RSA Animate - The Internet in Society: Empowering or Censoring Citizens?

[Video - RSA Animate - The Internet in Society: Empowering or Censoring Citizens? by RSA on YouTube]

In this recent instalment of RSA Animate technology commentator Evgeny Morozov seeks to expose some of the 'cyber-utopian' myths he associates with the adoption of online social media by liberal ideologues as an inevitable spur to the spread of democracy: 'if you have enough connectivity...democracy is almost inevitable'.

Following the argument of his new book The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate The World Morozov suggests that this liberalist assumption of the correlation between connectivity and democracy ignores important political, cultural and sociological differences and confuses the 'intended' uses of 'technology' with 'actual' uses. As indicated in the video:

1. Liberal democracies are not the only one's that engage with the use of social media.

2. Repressive regime may actively seek the engagement of their citizen's in policing social media through crowd-sourcing intelligence against online dissent.

3. As much social media is publicly accessible it is not necessarily the best means for propagating dissent.

4. The younger generation of 'digital natives' may not necessarily be inclined to use the new technology for civic engagement, political activism or dissent: 'some of them will go and start downloading reports from human rights watch but most of them will still be downloading pornography'.

I've always been rather sceptical of social media and sympathise with Morazov's point concerning cyber-utopianism. The use of online social media is not a sufficient condition for social change. At the same time we should avoid being cynical. Perhaps the crucial role social media do play is to communicate momentum through commentary once change has begun.

In a recent post 'Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality' on the excellent Cyborgology blog the writer identifies the theoretical position of 'digital dualism' as a fallacy:

Digital dualists believe that the digital world is “virtual” and the physical world “real.” This bias motivates many of the critiques of sites like Facebook and the rest of the social web and I fundamentally think this digital dualism is a fallacy. Instead, I want to argue that the digital and physical are increasingly meshed, and want to call this opposite perspective that implodes atoms and bits rather than holding them conceptually separate augmented reality.

Digital dualists could be either cyber-utopians or cyber-sceptics, the common thread that links them being that they both subscribe to this bi-partition of reality. Morozov is included amongst a list of other digital dualists who are taken as subscribing to the view that:

...the problem with social media is that people are trading the rich, physical and real nature of face-to face contact for the digital, virtual and trivial quality of Facebook. The critique stems from the systematic bias to see the digital and physical as separate; often as a zero-sum tradeoff where time and energy spent on one subtracts from the other.

This of course is a caricature. Insofar as Morozov recognises the efficacy of crowd sourcing intelligence online we have to admit that digital dualists may admit varying degrees and directions of influence between the two realms. Indeed, politically speaking this might make all the difference. Hence the extent of theorists cynicism with regard to work with social media may prove to be a valuable index of their politics in an age coming to terms with the possibilities for augmented reality.

The video of Morozov's complete lecture can be found here.

The Tower of David - Vertical Urban Anarchy

[Video - Squatters on the Skyline by TheNewYorkTimes on YouTube]

The video above accompanies a remarkable story from The New York Times (via Archinect) about an unfinished skyscraper in the centre of the Venezualan capital of Caracas that is currently inhabited entirely by squatters. Known as the 'Tower of David' the 45 floor building is named after its financier David Brillembourg who died in the early 90s before it could be completed.

Following the death of Brillembourg and a banking crisis in in 1994 the tower fell into the hands of the government and remained empty for over a decade until its occupation in 2007. Without utilities or services the dangerous building is now home to over 2,500 so-called 'invaders' who have been unable to find accommodation elsewhere due to the failure of Hugo Chavez's socialist government to provide adequate housing.

While offering hope to some residents it has become a symbol of 'decline' for others: 

“They call me an invader and I work in the credit department of Banco de Venezuela,” said Mr. Hernández, referring to the state-owned institution that he says employs him. “Society hates us, and the government doesn’t know what to do with us. Do they really think we want to be living in the Tower of David?”

This story reminded me of the the building hijackings in Johannesburg's Hillbrow district which first came to my attention after seeing Louis Theroux's BBC documentary Law and Disorder in Johannesburg in 2008. Following up on the story I found this 2010 interview by Africa Business News with Moses Ka Moyo of the Friends of the Inner-city Forum:

[Video - The Real Estate - Building hi-jacking in South Africa by ABNDigital on YouTube]

Undoubtedly the contrasts between these two situations have as much to tell us as any ostensible similarities.

Tracing Angels - Satellites and Social Movements

What could be more luminous than a space traversed with messages? Look at the sky, even right above us. It's traversed by planes, satellites, electromagnetic waves from television, radio, fax, electronic mail. The world we are immersed in is a space-time of communication. Why shouldn't I call it angel space, since this means the messengers, the systems of mailmen, of transmissions in the act of passing or the space through which they pass? Do you know, for example, that at every moment there are at least a million people on flights through the sky, as though immobile or suspended - nonvariables with variations? Indeed, we live in a century of angels.

[Michel Serres with Bruno Latour: Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time]

[Video - Real-time Satellites in Google Earth uploaded by gearthblog on YouTube]

It was a recent post on the Google Earth Blog that reminded me of French philosopher Michel Serres' curious angelology. The post relates to a Google Earth plugin that was created by a developer for Analytic Graphics by a developer called Matt Amato (visualised above). The plugin uses openly available data published by U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) relating to over 13,000 man made objects orbiting the earth, including active and retired communications satellites along with other assorted space debris.

Fascinating as this is it doesn't help us penetrate the sense of Serre's opaque invocation of angels. While orbiting satellites are absolutely necessary for the transmission of global communications, if we sit back and track the relays we actually miss the messages passing invisibly between them. How do you capture angels in flight?

[Video - 24 Hours Of Air Traffic - World Mercator Projection uploaded by Airboyd.TV on YouTube]

Created by Technorama on behalf of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the visualisation above used a data set provided by the Flight Stats website that tracked the departures and arrivals of commercial flights from approximately 9,000 civil airports over the course of 24 hours. While we appear to see a time lapse of the actual flight paths it is important to note that successive positions of each flight have been interpolated from the data concerning arrivals and departures. What we actually see then is only one possible flight path.

Here it strikes me that the trope of the angel was introduced by Serres' precisely to throw such idealisations into question. In the course of his conversations with Bruno Latour the figure of the angel was introduced in the context of the need for a means of describing the fluctuations of global events precisely in a situation where the 'the widest relationality is possible'. His concern is that in a world of global telecommunication it is necessary to be able to provide global descriptions, but without abstraction, reductionism or falling into the imposible task of trying to explain everything:

A verb or a substantive chosen from the galaxy of Ideas, from the categories either in consciousness or in the subject, spawns systems or histories that are static, even if they claim to describe a process of becoming. It's better to paint a picture of relations and rapports - like the percolating basin of a glacial river, unceasingly changing its bed and showing and admirable network of forks, some of which freeze or silt up, while others open up - or like a cloud of angels that passes, or the list of prepositions, or the dance of flames.

It is through this self-consciously constructed modern myth of the angel that he seeks to promote a sensitivity to the multiplicity of messengers and messages that is often overlooked in the supposition of a single overriding message or meaning, and an openness or hospitality to the contingent events that the fortuitous encounters of those messengers and their messages bring about. For Serres the virtue of angels is that they are 'restless', unsystematic' and cannot be pinned down. Though their passing can be traced, their location remains uncertain:

I imagine that for every angel there is a corresponding preposition. But a preposition does not transport messages; it indicates a network of possible paths, either in space or time.

Above, below, before, behind, amongst, inside or outside; the number of possible prepositions correspond to the number of media. And multiplying the media is likely to multiply the number of mediators. One interesting example might involve the innovation of the Sukey anti-kettling tool. What is amazing about the Sukey tolls are that all of the technology is openly available and requires only a relatively small amount of technical knowledge to set up. Through the combined use of mobile telephony, the internet, and old fashioned word of mouth, it enables the Sukey team to crowd source geo-located information on police positions at demonstrations and relay that back to users so as to indicate police positions relative to the users. All this is achieved without disclosing the users' locations to the police force attempting to kettle them. Electronic messages are relayed between protestors, whose own bodies are a signal or message to the powers that be by virtue of their co-presence on the streets.

I wonder then whether Serres' thought might have something to contribute to an understanding of the role played by online social networks such as Twitter and Facebook in the formation of new social movements and particularly the events unfolding in North Africa and the Middle East right now?

Gordon Matta-Clark

[Video - Gordon Matta-Clark exhibit walk-through with Jane Crawford by Howard Silver on Vimeo]

Couldn't resist sharing this great video about the site-specific work of urban artist Gordon Matta-Clark. Influenced by the French Situationists and their practice of détournement the artist became widely known for his modifications of existing buildings or 'building cuts' that he conceptualised as a form of 'anarchitecture'.

Filmed by Howard Silver the video features a walkthrough of a 2007 exhibition of the late artist's work by his widow Jane Crawford. The film is presented of part of a web series on the arts by Silver called Arts Into Production. 

Those intersted in UrbEx may also want to check out Silver's film Steve Duncan, Urban Underground Explorer. Readers may remember that another video on Steve Duncan appeared in an earlier post here.

Control Societies and the Subversion of Subversion

[Video - TEDxVienna - Johannes Grenzfurthner - On how to subvert subversion by TEDxTalks on YouTube]

In this video Viennese artist Johannes Grenzfurthner of monochrom discusses the necessity of subverting subversion in contemporary society. Beginning his discussion with the transgressive performances of groups like the Vienna Actionists Grenzfurthner explains their diminishing impact in the shift from the Disciplinary Society theorised by Foucault to the contemporary Society of Control elaborated by Gilles Deleuze.

Grenzfurthner concludes that complexity of the emerging system must be matched by the complexity of the prank. Hence his advocacy of ‘context hacking’ and ‘weapons of mass distribution’.

via Boing Boing

Architecture & Utopia: Once composed...

[Video - Architecture & Utopia by Patrick Bobilin on Vimeo]

In this short film artist Patrick Bobilin offers his own novel take on the architectural manifesto: "a manifesto between lovers in search of a reasonable paradise in the twenty-first century while living in the shadow of the structures and ideals of the nineteenth".

Inspired by the writings of Le Corbusier, Manfredo Tafuri and Siegfried Giedion who concerned themselves with the programmatic realisation of utopia, the female lover of Patrick's film poses the following question:

"Would utopia be composed of buildings? Once composed, would those buildings cease to be utopic?"

In the wonderfully poetic passage that follows his female lover elaborates on the aspects of everyday life that elude or exceed the neurotic concerns of an obsessive architectural programme.  As the aritst succinctly put it in a brief email exchange "things have changed but the buildings remain the same. Is the solution to rebuild, or is the solution to reorganise history?"

Shot in Chicago the film takes in the monumental forms of its 19th century skyscrapers before moving on to poorer outlying suburbs. When I asked Patrick about the project he told me that the writings of Walter Benjamin had been a significant influence, particularly Benjami's writings about Berlin, Paris and Baudelaire.

As for Patrick in his attempt to articulate his "own history of architecture", it is precisely by means of the experiences of others that we are able to distantiate ourselves sufficiently from the cities we already know, almost all too well, in order to be able to frame them anew. To this end another's writings, concerning other cities at other times, offer a compellingly affective route to the accomodation of these other experiences.

In this way the issues of gentrification, segregation, lack of civic responsibility and the loss of community that Patrick sought to explore were able to manifest in a way that may not have been possible before. In Patrick's film it is also key to the development of this new urban imaginary that these experiences are given another voice; that of his female lover.

Further details of Patrick's works can be found on his website: http://patrickbobilin.com/

Undercity: New York

[Video - Undercity by Andrew Wonder on Vimeo]

In his most recent project filmmaker Andrew Wonder explores the infrastructure of New York City with 'guerrilla' urban historian Steve Duncan of Undercity.org. Shot entirely with a DSLR while sneaking through the subways, sewers and across the bridges of the city, this film offers a highly compelling glimpse of the motivation behind this kind of Urban Exploration. As Duncan explains on his website:

I try to peel back the layers of a city to see what's underneath. From the tops of bridges to the depths of sewer tunnels, these explorations of the urban environment help me puzzle together the interconnected, multi-dimensional history and complexity of the great metropolises of the world.

While the film does not fail to romanticise UrbEx, what lover doesn't, it does succeed in striking an honest balance in depicting the fantastic excitement and many risks involved. 

For those interested in reading more about more of their adventures beneath New York with Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge I recommend the recent article The Wilderness Below Your Feet by Alan Feuer for the New York Times.