of a massively broadcast message, where the delivery mechanism of one to many influences the environment of communication in that the user has no interaction with the data. As a further example, artists create work in order spark an effect, where the information relationship with the viewer enacts in the form of emotional response to the work. Media (especially radio and television) are an extension of the human nervous system.