User:Eleanorg/Journal 1.1

This is where I talk to myself and put my research.

19 Oct 2011

Great writing session today, watched 'A Communications Primer' from 1950s. Fascintating, seeing such an early example of the whole of society being recast in the language of connections, feedback etc. ( Notes here) Detailed discussion of 'noise' - interesting in context of skype pictures I was looking at yesterday. Noise as anything which interrupts or distorts a signal on its way to the reciever. Examples given in the film included quality of light, even mental distractions or prejudices. Would distance count? Nowadays, signal quality is good and noise isn't 'heard' or experienced as often. That's why the skype pixellation is fascinating - one of the few, heavily censored, hints that the person you're talking to is actually a long way away. Some kind of yearning for that physical trace of distance, now that the illusion of seamless contact is close to a reality. The way analogue systems become cool again as soon as they become obsolete.

Makes me think of Michael's session the other day and our discussion about how to translate analogue items/acts into digital metaphors. Sometimes you can't, or when you try, the metaphor is ridiculous (like those early 'computer desktop' visualisations). Sometimes in order to 'accurately' translate you need to choose different words, with technically different meanings. Link to translation between languages. There must be some productive parrallel between the distance between countries, and the 'distance' between their langauges, the space that translators cross.

<idea> Translated songs? Trying to link physical distance with langauge difference with digital difference?

Gonna go down to the Maritime Museum to try and get more concrete ideas on where to situate these ideas. Specific people, places, rituals or objects that I could 'hang' these ideas on? Concrete, personal, or historical.

18 Oct 2011

Have started organising my research a bit on the wiki. So many different strands. Maybe solidify them a bit, pursue each one a little and do some mock-ups or something, then leave them for future use and chose one to run with this semester. Key themes/interests:

Distance & Imagination

Imaginary/automated friends Physical distance in a digitally connected world

Copies & Originals

Fragility of data, bitrot Copyleft, compromised texts

Gender & sexuality online

Porn, censorship Intimacy?

Looking at these three key interets, they're not so unrelated as I thought. Linked them in my dissertation. Maybe just keep poking out my tentacles, following my instincts. Research seems a bit too random at this stage, worried that it's spread out too much. But maybe not. Just feeling my way into this new world of computery things, following my nose.

FAKES & HACKING Spammers imitate real pages - my twitter account got hacked by a scam that imitates the real twitter to get login details. Funny how we think that the internet obliterates the notion of an 'original' - but authentication has become an important part of working online. Verifying login details, signing emails. What was that article about how trust used to be the default; now trust has to be earnt (status on forums etc)?

Paper originals have been replaced by URLs.

The experience of having your account hacked is interesting. Think it's the first time this has happened to me. You could see it as a kind of (involuntary) surrender of the ego.

<idea> Some kind of tool which allows you to surrender control of your online identity for a given period <r> the art project that took over ppl's online life for them. other projects playing with surrendering identity online.

Links into concerns from my BA - merging with ppl, eroticism of net's ability to erase boundaries. Blur identities into one another. Bot as a parasite, leeching off of me. I could still login to my twitter account while the bot had access; we could 'share' my identity. How to make this into a project without the sharer degenerating into piss taking? <r> 'Fraping'

Freaky that you can have your online identity 'managed' - but I guess it's just the modern face of PR. Sickening euphemisms about removing 'inaccurate' content about you. I got one of them to scan for my online reputation; it muse use a list of negative keywords which are then highlighted when they come up. Interestingly, the site I did for Oxford Rape Crisis came up as a negative result as it contained the word 'abuse':

Thinking of long-distance love affairs - linked to all this online identity stuff because when someone is distant, textual traces of them are substituted for their actual presence. (Whatever 'actual presence' means.) Still the most interesting theme for me; what does distance mean nowadays? Link sea shanties to skype.

<r> Parting folk songs; Uk / Dutch examples?

{{#ev:youtube|exjJjDN8d8U}}}}
Here's the same Farewell Shanty, sung by a bloke from Oxford! {{#ev:youtube|n9W6rXvp7g0}}}}

11 Oct 2011

First command-line session today. What I learnt:

How to write, correctly store and make executable a shell script
Some basic sh syntax
Use of variables in shell scripts, including $1, $2 etc for variables drawn from arguments
How to execute a script you've written and give it arguments
Refresher on while loops, for loops and if statements
Very brief chronology of computer interfaces, incl. what the 'terminal' originally was
The difference between a terminal emulator (the visual interface) and a shell (the text syntax used in the terminal)

Had a couple of ideas during the day for possible projects:

- Why are free software websites all so hideously ugly / stereotypically 'male' looking? Joke project (firefox plugin?) to change the CSS of these websites to make them more 'feminine' looking

<r> Bitrot - Aymeric mentioned that, ironically, cardboard punch cards are more durable than software and easier to archive. Intact punch cards exist from 50 years ago, but hard to run software from even 20 yrs ago. What are the technical reasons for this? Would love to interview Grandma K about punch-cards she used during the war. Could make some kind of homage to her with the modern equivalent...? (Also brings in gender element, women in warfare etc...)

6 Oct 2011

Reading Neal Stephenson, "In the Beginning was the Command Line". Interesting note on language as a good system for breaking down into bits. I chose text instead of images for this reason in "Open Sauce" - you can go down to the level of pixels, but it's harder to scan for them, break them apart & rearrange them. Computers and written text seem to have evolved together, so work well when combined. Rearranging. I like this. Rearranging and the limits on rearranging - the issue I was looking at in Open Sauce. Continue down this line, the huge clash between the ease of reproduction/manipulation of data and the regulatory impuluse to limit this flexibility - legally or physically (DRM etc). Linking to the way subjects are similarly controlled (border police, etc. Several tech projects addressing this actually - Hack The Border etc). Limitlessness and limits. Clash of cultures/ideologies. "We come from the Internet...."

Reminded of Fako's talk about the limits of software - is it right to think of computers as enabling a limitless reconfiguring? It comes back to the question of hardware - with enough computer power (read: money; read: political power) you can erase limits. Or appear to. (Brute force attacks)

Brute Force is a resonant phrase. Over and over. Don't ask, don't get. <idea> Some kind of program that runs through chat-up lines....

<r> Brute force attacks

Interesting quotes from Neal Stephenson essay: "Nothing is more disagreeable to the hacker than duplication of effort." "(the richer tourists at Disney World wear t-shirts printed with the names of famous designers, because designs themselves can be bootlegged easily and with impunity. The only way to make clothing that cannot be legally bootlegged is to print copyrighted and trademarked words on it; once you have taken that step, the clothing itself doesn't really matter, and so a t-shirt is as good as anything else. T-shirts with expensive words on them are now the insignia of the upper class. T-shirts with cheap words, or no words at all, are for the commoners)"

3 Oct 2011

The fragility of data. Libraries, archives - vulnerable to fire. Or servers dying. Linked to the physicality of hardware. Back-ups.

<r> Those guys who destroy tech (music) equipment and have it record the sound of its own destruction. Who else does similar work?

1 Oct 2011

Went to 'MediaMarkt' today. Terrifying 3-floor tech supermarket. Shiny gadget porn as far as the eye can see. Makes you realize how brutally 'material' all this so-called virtual stuff is. Not good. Relationship between physical hardware and software, between body and mind... how does 'stuff' become conscious? or able to store abstact data? The physicality of technology.

29 Sept 2011

An idea for a project playing with distance & imagination - continuation of Autogamous. A Twitter thing (or email) that automatically sends you personalised messages. You sign up for it and it grabs semi-random (?) messages (eg tweets) and writes, "hey /name/, saw this and thought you might like it". Like a virtual blow-up doll. Maybe. <R> Projects using Twitter

28 Sept 2011

Feeling a bit overwhelmed with presence of so many experienced knowledgable ppl. Lots of ideas going round in my head, want to sink my teeth into networked culture theory, history, find out about all the artworks out there. But this is in itself an interesting symptom of the anxiety provoked by networks. Desire to know everything - constant 'feed' - could I do something with this?

Ideas/themes...

Archiving

Net is so transitory, what do we have to show for our work? So much good work happening, but it seems inaccessible - who sees it? Where is it stored? Desire to know everthing, consume all data - basis of a project? Information overload National Library - incredible project of making archives available to the public Napster/ Pirate Bay as world's biggest library - Cory Doctorow (created by desire/pragmatism, not a formal archiving effort) Consciousness of life passing, desire to somehow fix, record it - childhood places disappear, like old websites disappear - link disappearance of MimiSiku fansites to other childhood 'sites' (grandma's house, etc?)

Physicality

Physical servers so important to supposedly 'cyber' world; TPB etc needing safe havens; mirroring. Data centres. Denied, somewhat embarrassing physicality. (Links to notion of originals in the archive, precious objects)

Writing

Inspired by Steve's projects with text - performance of texts. Also Leivan's 'reenactment' of Hemmingway story using printers as 'actors' Marie & Leivan's re-organisation of texts, assembling & disassembling - physical approach to very digital obsession/aesthetic Possibilities of software to manipulate/scan texts - maybe use Open Sauce as source material for experimental scripts? (Wanted to take visualisation further - eg see what remained from original version at the end)

Mutability / translatability vs precious objects

Demand for everything to be digitized, computer-readable, manipulable - thinking of Cyborg Manifesto, everything must interface with everything else Things cease to exist in their own right as discrete objects Link to feminism, sexuality? 'Modular' queer identities - but is their a violence in refusing the discrete, 'closed' object? Where is privacy in 'open data'? To be 'closed' and inaccessible is ultimate faux pas - could I play with this? What comes after the open data obsession with 'openness'? Het Visboek - the original in the library looked fake. What is the place of irreplacable originals in digital culture?

Programming

What does it mean to be 'initiated' into world of programming? - As a woman? As semi-digital native? What do I want to do with it? With life? Tools for activists?

Art

Artists angst over collaborative practice, how to involve the audience - hackers never had this problem, everyone contributes, everyone is the audience. Providing tools, just as artists have come round to making 'tools' for interaction/shared authorship. Attracted to hacker culture, lack of angst over notions of audience, authorship, how to address the other, what viewer's role is. Elegant and unforced solutions to the problems in collaborative art. Want to switch cultures.

Distance

Being away from home country as a subject in artwork Contact with lover via internet - pixellated phone calls etc - aesthetic of difference (compare to historical marks of distance? Exchange of rings, letters?) The ocean, shipping, Dutch history - trade links with England? Sea shanties to leaving lovers behind. Distance of language barrier, being in foreign country We think we can 'be anywhere' with internet, but physical distance is still there - re-introducing historical rituals of parting? Relationship becomes kind of 'imaginary' when you're apart - fantasy based. Time-delayed communication - is it actually real? Email signing, encryption. Desire for tokens of contact - emails, messages etc. Could fake ones be generated from your lover's various pages? (personalised twitter messages etc)