It has been pointed out by Boltzmann that the fundamental object of contention in the life-struggle, in the evolution of the organic world, is available energy. In accord with this observation is the principle that, in the struggle for existence, the advantage must go to those organisms whose energy-capturing devices are most efficient in directing available energy into channels favorable to the preservation of the species. — Alfred Lotka in “Contribution to the Energetics of Evolution“

you have stumbled upon a slowly evolving mediated space which is the next online evolution of the original neoscenes archive and network presence. it has subsumed the entire neoscenes travelog which began back in 1995. it rolled over to a frames-based site in 1999, and then to a php-based site in 2004, and now onto WordPress as of 2009. later in 2011-2, it will also extend greatly that time span with images, audio, and video from the long-standing off-line neoscenes archive. what’s this 1961-1962 “50 years on” material? it is one dimension of the use of the (b)log as the accompaniment of the text of my Ph.D. thesis which touches on many of the topics surfaced here combined with my creative media practice. there is an evolving ‘about‘ page which will soon contain more background on the whole project.
******
NEW FROM THE ARCHIVE
slowly starting to upload documents of performances like Open Air Radio Barcelona and DEAF03 – Interfacing / Radiotopia / Keyworx. also in the process of figuring out how to add the thousands of scanned black&white negatives that cover a period of time from 1976 through 2000 when I quit wet darkroom work. (a few (88, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95) of the 4000+ portraits that will eventually migrate to these pages). and hope to include many documents like this over the next months to enrich the overall blog experience, so stay-tuned here for new announcements. of course, there are always new field recordings for the aporee maps project.

In January, investors were said to have put a value of about $50 billion on Facebook, the social network founded by Mark Zuckerberg. If revolutions for freedom rest on the shoulders of Facebook, Mr. Moglen said, the revolutionaries will have to count on individuals who have huge stakes in keeping the powerful happy.

“It is not hard, when everybody is just in one big database controlled by Mr. Zuckerberg, to decapitate a revolution by sending an order to Mr. Zuckerberg that he cannot afford to refuse,” Mr. Moglen said.

By contrast, with tens of thousands of individual encrypted servers, there would be no one place where a repressive government could find out who was publishing or reading “subversive” material. — Jim Dwyer, NYT article

The amplifier/road difference would sound something like this:

I defined the amplifier as a concept which exists at many different scales and in both ‘natural’ and human-dominated systems (though that particular dialectic is a problematic one). It is a system which concentrates (and by default attenuates) energy flows. It is a defined set of pathways for that energy to flow along. (a life-form is an amplifier!)

(As an example, fundamental physical laws, such as the set of principles (gravitational attraction, strong/weak nuclear forces, EM radiation, thermodynamics, etc) that ‘govern’ the process of stellar evolution ‘supply’ the ‘protocols’ for the ‘expression’ of Light energy (radiation) in a highly specific and concentrated form (compared to the availability of that same energy in any random location in the universe).

In essence, humans are ‘merely’ taking advantage of these physical laws to form their own pathways of energy flow. Indeed we can do nothing else, as these laws govern the entire observed and implied universe. So the difference between the amplifier and the protocols that ‘define’ it may only be question of articulation — that is, those physical laws, in human terms, simply exist (for us to discover and articulate over time). The protocols arise as humans initiate articulations of the extant energy flows within which we simply are. So the protocol is, again, merely, a human (socio-linguistic) reduction of observed and extant phenomena. We cannot do anything counter to those phenomena that those laws are ascribed to. However, using these reductive protocols/formula, we set up a wide variety of sub-systems which, cumulatively, are our techno-social systems — complex systems of re-routed energies. As soon as energy is re-routed, you have an amplifier situation because you consequently have a concentration/attenuation of flows. An amplifier is perhaps merely the condition of the existence of a concentration of energies. (this does get into the question of the role of, for example, gravity as a ‘protocol’ which drives the coalescing of energized matter in the universe — or is gravity actually increasing the entropy of that matter?)

Because protocol is a reductive articulation (the map is not the territory) of a ‘real’ phenomena, it is not whole, it is imperfect, and it is not 100% effective. Human systems are a constant struggle against inefficiency and the raw effects of entropy.

Human systems accumulate layer after layer of detailed protocols based on accumulated observant life-experience. However, all these detailed systems of protocol are completely dependent on more basic principles (i.e., as articulated by the laws of thermodynamics).

A road is no exception. In its design and construction it is intended to resist the inevitable entropic processes, while facilitating easier passage of certain ‘types’ of energy. Approaching the road as a protocol-defined pathway, we may look within our own social understandings to circumscribe its actual functions to see how energies are concentrated along that right-of-way. Visualize the differences between crossing the road, driving along the road, or driving ‘off road.’ The end of the road. Middle of the road. One-way street. One’s orientation to the prescribed flow of the road is critical to how life unfolds. (these are obvious, but when looking at the extended concept, protocol, upon which the road is predicated on, these maxims become mapped across all facets of life.) A glancing blow. indirect, roundabout, circuitous, wandering, meandering, serpentine, winding, tortuous, zigzag.

We may observe that the road is an essential element of an amplification system. It is embedded in a wider system of flows, and one might ‘zoom back’ as far as one likes to see this essential embeddedness of the flows — immediate physical, local geographic, nation-state, geologic, cosmological — they are by nature continuous, pervasive, and the essence of reality.

Protocol defines a temporary edge — a fine transition zone — between one energy state and another. When a particular energy state becomes necessary to the continuance of life, a protocol must be applied to the ambient flows in order that they become suitable to that necessary purpose. For example, when a State would change its allegiance from one confederation to another, it will likely have to change some (many!) protocols in order to ‘fit’ into the new league. This might include, in the instance of contemporary war, changing ammunition standards and communications protocol systems — to thus synchronize its energy expressions with that of the confederation. The application of these new protocols will shift the defined limits of energy flow from one case to an other. This shifting of protocollary ‘edges’ and the ‘locus’ of the existing flows requires energy input. Switching protocols repeatedly is a process which depletes and redirects energy flows.

Directed energy flows have inertia. Undirected, ‘random’ flows have a zero-sum inertia (as in a system at equilibrium). Techno-social systems — comprised of a plethora of specifically directed flows — face a considerable challenge to change because of this inertial imperative. The more forceful the expressive output of the TSS, the more difficult it is to change the ‘culture’ of the system. (think – a military junta transforming into a democracy).

The view that technology may be represented as a human constructed/refined pathway for the limited sense of controllable ‘natural’ forces (energies, power, flows) seems to be productive, but it needs to be tested more against deterministic or Utopian views of technology. I’m pragmatic about the outcome being an overlooked pathway hidden among the trillion-plus unique URLs in the webiverse.  Oh well. Ultimately technology is a set of (often socially-proffered) choices that the individual makes as to where to channel his/her life-energies. The channels or pathways are multiplex and are influenced by collectives of Others (both dead and alive), but ultimately are there for the individual to engage or not. Of course, there are social systems which have set rigid command-and-control systems in place to radically limit the choice of pathways available. Other social systems have evolved elaborate methodologies for persuasion so that the participating population will feel compelled to utilize certain technological pathways rather than others — often not even being aware that their ‘choice’ is an illusion.

There is a precursor situation which influences the development of external shared social protocols and that situation is within the refined evolutionary structure of the body-system. The body, as with any life-form, is itself a powerful system for the (consumption and) directed expression of energies, both internally through various sub-systems, and externally as a unitary and singular body. It is the primary technological system (and then all life is a technology…!).

Life on Earth is driven by energy. Autotrophs take it from solar radiation and heterotrophs take it from autotrophs. Energy captured slowly by photosynthesis is stored up, and as denser reservoirs of energy have come into being over the course of Earth’s history, heterotrophs that could use more energy evolved to exploit them. Homo sapiens is such a heterotroph; indeed, the ability to use energy extrasomatically (outside the body) enables human beings to use far more energy than any other heterotroph that has ever evolved. The control of fire and the exploitation of fossil fuels have made it possible for Homo sapiens to release, in a short time, vast amounts of energy that accumulated long before the species appeared. — David Price

Perhaps this is a clear-eyed look at where we are in the moment, or perhaps a less-than-optimistic view of the future, or perhaps it is completely blind to the possibilities that catastrophic change will be for the overall good of the planet. Who knows what the future brings? Whatever the case, if thermodynamics has anything to do with it (It’s The Law!), then some of Price’s talking-points have full validity. It’s not a question of optimism or pessimism, but merely the dynamic evolution of this place that we inhabit called Terra and the qualities of all life of which we are merely another expression of. In addition to the small number of other unique characteristics, our species is the only one which causes massive extrasomatic energy (resource) usage at a rate far exceeding the accumulation rate of those same energy sources. On a localized scale, this situation could be faced by any life form, and actually is on a regular basis, the problem with humans is that there is no mobility condition that will mitigate the localized ‘soiling of the nest.’ There’s nowhere else to go.

At this point it is more about numbers than anything else, numbers which are not ultimately knowable: like the quantities of energy reserves available.

Or then there is:

It takes the technical, social, infrastructural, and economic resources of an optimized globalized economy at its peak to extract and use our current energy flows, and even then oil production cannot be maintained. There may indeed be plenty of fossil fuels left in the ground, but following a major systemic collapse, most may remain there as that capacity dies away. — David Korowicz in Energy constraints will collapse global economic recovery

Strangely enough, those who deny all these doomsday scenarios are the same people who, with their stocked arsenals, will be best set to gun for food, water, and whatever Mad Max theater plays itself out on the wide scale of developed-world implosion.

Does any of this matter? Psycho-spiritually, I think not. The flows of energy in the cosmological system will remain the same as they have always been, changeable, changing, yes, and because of a general anisotropy, there are variations in intensity of flows. But we are not separate from all this, and nothing we do will change the trajectory of entropy. eh?

Abstract

The DCA project “The Road” is a psycho-geographic perambulation through a web of personal, social, and universal trajectories which form a new knowledge-base on the cosmos as an entropic system of energy flows. Within this worldview the project explores human presence, encounter, and interaction including a close look at the effects of techno-socially prescribed protocols on those indeterminate flows of energy. As a multi-modal online data-space, the project offers a variety of navigational strategies connecting a rich variety of audio, video, text, and image sources from the candidate’s extensive personal archive of creative material.

Introduction

The armature for this DCA as originally proposed was the concept of the amplifier. An amplifier is essentially a device that takes an incoming flow of energy (signal), and through an influx of power, generates a defined outflow of energy with a greater (directed) intensity. The amplification process needs an independent energy source to increase the signal strength. It also requires a set of protocols that guide the flow of energy from input through output: a coherent signal is a controlled energy flow as defined by applied protocols.

The road, as an expression of a techno-social system (TSS), exemplifies, or, more precisely, is one of these protocol-defined pathways. It was this realization during the last year of research which shifted my focus from the amplifier to the road as both a real and metaphoric concept that opens a rich space for inquiry. The road allows the TSS to express amplified energy flows along its protocol-defined pathway. It is not difficult to conceptually extend the idea of the road as any pathway for the directed and concentrated expression of energy of a TSS. (more …)

The holistic energy-based model is necessary for sense, harmony, and accuracy (in accordance with observed phenomena). However, the entire point is to frame a (creative) praxis that has a broader awareness of the complex inter-relations of things (beyond things, well into flows!). This suggests a constant critique of the status quo, a presumption that life is not proceeding with enough creativity or enough vis viva. When is enough enough? (Too much is never enough!). But are these volumetric quantities anyway? Spatial, Cartesian? Nah! Creativity is a flow, non-localized (it affects all): it is characterized by temporary states, transitory awareness, evolutionary phase changes. It is continuous and indeterminate, available always in the interstitial actions which lie outside the control of the social system.

ed: This short note is the epilogue for the Migrating:Art:Academies: book. Otherwise because the heavy duty editorial tasks, I didn’t have time to write something more comprehensive on the ideas surrounding movement and learning, maybe next time!

Today, mulling the difference between technological determinism (as a self-propagating system on its own immutable trajectory) and the reciprocal idea that human social systems selectively construct the systems of technology they ‘desire’ (subject to all the variability of the particular social system within which the technology is embedded). Then, within that selection process, thinking about the process of development and the general trend towards greater complexity. Do these processes ever trend generally to greater simplicity? Does desire ever, on a wide social scale, ever become directed to less material abundance? Is material security predicated with amassing more-than-sufficient material wealth? Or do society-wide technological systems collapse towards simplicity only in cases of ‘natural’ disaster.

[Complexity and simplicity are used here as general indicators of the depth and breadth of the techno-social system's process of provision and production that leads to services, situations, or products deemed necessary for participants. Metrics of complexity would include geographic proximity, ease of access, energy density, and the number of substantive steps required to produce a product or create a desired energy flow. The relative necessity of a product is highly subjective and varies widely between different systems. Necessity is a cultural construct (complementing, say, Maslow's needful ranking). Complexity may be indicated by the number of discrete steps that can be described that a process passes through -- steps/degrees of flow alteration.]

When examining a production system, the primary question would have to be, “does this process end with a net gain of energy that can be subsequently utilized for the evolutionary advantage of the social system?” This question itself would suggest the inevitable rise of an elite subgroup when the wider population reaches certain environmental carrying thresholds — where that (evolutionarily optimal) subgroup is carried by the energy-providing activities of a wider group. But this is another issue to look at later.

The existence of (the) ‘natural disaster’ suggests that the state of a particular techno-social system may be seen essentially as the (ordered) organization of flows to keep back natural chaotic forces or to push those natural forces along certain (technologically-defined) pathways. Does this make the system merely at the affect of natural laws, and thus binding it into a materially deterministic framework? Nah, that ignores quantum, with its statistically indeterminate outcomes. Although obviously, any techno-social system is bound to thermodynamics and all other prescribed or yet unknown ‘natural laws.’

System collapse to simplicity is obviously a result of the ‘natural’ disaster precipitated by war (as an extension of human survival mechanisms?). War is the impingement of one techno-socially organized and directed expression of ordered energy onto another — with one set of system pathways disrupted to greater simplicity. Loss could be defined by the destruction of the internal structure for the directing of cumulative energy of participants in that social system. Winning is essentially acquiring access to the total (or partial) energy sources of the losing social system. This includes individuals, and all the pathways of energy flow that they have constructed — these are then directed, incorporated, into the winning system.

The whole deterministic model seems to focus on material interpretations — that is, metrics of ‘advance’ that will happen along an apparently calculable technological trajectory. Rather, as outlined here, there are conditions of technological advance and retreat that are framed by other factors which make the prediction of a trajectory highly inaccurate. The first being the level of complexity of the techno-social systems, the second, the efficiency of that system, and the third, the stability. All of these factors fluctuate over time and are deeply embedded in a milieu of human and, indeed, cosmological factors. The general trend, however, looking at the broad arc of the history of technology is to increasing complexity, variable-yet-generally-increasing control by social systems of a wider range of ‘natural’ energy flows. Is it deterministic to say that there will be an increase in complexity of any techno-social system unless interrupted by natural disaster? [Clearly, the complexity of a (the!) techno-social system is limited, as the energy basis for the system is not infinite: what does that imply?]

What motivates this evolution to increasing complexity? The short answer could be the drive to reproductive advantage — evolutionary motivations for life to not just continue, but continue with advantage over the competition. It is easy to see that the affect of this drive could be interpreted as having its own character and endless source of ‘forward’ motivation. But clearly the ultimate source for that is, again, the impelling force of life-systems to simply continue and continue with ever-greater complexity (creating an ever-widening ring of increasing entropy). So, the ‘explanation’ for technological change, as a social phenomena, ultimately rests, as do all social systems, on the fundamentals of living systems.

Vastly complex systems obscure the actual and perceived level of reproductive advantage — for example, while modern Western medical advances have increased overall abilities for successful propagation of the species, the wider technological system on which that (medical)sub-system depends generates substances (and situations) toxic to reproductive viability and life in general. One would then have to argue that the reproductive viability increase is for a limited number of the total population. Those remaining after the cull benefit from technologically augmented survival, while the biologically and energetically compromised remainder are ‘used up’ in supporting the few. The increase of complexity may be directly correlated to the larger absolute number of people, combined with the drive to absolutely optimize reproductive capabilities of those in the positions of power at the same time as the elimination of all actual or potential competing life-forces.

If one constructs a tool, what is one doing, and why is one doing it? How will one do it?

How to control of flows around oneself? And what does this control mean? Where does the desire to control arise from? Is it simply about evolutionary (survival/procreative) pressures? Is there anything about control that is altruistic (or simply outside of the broadly evolutionary imperative)?

The divide between life-forms that make tools and ones that don’t is fundamental, but it may be ignored when regarding the smooth continuum framing life as a system(?) that alters the flows of energy around it generally to its advantage (or to its need to continue — life is about life needing to continue life). The divide then appears to arise only when one considers how (from a mechanistic p.o.v.) that control is exerted.

This divide seems especially arbitrary when the body itself may be seen as a tool. The mechanical relations between bone structures, for example, or the magnifying ability of the lens in the eye. And, extending the definition of tool beyond the purely mechanical to, say, chemical, the body is a clearly a refinery in the exact same sense as a petroleum refinery. It conducts a wide-ranging set of thermodynamically driven reactions to access and distribute concentrated energy sources that it has introduced to its system. While there is a material dividing plane, the skin, which historically looms largely absolute in determining many classifications of relation and order, that plane may also be seen as arbitrary. The surface tissues — including the entire gut and lungs — are highly permeable surfaces which are constantly interchanging matter and energy with the environment they are in. In an optimal sense, at a particular time, this interchange process does not degrade the general order of the biotic system, but it does precipitate localized and systemic change. Also to be considered are the millions of microscopic organisms which synergize with the larger human body system — without which that system would likely not survive.

Are there, then, distinctions to be made based on body-as-tool and the ‘external’ tool that the body/mind system synthesizes? Or are these distinctions merely artifacts of the entire mechanistic p.o.v.?

It would seem so. If one considers, again, the relations within the body between , say, limb or organ, where a part may be seen as having a particular function which benefits or affects another part. A particular part has a function (as any tool also has) which aids in the performance of the body-system and interacts with other specific mechanisms in the body. In a living body-system these inter-relations are both necessary and sufficient if one includes the those moving between the body and the external. The body is seen as an indivisible whole, but without the constant interactions with the external environment, it would, for practical purposes, dis-integrate immediately.

The point of this short meditation is to emphasize the process which a tool, by definition, precipitates. That process is the fundamental alteration of the energy flows to which the tool is applied. This process unites the purpose of both internal and external systems for energy flow change which may be seen as a tool. The body is a technology as much as anything external to it which causes an alteration of extant energy flows. (Uff, this suggests that life itself be defined as a technology as it always alters the flows around it — we are life, we alter the flows around us, we are a technology.)

The division between tool-makers and those organisms which do not make tools may then be seen as a somewhat arbitrary one. Both organisms are needful of altering the surrounding flows to survive, they actualize that need via evolved mechanisms as they relate with those particular flows. The ultimate point for both internal and external tool use is the optimized continuance of life.

The latch handles on both the driver- and passenger-side door are broken. There is a certain geometry on the plastic lever-arm which, over time of repeated lifting motions, fails. So I have to replace them. The truck is relatively old, compared to the average age of vehicles on the road. I call the Toyota dealer nearby, and they want almost USD100 for each replacement handle. This is called an OEM part — Original Equipment Manufactured — a part which carries some of the branded weight of the maker and its record of quality along with a premium price (including a substantial markup to underwrite the existence of the dealer distribution system). Too much! I knew this would be the case before I called, but I wanted to set a ceiling price before looking elsewhere, online. This particular vehicle model was globally a widely-distributed frame, body, and engine combination and so there turns out to be a substantial non-OEM parts market. The only question is one of quality. Non-OEM parts online appear to be both Mainland Chinese- and Taiwanese-made with what seems to be a substantial US distribution presence in the form of highly discounted warehouses designed for online mail-order sales (with Ebay, Amazon, and their own web sales presence). I find the parts, in several styles (chromed plastic and black) for a small fraction of the OEM cost, USD 20 with free shipping.

Next, before ordering, I have to ascertain whether or not there are ‘issues’ that will prevent me from replacing the units myself. This might mean lacking special tools, or some unusual glitch of construction geometry that will nullify my amateur (but extensive) mechanical skills. I pick up a copy of a non-OEM repair manual for the vehicle at the public library and review the procedures before assembling the tools that I will likely need for the task. On a warm and sunny day I do a test strip-down of the door — memories of helping my father repair his cars on bitter-cold winter days still haunts my fingers. It looks like it is possible, and perhaps even easy to do the job (keeping in mind Murphy’s Law). It takes about 45 minutes with some fine-tuning of process, location and selection of appropriate tools, and such. In the process, I am dismayed to discover that a previous owner has made a modification in the form of two slices in the interior door-frame steel, creating a tab which was apparently bent out to access something, though I don’t see what or why this has been done. And to do that, they cut through the sheet plastic dust liner leaving no direct weather seal between the exterior of the door and the interior. This handiwork I read as a brute-force repair methodology. I don’t approve, one reason is that in the process of cutting the steel, the jerk has exposed edges which are a serious threat to my body wall: hands will require constant attention to avoid a potentially bloody intersection. The other reason is that the two cuts likely affect the structural integrity of the door frame itself, although not under normal use, rather in an impact situation. That and it just isn’t elegant. ach!

I go back online to hunt for the range of prices and to see if I can ascertain the relative qualities of the non-OEM parts. There are photos, but they are not large enough to see the difference between, for example, cast and stamped metal fittings, a big indicator of potential life-time of the parts. I decide to order one for the driver’s side door first to see what I get. The drivers-side handle hasn’t completely failed yet, but if it does, I would be in trouble — the door could not be opened from the outside! The replacement arrives a few days later. The distributor is in California which makes sense in proximity to the supplier in Asia and the market in that vehicle-rich state.

I compare the original (failed) part with the new replacement. It appears that they are of roughly comparable quality — given that both originals have failed. Apparently there is a convergence of a design flaw in the injection-molded lift-handle which then fails under repeat stressing (lifting of the handle to release the door-latch and opening the door). I doubt that I will still have the vehicle when or if the new unit fails. It is possible to learn other details by closely examining the entire mechanism — I can see that there is no objective gain to the functioning of the handle unit if I pull hard on it or if I pull out rather than up. This is a critical observation — cranking hard on the handle will not improve the operation or improve the potential functioning of a proper outcome, that is, opening the door. Noting this, I can see that too much force has likely been used, over time, to lift the handle, and finally stressing the plastic to failure. This is retrospective evidence of a user not being aware of the optimal or correct operation of the tool (the handle being a device for opening the door, as well as perhaps the entire vehicle as a tool to move oneself around).

It takes about an hour of twiddling and futzing for the installation, including some dropped bolts, and contortions required for the hard-to-handle geometries of parts-plus-fasteners-plus-limited-access. This is where experience becomes a desired quality. Each repair process may be optimized through repetition and experimentation.

For example, when almost completely done, ready to attach the inner door release handle only to find that I have not made sure the release arm is accessible in the handle hole in the door panel. Instead, it has dropped down while I was fastening the door panel snaps, so I have to remove the whole door panel again to set the release arm in a place rendering it accessible later. Many lesser and greater details make up points for optimization along the process. Usually the third or fourth time one undertakes such a task, it is quite refined compared to the tentative first round — nothing like the lesson of barked-knuckles on a cold day — embodied memory!

Lost fasteners are a familiar bane, though this time, with a specific twist. I am always careful where I place any removed nut, bolt, c-ring, shim, washer, whatever, and before I get to that point, I look carefully to see their configuration in situ for potential places where they might fall and be lost or inaccessible.

The instructions for removing the c-rings on the window cranks include a novel technique which I immediately wonder if it is a designed solution — another words, whether the original designers anticipated the removal concept and incorporated it into the precise construction technique — or is it an after-thought, arrived at by some clever mechanic who had done the process so many times that s/he stumbled on a quick solution. The instructions call for a shop rag to be slid between the window crank handle and the door panel and worked side to side to unsnap the c-ring holding the handle over the knurled crank-post. It works. But in my in-experience with the technique, I am not holding the rag completely correct. I put too much tension into it, and when I am disassembling the door panel the second time (to retrieve the release arm!), the rag snaps from my fingers and the c-ring flies off into some leaves on the ground. I hear it land, but cannot place the sound very accurately. Small, metal, somewhere in a circle perhaps 2.5-meters in diameter of messy vegetation. Forget it. Gone. I make a cursory look around, but it’s hopeless.

Otherwise, the process seems doable and, at a fraction of the cost of having the dealership do it, why not? It is satisfying and enjoyable through a combination of saving money and decent weather. Now, if it had been an electric door lock? The cost would have been minimum an order of magnitude greater, and probably would have taken five times longer to do by the complexity of the task. Basic user-fixable technology on cars is rare these days, and that evolution is a clear example of a loss of autonomy as tasks are surrendered to more and more highly trained technician/mechanics and digital diagnostic devices.

Gotta change the spark plugs and cables next. A thought which immediately jogs memory of stripping the plug threads by over-torquing a plug on my old 1966 VW engine, requiring a major dis-assembly of the engine block for putting replacement threaded inserts in. uff.

without framing the precise context, a couple quick notes to Rob, regarding the Internet of Things (IOT) and social pro-activity:

and

Meanwhile, thinking about difference and edges. Organisms are distinguished by defined/refined difference between themselves and that-which-surrounds through changes in the characteristics of the field/flux. There is also an internal(ized) sensitivity to difference that arises in an organism — as an evolutionary trait related to the search for usable energy gradients as a source for ensuing negentropic action or use. Distinguishing difference: how does it arise and proceed? Or is the energy gradient, a fundamental expression of difference, difference itself? Skin seems to be absolute and abrupt but in fact is a layered, gradational transition from Self to what is out there. And, in fact, if there is a continuous energized substrate within/below/of all, there is only difference in relatively and locally definable by characteristics which are circumscribable with non-absolute frames of reference … sheesh …

David Brooks, columnist at the New York Times writes in this commentary on New Years Day:

Many people seem to be in the middle of a religious crisis of faith. All the gods they believe in — technology, technocracy, centralized government control — have failed them in this instance.

I have always enjoyed his pragmatism and basic awareness of a wider historical context. It frames the American Way as (merely another) expression of a global continuum of human presence on the planet. And he seems largely to avoid the hybridized reli(geo)-political Destiny’s Child(ish) mentality that so pervades the fragmentary remnants of mediated public discourse in this declining nation-state.

I heartily agree with his explicit suggestion that an issue central to the balance between the individual and the State lies in the strength of faith in centralized authority, and the concomitant surrender of personal autonomy, obligation, and responsibility. The question of larger or smaller (more-or-less pervasive) government is embedded in the larger question of the presence and operation of all (centralizing) social structures — ones which are making inexorable advances in dominating the fabric of the techno-social structure of the country and the globe. As has always been the case, there is no monumental State or any other structure of social organization that can be everything to all people all the time forever. He is very correct to suggest that the great moral issue relates to the taking of personal responsibility — as an expression of autonomy from, not dependence on, any wider social system, (and I emphasize here, not only the State — it is only one particular label for social organization).

The purveyors of technology market their goods to the participants of various techno-social systems as a means to instill control and thus order on the chaotic and threatening world ‘out there.’ The marketing plan, now in its 2.500010 millionth year, promises that if you surrender some of your life-energy to us, we will guarantee that you will live longer. The explicit reward for purchasing is a few extra moments to procreate successfully. There is no mention whether this extra length of life is more or less than the time surrendered to the system — you have to calculate that yourself. The system is hierarchical with many (dis)functional) layers, with some surrendering more time, others using more or less time to manage that time surrendered by thousands. The point is — the same that Brooks makes — that the surrendering process, the giving away of personal responsibility in the process of confronting the Unknown, is where maturity fails. All the complex protocols of the advanced techno-social system that we participate in will not alter the fundamental characteristic of the cosmos: in archaic lingo things happen, have happed, are happing. And, as I remind students and others whenever I have the chance, technology fails.

Maturity comes from facing what is not yet known, learning from it, that and the presumed development of wisdom that experience brings over time. Learning is a process that arises in the embodied interaction of the Self with the unknown (or the Unknown — it is an elemental feature of the (human-sensed) cosmos). This interaction may exhibit different levels of maturity. A mature being, having experienced numerous encounters with different aspects of this Unknown will realize that this is how it goes — there is little or no chance that a new encounter will be any different — so, a degree of stoicism, with a calculated strategy to do what is individually possible would seem best. Immature encounters with that Unknown give rise to the anger of being affronted, snubbed, or even snuffed by the cosmos itself. The effrontery of the Unknown knows no limit. And when the Unknown is conjugated with the infinite, human anger is shown to be what it is, a destructive and ultimately pointless diversion of life itself.

Learning is also a shared process, or can be. Where the autonomous individual connects with those others around and compares notes. Collective experience does sometimes (conditionally) improve on individual experience. Completely ignoring the wisdom garnered from others makes for a very unstable existence, one that is counter to any organized social system. It may be fun, but it is risky and a bit mad.

(Back to one of the core questions) — why does technology fail? It fails because humans, those who form technology do not have access to infinite amounts of energy with which they might control all the rest of the chaotic energy of the cosmos. It takes energy to impose order on chaotic flows. No matter the height of energy-tapping techno-hubris, there is always a bigger flow of energy out there, waiting to obliterate the set of carefully organized protocols of power of puny humans. Things happen, have happed, are happing. All the time. At all scales, every where. Statistics are for reductive hindsight rumination, not prediction, as prediction is merely part of that marketing strategy. Buy into this now and you will gain a procreative edge. Your technology will not fail. But keep in mind, things happen, have happed, are happing. Of course, more things will happen when there is more autonomy. Hmmm. This is the problem.

And anyway, is death really vanquished when it temporarily disappears from the artifice of this ultimately short-term effort to control the cosmos? Of course, length of life is correlated with improved ability to ensure that life goes on into a future: that basal of all paybacks, continuance. But is there a correlation between clock-timed length of life and quality?

He had a good life.
or
He had a long life.
or
He had a bad life.
or
He had a short life.

or a combination of the above…

We face a choice in every moment: where to place our individual and collective lives on a sliding scale between a complete and dulling surrender to the creations of human artifice as brought about at some level in any social structures and the high-intensity madness of pure autonomy.

In the contemporary framework of human encounter — dominated by instances of hyper-commerce and of tele-mediated presence — life changes to fit the mediation (it does not evolve in the same sense that Darwin’s idea of the process; instead it simply fits the technology), and the character of encounter with(in) life alters for each shift in the techno-social milieu that collectively generates the allowed pathways of exchange. Freedom is not a question in this situation. Nor is autonomy. Those are absolutes of the abstract: virginal conceptions not directly related to the contingencies of be-ing in and of the world. Absolutes and abstractions do not prepare the Self for the shifting potentialities of collective human encounter which proceed by degree and layered complexity. And indeed, when abstractions govern encounter, the full field of possibility of human encounter is quickly limited to a much-less-than-finite set of conditions, processes, and outcomes. There arises the alienation of emotive loss in this limitation, but that is another issue to raise elsewhere. Or perhaps this alienation is the reciprocal experience of the (unfulfilled) possibilities of creative encounter.

Or is all this just about losing or gaining procreative (evolutionary) advantage for the species (via technological augmentation), and nothing more?

The fact that the strongest, most beautiful, most intelligent are, overall, given social reward when compared to the least. (Recognizing this, the revolutionary community organizer, Jesus, said (as interpolated by Mathew) “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” to invert the perception of this evolutionary order, and the alternative fact that following his lead will actually alter the order. Was this a miraculous strike at limited potentialities? Or mere agitprop for political expediency?

(but wait a minute, LIFE is, by definition, a redirecting of the flows of energy in a natural system — a redirecting that is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of living systems — according to basic non-equilibrium thermodynamics of living systems.)

However, there is a scalar difference between humans and other living entities where some humans attempt this kind of control on wide scales, with others re-directing those same energies to completely different configurations, some only images of what their ‘original’ pattern of flow once were. (it’s a question of degree?)

The juxtaposition: humans re-organizing the ‘natural’ flows around them (as technology), and humans re-organizing the flows which are human — other humans (as society).

These processes are indistinguishable in their application and only express some difference in the materialized extremity of their results. Humans are simply an other expression of the natural system. It is only in the degree or scale of re-organization of flows that they extend that distinguishes them from other expressions of life. One could argue that earlier Archean life on the planet, utilizing the energy available in certain chemical bonds over eons, completely transformed the composition of the atmosphere in a process of dynamic equilibrium — something we humans are apparently doing yet again in a vastly shorter time. Life, via evolutionary developments, integrally tapped into an available energy source/flow with gusto until the source was depleted or another ‘easier’ source was encountered. Life based on photosynthetic processes of energy utilization is a example that has a long and continuing evolutionary history.

Hannah Arendt, in The Human Condition, explores this process of (the human) redirection of flows as the idea of “fabrication” — as a god-like means to artificially re-create and temporarily reify natural systems. She squarely positions this energy exertion as part of the “external subjectivization of the modern world.” This condition of externalization is a necessary precedent condition for the social and represents the ‘mechanism’ which draws granular and embodied human power from the individual into the social system (for cumulative and disgressionary use by that system). This energy consequently becomes unavailable to the individual, although the pathways that the social system constructs for the expression of its energy may be utilized by the individual, depending on their particular positioning within the system.

(Working at a job for “The Man,” that vaguely persistent image that arose in the times of African-American slavery, frames this dynamic. While most individuals in the middle- and upper-class would consider that their work in the service of someone else is merely a fact of existence and that the convertible and abstracted instrumental returns (money) more than suffice as a reward for the life-time and life-energy expended in this way. It is this collective faith in the abstracted social instrument of money (and other codes) (see Code and Money), expressed as a crucial social adhesive, which gives the social system a form for the expression of the cumulative energy of individual participants.)

Within the life process itself, of which laboring remains an integral part and which it never transcends, it is idle to ask questions that presuppose the category of means and end, such as whether men live and consume in order to have the strength to labor or whether they labor in order to have the means of consumption.

If we consider this loss of the faculty to distinguish clearly between means and end in terms of human behavior, we can say that the free disposition and use of tools for a specific end product is replaced by rhythmic unification of the laboring body with its implement, the movement of laboring itself acting as the unifying force. Labor but not work requires for best result a rhythmically ordered performance and, in so far as many laborers gang together, needs rhythmic co-ordination of all individual movements. In this motion, the tools lose their instrumental character, and the clear distinction between man and his implements, as well as his ends, becomes blurred. What dominates the labor process and all work processes which are performed in the mode of laboring is neither man’s purposeful effort nor the product he may desire, but the motion of the process itself and the rhythm it imposes upon the laborers. Labor implements are drawn into this rhythm until the body and tool swing in the same repetitive movement, that is, until, in the use of machines, which of all implements are best suited to the performance of the animal laborans, it is not longer the body’s movement that determines the implement’s movement but the machine’s movement which enforces the movements of the body. — Hannah Arendt, “The Human Condition”

death strewn on the highway. roadkill. carnivore, herbivore, amphibian, insect: getting to the other side of the road is just part of the inexorable (natural) systemic flow. Roadkill represents one intersection of human-defined flows and naturally-existing flows. The result of this fundamental intersection is near-death or absolute annihilation, a rapid reduction to component complex molecules. from the thathunk of meatier species to the simple fluttering splat of the butterfly. Leathery carcasses that persist for days despite the brutal pounding of truck tires and hard-to-remove stains on the windshield that resist even the most vigorous squeegee scrubbing whilst filling-up the tank.

Insects with a low weight-to-surface-area ratio can sometimes avoid liquidation by the slipstream effect which will carry them up and over the vehicle. But trajectory is all, and the meatier bugs, the swarming locusts and grasshoppers, have too much mass in their sagging torsos to experience this sanctified reprieve and thus become one with their maker in a soul-wrenching milli-second that can be a marvel of colorful abstraction a-la Pollack.

Along one stretch of the UFO Highway in Nevada, red locusts were on the march northward along a specific pathway that they were intent on following without regard to individual survival. At 60 MPH, the dynamic was such that their flight reaction to the approaching truck got them only a couple feet off the ground, not over the height of the hood, so, the lower grill was a mass of dessicated carcasses by the time we got to the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, a hundred miles away. Many more were simply crushed by the wheels, leaving greasy red-greenish stains on the road and in the wheel-wells: their natural trajectory on the ground was clearly discernible where it intersected with roads. I noticed in the gas station parking lot in Ely there was a small flock of birds who were picking over the the resulting detritus on the ground, and when they could manage, actually hanging onto the grills and directly harvesting the carnage, ‘burp!’ What would the evolutionary outcomes be? Birds that can smell idling cars? Locusts who tunnel for 40 feet underground when they encounter traces of heavy hydrocarbons, with luck, getting to the other side.

Larger animals, the mammals are the worst, though, when encountered at any speed. Moose and elk torsos will behave something like the old paper-straw-through-the-raw-potato trick — inertial physics at its most fundamental. The front bumper of the car will take out the long spindly legs whilst the massive quarter-ton of body-meat, at just the right height to clear the hood, will simply stay where it is. But where it is relative to the speeding windshield means that it will simply obliterate anything in the front seats of the vehicle. At low speeds, this can mean a struggling, injured animal in the laps of struggling, injured humans, gah.

Morning reading, sparking off Jacques Ellul’s classic, The Technological Society, where he attempts the first comprehensive definition and discussion of technology as something that pervades and underlies social formation(s). He also discusses a distinct relationship between the machine and technology, where the machine is the most important and obvious aspect of technology; where mechanization “transforms everything it touches into a machine;” but where technology is a cumulative way (perhaps expression?) of integration of the machinic into the social fabric, it is represented by a continuous re-formation of the (human) life-form(s) to the techno-social system. Without this impelling force, humans, as simply another evolutionary life-form expression, would not have arrived at where they are in this moment.

The distinction of human and machinic was a product of materialist thinking which detached the human being from the system of applied flows that the machinic imposes on the world. It is thus easier, mentally, for humans to imagine that there was a master/slave relationship between themselves and that ‘other’ world of technology: that they controlled the technology. This is clearly demonstrated to be a fallacious historical and contemporary view of that relation. Instead the relation is immersive, affective, and it is especially distortive of human-to-human relation. By distortive, going back to basic assumptions about technology, I mean that each expression of technology (which can more-or-less easily be seen as separate for the purposes of analysis of this affect), is seen to apply a set of conditioned flows of power (energy) in its genesis, operation, action, existence, and dissolution. These conditioned flows are formative of ‘natural’ energy flows which occur any/everywhere including between humans.

Right off, Ellul attacks the commonly held belief that there is a particular boundary between technology and science which, though historically indistinct and presently contentious is a fabrication. He contends that the domain of science, beyond “hypothesis and theory” cannot exist without technology. This is at least one small step in realizing that human presences and actions should not divided into arbitrary categories, but considered holistically and in concert with all other fields/flows that are present.

Neither science nor technology can exist without an originary research which is the process of experiencing and re-membering the flows that exist around us. That is, science and technology both rely on the basic functions of the human experiencing of the world, the reception of sensual energies that supply a psychical representation of that world. Science looks for the initial repetition of pattern, relying on memory (in some form) to overlay repeated patterns of flow. When there is a correspondence of flow re-membered, this is duly noted in resonant neural energy patterns in mind. Technology relies on this same re-membering of the flows that surround the social species, but, critically, moves one step ahead (affecting fundamental structures to the social): it applies the (collective) memory of those flows to alter those flows in congruence or consequence to those observed patterns. This is a critical difference, and one that easily circumscribes the relationship of the two ‘fields’ which are framed as distinct but inter-related, rendering them as simply two terms distinguishing similar patterns of human activity. Ellul calls them an “ensemble of means.”

This application of alteration and affectation, along with its resultant refined patterns of energy flow, become, as an cumulative expression of the presence of the human, the fabric of sociality itself.

My approach to technology is not about a return to Nature in that romantic or even Luddite sensibility, but instead, it is a wider understanding or impression of first what the cost is of the totality of altered flows that we as a life-form have imposed on the world, and then, more deeply, what does it mean that we, as simply another expression of life on the earth, have come to where we are as that life-form. Consequent decisions may then be made — to participate or not in certain of these defined energy flows. (more on that later!)

Discussion of the technological cannot exist simply in the realm of the technical or scientific, as the applied alterations to flows of energy as well as their affectations on the wider milieu cannot be completely (or accurately) circumscribed through numeracy.

from Kevin Hamilton on the iDC list:

Thanks for sharing this tantalizing bit from your project Chris, I’m sure eager to see more of the outcomes. You rightfully remind us that framing the discussion in terms of ideologies or worldviews, even economically-influenced ones, leaves out the fact that there are bodies moving around (or not moving), generating these stories.

Much of the flow of human resources (beings) as a primary energy source, was facilitated (forced along) by the formative pathways of the Military-Industrial complex (Interstate highway system, for example, the car culture in general, etc, ad nauseum). It was the prescribed protocollary forces of that M-I system that facilitated (required!) mobility of the bodies as a dispensable resource. And that enforced mobility had a cost — the essential alienation of the displaced Self. This displaced Self would have been a major social problem in regards to social stability, but that problem was muted by universal consumerism (chain retailing) which imposed a sameness on most major (Cartesian) points under the domain of the M-I complex. The pathways remain the same, but the strictness of their applied impression on each individual gives rise to a plethora of different stories: variations on a theme.

These energy flows are not arbitrary, but are complex interactions between evolutionary expressions of life on the planet (humans as perhaps a non-unique expression of that life, in principle) and how techno-social systems re-form and impress pathways on those energies…

I was telling someone the other day that I am a good participant. I know how to jump into a situation and contribute in a way that is sensitive to the ambient flows that are happening at the same time as clearly manifesting a unique set of contributing flows. Perhaps a bit too conservative in respecting the paths of those ambient flows, but it’s probably better to be slightly more conservative than liberal. Uhh, such loaded terms. Useless words after they are so distorted by socio-politics of certain cultural configurations. Although it is ironic to note that here in Australia their political meaning is in (antipodal) opposition. Which simply emphasizes the idiocy of politics (as Peter Tosh observed once: Politics, poli means people, ticks are parasites, politics, parasites on the people). Words, language, always tends to go through this reification process. Followed by a morphing process when the reified language becomes overwhelmed when attempting to explicate new situations or when circumscribing known situations with a different point-of-view. The reified structures will be bolstered and protected until usage simply makes them redundant.

When slipping into an unknown (participatory) situation, immersing, the senses are in full-open configuration to read potential threats, opportunities, and possible pathways of expression. A process of extremely rapid differential comparison of patterns of flow occurs. In the subset of those situations that may be defined as having socio-cultural frameworks present, there is an explicit search within the Self for existing protocols of behavior — an awareness of resonant regions where known protocols have been internalized previously as emphatic neural patterns, and an awareness of dissonant points where protocols are unrecognized, unformed, or, literally, without meaning. What the hell is going on here?

Participation is a crucial role in any social system. As the reciprocal action to the projection of structured (participatory) situations by an Other, participation is half of a whole. It is in relation to the applied and, by nature, limited (imposed, proffered) situation. Without participation, a participatory social framework is no source of energy/power to be projected outward in fulfillment of the goals of the wider social system. Participation, whether understood to be explicit or implicit, is a tacit acknowledgment that the goals of the social system are acceptable to the participant. It also provides the system with its primary energy source in the form of the (attentive) life-time/life-energy of the participant.

On a side note, this is one of the weakest points in the deployment of numerous online playgrounds. Much thought is put into user-interface design, and the protocols of participation, but little is given to the actuality of there needing to be a set of active participants available and willing to put their life-energy into that particular protocol. A well-designed system of protocols, one that resonates with participants at the same time as allowing sufficient degrees of expressive freedom (from those existing protocols) will attract users. It appears that the algorithm-hunters at FaceBook are quite adept and put their highest goal to simply keep the user in FaceBook, whatever it takes. Stripped of artifice and pretense, it is a Machiavellian strategy, but one that makes total sense. All roads lead to Rome: good for the Roman Empire.

Take, for example the idea of sharing a photograph online. If one examines the layered protocols that exist and, in a very real way, direct the flows of energy. First there is the scene to be photographed. There is a set of energy flows available within that situation — which actually constitute the situation. The eye receives a sub-set of those energies, based on the evolutionary protocols of the eye. The brain senses a range of resonances and dissonances of affect of that impinging energy. Based on those reactions, combined with the awareness of a pre-existing concept of taking a photograph, one picks up the techno-socially constructed device called a camera. A small room with a hole on one side. The room (in this era) is a small and complex compilation of energy pathways which allow control of the hole and of the Light energy entering the hole from the outside. The complexity of the cumulative pathways are defined by a tremendous range of interlocking protocols developed by the Techno-Social system. Industrial standards are an expression of one level of the protocols along with basic social standards (which are the substance of the social system!) which accrete as a system (of human relation) evolves. The Light energy entering the hole is convolved with this set of pathways (through the CCD at the back of the room and a data transmission/storage system, etc — one can breakdown the system into numerous sub-systems each with a related set of quite rigid protocols-of-production). It is useful to keep in mind that the originary energy apprehended from the phenomenal scene has initiated this entire process and though it is reduced through the action of the protocols, it is still present (in another form if you need that material metaphor).

Compressing the numerous iterations of the step-wise process for the sake of brevity, the image file is transferred to a server which is connected to other connected devices which allows for an Other to receive the reduced trace of that originary energy.

It cannot be underestimated the affect on the originary flow of energy phenomena that the complex layering of protocols applies by the time the final radiation reaches the eyes of the Other. Without doing an in-depth study of all the device(s) involved in the process, it may not seem so overwhelming, but indeed, each sub-system and sub-sub-system has an entire prescribed set of protocols which precisely define how that device reacts to the passage of energy through it. The protocols are the result of more and more finely refining the production processes and begin with the particular processes that are imposed on the concentration of materials as they are pulled from the ground (no to mention those necessary for finding where to look in the ground for the right materials to begin with). Production processes have protocols for dimensional tolerance, purity, electrical conductivity, and other parameters, as well as meta-protocols on protocols. (see organizations like ISO which coordinate some of the hundreds of thousands of standards which humans have applied within their Techno-Social systems.)

It would appear that large numbers of people living in the so-called developed world are increasingly willing to submit to deeper and deeper layers of (globally-applied) protocols in order to maintain connection with other members of their tribe. Each deployment of protocol is a directed flow which taps off life-energy for the system imposing the (dominant) protocol.

Back to the original idea of participation. It is precisely the arrangement of protocols, guiding the flows of energy through the complex systems which will allow or disallow for individual participation. If the complexity of the protocols are too much — where the individual cannot refine his or her particular embodied energy expressions to fit the reductive pathway — the protocol will either continue to exist as a limited (possibly elite) pathway of expression and impression, or it will pass away. The history of technology is littered with dead protocols: ones which, for a time, shunted vast quantities of human energy in the service of the system, others which were created and used once and discarded as not efficient enough to tap the energy required to maintain their own hegemonic existence.

(Early adopters represent no revolutionary vanguard, but rather a type of individual motivated to adopt newly-imposed protocols. This with the thought that the adoption of these imposed protocols will somehow give evolutionary advantage. But in this Light, adoption may be seen as an expression of conformity to (and explicit support for!) the ever-more dominant Techno-Social system.)

more on participation later…

The construction of a worldview is a process of memory and resonance with that memory arising out of an awareness of difference.

We know remarkably little about the ground functions of practically the entire system we are embedded within.

Writing an idiosyncratic worldview oscillates between the interior and exterior of being. It moves through all culture and social systems, the natural world, and every code encoded, every text ever written. To this passage is mixed lived impression, the accumulate energized traces that life leaves on the body — traces that, ultimately, are memory. And through memory, life compares these two strands: difference arises.

Traces of word and traces of where and when word arrived into the body-system: spoken, written, the two means to no end. Each in arrangement, in relation with an Other, Others. The relation to the Other defined by inarticulate resonance framed and directed into word, and left as traces both embodied and those dis-embodied, change left behind as bodies pass by.

The construction of a worldview is an act of will over what is coded outside and what is lived inside. It is about what is coded inside and what is lived inside: and what is consequently expressed. But what, where, is the continuity between those states? The continuity is the cosmological ground that gives rise to all life. So, to that infinite ground one approaches, tentatively. To find the undistinguished and entwined threads of energy that, once gathered, may be traced back to the thousand ends of what is. At these ends are difference, but when that difference is encountered as threaded to the ground, the difference is understood to be simply a state change or an expression of sameness. Difference may be quantified and qualified however, and within that applied process, the body becomes the prime metric. At the site of difference, memory arises as a resonance between that dynamic external event and the internal state of be-ing. Recognition of difference is fundamental to consciousness. This recognition may arise through the resonance and the presence of difference. Once difference is recognized, it becomes part of the body-system. And the body system then seeks later for the same difference. When it recognizes that same difference, through resonance, it deepen the sensitivity to that resonance as the same difference. This may be thought of as a feedback process. Energy seeking the same pathway, and when finding that pathway, part of the flow is tapped back into a storage means (life) which then seeks to replicate or continue the flow along that pathway.

There is a constant struggle between difference and sameness. Difference being absolutely necessary for life to arise and sameness for life to continue for more than a brief flare of being.

It is out of this struggle, or actually, it is this struggle that arises in living organisms that drives life. Difference is the creative, and sameness is the destructive. Sameness is impossible when faced with the actuality of a non-equilibrium thermodynamic system. Equilibrium, the unreachable grail of early thermodynamics, is the (urgent) desire for sameness. Sameness represents safety, and the resonance of the known. Difference, as arising in the movement of life, is the unknown. Without this movement, life ceases. Along the dialectic of difference and sameness a being moves — not to extremes, only in small incremental oscillations. Between relative safety and the unknown. Tracing a world view in the body allows for change and evolution.

Difference is not resonant. Sameness is resonant. Difference requires shifting and changing resonances. Moving outwards into more widely-defined (and limited) sub-systems, difference becomes relative to how those sub-systems are defined. Defining can only occurs when sameness is applied. (etc…)

Back to the construction of the world view: once the awareness of difference is embodied, it is a question of a process of comparison of that difference as arising in a social system (in relation to the Other). This articulation process is part of the ground of a social system. Framing of difference, and allowing for scalar ranges of articulated difference. The greater the tolerance of difference, the greater the potential for evolutionary change to arise. An intolerance of difference is the sign of slow (or rapid) demise.

Presuming the Terran system is a (fully) self-regulating system, then the hypothesis would have to include the entire evolutionary process which produced human beings among other biota under the particular macroscopic and microscopic availing conditions. Self-regulation would then suggest that the system will solve the current problems of human over-population and resource spoilage as it solves all other oscillations of what is a system in thermodynamic disequilibrium. Biospheric self-organization (among a holistic range of other mechanisms that we likely have no clue about in the moment), will do it’s thing. Despite, in spite of, and at the effect of what a specific biotic evolutionary line is doing. There is plenty of data showing wide-scale fluctuations in, for example, atmospheric components related to changing biotic fluxes.

I would prefer that this whole thesis stay out of the regime imposed by semiotics — that being the approach to social inquiry as an expression of how the dominant worldview is itself dominated by abstracted elements — rather than focusing on the flows of energy themselves. The abstracted systems do, of course, have a heavy bearing on the regime of flows within the social, and largely govern the pathways along which energy flows. However, in order to understand the dynamics of the flows which underlie the abstractions, one has to clear away the abstraction. I hope to frame the issue of language and protocol only to the degree that makes it possible to subtract it from the picture.

Consider the difference as framed following: when two people are speaking to each other, one can make a fundamental structural observation that breaks down the process into the movement of sonic energy and the presence of language. What is the sonic element? It is the movement of embodied energy, energy arising from the embodied presence of one person, arising from the complex negentropic life-form of one. This energy arises through the precise evolutionary configuration of body which allows for that expression, the lungs, the throat, the voice box, the mouth. It is projected through the ‘medium of substances’ between the two, into the embodied presence of the second. Into the ear canal to energize the neural system that is hearing. This is a fundamental. This phenomena exists independent of the language being used, and regardless whether that language is shared by the two people.

Proxemics then becomes a question of potentialities and possibilities of flow or not-flow as proffered by the arrangement of energized bodies (at all scales!) — not simply a systematic coding of the arrangements and orientations of bodies in a Cartesian space. Hall does include body-heat (thermal code) in his list of proxemic behavior along with other sensory “codes,” but stays away from the actuality and implications of energetics (as illustrated by the previous paragraph. (A System for the Notation of Proxemic Behavior, Edward T. Hall, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 5, Selected Papers in Method and Technique (Oct., 1963), pp. 1003-1026)

The presence of language, then, is a formulator of meaning. Language does not carry energy itself. What one says is different than how one says it. The use of language (merely) imposes a modulation (amplitude, frequency, in time) of the energy movement. This modulation is a learned social function. And of that imposed modulation, when examined closely, it loses some of its monumental qualities (semiotics-as-deterministic-abstraction-of-abstraction):

There is no language in itself, nor any universality of language, but a concourse of dialectics, patois, slangs, special languages. There exists no ideal “competent” speaker-hearer of language, any more that there exists a homogeneous linguistic community … there is no mother tongue, but a seizure of power by a dominant tongue within a political multiplicity. — Deleuze and Guattari (Rhizome)

Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the “crash” that many fear — a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the “soft landing” that many people hope for — a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a Utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. — Joseph A. Tainter

There is much to explore in the ideas around organizational complexity/simplicity correlated with high/low energy requirements for a system — essentially basic thermodynamics (it always comes down to this). If the wider (widest) scale of human systems could scale social complexity down, the energy requirements would experience a correlative drop. But this is a very substantial IF. And it would mean that the energy reach of the average individual would consequently contract. And human natures seem to preclude any sacrifice of control that is a crucial part of the existing order. China fancies itself victorious, clambering over other nations to arrive soon at the top of the influential complexity heap, but it will soon discover that the price for this status is, literally, high. And it too, as a complex system, will gradually implode again. Though likely not after extracting, demanding, a high flow, or tribute, as the US is now doing, from the global system. That flow comprising the over-consumption and thus concentration of widely distributed materials which now, in their post-use state leave the globe energetically worse off. In the end this is not an issue of nation-state guilt, it is simply the evolutionary state of the tool-wielding bipedal mammalian species. The (over-consuming) developed world crosses many demographic and geographic borders, while likewise the under-consumers are widely distributed.

The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche. Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet’s energy balance. — David Price

as an example of the problematic of owning, and of property in general, as it is defined in Western social codes:

The proprietor, the robber, the hero, the sovereign — for all these titles are synonymous — imposes his will as law, and suffers neither contradiction nor control; that is, he pretends to be the legislative and the executive power at once . . . [and so] property engenders despotism . . . That is so clearly the essence of property that, to be convinced of it, one need but remember what it is, and observe what happens around him. Property is the right to use and abuse . . . if goods are property, why should not the proprietors be kings, and despotic kings � kings in proportion to their facultes bonitaires? And if each proprietor is sovereign lord within the sphere of his property, absolute king throughout his own domain, how could a government of proprietors be any thing but chaos and confusion? — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

and

Property, acting by exclusion and encroachment, while population was increasing, has been the life-principle and definitive cause of all revolutions. Religious wars, and wars of conquest, when they have stopped short of the extermination of races, have been only accidental disturbances, soon repaired by the mathematical progression of the life of nations. The downfall and death of societies are due to the power of accumulation possessed by property. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

… this false reification of the self is basic to the planetary ecological crisis in which we find ourselves. We have imagined that we are a unit off survival and we have to see to our own survival, and we imagine that the unit of survival is the separate individual or a separate species, whereas in reality through the history of evolution, it is the individual plus the environment, the species plus the environment, for they are essentially symbiotic. — Gregory Bateson

This is exactly what Bohm is talking about when he frames the absolute disaster that a fragmented and materialist worldview has delivered us to (and to us!). And how a holistic and symbiotic view is the only way out of the crisis.

Excellent resource which will allow me to trace both forwards and backwards in time on this particular worldview which, although the definition of energy is strictly based on contemporary physics and thermodynamics (of that time), it provides a valid and detailed approach to the issue.

(Not to mention that the copy I got from Newcastle University was “donated by the Newcastle District Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union.” Would for the survival of humanity that engineers take in the consequences of thermodynamics at all scales!)

Cottrell maps out in some detail the inter-relationships of technological (energy-usage) and the consequent/subsequent social change/evolution that occurs.

He does perhaps miss a point where he attaches the energy advantage of a rising mercantile-class in Europe in the 16-1700′s to the energy of sail. I would suggest that it was not the energy of sail, but the potential energy brought about by the technologies necessary to take advantage of this naturally-available store of energy (flows). That is, the social structure (organization of individuals) necessary to construct boats, the availability of the resources necessary for their proper construction — tall trees, steel tools (not merely iron) for working the wood, enough to build numerous boats to maintain a sufficient flow of trade (read: energy). And finally, of course, the existence of suitable natural resource reservoir, ultimately driven by the sun, wind.

He introduces the term high-energy technology which is essentially a set of technologies that have a high rate-of-return relative to the input (read: hydrocarbons, nuclear, large-scale hydro). In contrast with low-energy converters which would include plants and animals (as a food/energy converter for human consumption).

finding some interesting material from Leslie White, an anthropologist who wrote on cultural evolution and based his views on the idea that cultural systems are ultimately technological systems and that these systems can be ranked by their level of energy use and their capacity to access and utilize adequate energy resources. he had a troubled later life between his wife of 30 years dying and his slide into alcoholism. hmmmm

and then Fred Cottrell, a sociologist writing in his book Energy and Society (1955) about a social systems need for a net energy return. not sure if I can find a copy of this in the Australia uni library system, but hope to.

The evidence for Lotka’s position is not yet sufficient to make it clear that it should be formulated into a law. But the tendency it expresses … fits other evidence that ability to control energy conversion is one factor involved in the persistence of patterns that require energy for their replication. Certainly the patterns of observable human behavior fall into that category. Man cannot escape thermodynamics … his effectiveness in controlling energy conversion so that is serves his needs and satisfies his values is one measure of his probable survival in a habitat. — W. Fred Cottrell

structural organization. weaving this space of inquiry, exposé, or a web of deceit. a fabric of cloaking, or a dust cover for an old arm chair.

Van Leeuwen’s overview (in Multimodal Discourse) of an expressive situation that he labels semiotic production frames first a (situated) discourse which is then subject to design (to shape the delivery mechanism) which is materially formed in the production process followed by distribution (one-to-many propagation). these conceptual and actual stages are closely bound to a semiotics-based view which is rooted in the abstracted space of language and representation. this, despite the fact that the expressive action is indeed a real, tangible movement of energies from the producer to the receiver/consumer — it is not abstract. it is in this space between the models built in the abstracted semiotic space and the real executions that Dialogue, in the extended definition that I propose, occurs. it does not preclude any (most) semiotic models, but is sets the limits of their applicability that arise from the abstraction process that is inherent in language. the Dialogue model looks at these processes, steps in semiotic production as a continua of socially applied protocols which guide (provide a pathway for) energized expression from the Self to the Other — so that semiotic production is clearly not the thing itself, but an abstraction of it. (Van Leeuwen notes this when reflecting on the separation from embodiment that written language imposed on this abstraction process).

he suggests that two mechanisms for the establishment of ‘new’ forms of discourse — that of provenance and experiential meaning potential. the first providing memetic (not mimetic, btw) evolutionary input from other cultural sources, the second an internally generative source arising from lived experience.

multimodality clearly has an affect on the flow of energies (of expression) from the Self to the Other. the existence of socio-cultural value-systems as framed with and by abstracted linguistic (and semiotic) systems and protocols is a key formative element in the energy flow process. but again, it is not the thing itself, it merely forms a pathway for the expressive flow.

His use of terms articulation and interpretation would roughly correspond to transmission/expression and reception/impression.

In a materialistic model, the material is merely the means of semiotically-framed expression. In my model, the energy of expression is carried, in perhaps a poor metaphoric sense, through the pipe of linguistic/semiotic (and therefore social) protocol, but is another essence altogether from the pipe (which, again, is only a abstracted framework). As a social system builds up more and more complex pathways (which, in the end are blockages of open flows), it becomes more and more difficult for individuals operating within that system to find expressive pathways. This is especially apparent in social systems with sufficient or excessive energy resources. energy-poor social systems, those which are consequently, less stable, have more possibilities for less-defined actions, expressions.

It is in the consideration of the energy flow itself that many of the characteristics of formative social systems (ideologies, etc) become obvious, along with equally obvious solutions to the strictures that they apply to individual and collective human existence and consequent expression.

Understanding that my own task, to express an ideology, a weltanschauung, arises in the socio-cultural milieu that encourages certain expressions and discourages others. All social systems do this to one degree or another. And, as one key processural factor, I need for this expression to be idiosyncratic. As much so as is possible within this system. And if not within this system, then simply accept that it has to be done outside this system. eh?

But it is precisely at the edge of what a social system defines as acceptable or not is where transcendental change occurs both individually, and as a direct consequence, socio-culturally. Neither social or cultural systems are static entities which can be held or can hold to a particular standard protocol for expression indefinitely. Change is universal. And change occurs within liminal and undefined situations.

No individual person, no matter how great his stature, how powerful his will, how penetrating his intelligence, can breach the autonomous laws of the human network from which his actions arise and into which they are directed. — Norbert Elias

exploring modalities of communication. of connection, of be-ing. Kittler shows up on the radar immediately (hmmm, recalling that extremely uncomfortable evening with him in that bar in Linz before the Intertwinedness happening. he needed the table to circulate around him. and it did because of the language (protocol) gap. I was not fluent in German enough to access the discussion that inevitably circulated, hovered, around him. strange situation. instead I talked with his assistant (and translator whose name I have now forgotten), a young American who came to worship Kittler in Berlin for a time. I left early as I had to catch a train to Copenhagen early the next morning.)

how to bind energy in to the text [as the particular creative output]. to be released in TIME. to the proper receiver.

that from an earlier travelogue entry. it clearly has been on mind for a long time. actually the transition from print-making to performance/happening was a mapping of that need. finding that the silver print was just too rigid a platform when compared to presence. although the print is, as with anything, in retrospect, a resonance of presence and be-ing as is any trace left in the wake of life.

this issue along with structuring days and weeks in order to be the most productive and concentrated. the chill of the room makes morning writing a bit uncomfortable up there, so, perhaps writing through the morning in the kitchen as long as there are no real interruptions to focus. the desk in the room is good though, with a decent chair. back to the Berlin writing experience. the tea pot is a crucial question. wondering whether I should have Christian send me the excellent pot that I found in Kreuzberg. insulated to keep the tea hot, enough for three or four cups, and a slide-in screen for the tea. it was perfect for a three-hour writing fest. otherwise, brewed in a regular ceramic pot, it goes cold way too fast (at the rate I drink it), that and the problem of steeping too long when doing it the British way. but so far, I haven’t found the same kind of pot here. went into one cheap Made-in-China shop in Marrickville and was so overcome by the fumes of cheapness that I had to leave with watering eyes. made me nauseous. something akin to the smell of Walmart, but with no air circulation, add dust, and knock the cheapness factor down by a couple orders of magnitude — this not in cost, but in the absolute shoddiness of the manufacturing process which may mean anything from sloppy execution, and under-optimized production standards, to dangerous or even lethal ingredients. I didn’t find what I Was looking for, and haven’t yet.

back to modalities. where this frames the issues raised in the Ways of Listening course as well. how expressive pathways are never absolute (are entropic) and depend on the continual input of energy (from the social energy bank) to maintain their hegemonic order and control over interpersonal impression and expression. there are a class of individuals in every time and system who seek to renew, evolve, change, destroy the old modalities. Cage, Fluxus-folks, Bauhaus, anyone who seeks this process at whatever scalar effect.

(i.e., Norie is at the forefront of this process — a faculty-member advising in the fuzzy space of the DCA (Doctorate of Creative Arts) concept — they are, in general, functioning in a space of indeterminate protocols as are the candidates. making choices on what to accept or reject as possible (modal outputs) protocols within the social system (in the form of the educational institution as one specific modal expression of the wider social system). a formative space, the choices made in that space will determine the level of vitality or corruption in the unfolding/evolving social system.

modalities are independent of scale — that is, they cross many levels of a social system, of be-ing. (and, at this point, can I consider the intersection of the words modality and protocol?) modality seems to circumscribe a more material space (also discounting the phenomena of energy-transfer although it relates to sensory perception). modality, modal, mode, mood, modus (related to mete, mediate, mediation, meditation, measure, meet (met), (and in the Greek medesthai to care for, to be mindful of) — how some thing (quelque chose or process) is done, executed, performed, expressed. to take care for the expression of active be-ing. be here now. to care for being here, now. and it comes, translates to us within the social system as a measuring, circumscribing of ways of going. this seems a good example of the social system imposing its inevitable evolutionary impact on individual be-ing. from a qualitative, caring, contemplation of presence, here, now, to the quantifiable, conscripted, defined, the modal.

so the question comes back, how to circumscribe the theoretical of the work ahead? the immediate answer: with care. the only way to proceed!

I stick around for Chris’ 50th as his folks, John and Barbara, also come into town on their way between Iowa and Tucson. nice to catch up with them. Barbara reminds me about her chocolate-chip cookies when she mentions she doesn’t have any with her. this references the care packages she would send to Chris when he and I were room-mates back at 148 Washington in Golden — she would usually include a tin of her fabulous cookies which Chris would share generously. got to snag the recipe someday. or, film her making them.

all this visiting. catching up. exploring territories. hearing stories. mapping out lives. recitations, prognostications on weather and politics and social systems. sampling lives. and seeing time pass forwards inexorably.

keeping up appearances (the cost of social participation), requires energy. energy paid into the system. (was this the lament of the Man?) versus what? appearing as The Self is and allowing for personal idiosyncrasy, proceed with no particular thought as to impact, just to channel what comes in life.

Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities related to art [to] provide evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in order to build A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART … EVERY HUMAN BEING IS AN ARTIST who — from his state of freedom — the position of freedom that he experiences at first-hand — learns to determine the other positions of the TOTAL ART WORK OF THE FUTURE SOCIAL ORDER. — Joseph Beuys

attend a screening last night of Randy Olson’s Flock of Dodos at the RagTag Cinema in Columbia. he was in attendance. and again this morning, he gave a presentation for science academics at the university as a part of their Darwin Days (where the Chair of the Life Sciences Department pointed out they were not allowed to say “celebration” but rather “commemoration”). the film’s premise was to map out the way both sides of the evolution/creationist divide are communicating and presenting their POV to the public. scientists are shown to be poor communicators, creationists shown to be poor communicators except for some who know the value of style and appearance (the Discovery Institute being the chief antagonists posing as a non-partisan think-tank). they are the ones leading the issues. in the same way Republicans have been successful in constructing the narratives guiding the story-following population to the conservative Nirvana. Olson, a former Harvard PhD biologist transitioned to Hollywood via a degree at USC’s film school. he now tells stories that bridge the divide between science and the general public. but the leap from stories to action — stories that form a context for action — well, there is generally a passivity that is a condition of listening/watching a story recitation. listening to stories has to stop at some point. so, the story has to have a transitional mechanism leading to action. how does that work? telling a story and have action arise out of the exchange of energies. the attentive focus of absorbing a story transforming into world-changing action. in the evening Nick and I catch the screening of Sizzle also by Olson. overheard today:

mass media is directed at the pelvic floor but what about having Kegels for Consciousness…

a repaired drum appears, as does a Tibetan singing bowl, and a basket full of instruments. resonant sound-making ensues.

Sarah invites me to go to a morning pre-screening in the Atlas Center of the movie Speaking in Code along with David and some of the other principles from the Boulder Media Festival. they are considering the flick for screening at the next festival. it’s … okay … funny how historical the scene got so quickly. ancient times, techno seems.

right after lunch, I meet Holly at the UMC and we take a wander around campus talking about her options upon graduation from high school this spring. we make a visit to David’s office to talk about the TAM program, etc. it’s cold out. and the art department is now a construction site. I decide to cycle downtown to meet Sarah and Kate later at the Laughing Goat. then still later, we wander back up to campus to catch negativland who Jane brought to CU for a couple (free!) shows featuring their concentrated and comprehensive performance on the mediated social system of religion in It’s All In Your Head FM.

We believe that the healthy evolution of art and creativity has more value than simply counting how much money is lost or made. Art, science and technology have evolved because of how we all build upon the ideas and works of those who came before us. Copyright was always intended as a balancing act between giving ownership to creators so as to provide incentive to create new works, and allowing works to lapse into the public domain so that new ideas could develop. But our founding fathers could never have imagined the kind of world we live in today and the amazing new technologies that we are surrounded with – technologies that encourage and inspire us to interact with the world and create in unprecedented new ways. Protecting the author of a creative work is a good thing, but the benefits of copyright have been thrown off balance by the disproportionate influence of those with the most money. In fact, the more recent expansions of our nations copyright laws represents a break from our nations past and from the intentions of our own Constitution. — Mark Hosler

long day, many ideas are danced around. it’s good to see former students so active with things, thoughts, and spirits.

Title

Sonic Presence Within The Networked Regime of Amplification

This research explores the relationship of (sonic)energy to social be-ing, technology, and the consequent possibilities for creative action.

Subject

Sound is energy, sound carries energy. Sonic energy is a product and a by-product of life. It forms one expression of organismic presence. It is one particular energized expression of our band-limited life that developed its particular characteristics through evolutionary processes. These processes are essentially structured around variations in the (spatial and temporal) concentrations and availabilities of energy. As one such expression, sound is employed as one means through which humans enhance their survivability. Amplification represents a particular model for what is essentially a life-process that operates on various energy flows, modulating their basic characteristics. How human collectives generate and interact with sonic energy governs a wide swath of their consequent techno-social interactions. This research is a distributed exploration of sound as a carrier of energy between the Self and the Other — as it is mediated through the globe-spanning network of techno-social amplification systems. Specifically, it will be a critical exploration of our contemporary techno-social terrain through the application of this model in a variety of creatively energized situations.

Outcomes

Formally, outcomes will include the dissertation, live/online performances, workshops, a blog, festival participation, and conference presentations. Through developing an energy-based model that amplification provides an armature for, it is my hope that this research will generate a powerful tool for analyzing and understanding the dynamic affects of technological systems on creative human engagement at all scales. This knowledge will be applied to facilitate actual situations for this engagement to be explored.

Keywords

amplification, sound, (sonic) energy, power, technology, techno-social systems, networks, continuum of relation, dialogue, collaboration, presence, sustainable creativity, social action, entropy, thermodynamics …

Background for Research

While individual human presence in this world has fundamental repercussions on be-ing, it is the ever-present and synergistic exchange between humans — forming what I call a “continuum of relation” — that governs much of life. This energetic field of human relation is sometimes fraught with difficulties and complications in spite of the rich and necessary dynamic it brings to life. Technology, as a ubiquitous factor in mediating human relation, often dominates while presented as providing the only opportunity for mediated connection and interaction between humans.

Presence, as apprehended by the Other, circumscribes a range of sensory inputs that require energy (from the Self) to stimulate and drive. The efficacy and sustainability of human connection builds on the very real and tangible transmissions and receptions of energy between the Self and the Other. An interconnected plurality of dialectic human relation may be described as a network. These networks, made up of a web of Self-Other connections form the base fabric of the continuum of relation. Technology appears in these networks as the mediating pathway that is the carrier of energy from node to node, person to person. Technological systems also appear to apply absolute restraints on and attenuation of the idiosyncratic flows inherent in that continuum of relation. The discrete objects that populate the (technological) landscape of the continuum of relation and that modulate the character of communications are literally artifacts of a materialist point of view. A primary assumption in my research is that a materialist or mechanistic view of the world no longer suffices to adequately circumscribe the phenomena occurring within the continuum of relation. (more …)

nettime November threads

anonymous online life. Plaxo. another online social networking site that makes people look (and feel!) like this… empowered, eh?

winter storm comes, one of those Pacific storms rolling from the west, from California, tracing little rain shadows across the desert. the first wave comes with thunder and dense, dark clouds, air temperature dropping 10 degrees (C). that passes to the east, blackening sky, followed by a double rainbow that plants itself into the scraped earth of the developments on the next range of hills. Granite Mountain is wreathed in scudding shreds of vapor. I can recall the sky four thousand feet lower in the low desert when these storms roll through. but most of all the complete saturation of the air with that wetted-earth smell. everything eight weeks dry. in late summer early fall sunshine.

got overwhelmed by the flood of responses from the class of 1976 regarding the images I finished uploading. maybe people are more nostalgic as times pass. it’s been interesting to hear from folks, though, after all this time. but still nothing solid to comprehend about why memory is so powerful. persistence of recognizing flows. evolutionary, yes. recalling what is dangerous, what is nutritious. but externalized memory, images. as the image-maker, eye hidden behind layers of amorphous silica distortion. seeing. (did I miss high school behind this glass?). am I replaying what was missed?

anyway, a selection of responses, so it goes.

Hi John, I can’t believe you put this all together after all this time. Great job on the photos. What a fabulous collection. It was great fun looking at them. It really took me back. Where do you live now? I still live in Maryland with my husband and son. Our daughter is a senior in college majoring in Biology. I would love to hear from you. Thanks again. God Bless. — Sharon Hill (Warnick)

Hi John, Thanks for the photos. My wife and I always hang out with her friends from high school, here in Los Angeles, and when I hear about how people still hang out with high school friends in Gaithersburg, I always wonder what it would be like to live there and see you all too. My mom and dad still live in the house we lived in when these pictures were taken, but they’re talking about moving now. Getting too old to keep up the house. When they go, my physical connection to Gaithersburg will finally be severed. It’s pictures like yours that keep it all alive for me. Thanks! — Chip Bolcik

john, I really enjoyed the pictures. I am not sure who found my email address, but I was grateful. Think of you often as I have been commuting through Clarksburg, which has gone through changes, as I am sure you have heard. Don’t know if you remember me or not, but wanted to say thanks for the photos. — Debbie Hokanson (Lorenz)

Hi John, Just wanted to thank you for all your hard work getting the photos from high school on your web site. I loved you website and glad you were able to continue with Photography. I’m sure that was time consuming, but certainly worth it. I think That 70′s Show should look at it so they could be more authentic. Hope you make the next reunion. Take care — Sharon Niemann (Hartley)

Absolutely fabulous photos! Had a great time reminiscing. Thanks for sharing! — Karen Harvey (Warnick)

Fantastic job, John! What a fun memory trip for a sunny southwest Florida afternoon. — Susi Martinsen (Sue Merkling)

Dear John… wwwwwwwwwwwooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww YOU HAVE DONE A GREAT JOB!!! I thank u for the time and specially for the devotion… in this wonderful project… — Zulma Urrego

Hey John, Nice job!!! Great memories. Thanks! — John C. Henriksen

I spaced-out posting the netarts 2008 selections last November. here’s my brief jury comments:

month over and out. blue sky above. short views of the stars. brief perambulations. trip-wires to step over and toxic states of being to avoid. and liberation.

another month, noting whether or not it has passed or seems to pass.

cut down a tree, dead birch, with an only-partly sharp axe. sharpened a bit on a chunk of sandstone. the birch is about sixteen inches in diameter. some serious cardio-upper-body work. with safety in mind (it’s a double-bladed axe). and the thoughts of the techno-social system roiling through mind. making small stories which illustrate the relationships.

the primary of which is the counter-balanced movement between autonomy and control; ability to project power and to survive with the available tools, and the avoidance of losing the autonomy of the body to project energies of its own making.

imagine the relationship of the contemporary person to artificial Lighting. Light switches are conveniently located at the door of a room to avoid any need to move in the dark. do we lose the capabilities of seeing in the dark? of augmenting memory-based embodied navigation and balance skills, tactile senses, located hearing. of slow motion, of eyes-wide-open proceeding. heightened muscle coordination? or just suffer an evolutionary set-back when shins hit the frame of the bed.

Berlin, Kiel, Berlin, New York. place frames time. more-or-less. and what of it? multiplicity of options and possibilities frames the next phase of movement. and it is only a matter of survival.

Miga makes a plate of pancakes. with jam from his parents garden in rural Lithuania. nice!

creative production slows to small fragments of text, some images, and some sounds. no mental space to work on the numerous proposals which hang over the head. not interested in the green consumer revolution which is leading the media art world around, tugging on gold-ringed nostrils to keep the plod in acceptable directions. as with so many times before the engagement of science by art is naive and un-productive even in the simple critical sense of raising real issues and stimulating real dialogues. disappointing.

but conversation with Udo last night around aporee maps and some ideas come up along with possible information/collaboration sources that I already have in place from older networks.

in Berlin for a day.

passing through the cavernous multi-story new station in Antwerp. sound.

When I was just last in New York, I went for a walk, leaving Fifth Avenue and the Business section behind me, into the crowded streets near the Bowery. And while I was there, I had a sudden feeling of relief and confidence. There was Bergson’s élan vital — there was assimilation causing life to exert as much pressure, though embodied here in the shape of men, as it has ever done in the earliest year of evolution: there was the driving force of progress. — Julian Huxley

John von Seggern (on empyre wireless sustainability):

I agree with you, however we shouldn’t confuse the Internet/digital networks in general with the larger techno-social system within which they exist. In point of fact, digital networks perform many tasks much more energy-efficiently than we could do without them (telecommuting vs. actual jet travel for example), so I would expect them to continue to thrive in an energy-constrained future even if many other facets of our society are radically reconfigured.

sotto voce: But in the end, that’s a little like saying how much money I will save by buying a pair of pants at 50% off the regular price. I don’t save anything, I spend money buying the pants.

The Internet as an infrastructure cannot (except theoretically) be excised from the techno-social system that it is embedded within. Energy consumption of that system rises, is rising. Web 2.0 sites brought online huge numbers of energy-consuming server farms which never existed when users did not store social networking data, for example. And the energy usage stats can’t be limited to nation-states, because it’s a global boat we are (apparently) floating in. It’s like saying the US uses far less energy making steel now than it did 50 years ago. What about how much it consumes? And where was the other steel made? The same argument was also used with digital creating “paperless” offices — track paper usage!

Internet helps Americans save more energy every year

sotto voce: Of course, in the process of the engineered evolution of any particular device there will be optimization — that is the goal of engineering. If that wasn’t the case, our system would have never been marginally sustainable from the beginning. Extracting stats on theoretically isolated elements is not valid except for more back-slapping “we’ve done it, we’ve found a way to have and eat our cake” — and it represents no real solution. It is exactly this localized isolation of elements which allows this mentality to persist. Just as with many previous industrial advances where a resource was abundant, any negative affects of the use of that resource was able to be overlooked by the end user who was somehow isolated (usually geographically) from them. That geographic isolation is no longer possible when the effects are global. Think, on a globe there are no isolated corners to sit in anymore.

This is exactly the point that I am making — that unless people realize radical shifts in our relationship with the deep and broad techno-social infrastructure, we are not making real reductions in the overall footprint, and it is the size of the cumulative footprint that will spell the difference between sustainability or the alternative which is only dimly making itself known through the fog of naivety. (and believe me, I don’t place myself above the fray, but energy consumption and the reliance on the largely invisible functioning of that globe-spanning infrastructure is a seriously addictive way to go).