fcTEDIA
STUCrlE-5
/
FttrM
STUD1ETS
CONTRIBUTORS JOE AMATO
The mushroom-like growth of new media technologies is radically challenging traditional media outlets. The proliferation of DVDs, AAP3s, the Internet, and other technologies has freed the
BERTOLT BRECHT KAREN S. F BUZZARD
public from what we used to understand as "mass media." These seismic shifts and ruptures have shaken to iheir core the theoreifcd and pedagogical foundations of film and TV studies. The concept of "new media" demands a neces-
JOHN T. CALDWELL ANNA EVERETT TARLETON GILLESPIE
sary rethinking of the field. Writing from a range of disciplines and perspectives, the centributors to New Media propose theses and conceptual frameworks capable of engaging the numerous facets of emergent digital technology.
HENRY JENKINS GEORGE E LEWIS PETER LUNENFELD STEPHEN MAMBER LEV MANOVICH LAURA U. MARKS LISA PARKS CONSTANCE PENLEY MISCHA PETERS
A F I F i l m R e a d e r s , published in c o o p e r a t i o n w i t h the A m e r i c a n
KATHERINE SARAF1AN
Film Institute, locus o n important issues a n d themes in film a n d v i d e o scholarship. Series editors: E d w a r d Branigan a n d Charles W o l f e ,
JEfFREY SCONCE
Department of Film Studies. University of C a l i f o r n i a , Santa B a r b a r a .
MARK WILLIAMS
Cover design Cynthio Dunn* Covet pholo: Converg#m NAB © 2 0 0 3 by John Î Caldwell Printed in ihe U.S A 29 WEST 35TH STREET. NEW YORK. NY 10001
ISBN 0-415-9399G-8
THEORIES A N D PRACTICES O F DI CM T E X T If A L IT ¥
Previously published i n the A F I F i l m Readers series
/ new media
edited by Charles Wolfe and E d w a r d Branigan Authorship and Film D a v i d A . Gerstner and Janet Staiger
theories
Westerns Janet Walker
and
Masculinity Peter L e h m a n
practices
Violence and American Cinema J. D a v i d S l o c u m The Persistence of History V i v i a n Sobchack
of
digitextuality
Home. Exile, Homeland H a m i d Naficy Black Women Film and Video Artists Jacqueline Bobo The Revolution Wasn't Televised L y n n Spigel and M i c h a e l C u r t i n Classical Hollywood Comedy H e n r y Jenkins and Kristine B r u n o v s k a K a r n i c k
e d i t e d
Disney Discourse Eric S m o o d i n
a n n a everett
Black American Cinema M a n t h i a Diawara
and
b y
Film Theory Goes to the Movies Jim C o l l i n s , A v a Preacher C o l l i n s , a n d H i l a r y Radner Theorizing Documentary M i c h a e l Renov Sound TheoryISound Practice Rick A l t m a n
j o h n t. c a l d w e l l
Fabrications Jane M . Gaines and Charlotte H e r z o g Psychoanalysis and Cinema E. A n n K a p l a n r oeuwt lye odrgke a n d l o n d o n n
Published in 2003 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York. NY 10001 www.routledge-ny.com Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE www.routledge.co.uk Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group Copyright ©2003 by Taylor & Francis Books, Inc.
contents list of illustrations UB H i l d e s h e i l t l
03:09624
acknowledgments introduction
Printed in the United States of America on acid free paper. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now know or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
issues in the theory and practice of media convergence anna everett andjohn t. caldwell part one: digitextual deconstructions 1.
theses on convergence media in the digital age anna everett
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data New media: theories and practices of digitextuality / edited by Anna Everett & John T. Caldwell, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-93995-X (HB : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-415-93996-8 (pbk. :alk. paper) 1. Visual communication. 2. Digital media. I. Everett. Anna, 1954- II. Caldwell. John Thornton. 1954P93.5 .N482003 302.23—dc21
digitextuality and click theory:
2002015999
The publishers have generously given permission to reprint material from the following copyrighted works: "The Radio As an Apparatus of Communication," from Brecht on Theatre, edited and translated by John Willett. Translation copyright © 1964, renewed 1992 by John Willett. Reprinted by permission of Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. "The Radio As an Apparatus of Communication." in Bertolt Brecht, Grosse Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgahe (vols. 19,21, 23, 24) © Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1988 and translations and Brecht material © Stefan S. Brecht. For the Birds (figures 14.2, 14.3, and 14.4) and Luxo Jr. (figure 14.1) courtesy of Pixar Animation Studios; © Pixar Animation Studios. Neuron image (figure 4.1) courtesy of Fromherz/MPI Biochemistry; © Fromherz/ MPI Biochemistry. Oxygen Media Images: Girl at Computer (figures 15.3,15.4. and 15.5) and "I A m Baby" (figure 15.2) courtesy of Oxygen Media, LLC. © Oxygen Media. LLC. "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Further Reflections." by Henry Jenkins, http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/jenkins.html. "Too Many Notes: Computers, Complexity and Culture in Voyager." by George E. Lewis, copyright © 2000 by the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology, the owner of Leonardo Music Journal: http://muse.jhu.edu/edu/demo/ lmj/10.1 lewis.html.
2.
the radio as an apparatus of communication bertolt brecht
3.
invisible media laura u. marks
4.
exit meat: digital bodies in a virtual world mischa peters
part two: digitextual aesthetics 5.
space invaders: thoughts on technology and the production of culture peter lunenfeld
6.
the poetics of augmented space lev manovich
7.
too many notes: computers, complexity, and culture in voyager george e. lewis
8.
the stories digital tools tell tarleton gillespie
part three: prefiguring digitextuality 9.
second-shift media aesthetics:
127
programming, interactivity, and user flows John t. caldwell 10.
narrative mapping
145
illustrations
Stephen mamber 11.
real-time fairy tales:
159 Figure 1.1. TiVo's advertising pamphlet. © TiVo.
cinema prefiguring digital anxiety mark Williams 12.
tulip theory
Figure 1.2. M a n watching TV. © Cox Cable. Figure 1.3. Woman using a laptop computer. © A. Everett.
1 7 9
Jeffrey sconce
Figure 4.1. Network of snail neurons on a silicon chip. Courtesy of Fromherz/ MPI Biochemistry. © Fromherz/MPI Biochemistry.
part four: digitextual practices 13.
net ratings:
Figure 10.1. Franco Moretti's map of Bleak House. 197
Figure 10.2. Thumbnail images from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
defining a new medium by the old, measuring
Figure 10.3. Etienne-Jules Marey's twenty-four-hour train schedule of all Paris-Lyon trains from La Methode Graphique.
internet audiences karen s. f. buzzard 14. flashing digital animations:
209
pixar's digital aesthetic
Figure 10.5. Map from the Center for Hidden Camera Research (www.cinema. ucla.edu/Mamber2).
katherine sarafan 15.
log on:
225
the oxygen media research project
from barbie to mortal kombat:
243
further reflections
endnotes for a theory of convergence
Figure 15.1. The Hydrogenmedia website. Design by Jon LaPointe. Figure 15.2. "I A m Baby" ad. Courtesy of Oxygen Media. LLC. © Oxygen Media, LLC.
henry jenkins 17.
Figure 14.1. Luxo Jr. © Pixar Animation Studios. Figures 14.2-14.4. Progression of frames from Pixar's animated short film For the Birds (dir. Ralph Eggleston, 2000). © Pixar Animation Studios.
Constance penley, lisa parks, and anna everett 16.
Figure 10.4. Author's narrative map of all events on the day when a racetrack robbery occurs in Stanley Kubrick's Tlie Killing.
255
joe amato notes on contributors
265
index
2
6
9
Figures 15.3-15.5. Hewlett-Packard commercials for Oxygen. Courtesy of Oxygen Media, LLC. © Oxygen Media, LLC.
acknowledgments We w o u l d like to express o u r gratitude first to all the contributors for m a k i n g this project an exciting and rewarding one for us. We also thank AFI F i l m Reader series editors Charles Wolfe and E d w a r d Branigan for their generous editorial guidance and s u p p o r t of the project. We want to take this o p p o r t u n i t y to express o u r special t h a n k s to T a j i D u n c o m b e , K a t r i n G e l l e r . M a r l o n H i n n e r , Stacy Paradise, a n d K e l l e y D r u k k e r for their valuable assistance w i t h securing rights and permissions i n a t i m e l y m a n n e r . O u r deep appreciation also goes o u t to B i l l G e r m a n o for his solid s u p p o r t , patience, and belief i n this project. We are grateful as w e l l to G i l a d Foss for all his editorial help and diligence. Last, but certainly not least, we t h a n k the rest of the Routledge editorial team w h o w o r k e d so h a r d o n this book. A n n a Everett First I w o u l d like to thank m y co-editor, John T. Caldwell, for accepting m y invitation to work o n this deferred project and for helping to bring it to fruition. This project c o u l d not have happened w i t h o u t the generous support of the University of California Office of the President, w h i c h secured m y research and writing time i n the very practical f o r m of the U C President's Fellowship. I also thank m y colleagues at the University of California. Santa Barbara: Edward Branigan, A n n a Brusutti, D a n a Driskel, Lisa Parks. Constance Penley, Bhaskar Sarkar. Janet Walker, and Charles Wolfe for their generosity and enthusiasm for this project. I'd like to give special thanks to E l l e n Saal and Pascale Bassan for their assistance w i t h this p r o ject. Finally, I thank m y husband, A l d o n L. Nielsen, for his intellectual supp o r t and understanding, b u t this t i m e I t h a n k h i m p u b l i c l y for h a v i n g never m i n d e d m y l o n g s t a n d i n g d o m i n a t i o n o f the r e m o t e c o n t r o l device(s) i n our home. JohnT. Caldwell 1 very m u c h appreciate A n n a Everett. E d w a r d B r a n i g a n , and C h a r l e s Wolfe's i n v i t a t i o n to be a part o f this t i m e l y project. I w o u l d l i k e to t h a n k m y c o l l e a g u e s at U C L A — J a n e t B e r g s t r o m . N i c k B r o w n e . Teshome Gabriel. Stephen M a m b e r , C h o n Noriega. Robert Rosen. V i v i a n S o b c h a c k . a n d Peter W o l l e n - — f o r c r e a t i n g a n e n v i r o n m e n t
w h e r e ideas l i k e those i n t h i s b o o k w i l l always generate extensive dialogue and a t t e n t i o n . I a m especially grateful to H o r a c e N e w c o m b . G e o r g e Lipsitz, a n d H e r m a n G r a y f o r p r o v i d i n g m o d e l s o f s c h o l a r s h i p t h a t have g r e a t l y i n f l u e n c e d m y t h i n k i n g a b o u t m e d i a a n d culture.
introduction issues i n t h e t h e o r y a n d
practice of media
convergence
a n n a
e v e r e t t
a n d
j o h n
t.
c a l d w e l l
Digital media technologies and their so-called killer apps, and the popular adoption and acceptance of these computer applications, are revolutionizing our sensory perceptions and cognitive experiences of being in the world. In the process, new visual, aural, linguistic, and literary codes and signifiers are emerging that require n e w hermeneutic responses o n our part simply to keep pace. W h e n we consider the far-reaching impact of ascendant digital media systems and what their increasing corporatization augurs for individuals' technology access and technologized social processes alike, then the essential role o f m e d i a theorists, scholars, and practitioners i n helping to ensure that humanistic values prevail i n the new digital order is clear. O u r project of h u m a n i z i n g technology i n what has been called a posthuman age requires a trenchant interrogation of the ideological, political, structural, and representational assumptions underpinning m u c h of the new media hegemony. This includes technology legislation, policies, 1
organizational and corporate patterns of use, and the cacophonous new media rhetoric (including hype and antihype). Alternative forms of digital
media h y p e — m o r e sober, democratizing, adventurous, and creative new
there is an attempt here to weave an e m p o w e r i n g and liberatory specu-
media discourses and vision—become m o r e important than ever.
lative c o u n t e r d i s c o u r s e a r o u n d digital m e d i a a n d those progressive
This anthology project thus enters the growing discursive fray over o l d
aspects of its mutabilities, i n f o r m , utility, expression and aesthetics.
and new media dialectics or "convergence" (in today's media industry par-
In "Digitextuality and C l i c k Theory: Theses o n Convergence M e d i a i n
lance) by o u t l i n i n g some n e w theses and conceptual frameworks capable
the Digital A g e , " A n n a Everett contextualizes the digital media r e v o l u -
of engaging w i t h particular aspects o f the nascent digital media rhetorics,
tion i n dialectical terms specific to film and television history and n e w -
ethics, aesthetics, practices, and histories, and their f i l m and television
media studies. Included here is a reinterpreting o f Julia Kristeva's t e r m
antecedents. These discussions include observations about the g r o w i n g
intertextuality c o n j o i n e d w i t h the o v e r d e t e r m i n e d t e r m digital, to y i e l d
influence these new m e d i a exert o n our contemporary social, c u l t u r a l ,
Everett's n e o l o g i s m digitextuality, w h e r e i n she asks. A r e RealPlayer and
political, and economic institutions, imperatives, and values. T h e signifi-
Q u i c k T i m e video digitextual tools for realizing André Bazin's "total c i n -
cance of this w o r k is its scope and range of discussions and analyses f r o m
ema" and R u d o l f A r n h e i m ' s vision o f the "complete film"? S u c h ques-
digital media watchers both w i t h i n and outside the academy. By bringing
tions, and m o r e , are e x p l o r e d i n her alternative d i g i t a l m e d i a hype
together i n one v o l u m e insider perspectives grounded i n traditional f i l m
imagined as "click theory," w h i c h includes " n e w media's lure of a sensory
and media scholarship and i n influential industrial media art and business
plenitude available simply and ubiquitously w i t h the clicking apparatuses
practices, New Media enacts a m o d e of intellectual and practical conver-
of a mouse, video game joystick, and W e b T V r e m o t e c o n t r o l device."
gence that the new digital media topoi w i l l increasingly demand.
What motivates Everett's detour t h r o u g h some key classical film theory
This book also questions the mainstream media's often hyperbolic dis-
ideas is the urge to temper the hype o f the " n e w " i n digital m e d i a aes-
courses that construct the n e w digital media's impact i n terms of simplis-
thetics and formalist structures w i t h a sober reflection o n its similarities
tic utopic/dystopic binary oppositions that foreclose reasoned and sober
to discourses and practices o f the past. Everett effectively presents digi-
debate around digital and c o m p u t i n g media technologies' actual uses and
textuality as a useful heuristic for recognizing the tremendous i m p a c t of
effects. W h a t this project confronts that bears o n film and other media
the digital r e v o l u t i o n o n nearly all aspects o f our everyday lives.
study is the fact that it is n o t e n o u g h merely to accept or reject the idea
In addition to p o i n t i n g o u t the importance of m a i n t a i n i n g a proper
that digital m e d i a are t r a n s f o r m i n g o u r discipline i n v a r y i n g degrees,
balance between issues o f n e w - m e d i a f o r m a l i s m and aesthetics, prac-
either for good or i l l . Neither, we recognize, does it suffice simply to g l o m
tices, and ethics and the n e w - m e d i a rhetorics, Everett is concerned w i t h
onto these newer technologies older theoretical and critical m e t h o d -
the p o t e n t i a l o f A m e r i c a ' s n e w m e d i a m o n o p o l i e s to displace t h e
ological approaches and assumptions that fail to take into account what is
Althusserian ideological state apparatuses' f u n c t i o n w i t h an even m o r e
t r u l y novel and transformative about these digital media advances. Hav-
potent ideological corporate apparatuses' f u n c t i o n , as represented by
ing said that, however, it is i m p o r t a n t to stress that cinema and television
the n e w - m e d i a convergence industries. A l o n g these lines, Everett c h a l -
studies scholars and industrial media practitioners are uniquely prepared
lenges the h y p e d discourse of the p o s t h u m a n and w h a t she sees as dig-
for the present task o f envisioning, t h e o r i z i n g , and a r t i c u l a t i n g issues
ital formalism's decade-long p r e o c c u p a t i o n w i t h an art-for-art's-sake
r e v o l v i n g a r o u n d the digital m e d i a r e v o l u t i o n and its i m p a c t o n and
depoliticization imperative. Instead, she follows Jean-François Lyotard,
implications for contemporary c u l t u r a l theory and praxis.
and his discussion o f t h e i n h u m a n , to revalue discourses o f e m b o d i -
p a r t 1: d i g i t e x t u a l d e c o n s t r u c t i o n s
m e n t i n t h e d i g i t a l age. A f t e r a l l , she argues, w e o n l y achieve n e w media's l u r e o f b o d i l y transcendence and p l e n i t u d e t h r o u g h the very
T o achieve the ends o u t l i n e d above, t h e first section of this b o o k w i l l
bodies we attempt to flee. She wants to r e t h i n k and recuperate a politics
consider some theoretical and philosophical questions posed by digital
of the body vis-à-vis digitextuality's latent use value.
media technologies' current status, and some familiar claims about their
The second chapter is Bertolt Brecht's 1932 manifesto " T h e Radio A s
transformative possibilities and capabilities. We are especially interested
an Apparatus o f C o m m u n i c a t i o n . " As w i t h any manifesto, Brecht's is a
i n the p r e s u m e d capacities o f digital m e d i a to d e c o n s t r u c t , recode,
polemic that strives to arouse readers toward an acceptance o f a r e v o l u -
reconstruct and re-present f o r m e r l y neat epistemological categories of.
tionary vision that i n this instance centers o n the liberatory potential of
say, real/imaginary, time/space, male/female, self/other, body/mind, ana-
the radio as p o w e r f u l n e w apparatus f o r social change. W h a t B r e c h t
log/digital, art/commerce, and so o n . A n i m p o r t a n t goal o f the f o l l o w -
laments is the radio's commodification as yet another c u l t u r a l innovation
i n g discussions is to sort o u t s o m e o f t h e spectacular claims and
put i n the service of "prettifying public life" instead of serving as a means
apocalyptic imaginings of digital technology's sway. A t the same time,
of transforming it. Despite his fears that "society was not yet advanced
e n o u g h to accept i t , " Brecht envisioned the radio as the finest possible
iurr'* fixation o n the possibilities o f a h u m a n and machinic convergence,
c o m m u n i c a t i o n apparatus i n public life that c o u l d be made to step o u t of
most p o p u l a r l y recognized as the p o s t h u m a n c o n d i t i o n . T h r o u g h her
the p r o g r a m and p r o d u c t - s u p p l y business and organize its listeners as
•-Hcrlcxtual reading o f the often contradictory ideas contained i n the
suppliers. W h e n we consider that the Internet a n d other digital tech-
* i r k s of such diverse writers as A n n e Balsamo. José v a n Dijck. W i l l i a m
nologies appear to fulfill many of the emancipatory promises Brecht and
î ^ib« m. D o n n a Haraway, Katherine Hayles, and John Hockenberry, for
other classical media technology theorists imagined, the need for chart-
sample. Peters locates some utopie and dystopic contours i n their respec-
t
i n g the historical continuities l i n k i n g the o l d media to the new becomes
tive views. It is the tensions existing a m o n g these writers' figurations of the
readily apparent. T h u s . Brecht's essay f u n c t i o n s i n this v o l u m e as an
p -thuman idea that leads Peters to formulate a schema to help us better
i m p o r t a n t historical referent and p h i l o s o p h i c a l anchor for m a n y c o n -
virasp the degree to w h i c h o u r society s i m u l t a n e o u s l y w e l c o m e s a n d
temporary discussions about the role and impact o f n e w m e d i a f o r m a -
» -chews scientific modifications o f the h u m a n body o n its p a t h to the
tions i n the practices and politics o f o u r everyday lives.
p- ^ t h u m a n ideal. Peters's four-part c o n s t r u c t i o n o f the types of bodily
L a u r a U . Marks's conceptualization of "Invisible M e d i a " (chapter 3) offers an insightful approach to t h i n k i n g about the ways that m u c h of new media functions at the level of invisibility. This chapter shifts our attention
images that emerge i n these w r i t e r s ' w o r k s is b r o k e n i n t o "conceptual h- dies." "natural bodies." " m o d i f i e d bodies," and "enhanced bodies." Peters begins her critique w i t h an analysis o f the image of an exuber-
f r o m present debates about o l d and new media forms that focus o n the vis-
ant wheelchair-bound J o h n H o c k e n b e r r y f r o m the cover of Wired maga-
ible (or formal) features of the new-media topology and their distinctive-
zine's cover, and its hyperbolic rhetoric: " Y o u r body. G e t over it. ( T h i n k
ness to the m o r e t r a d i t i o n a l m e d i a approaches. In her discussion of
m i n d over matter.)" She extends the discussion to the British p o p u l a r
new-media invisibility as practiced by "the military, science, financial insti-
-cience j o u r n a l New Science a n d its u t o p i e coverage o f a c t u a l " b r a i n -
tutions, and mass communications." Marks alerts us o f the need to study
machine interfaces" explained to lay audiences i n terms of science films
these functions as they pertain to, a m o n g other things, chemical and bio-
like lohnnv Mnemonic. Peters t h e n contrasts these views w i t h cyberpunk fie-
logical warfare, nanotechnology, and "the corporate-driven decoding of
ri- >n's less optimistic perspectives about the " h i g h price" of technologi-
the h u m a n genome, g u a n t u m and other n o n d i g i t a l c o m p u t i n g . " H e r
cal bodilv enhancements, especially as represented i n W i l l i a m Gibson's
comparison between these mainstream uses of media invisibility and their
vision o f ""enhanced bodies" as d y s t o p i a n " m e a t p u p p e t s " ( a l t h o u g h
"rebellious" counterparts suggests an interesting power struggle between
Peters correctly points o u t Gibson's failure to problematize the gendered
these entities that expands on the usual debates concerning the media wars.
nature o f this t e c h n o l o g i c a l n i g h t m a r e ) . Peters goes o n to r e m i n d us
Marks's discussion of war and invisibility is salient. By contrasting the
that bioengineering also has its costs, such as "what happens w h e n there
mediations of the V i e t n a m and Persian G u l f W a r s — i n terms of a visible/
is a new hardware upgrade, o r a n e w software r e l e a s e . . . . W o u l d we still
invisible discursive b i n a r y — M a r k s ' s d e p l o y m e n t o f the " e n f o l d i n g /
be able to make a distinction between a software bug and psychological
u n f o l d i n g " heuristic is clarified, and we are better i n f o r m e d about what is
illness?" Peters's useful f o u r - p a r t r u b r i c , t h e n , is designed not o n l y to
at stake i n the functionings o f invisible m e d i a strategies. M a r k s makes
assist us i n r e c o g n i z i n g s o m e o f the t e r m s of the r a g i n g p o s t h u m a n
effective use of Paul Virilio's familiar G u l f War analyses, and her evocation
debate but also facilitates the g u i d i n g question of her essay: Have we. i n
of H a k i m Bey's temporary autonomous zone as an explanatory trope for
tact, become p o s t h u m a n , and, most important, do we want to?
engaging w i t h the seemingly ever-changing nature and dynamics of new media practices and structures is convincing. Also central i n Marks's w o r k
p a r t 2: d i g i t e x t u a l a e s t h e t i c s
is its address to the political economies o f new-media representations and
The second section o f this b o o k asks h o w scholars, critics, and p r a c t i -
ideological suasions, especially as they intersect w i t h user experiences.
tioners can usefully speak o f a digital "aesthetics." A n u m b e r of academic
Marks's observations about a n d considerations o f w h a t she calls " n e w
disciplines banished the (ostensibly outdated) concept of "art" l o n g before
genres of database art" t h r o u g h the online works of its practitioners (the
the world o f the Net was either wired or online. After the late 1960s, many
G i v e r o f Names project, eToys, " e - r a t i o n a l , " etc.) are i l l u m i n a t i n g for
arts critics and film theorists celebrated a w o r l d of " p o s t f o r m a l i s m . " In
what they reveal about unanticipated uses of new media and its powers
the 1970s academic c i n e m a studies cast off the straitjackets of style and
of invisibility. H e r concept of software and viruses as loiterers is a particu-
f o r m almost entirely i n quests for subtextual master codes they termed
larly useful idea for t h i n k i n g about new-media invisibility.
"apparatus" a n d " i d e o l o g y . " P o s t s t r u c t u r a l i s m a n d p o s t m o d e r n i s m
Chapter 4, Mischa Peters's "Exit Meat: Digital Bodies i n a Virtual World."
became r u l i n g orthodoxies i n the 1980s, premised as they were on cate-
brings together t w o discursive realms o f thought about postmodern c u l -
gorical denials o f the very stuff around w h i c h aesthetics and m o d e r n i s m
claimed legitimacy. Yet while these broad strains of theoretical orthodoxy
ulating the affective dimensions, f o r m a l properties, and c u l t u r a l d i m e n -
i n contemporary theory rightly skewered the universalizing pretensions
i- -ns governing a range o f n e w digital m e d i a and their users. Aesthetic
of traditional "philosophies of the arts" (as if the arts were bounded and
analysis of digital media m i g h t m e a n asking a series of related questions.
timeless p h e n o m e n a susceptible to generalizations), the contemporary
What, for example, are the visual pleasure principles of web-surfing and
"post-" theories were all premised, problematically, o n positions of nega-
i m m e r s i o n t e c h n o l o g i e s , o r t h e c o g n i t i v e i m p l i c a t i o n s o f software
tion (of f o r m , structure, and maternal specificity).
a u t h o r i n g " and interface designs? W h a t are t h e f o r m a l properties of
W h a t the various "post-" theories ignored was that w h i l e the objects
interactive m u s i c and software, v i r t u a l character designs, s t r e a m i n g
o f aesthetics m a y have paled and w i t h e r e d i n academic and h i g h - c u l -
(-films, c o m p u t e r - a n i m a t e d art. digital space, t i m e renderings, and so
t u r e institutions, c o m m e r c i a l mass c u l t u r e h a d s i m p l y appropriated,
• o? The articles i n this s e c t i o n o u t l i n e a range o f perspectives, a n d
exploited, and distributed those aesthetic f r a m e w o r k s o n a broad and
respond to questions about the f o r m s , f r a m e w o r k s , and expectations
profitable scale. Style became lifestyle, and lifestyle b e c a m e — f o r the
chat govern and value digital w o r k s and practices.
m o s t f a v o r e d d e m o g r a p h i c s i n t h e 1990s, a n y w a y — a social space
Peter Lunenfeld's essay, "Space Invaders: Thoughts o n Technology and
d e f i n e d by h i g h - t e c h c o n s u m e r t e c h n o l o g i e s a n d d i g i t a l m e d i a . N o
the Production of C u l t u r e . " rethinks what "avant-garde" new-media prac-
longer a philosophical, analytical perspective aimed f r o m the academy,
tices might consist o f i n the context of p o s t - C o l d War theorizing. L u n e n -
that is. the aesthetic became a clearly valued f o r m of industrial perfor-
feld refuses to consider digital media i n the standard, n o w tired categories
mance and c o n s u m e r confidence. T h e very self-consciousness t h r o u g h
• -t cither futurist "mercantilism" or "pseudoreligious noospheric fantasy,"
w h i c h c o m m e r c i a l c u l t u r e deploys aesthetic schémas provides the basis
• •vclty that capitalist corporations are selling.' If n e w technologies do i n 1
( w h i c h theorizes that technologies structure h u m a n t h o u g h t ) , Michael Cole's " c u l t u r a l psychology" research ( w i t h its view of the t o o l as a " c u l -
•vi cause social change, such critics assert, then artists and activists w o u l d .
'veil to exploit those causal possibilities for progressive causes.
tural artifact"), and P h i l Agre's view of critical technical practices (which
The third section o f this book takes as its subject the n o t i o n that digital
includes the argument that metaphors operate as a " m e d i u m " of cogni-
id new media are i n fact historical and social formations, composed of
tive and c u l t u r a l exchange). T h e goal i n this synthesis is to m o v e beyond
"d influenced by a n u m b e r o f intertwined and competing interests. Far
the standard positions o f n e w m e d i a theorists (i.e., that technologies
i r o m the clean, value-free logic of the o p e n - m a r k e t ideal, the scholars
cause change, or that cultures i m p l e m e n t new technologies as part of
^i-c attempt what m i g h t be termed "archaeologies of the digital," seek-
existing c o m m i t m e n t s ) . Gillespie reconsiders m o r e moderate questions,
ng to understand specific historical circumstances, trends, practices, and
such as h o w n e w technologies mean, h o w they favor certain uses and not
interests that '-prefigure" or i n f o r m the advent and a c c o m m o d a t i o n o f
others, h o w they stand as artifacts that "encrust" t h e discourses of all
anv new technology. We take as o u r w o r k i n g assumption here that tech-
previous users and designers i n their interfaces, and h o w the "politics of
Q 'ogies are far m o r e t h a n mere machines. They are the total constella-
design" m i g h t w o r k to regulate social practices and animate social rela-
ion of conceptual and i d e o l o g i c a l investments that a n i m a t e and
tions. Interface design, and the visualized metaphors and icons deployed
•^rpctuate those machines. These antecedent investments—as the four
i n software, are celebrated industrially if they are seen to be "intuitive."
hapters here by John Caldwell. Stephen Mamber, M a r k Williams, and Jef-
Yet Gillespie shows h o w this commonsense attribution (used to judge
rey Sconce demonstrate—include the prefiguring forces of broadcasting
t h e q u a l i t y of a n e w t e c h n o l o g y ) is also an i n d i c a t o r o f w h e t h e r the
-nd television programming), visual m o d e l i n g and topographic analysis
interface metaphor comfortably fits the status quo w o r l d that the meta-
V r e applied i n a film studies context), commercial m o t i o n pictures (and
p h o r has already s t r u c t u r e d . It is i n this sort of a n a l y s i s — o f interface
the anxieties about digital technology that they perpetuate), and finally
metaphors as c u l t u r a l discourses and n e w technologies as c u l t u r a l arti¬
thi traditions o f c u l t u r e and m e d i a theorizing itself (academic practices
f
that establish certain predispositions to any n e w media technology).
a c t s
— h a t Gillespie demonstrates the provisional ways that n e w media t
technologies can also be political.
part 3: prefiguring digitextuality New media, by its very name, perpetuates one long-standing m y t h about technology: that the advent of any new technology inevitably brings with it m a r k e d change. D e c o u p l i n g the t w o terms (new and media), however,
'- an film studies, for example, continue to theorize productively about K w media by i n v o k i n g its o l d stand-by perspectives—aesthetics, textualr . ideology, and i d e n t i t y — w i t h o u t also t a l k i n g about the i n d u s t r i a l landscape that animates and fuels n e w - m e d i a d e v e l o p m e n t o n a wide .ale? A n s w e r i n g s u c h a question, argues J o h n T. C a l d w e l l i n the first chapter of this section, unsettles a n u m b e r o f recurrent assumptions and
allows scholars to sift t h r o u g h the various and at times competing claims
.ideal tendencies. Caldwell's "Second-Shift M e d i a Aesthetics: Program-
of those that broker and p r o m o t e the "new." C o m m e r c i a l interests typi-
ming. Interactivity, and User F l o w s " seeks to consider the ways that l o n g -
cally build their marketing cases and p r o m o t i o n a l campaigns o n promises
e n d i n g strategies i n t e l e v i s i o n a n d b r o a d c a s t i n g — p r o g r a m m i n g ,
of radical change and therefore discontinuity w i t h the past. In a highly
i d i c a t i o n . licensing, b r a n d i n g , and f l o w s — h a v e emerged as textual
competitive market economy, corporations m u s t likely do this for sur-
-ngincs i n the design o f n e w media forms. This chapter examines a range
of textual forms used i n T V / d o t - c o m sites, and looks closely at several the
cial!} i m p o r t a n t w h e n a v i e w e r , user, c r i t i c , o r analyst attempts to
author considers to be b o t h influential and symptomatic of new forms of
understand w o r k s that are p a r t i c u l a r l y c o m p l e x , l i k e a n o v e l ( w h i c h
user flows: h o m i c i d e . c o m , f r e a k y l i n k s . c o m , dawsonscreek.com, f u t u -
might i n c l u d e thousands o f pages o f text) o r a feature film ( w h i c h
rama.com, thexfiles.com. and several websites tied to n e w reality shows,
urw i lives tens o f thousands o f specific image-sound events that the aver-
game shows, and fan sites. The chapter first builds o n theoretical models of the flow and supertext to describe h o w w h a t the a u t h o r terms "first-shift" aesthetics has
£ vie wer is seldom conscious o f w h i l e watching). The overall goal here, 0 traditional cartography, is to provide a user-accessible
reconstruc-
tion that enables the viewer-user to have an "all-at-a-glance" u n d e r -
functioned i n mainstream network television p r o g r a m m i n g . Program-
nding of the w o r k or narrative being analyzed,
mers have used various strategies ( c o u n t e r p r o g r a m m i n g , tent-poling,
r h t , chapter proposes, after establishing an informational "database"
h a m m o c k i n g , stunting, seamlessness, etc.) to attract viewers organized
from discrete parts of the w o r k under analysis ( w h i c h m i g h t include shot
around the concept of "day parts" (daytime, p r i m e time, off-prime time,
criptions, camera angles, scenes, p l o t points, image vectors, camera
late night, etc.). To this C a l d w e l l contrasts the "second-shift" aesthetics of
d actor blocking diagrams, script pages, storyboards, or location geo-
digital media, w h i c h he considers a logical o u t g r o w t h of several congru-
graphies i. developing interactive " m a p s " that digitally v i s u a l i z e — a n d
ent historical shifts: f r o m broadcasting to m u l t i c h a n n e l narrowcasting:
i i S greatly aid i n giving coherence t o — t h e complex object o f analysis,
f r o m mass economies of scale to niche economies of scope; and f r o m ser-
i i - general approach, o f course, is analogous to the methods of textual-
ial flows t o tangential a n d cyclical flows. Instead o f the linear textual
n that have been so fundamental i n the development of cotemporary
compositing inherent i n flow theory, T V / d o t - c o m synergies learn to mas-
film studies and critical theory. A t times, Mamber's narrative m a p p i n g
ter "textual dispersal" and user navigations that involve the "migration"
methodologies evoke the techniques of f o r m a l and narratological analy-
of users across brand and conglomerate boundaries. In essence, program-
und the textual deconstruction so familiar to c i n e m a and literary the-
m i n g strategies have shifted f r o m notions of program "flows" to tactics of
fasts. \t other times, however, M a m b e r shows h o w digital maps can
audience/user "flows." C a l d w e l l shows h o w p r o g r a m m i n g tactics have
tuallv be thought o f i n cybernetic terms as "user interfaces," and as elec¬
helped facilitate, prefigure, and i m p l e m e n t new-media development, but
tronic s i m u l a t i o n s that p r o v i d e experiential possibilities every bit as
also h o w new media technologies have i n t u r n altered those same tactics.
pnmarv as the initial object o f critical analysis. T h e ability to " t e m p o r a l -
T h e net result, the author argues, s h o u l d c o m p e l scholars to shift from
$ maps over time, for example, produces experiences potentially as
their favored emphasis o n notions of boundaryless space and collapsed
engaging as those of the original m o t i o n picture being mapped. Narrative
geographies (that M a r s h a l l M c L u h a n and others have favored), to
mapping, as proposed here, proves to be a useful t o o l for analyzing criti-
notions of marketed and p r o g r a m m e d temporality. N e w - m e d i a econo-
I - biects of complexity, ambiguity, density, and i n f o r m a t i o n overload.
mies and texts, i n this account, are based not on the n o w familiar schemes
In a wav. the new and complicated digital environments that increasingly
of n e t w o r k i n g and simultaneity, but o n tested, i n s t i t u t i o n a l practices
- t i n e c u l t u r e increase the need for narrative m a p p i n g even as digital
rationalized around forms of dispersal and temporal seriality.
-vdia enhances the possibilities for its deployment.
T h e practices o f visual m o d e l i n g a n d cartography preceded digital
in light o f the rise of w h a t has come to be k n o w n as digital c u l t u r e ,
media by centuries, and n e w - m e d i a technologies have provided sophis-
Mark Williams's " R e a l - T i m e Fairy Tales: C i n e m a P r e f i g u r i n g D i g i t a l
ticated tools that have transformed b o t h the possibilities of and applica-
ixictv" discusses the p o t e n t i a l significance o f a r e t u r n to w h a t was
tions i n these fields. Stephen M a m b e r provides an innovative proposal
i-med i n the 1970s apparatus theory. T h e r e t u r n proposed here, however,
for the use of digital media i n the topographic analysis of aesthetic and
uld w o r k specifically to raise questions of difference a m o n g aspects
c u l t u r a l forms. W h i l e his essay "Narrative M a p p i n g " m i g h t as easily tit
the apparatus r a t h e r t h a n collapse t h e m . W i l l i a m s suggests t w o
w i t h the other essays that comprise the preceding section of the book on
np-rtant changes i n h o w we m i g h t consider the rise of the digital i n
digital m e d i a "aesthetics," M a m b e r is n o t concerned w i t h an aesthetic
n . J i a history: b o t h are related i n a way to w h a t has been t e r m e d the
analysis of digital media narratives (such as h o w digital media narratives
poacept of " d i s a v o w a l . " O n e f o r m o f disavowal is the c o m m o n p l a c e
function) per se. Rather, he demonstrates h o w digital m e d i a tools can
J sure or casual denigration o f television prevalent i n m a n y digital dis-
p r o v i d e — i n the areas of media and film studies—a range of new meth-
ir^es. Williams builds o n A n n e Friedberg's influential w o r k to show
ods for the analysis of preexisting narrative forms (in cinema, literature,
¡ 0 * i m p o r t a n t television is to t h i n k i n g about the historical issues of
and reportage). Narrative m a p p i n g , as M a m b e r sees it, attempts to artic-
interface w i t h d i g i t a l a p p a r a t i . T h i s d i s c u s s i o n sets u p a second
ulate w h a t he terms a "visual i n f o r m a t i o n space." T h i s process is espe-
at- an argument W i l l i a m s makes about "liveness" versus "real t i m e . "
B o t h p h e n o m e n a , that is. refer to an act of m e d i a t i o n b u t also to
tiun.il and financial (rather t h a n scholarly) gains. Sconce takes a i m at
desire to experience liveness and reality as unmediated. This attention
-ionization o f technologies by n e w - m e d i a wanna-bes i n academia.
to disavowal suggests a useful distinction between " T V liveness" (which
along with a range o f positions that have become part o f the o r t h o d o x
is c o n s t r u c t e d a r o u n d n o t i o n s o f history, as M i m i W h i t e has argued)
t new-media studies ( i n c l u d i n g the influential w o r k o n identity
and " c y b e r c u l t u r e real t i m e " ( w h i c h is p r e m i s e d o n the promise of a
Sherry T u r k l e and others, and the almost religious overdependence
state W i l l i a m s terms the "near f u t u r e " ) .
earij new-media theorists o n the " b i b l i c a l " works and fantasy specuns of cvberfiction writers like W i l l i a m Gibson).
H a v i n g established these key t e m p o r a l and ontological distinctions, the chapter t u r n s to the analysis o f t w o feature films. E a c h analysis
The recurrent critical trope i n Sconce's account comes i n the f o r m of
demonstrates a related b u t distinct " f i g u r i n g " o f anxiety about digital
glaring contrasts he makes between elite (and irrelevant) cyberpractices
culture. O n e film (Fairy Tale: A True Story) reconsiders a significant incideni
nd the far more ubiquitous practices that recur i n television and mass
i n the h i s t o r y of m e d i a t e d representation. T h e o t h e r film [A.I.) ulti-
iiaaer cultures. W h y is it. Sconce askes, that scholars desperately grab
m a t e l y imagines a l i t e r a l l y p o s t h u m a n f u t u r e , i n w h i c h h u m a n s are
. exceptional if mostly unremarkable and irrelevant cyberpractices of
"history" a m i d a w o r l d of advanced i n f o r m a t i o n a l dynamics. B o t h films
is a basis to build their theories o n . even as they ignore the m a n y
are invested i n the concept and representation of children, and both blur
Jav accounts (of identity, pleasure, and c o n s u m p t i o n ) that define
the distinction between " f a i r y t a l e " and " t r u e " story. Significantly, then,
it .Ider forms of electronic media like cable and television? In taking
b o t h films also construct o r figure digital anxiety v i a an u n p a c k i n g ol
this p .sition. Sconce discusses recent new-media writing w i t h i n the notion
apparatus issues (in relation to the process of subjectivity). In d o i n g so. il
I
v e r i f i c a t i o n " of scholarship that A n d r e w Ross has proposed, by
becomes clear that the rise of w h a t has c o m e to be k n o w n as the digital,
11 iraecting it to its corallaiy: a "deceleration o f critical reflection." In m a k -
and its "pressure" toward the near f u t u r e (real time), m i g h t be seen to
ing t hese arguments, the chapter stands as a valuable elaboration of the
have produced, i n p o p u l a r culture, evidence of an analogous pressure.
current state of critical theory as well: its excesses and "promiscuities"; its
T h a t is, it has produced a pressure for a different e q u i l i b r i u m of "belief"
ttuti. -nalized inertias: and its tendencies to bifurcate the field of media
as regards o u r relationship to m e d i a — a n address to w h a t we typicalh
H tidies into crude conceptual binaries. The author's account o f the caste
disavow about o u r relationship to the media. T h e shift i n the econorm
em • .perative i n what he terms the "culture of theory" is an innovative
o f avowal (i.e.. the typical w a y to t h i n k about digital anxiety, such as.
o the current state o f affairs. Yet far f r o m neo-Luddite, the chapter
H o w can one t r u s t w h a t one sees?) therefore also entails a changing
stands as a useful read for any scholar wishing to m o v e beyond the specu-
e c o n o m y of disavowal. T h i s e c o n o m y o f disavowal m a y be a space in
btivc. celebratory phase that defined the early years of academic n e w -
w h i c h different sorts of intervention can reside and occur. M e d i a historv.
iia theory. S u c h a shift promises to develop m o r e i n f o r m e d ways to
Williams argues, has a responsibility to negotiate such spaces. P r o v i n g that n e w - m e d i a theory need not act as a shill for either the h i g h - t e c h n o l o g y or higher-education sectors, Jeffrey Sconce, i n "Tulip Theory," critiques a range of flaws i n the ways that film and media studies have construed and engaged n e w m e d i a . Whereas the other con5
answ er important questions about digital media today.
pan -t: digitextual practices Media studies, and the academic i n s t i t u t i o n s that house t h e m , have Jttionallv m a d e a needlessly clean split between theory and practice.
tributors i n this section examine digital m e d i a w i t h i n the existing and
J i a studies undertaken i n the context o f the humanities, for e x a m -
established contexts o f television p r o g r a m m i n g ( i n d u s t r i a l branding
ple, have regularly broached practice as the province of writers, artists,
and repurposing); visual m o d e l i n g (the topographic analysis of films,
and a l t e r n a t i v e - m e d i a p r o d u c e r s — a l l essentially outsiders to t h e
narratives, and c o m p l e x events); and the film i n d u s t r y (recurrent cul-
commercial imperative o f the c u l t u r e industries. M e d i a studies f r o m
t u r a l anxieties about d i g i t a l t e c h n o l o g y ) , Sconce considers h o w the
an activist o r i e n t a t i o n , o n the o t h e r h a n d , have engaged practice to
development of digital m e d i a has created great (and unfortunate) insta-
in mrms o f m o b i l i z a t i o n , critique, and resistance—again p r o m u l -
bilities i n the ways that film and m e d i a are theorized and studied i n the
ng practice as an outsider's pose, albeit a largely p o l i t i c a l one. Such
academy. T h e essay traces the rapid emergence of n e w - m e d i a studies in
approaches needlessly constrict the d o m a i n o f analysis o p e n to digital
film and media studies departments, and l i n k s t h e m to parallel devel-
iia scholars and students, especially given the i m m e n s e a m o u n t of
opments i n the n o w - v i l i f i e d d o t - c o m , h i g h - t e c h r u n - u p of the 1990s.
v now available and proliferating o n the W o r l d Wide Web.
T h e account lays bare comparable areas that have been "oversold" b
"his -section provides readers w i t h a range o f case studies that d e m o n -
intellectuals a n d u n i v e r s i t y a d m i n i s t r a t o r s , a l l f o r apparent institu-
h the complex ways that individuals, groups, and institutions utilize
digital media. Understanding digital practice i n the present age requires
ixliK ts. but roar back like lions' w h e n smaller rivals challenge t h e m . "
elaborating the forms of critical competence that fuel the w o r k of artist-
her mure telling findings that bear o n contemporary concerns
academics, and other intellectuals, the digital spaces of domestic user-
about new technologies' threats to individual privacy rights is the extent
producers and fans, and the products o f digital industry conglomerates.
tit w hisf Internet metrics become far more invasive i n their data collec-
Indeed, panics about new media, often promulgated by those w i t h vested
tion than their older media counterparts. For example. Buzzard finds that
interests i n o l d media, are lore and encompass the first arrival of cinema radio, c o m i c books. T V . video games, the Internet, and, most recenth, wireless telephony (we are t h i n k i n g here o f a l l the alarmist reports öf
1
. n u l d individuals' visits to particular websites be tracked, b u t ss, gender, household size and composition, income and educa-
tion k \ els, and geographic location c o u l d also be m o n i t o r e d for the p u r -
how cell-phone usage poses health threats). This section w i l l reconsider
'tnking this data to specific product purchases. Finally, Buzzard's
the rhetorics o f dystopia by focusing o n the actual ways that differeni
tracking i if the mergers between Internet search engines and directories is
people, constituent groups, and organizations use digital technologies
comprehensive: moreover, she enables us to understand h o w these eco-
A l t h o u g h c u l t u r a l studies' emphasis o n t h e use value versus t h e
BOmk decisions and machinations are accelerating media convergence,
exchange value o f media commodities w i l l u n d e r p i n these discussions,
tothkh ultimately updates the familiar adage "television is the business of
these w i l l not merely be celebratory essentialist treatises. The multivalent
ring audiences to advertisers." N o w , the Internet ratings industry is
nature and practices of these media as good, bad, neutral, or innocuous i -
in the business o f delivering o u r o n l i n e searches to advertisers. In the
what these discussions s h o u l d convincingly demonstrate.
of musician Sylvester (Sly) Stone. "Somebody's W a t c h i n g Y o u , "
W h a t K a r e n S. F. B u z z a r d ' s essay, " N e t Ratings: D e f i n i n g a New
and .is Buzzard points out, someone is getting paid handsomely to do so.
M e d i u m by the O l d , Measuring Internet Audiences" points out about t h e
In her capacity as p r o d u c t i o n supervisor at Pixar A n i m a t i o n Studios.
current development of Internet ratings' emerging standardization is thv
;rine Sarafian presents an insider's view o f the digital revolution's
familiar story of the best system not necessarily w i n n i n g out i n the end.
>t\ to the successes a n d g r o w i n g p o p u l a r i t y o f film's a n i m a t i o n
We are most familiar w i t h the bitter rivalry between the Japanese Beta¬
indusfn,. In her essay " F l a s h i n g Digital A n i m a t i o n s : Pixar's Digital Aes-
max and the A m e r i c a n V H S technical formats for determining the videi -
" >ararian lets us i n o n a secret of her studio's a m a z i n g successes.
cassette recorder ( V C R ) industry standard. A n d as we all are aware, t h e
\iralian stresses that Pixar adheres to "a p r o d u c t i o n design that p r i o r i -
V H S format w o n the all-important, lucrative winner-take-all consumer
rtory and art over d i g i t a l bells and whistles." She makes i t clear
market standard. A l t h o u g h b o t h systems initially sold i n the tens of thou-
that the studio's masterful use o f digital technologies' h i g h - t e c h bells
sands w o r l d w i d e , consumers d i d not arguably w i n i n this competition,
histles is alwavs subservient to its ultimate goal of achieving c o m -
given the success of the technically inferior V H S standard. Buzzard alerts
pelling and even t r a d i t i o n a l s t o r y t e l l i n g f o r m s . In this way, Sarafian
us to a similar dynamic being played out i n the quest for market domi-
, its that t h e t e c h n o l o g i c a l a n d n a r r a t i v e a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s o f
nance i n the business of quantifying the increasingly valuable traffic on
Pour's films manage a fealty to some i m p o r t a n t tenets o f classical film
the Internet; she investigates the convergence-media p h e n o m e n o n h\
historx and theorv w h i l e simultaneously e m b o d y i n g certain aspects of
painstakingly chronicling the economic imperatives and established mar-
new -media discourse. For example, w h e n Sarafian talks about the p u l l
k e t i n g practices o f older business m o d e l s as t h e y are i m p o s e d on t h e
ol new media's p o t e n t i a l t o t e m p t d i g i t a l a n i m a t o r s to create either
Internet d u r i n g its formative stages. She discovers that despite the essen-
pureh d r e a m l i k e i m a g i n a t i v e o r " r e a l i s t - l o o k i n g o r realist-seeming
tial and vast differences between television and the Internet's information
rorlds" she evokes the influences of s u c h classical
filmmaker-theorists
flows and user practices, "the economic m o d e l employed so successfulh
itga Vertov. the c o n t e m p o r a r y theoretical speculations o f D o n n a
by the television networks was transferred increasingly to the Internet
Hauwav. and the n e o f o r m a l i s m o f Lev M a n o v i c h to m a k e her points.
industry." This m o d e l , she finds, advances t h r o u g h the development of
\s she indicates, the reality of digital animation's f u n c t i o n i n g i n the
m o n o p o l y - l i k e portal structures dubbed "portalopolies." B u z z a r d also reveals h o w t h e N i e l s e n television ratings c o m p a m emerged as the d o m i n a n t force for measuring the increasingly valuable measurements of the Internet. N o t surprisingly, she finds that the Nielsen company used its dominant position f r o m an older m e d i u m to take over its n e w m e d i a rival, the Internet start-up Jupiter M e d i a M e t r i x . As she points out, "market-dominating firms tend to be slow i n developing new
f convergence between so-called o l d - and n e w - m e d i a representational regimes dissolves this either/or d i c h o t o m y , for i n fact, b o t h trai l - and sensibilities are at t h e heart o f " t h e Pixar aesthetic." However, t h r o u g h her detailed discussions of Pixar's engagements w i t h • telling, the c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n process, t h e digital artists and t heir digital tool kits, and the digital image for the video/DVD audience, nan illustrates h o w this c o m p l e x old-media/new-media mesh gets
fZZl ! P
realized i n such films as Pixar's Toy Story, A Bug's Life. For the Birds and Monsters Inc.. a m o n g others. H e r e Sarafian makes us p r i v y to the specific
art
B
1C
f
tion
i n
t
h
e
gaming industry as it is represented in the
1999 book From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, w h i c h he
t e c h n o l o g i c a l a n d n a r r a t i v e challenges, l i m i t a t i o n s , and i n n o v a t i v e
coedited w i t h Justine Cassell. F r o m the vantage point o f hindsight, and
stragegies that digital artists and producers at Pixar routinely address to
the t r o u b l i n g realities manifest i n his "chance e n c o u n t e r s . "
render the believable characters and engrossing story w o r l d s that have
rethinks some o f that text's key assumptions. A l t h o u g h he f o u n d m o r e
c o m e to define Pixar's digital animations and its recognizable p r o d u c t .
w o m e n participating i n the p r o d u c t i o n and c o n s u m p t i o n o f c o m p u t e r
Today we have become a c c u s t o m e d to H o l l y w o o d ' s u b i q u i t o u s
games at both the E3 convention and the M e l b o u r n e games arcade, jenk-
the
m a k i n g of" subgenre of films that essentially remystify the m u h i m i l -
ms observed a disquieting reality. The increased p r o p o r t i o n of w o m e n as
l i o n - d o l l a r , blockbuster
g a m i n g entrepreneurs and master plavers "at a rate significantly higher
filmmaking
process, b u t i n Sarafian s disclo-
sures some honest demystifying is g o i n g o n .
than m e n
d i d little to revise the attitude that female gamers " r e m L a
remarkable spectacle w i t h i n a commercial and c u l t u r a l space still d o m i -
In " L o g O n : T h e Oxygen M e d i a Research Project," Constance Penley,
nated by male designers and male consumers."
Lisa Parks, and A n n a Everett examine and participate i n digital media s role i n facilitating new modes of feminist praxis, f r o m both.academic and
T h e p a i n f u l reality that Jenkins discovers is that far f r o m the utopie
corporate imperatives. " L o g O n " examines the Oxygen M e d i a Research
vision o f a gender-neutral g a m i n g c u l t u r e t h o u g h t to be l o o m i n g o n
[Project], athree-year interdisciplinary and collaborative study o f Oxygen
the h o r i z o n five years ago ( replete w i t h "a g r o w i n g p i n k aisle at the soft-
M e d i a , an Internet start-up and cable T V c o m p a n y f o u n d e d by M a r c y
ware stores ), the fact n o w is that m a j o r games c o m p a n i e s have c o -
Carsey, Geraldine Laybourne, and O p r a h Winfrey that works to develop
opted the spirit of the girls game m o v e m e n t to shore u p their "existing
women's p r o g r a m m i n g across different media platforms. O x y g e n Media,
franchises that have already p r o v e n successful w i t h t h e i r p r e d o m i
noted for its a i m to "superserve" w o m e n , is taken as a test case to deter-
nately m a l e c o n s u m e r s . " Jenkins goes on to define g a m i n g culture's
m i n e the possibilities of new media for creating feminist friendly d e m o -
renewed sense o f bifurcated game play according to a problematic logic
cratic p u b l i c spheres w i t h i n c o m m e r c i a l m u l t i m e d i a n e t w o r k s . T h e
of proscribed, socially constructed gender-specific role-play
research includes: (1) historical precedents for O x y g e n M e d i a (i.e.. the
T h e final essay is Joe A m a t o ' s " E n d n o t e s for a T h e o r v o f C o n v e r -
Lifetime cableTV channel, women's reading groups, w o m e n s magazines,
gence
etc > (2) participant observation of development meetings and program p r o d u c t i o n : (3) textual a n d ideological discourse analysis of trade and p o p u l a r press coverage of O x y g e n M e d i a ; and (4) f o r m a l and aesthetic analyses of Oxygen's television p r o g r a m m i n g and its interactive website agenda. Also important to the project is the team's international research collaboration w i t h European feminist scholars, and the research project s website " H y d r o g e n m e d i a , " w h i c h serves as a f o r u m for research and commentary o n the strategies of Oxygen M e d i a as w e l l as other projects that are attempting to democratize global media for w o m e n and other digitally disadvantaged groups.
.
r
.
„
Chapter 15 is H e n r y Jenkins's essay " F r o m Barbie to M o r t a l Kombat. F u r t h e r Reflections." T h e i m p o r t a n c e o f Jenkins's c o n t r i b u t i o n is its engagement w i t h an i m p o r t a n t element o f digital media's; a s c e n d a n c y „
Jenkins
It is one o f the m o r e challenging chapters i n this v o l u m e due to
its web-mspired discursive style. In m a n y wavs A m a t o ' s u n i q u e n a r r a tive approach is a literal manifestation of n e w - m e d i a t h e o r i z i n g about the rhyzomatic structure o f digital textualities' self-reflexivities and selfreterenttalities. A t first view. A m a t o ' s article seems strange a n d perhaps tt seems to create a B r e c h t i a n f o r m o f d i s t a n c i a t i o n : but o n closer mspection and reflection, his w r i t i n g structures o u r reading along m o r e ferruhar lines. In fact. " E n d n o t e s " reads like the very familiar cataloging 0 * Internet search engines a n d directories r e s p o n d i n g to c o m p u t e r users " k e y w o r d " entries, data "searches." a n d "site" m a t c h e s B u t . u n h k e H o t b o t , A s k Jeeves. A l t a V i s t a . G o o g l e . Y a h o o ! a n d the rest vmato does n o t order his endnotes data according to some privileged and opaque heirarchy that resembles retail markets' and superstores' cve-lme placement on shelves for m a x i m u m profitability
^ p h e n o m e n a l popularity of computer/video games as b o t h a success
Amato's w r i t i n g does, h o w e v e r , challenge the reader to strain at
ful industry unto itself, and as a formidable mass-media rival to both h
reaching some o f the intellectualiste that informs his references to a host
film and television industries. After h i " c h a n c e encounters
• -f wrtters. poets, and artists w h o engage w i t h new media and digital tech-
S
w i t h t h e elite
Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) convention of2001 (where the c o m -
nologies i n familiar and u n f a m i l i a r t e x t s - a n d just i n t i m e . For at the
puter games industry congregates to devise its annual business strategies)
m .ment that digital media technologies are being colonized by the tradi-
and the goings-on of a M e l b o u r n e . Australia, games arcade, Jenkins found
n..nal media establishment w i t h their " l e a s t - c o m m o n d e n o m i n a t o r "
it necessary to reflect u p o n some of his ideas concerning gender and gam¬
^ - i n t e l l e c t u a l i s m , f o r the p u r p o s e o f effecting a collective digital
—
.
i•
™,t
the nrematurely optimistic view
ah .tomtzation on us so that we don't k n o w or care if we have exited the
meat (as Peters suggests i n this v o l u m e ) , A m a t o jolts us back to idea thai c o m p l e x ideas can be i n f o r m a t i v e , rigorous, and p l a y f u l . Does anvone remember M a x Headroom? T h e i m p o r t a n t c o n t r i b u t i o n that Amato's essay makes is that it is chock f u l l of useful data. Moreover, it reappropriates the commercial Internet search engines' appropriation of the annotated bibliography for new media literacy "stickiness," as opposed to what B u z z a r d argues i n this v o l u m e as web surfer and eyeball stickiness for marketing profitability. For example, i n his sampling of useful data from journalists o f p o p u l a r newspapers t o Trotskyite socialist thinkers and m a n y i n between. A m a t o i n f o r m s us that "Genealogy evidently ranks second o n l y to pornography i n generating web traffic." A m a t o also gives a comparative analyses o f these disparate literary n o d a l points o n new media discourses, and he surveys h o w writers interested i n new media discuss science fiction films such as Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. and A.I. A poet himself, A m a t o concludes w i t h an endnote that teases us to speculate a bit about his, and our. o w n cyborg experiences.
notes 1. For a lively discussion of the posthuman thesis and new media culture, see Chris Hables Grav, Cvhorg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age (New York: Routledge,2001). 2. Lev Manovich. The Language of Digital Media (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 2001). 3. See Raymond Williams, "The Technology and the Society," 35-50. and Brian Winston, "Breakages Limited," 77—89, in Electronic Media and Teclmoculture. cd. John T. Caldwell (New Brunswick. N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 2000). 4. See Hans Magnus Enzensberger, "Constituents of a Theorv of Media. " in Caldwell, ed., Electronic Media and Teclmoculture. 51—76. 5. Sconce develops and builds on the concept of vaporware i n a wav thai complements the work of two other authors i n this collection: Pete Lunenfeld has noted that "vaporware, the most ineffable of products... i to be sold only to the exceedingly gullible venture capitalists." He raiai the questions. "Are critics to follow suit, offering a brand of theoretica immaterialism—a vapor theory of ruminations unsupported bv matcnai underpinnings?" Peter Lunenfeld, Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Ait Media, and Cultures (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 2000), 34. In an accounpublished the same year. John Caldwell describes vaporware as an aggrr sive. preemptive strike against competitors used in the marketing of dipi tal media products: see Caldwell, "Theorizing the Digital Landrush," Caldwell, ed., Electronic Media and Teclmoculture. 6—7. He then contextualiz. the strategy (a la Thomas Kuhn) as an example of industrial "tropins;." "niche-ing," and a form of "corporate paradigming . . . (one that pr-.videfs] the kinds of explanatory aspirations that academics presuppose i ' general theory")—a process, i n essence, that is reminiscent of the speculative tendencies favored by critical theorists i n the arts and humanitii 1
digitextual deconstructions
digitextuality and click theory
one
theses o n
convergence
m e d i a i n t h e d i g i t a l age
anna
everett
The advent o f the d i g i t a l r e v o l u t i o n i n l a t e - t w e n t i e t h a n d e a r l y t >> -century m e d i a c u l t u r e apparently confirms b o t h Jean-Luc GotUrd's belief i n the ''end o f c i n e m a " and o t h e r m e d i a critics' claims that we have even entered a posttelevision age. D r i v i n g this o n t o l o g i 1
' p the infrastructures o f m a n y Western m e d i a forms and practkes is the near u b i q u i t y o f d i f f i c u l t - t o - r e g u l a t e satellites, cable T V , tnalog, and digital video recorders, c o m p u t e r camcorders, and other mass-market technologies outside the p r o p r i e t a r y p a n o p t i c o n of big media corporations. M o r e o v e r , the rapid fin-de-siècle diffusion o f such consumer-grade digital t e c h n o l o g i e s as the C D - R O M , the D V D . the Internet, virtual reality, a n d wireless c o m m u n i c a t i o n s systems p o r .n mure radical challenges to t r a d i t i o n a l m e d i a industries and their increasingly v u l n e r a b l e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a l h e g e m o n i e s , as t h e latic and infamous case o f the Napster music-file-sharing system .: • pen-source code technologies have denoted. In response, big media i.. irporatinns have b e g u n a f r e n z i e d b o u t o f h i g h - p r o f i l e
megamergers. and c o n c o m i t a n t n e w - m e d i a c o l o n i z a t i o n — o r is it can-
if) -ch..lars to keep current w i t h and. preferablv. take I m redefining the discipline's c o n t i n u i n g relevance as these new
nibalization? (We'll r e t u r n to this later.) S t i l l , t h e spectacular p r o l i f e r a t i o n o f these n e w technologies ha-
u paradigms take shape a n d p o w e r w i l l result i n c i n e m a studies'
m u l t i p l i e d e x p o n e n t i a l l y t h a t w h i c h W. R u s s e l l N e u m a n a n d o t h .
Ig from avant-garde t o rear-guard f o r m a t i o n i n t h e u n r e -
observers describe as "the fragmentation o f the mass audience." r\8M
battle i >f late capitalism's c u l t u r e wars. O u r s m u s t be a n aggres-
2
abiding the economic, p r o d u c t i o n , exhibition, storytelling, taste, distn b u t i o n . and s c h e d u l i n g dictates o f traditional m e d i a powers, this frag
h
l e participatory agenda i n this emergent n e w - m e d i a
« ape. i rtherwise, the field's relegation to the margins o f the ascen-
m e n t e d mass audience has seized u p o n a n d been liberated, after g
formatii in economy is all b u t assured. Yet c i n e m a and T V studies
f a s h i o n , by a p l e t h o r a o f o n - d e m a n d m e d i a services f o r consumers,
ill painfull) negotiating m u t u a l l y acceptable disciplinary boundarv
( i n c l u d i n g w h a t H a k i m Bey and others call "data piracy"). These auch ence dispersal services and outlets include Replay; M S N T V Service (f< .r m e r l y W e b T V ) ; T i V o : b o t h s o - c a l l e d m o m - a n d - p o p (independent video rental stores a n d t h e i r super retail agent counterparts ( B i n d buster Video, for example); private and professionally produced hoiru video archives, c o m p u t e r game arcades, the Internet. M P 3 and F r e e d peer-to-peer audio and video file swapping (downloading) systems: and direct broadcast satellites. A t the same time, film and television studies' theoretical and ped* gogical foundations are similarly being shaken. A t stake for our expand i n g discipline is n o t h i n g less t h a n a necessary r e t h i n k i n g of the field i the face of these seismic shifts and ruptures. A continued failure bv cin 3
which the e v living digital media have already, to some extent, - c - t e n c d despite o u r w i l l i n g n e s s a n d preparedness to « n h this inevitable brave n e w w o r l d . A f t e r a l l . w e have o n l v ncd an attenuated consensus o n t h e differing natures o f - i J c v i s u a l texts as u n i q u e objects o f s t u d y W i t h this batirclv in a state o f field-expanding détente, t h e digital r e v o l u t i o n has . - visual a n d a u r a l m e d i a codes that d r a w extensivelv - i . u m specificities o f film, video, and radio w h i l e i n t r o d u c es e r i s t i c s and imperatives that are properties o f digital d - n e . These are s o m e o f t h e p r i m a r y issues that have red m) t h i n k i n g about digital matters and that lead to m v f o r m u I the neologism digitextualitv. A m o n g other concerns, this c a n 't rhe intersection o f established m e d i a modes, codes, and loads, and those emerging w i t h i n the f r a m e w o r k s o f n e w media. It - t< > e w m i n c and proffer useful ideas about the u n i q u e fean d characteristics o f the e v o l v i n g n e w - m e d i a technologies that te thein from the o l d w i t h o u t f o r c i n g an untenable equivalence in fuller mMjncc. 1 m- formulation o f digitextualitv chronologically f o l np-'rtant recent p u b l i c a t i o n s o n n e w m e d i a d e a l i n g speh their indebtedness to film and T V studies and practices dw ell's Televisuality: Style. Crisis, and Authority in American Televtargaret Morse's Vitalities:
Television, Media Art. and Cvfcer-
t-cter Lunenfeld's Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts. < dtures (2000) a n d Lev M a n o v i c h ' s The Language of New Media . d u a l i t y has been c o n c e p t u a l l y c e n t r a l to m v w o r k f o r some time n o w .
4
digital matters: what is digitextualitv? then, is a n e o l o g i s m that at its m o s t basic combines t w o -d images: t h e o v e r d e t e r m i n e d s i g n i f i e r digital, w h i c h es most of c o m p u t e r - d r i v e n media's technological processes and Figure 1.1. TiVo: One of several time-shifting digital Videorecorder systea that upset traditional television industry practices and reconfigure tell sion flow for consumer use. ©TiVo.
i d lulia Kristeva's t e r m intertextuality. (It also is indebted to • aldwell's f a r - r e a c h i n g w o r k o n t e l e v i s u a l i t y . ) W i t h t h e t w o conjoined i n this way, digitextualitv suggests a m o r e precise o r
utilitarian trope capable at once of describing and constructing a sen
nr example, the passage m a y be made f r o m narrative to text. O r it m a y
m a k i n g f u n c t i o n for digital technology's newer interactive protoc
-m different signifying materials: the transposition f r o m
aesthetic features, t r a n s m e d i a interfaces a n d end-user subject p.
• i cne to the w r i t t e n text, for instance" f i l l ) .
tions, i n the context of traditional m e d i a antecedents. Moreover. J- _ textuality is intended to address, w i t h some degree o f specificity. ttMtJ
A lure digitextuality departs f r o m Kristeva's n o t i o n o f intertextuality thai the former moves us b e y o r i d a ^ n e ws i g n i f y i n g system" o f q u o t a -
m a r k e d continuities and ruptures existing between traditional ("old j
nspositions, to a l ^ t a s i g n i f y i n 7 ^ t e ~ m o f d i s c u r s i v e
m e d i a and their digital ( " n e w " ) m e d i a p r o g e n y a n d . especially, km
herebv different signifying systems and materials are trans-
n e w m e d i a use gets c o n s t r u c t e d . G i v e n this explanatory agenda, h i
' l u j transformed i n t o zeroes a n d ones for infinite r e c o m b i -
-
useful at this p o i n t to i n v o k e Kristeva's ideas about intertextualir- '
• *n ' ' t h e r j v o r d s ^ n e w j i ^
better clarify the term's influence o n m y t h i n k i n g and theoretical !»r
. 16. See <www.gnu.org>. 17. A t this writing the stocks of major search engines Ask Jeeves, Lycos, LookSmart, and Yahoo! were exhibiting a sharp decline i n 2001 over the previous year, possibly as a result of Google's success. Google does not release financial information. 18. 19. 20. 21.
See . Lev Manovich. "The Database," in The Language of New Media. 218—43. Ardele Lister, personal communication. January 12.2002. Web artists are hard to identify and their names do not always index real people: 0100101110101101.org includes Moscow artist Olia Lialina; Epidemic, based in Italy, includes Gaetano La Rosa. 22. Michelle Delio, "Wild Worm With Pro-Linux Message," Wired.com, December 1,2000. . 23. Julian Dibbell, "Viruses Are G o o d for Y o u , " Wired 3.02 (1995): .
24. Associated Press, "Love Bug Indictment Coming This Week," USA Today, June 13.2000. at ' 25. L. Clare Bratten. "Cyber Cherry Blossoms: Online Mail Order Brides," talk at the conference Console-ing Passions: Television. Video, Feminism: Notre Dame University, May 13.2000. 26. Hakim Bey, "Poetic Terrorism." i n T.A.Z., 4. 27. Independent media remains practically invisible due to an old-fashioned lack of access to the means of production. Here are distributors for films and videos described herein: BIT Plane: Video Data Bank. <www.vdb.org>. Chronicle of a Disappearance: Independent Television Service, <www.itvs.org>: Aska Films, . The Law of Enclosures: Alliance Atlantis Pictures International (416) 967-1141. Fax: (416) 967-1226. The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal: Matt M c C o r m i c k , <
[email protected]>. a vie sur terre: California Newsreel, <www.newsreel.org>.
four
exit meat digital bodies i n a
virtual world
m i s c h a
p e t e r s
introduction T h e A u g u s t 2001 edition o f Wired magazine has a striking cover. It shows a picture o f the a u t h o r o f the feature article, J o h n H o c k e n b e r r y , i n his 1
wheelchair. His b o d i l y posture is aggressive, t r i u m p h a n t : his arms are spread w i d e , his face c o n t o r t e d i n a big scream, as i f he is j u m p i n g u p f r o m his chair to support his favorite football team. A l t h o u g h it m i g h t be u n u s u a l f o r a disabled p e r s o n to appear o n t h e cover o f a m a j o r A m e r i c a n magazine, this is n o t w h a t struck me, and made m e t u r n the pages i n a h u r r y to reach the article. W h a t I considered s t r i k i n g was n o t even that Hockenberry's wheelchair was depicted as being carried by a d r a w i n g o f a giant artificial hand, w i t h chips and c o m p u t e r cables c o n nected to it, but that the accompanying text read: " Y o u r body. Get over it. ( T h i n k m i n d over matter.)" T h e article discusses alternative interfaces between the h u m a n body and its surroundings, s u c h as technological solutions for the sensory-
and voice-impaired (e.g., cochlear-implants for deaf people), o r r e v o l u -
patient to m o v e a cursor o n a c o m p u t e r screen, m a k i n g very crude and
t i o n a r y technologies, s u c h as a b r a i n i m p l a n t t h a t a l l o w e d a patient
laborious w r i t i n g possible. B u t despite their crudeness. H o c k e n b e r r y
w h o had lost all ability t o use his muscles to m o v e a cursor o n a c o m -
describes t h e m as " a r e a l - w o r l d v e r s i o n of t h e n i f t y p l u g Neo/Keanu
p u t e r screen. T h e article displays a n a m b i v a l e n t attitude t o w a r d t h e
sported i n The Matrix" (96).
body. O n t h e one h a n d t h e b o d y is a n integrated part of t h e self; its
In New Scientist, a British p o p u l a r science j o u r n a l , an article o n b r a i n -
biological markers like race, gender, physical disabilities, and its attach-
m a c h i n e interfaces is also i n t r o d u c e d by reference to a science
ments to the surroundings, its " b e i n g - i n - t h e - w o r l d , " are seen as c o n t r i -
movie: the digital m e m o r y built into J o h n n y M n e m o n i c ' s head. W h e n
butions to subjectivity. O n the other h a n d the body is also discarded, its
the article goes o n to discuss actual developments i n science, again the
material influence played d o w n , since " w e don't seem to need i t . "
fiction 4
crudeness of these devices becomes clear. Moreover, these technologies are
In this chapter I w i l l investigate these contradictory attitudes toward
not (yet) available to everyone. Because of the risks involved i n the surgery
issues of e m b o d i m e n t and subjectivity i n four texts o n alternative b r a i n -
they are o n l y available to those w h o are severely handicapped and w h o
c o m p u t e r interfaces. I w i l l connect this to a broader philosophical dis-
have n o other traditional medical options. Still, the results are promising
cussion of the influence of these technologies o n h u m a n i t y at large: A r e
and the article is heavily larded w i t h speculations o n what c o u l d become
we b e c o m i n g p o s t h u m a n , as, f o r e x a m p l e , K a t h e r i n e Hayles argues
possible i n the future if only the technology were m o r e developed.
in her book How We Became Posthumatû A n d , if we answer "yes." t h e n , what
O n e of the requirements for a m o r e advanced use of a brain-machine
defines the posthuman? As we shall see. there are different and conflict-
interface—for instance, a direct l i n k to a v i r t u a l reality w o r l d — i s the
i n g definitions of the p o s t h u m a n .
i m p r o v e m e n t of the connection between the neurons o f the brain and
Representatives of b o t h perspectives can be f o u n d i n the f o u r texts
the machine electrodes o r c o m p u t e r chips. T h e most p r o m i s i n g results
u n d e r c o n s i d e r a t i o n here. M y quartet is c o m p o s e d o f t w o different
to date are, for instance, the experiments w i t h snails at the M a x P l a n k
genres: p o p u l a r science and science fiction. In this endeavor, I f o l l o w the
Institute o f Biochemistry, i n w h i c h scientists successfully attached n e u -
works of A n n e Balsamo. José v a n Dijck, and D o n n a Haraway, w h o read
rons f r o m snail brains to semiconductor chips. This gives an idea of h o w
fictional, literary texts alongside those f r o m the natural sciences. These
far removed this future vision remains.
2
authors break w i t h t r a d i t i o n a n d n o longer treat fiction and science as two separate discursive realms. Instead they s h o w h o w the t w o genres m i g h t cross-refer to one another i n a very c o m p l e x sort o f way. A c c o r d ing to Hayles, " c u l t u r e circles t h r o u g h science n o less t h a n science c i r culates t h r o u g h c u l t u r e . T h e heart that keeps this c i r c u l a t o r y system f l o w i n g is narrative—narratives about c u l t u r e , narratives w i t h i n c u l ture, narratives about science, narratives w i t h i n science."
3
alternative brain-computer interfaces For the general public, the idea of an alternative b r a i n - m a c h i n e interface is probably best k n o w n f r o m the r e a l m of science fiction. In p o p u lar movies like Johnny Mnemonic (1995), The Matrix (1999), o r eXistenZ (1999) audiences have been confronted w i t h representations o f various artificial "sockets" either i n the brain o r the spine to u p l o a d m e m o r y (Johnny Mnemonic) o r connect the h u m a n m i n d to a virtual reality (game) w o r l d (The Matrix, eXistenZ). In m a n y science fiction novels, brain sockets are used to connect the h u m a n m i n d to a c o m p u t e r - g e n e r a t e d e n v i r o n ment. However, the brain implants described i n the Wired article are n o t n e a r l y as sophisticated as t h e i m a g i n a r y ones i n t h e science
fiction
genre, and they cannot cope w i t h the a m o u n t of i n f o r m a t i o n required for interacting i n a v i r t u a l reality environment. A t best, they enable the
Figure 4.1. N e t w o r k of snail neurons o n a silicon c h i p . Courtesy of (Fromherz/MPI Biochemistry).
transcendence is i n l i n e w i t h the liberal h u m a n i s t w o r l d v i e w that has
posthuman T h e a b o v e - m e n t i o n e d experiments a l l have i n c o m m o n a v i e w that the b o u n d a r i e s b e t w e e n t h e h u m a n a n d the t e c h n o l o g i c a l , o r t h e brain and the digital m a c h i n e , seem to disappear. F o r s o m e theorists a n d scientists t h e o n g o i n g t e c h n o l o g i z a t i o n o f t h e h u m a n b o d y is l i n k e d to a n e v o l u t i o n a r y d i s c u s s i o n : we are n o l o n g e r h u m a n b u t have b e c o m e cyborgs (Haraway) or p o s t h u m a n (Hayles; J u d i t h H a l b e r s t a m a n d Ira L i v i n g s t o n ) . B u t does this p o s t h u m a n i s t t h i n k i n g 5
restrict itself p r i m a r i l y to boundaries o f the body and issues o f m a c h i n e technology? W h a t about identity and s u b j e c t i v i t y — d o those change as well? A n d i f yes, how? Does the h u m a n i s t subject (the r a t i o n a l , reasoning, a u t o n o m o u s " n a t u r a l " subject, prevalent i n Western t h i n k i n g after the E n l i g h t e n m e n t ) change i n t o a p o s t h u m a n subject? A n d w h a t does this p o s t h u m a n subject l o o k like? For K a t h e r i n e Hayles the p o s t h u m a n i s t subject is " a c o l l e c t i o n of heterogeneous components, a m a t e r i a l - i n f o r m a t i o n a l entity whose boundaries undergo continuous c o n s t r u c t i o n and r e c o n s t r u c t i o n " (4). It has no a u t o n o m y , n o r agency or desire. Hayles stresses that it is not necessary for the p o s t h u m a n subject to have any technological alterations or adaptations o f the body; m o s t i m p o r t a n t is the adapted, c o l lective
heterogeneous
subjectivity
[MP1]. F o r H a l b e r s t a m
and
Livingston, the p o s t h u m a n is even m o r e radical. In their b o o k Posthuman Bodies (1995) they see the p o s t h u m a n as "queer, cyborg, metametazoan. hybrid, bodies-without-organs, bodies-in-process, v i r t u a l bodies" (19). B o t h Hayles, and Halberstam and Livingston are adamant about the fact that the p o s t h u m a n c o n d i t i o n is already here and that, to quote H a l berstam and Livingston, " l i n g e r i n g nostalgia for a m o d e r n i s t or h u m a n i s t p h i l o s o p h y o f self and other, h u m a n and alien, n o r m a l and queer is m e r e l y the echo o f a discursive battle that has already t a k e n p l a c e — a n d the t i n n y f u t u r i s m that often answers such nostalgia is the echo o f an echo" (19). O f course, as Hayles, a n d H a l b e r s t a m a n d L i v i n g s t o n , are q u i c k to point out, the p o s t h u m a n does n o t m e a n a total break away f r o m the h u m a n . B u t they hope that the p o s t h u m a n w i l l eradicate some of the lesser traits o f the h u m a n subject, s u c h as dichotomizations, w h e t h e r according to gender, race or class, or the famous mind/body split. H o w e v e r , the p o s t h u m a n is still a contested area. Whereas Hayles and o t h e r c u l t u r a l critics l i n k the p o s t h u m a n to a change i n subject i v i t y a n d issues o f e m b o d i m e n t , f o r others the p o s t h u m a n is o n l y
been prevalent i n Western societies since the E n l i g h t e n m e n t and that has been severely c r i t i c i z e d by f e m i n i s t and p o s t m o d e r n theorists f o r its d i c h o t o m i z i n g and d i s e m b o d y i n g effects.
6
cyberpunk A genre that is m o s t h a i l e d f o r its p o s t h u m a n descriptions is cyberp u n k , a science fiction genre p o p u l a r i z e d by s u c h w r i t e r s as W i l l i a m G i b s o n , B r u c e Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Pat C a d i g a n . N e a l Stephenson, and G r e g Bear. K a t h e r i n e Hayles, for instance, uses c y b e r p u n k books as e x a m p l e s f o r her o w n d e s c r i p t i o n s o f the p o s t h u m a n i n
fiction.
C y b e r p u n k novels are i n f l u e n c e d , n o t surprisingly, by actual c o n t e m p o r a r y developments i n science, and often display visions o f the n e w technologies o f today. O f course, it is a general topic w i t h i n science fiction to deal w i t h strange and u n k n o w n technologies; however, the a t t i t u d e t o w a r d t e c h n o l o g y i n c y b e r p u n k c o u l d be said to differ g r e a t l y f r o m m o r e t r a d i t i o n a l genres o f science f i c t i o n l i t e r a t u r e . W h e r e t r a d i t i o n a l science fiction is c o n c e r n e d w i t h r e s t r u c t u r i n g the boundaries between the h u m a n and unexpected others
(whether
they be animals, aliens, o r machines), the attitude t o w a r d t e c h n o l o g y i n c y b e r p u n k literature is m o r e i n favor o f a breaking d o w n o f these same b o u n d a r i e s . In c y b e r p u n k l i t e r a t u r e , t e c h n o l o g y is n o t s o m e t h i n g to be feared or f o u g h t against as i n classical science fiction, b u t it is used as a means o f s u b v e r s i o n . M o s t c y b e r p u n k texts display an 7
o v e r w h e l m i n g fascination w i t h as w e l l as anxiety about t e c h n o l o g y and its i m m e d i a t e effects u p o n the h u m a n . F o r V e r o n i c a H o l l i n g e r , this emphasis o n "the p o t e n t i a l interconnections between the h u m a n and the t e c h n o l o g i c a l , m a n y of w h i c h are already g l e a m i n g i n the eyes o f research scientists, is perhaps the c e n t r a l 'generic' feature o f c y b e r p u n k . " M o r e o v e r , she claims that " c y b e r p u n k can be situated 8
a m o n g a g r o w i n g . . . n u m b e r o f science fiction projects w h i c h can be identified as ' a n t i - h u m a n i s t ' " (204-5). Significantly, H o l l i n g e r notes, " B r u c e S t e r l i n g . . . has described c y b e r p u n k as a reaction to 'standard h u m a n i s t l i b e r a l i s m ' because o f its interest i n e x p l o r i n g the various scenarios o f h u m a n i t y ' s p o t e n t i a l interfaces w i t h the p r o d u c t s o f its o w n t e c h n o l o g y " (205).
mapping the technological body B o t h p o p u l a r science discussions o f b r a i n - c o m p u t e r interfaces and
about changes o f the body, r e m o v i n g any l i m i t s to its f u n c t i o n i n g o r
c y b e r p u n k novels display a c o m p l e x and often contradictory attitude
i m p r o v i n g its d u r a b i l i t y . F o r this latter g r o u p t e c h n o l o g y can l i b e r -
t o w a r d these n e w technologies and issues of e m b o d i m e n t and subjec-
ate the h u m a n m i n d f r o m the constraints o f the body. T h i s f o r m o f
tivity. To do justice to this c o m p l e x i t y I m a p o u t different attitudes i n
f o u r body concepts. These f o u r concepts can be described according to
gression o f b o u n d a r i e s . In t h i s case t h e b o u n d a r i e s o f t h e b o d v are
the f o l l o w i n g m a t r i x :
clearly defined: it s h o u l d n o t be used to provide energy for a c o m p u t e r .
9
Paradoxically, as we shall see even m o r e clearly i n the description o f External Technology Human
12
Posthuman
13
Internal Technology
10
11
what I have called the cyberbody, i n these same c y b e r p u n k novels there
Natural Body
Cyberbody
is also a certain contempt for the n a t u r a l body, w h i c h is described here
Modified Body
Enhanced Body
and elsewhere as "meat." In the t w o p o p u l a r science articles, the n a t u r a l bodv is most apparent
I w i l l investigate the appearance of these f o u r conceptual bodies i n t w o classic c y b e r p u n k n o v e l s : W i l l i a m G i b s o n ' s Neuromancer a n d Pat C a d i g a n ' s Synners: b o t h are q u i n t e s s e n t i a l c y b e r p u n k n o v e l s that H
describe an elaborate v i r t u a l reality o r digital w o r l d , u s i n g advanced b r a i n - c o m p u t e r interfaces. N e x t to these t w o w o r k s of fiction I w i l l analyze t w o p o p u l a r science articles: J o h n H o c k e n b e r r y ' s " T h e N e x t Brainiacs" i n Wired, and Peter Thomas's " T h o u g h t C o n t r o l " i n New Scientist; b o t h describe experimental t e c h n o l o g y o n the subject of b r a i n m a c h i n e interfaces.
15
as the disabled body. Because interface technology is too experimental to try o n "healthy, novelty-seekers" (Thomas 42) the appropriate natural bodies described are the "sufferers of degenerative nervous diseases" (40); "people w h o have lost their sight" (41); or "Johnny Ray", w h o "suffered a b r a i n - s t e m stroke . . . w h i c h p r o d u c e d w h a t doctors c a l l ' l o c k e d - i n s y n d r o m e ' " (Hockenberry 96); and "a quadriplegic" (98). This produces the impression o f the natural body as being fallible, w i t h technologv as the o n l y solution. Technology seems to serve fundamentally as prosthesis to i m p r o v e and perfect the frail and failing h u m a n body and enable it to m u l t i p l y its strength and increase its capacities to extend itself i n space and over t i m e .
the natural body T h e first conceptual body is the n a t u r a l body. This is the body w i t h o u t technological modifications or enhancements. This does not m e a n that
17
the modified body T h e second body i n m y m a t r i x is the m o d i f i e d body. This is a body that
the n a t u r a l b o d y is less m a r k e d by t e c h n o l o g y t h a n the cyberbody,
uses t e c h n o l o g y either as a necessity o r as a c o m m o d i t y . A l t h o u g h
m o d i f i e d body, o r enhanced body. C u l t u r e and technology also m a r k
t e c h n o l o g y is w i l l i n g l y used, its use is n o t i n t e r n a l i z e d or seen as an
the b o d y w i t h o u t direct t e c h n o l o g i c a l i n t e r v e n t i o n s . T e c h n o l o g i e s ,
integral part o f the self. T e c h n o l o g y offers s o m e t h i n g to the user (e.g.
whether they are scientific, medical, industrial, or discursive, determine
life, health), but at a certain price. This price can be either financial or
w h a t counts as a body (Pepper 163). As Balsamo has s h o w n i n Technologies
physical w h e n , for instance, the technology is not advanced e n o u g h or
of the Gendered Body, it is the interplay between the particular materiality
s t i l l has s e t b a c k s — f o r instance, the e l e c t r o d e s k u l l c a p d e v e l o p e d
o f the b o d y (its flesh, bone, s k i n , gender, race, etc.) and the s y m b o l i c
to record the user's brain activity w h i c h , i n t u r n , triggers software to
c o n s t r u c t i o n w i t h i n a certain c u l t u r e (or h o w the b o d y is perceived)
m o v e a c o m p u t e r cursor, is described as " c u m b e r s o m e and the w h o l e
that determines and defines the n a t u r a l b o d y .
system a bit rickety. ' C e l l phones d o w n the h a l l at the hospital w o u l d
16
It is remarkable that i n b o t h Gibson's Neuromancer and Cadigan's Syn-
cause the t h i n g to go b l a n k . . . ' " (Hockenberry 99). B u t the price to pay
ners the m a i n characters are relatively virginal w h e n it comes to tech-
for the technology can also be ideological. F o r example, i n Neuromancer,
n o l o g i c a l m o d i f i c a t i o n s o f t h e i r bodies, a l t h o u g h t h e n o v e l s depict
M o l l y works as a bodyguard. She therefore needs all kinds of add-ons to
fictional
her body, such as optical devices that can see beyond the h u m a n scope
w o r l d s i n w h i c h t e c h n o l o g i c a l alterations to the b o d y seem
to be an everyday part of society. T h e r e is even certain c o n t e m p t for
and enable her to display all kinds of extra i n f o r m a t i o n i n their field of
people w h o let technology enter their bodies w i t h o u t respecting certain
view, or retractable knives i m p l a n t e d i n her hands. B u t there is a h i g h
boundaries. For example, w h e n S a m i n Synners shows her friends that
price she has to pay for t h e m : " 'This cost a lot,' she said, extending her
she is u s i n g her b o d y as an energy source for her c o m p u t e r — " S a m
right h a n d as t h o u g h it h e l d an invisible fruit. T h e five blades slid out,
lifted her shirt just h i g h e n o u g h to show where the t w o needles went
t h e n retracted s m o o t h l y . 'Costs to go to C h i b a . costs to get the surgery,
i n t o the
costs to have t h e m jack y o u r n e r v o u s system u p so v o u ' l l have the
response:
fleshiest
part of her a b d o m e n " — s h e
gets the f o l l o w i n g
' O h , G o d ! ' Rosa made a gagging noise. 'That's an atrocity!
reflexes to go w i t h the g e a r . . . . Y o u k n o w h o w I got the m o n e y , w h e n I
You're sick!' ' I ' m a potato c l o c k , ' S a m corrected her. 'You're a potato
was starting out? Here. N o t here, b u t a place like it, i n the S p r a w l . Joke,
head,' Fez said g r i m l y . 'What's w r o n g w i t h batteries?'" (54). T h e n o v e l
to start w i t h , 'cause once they p l a n t the c u t - o u t chip, it seems like free
thus questions the h u m a n - m a c h i n e interface as an u n w e l c o m e trans-
m o n e y . Wake u p sore, sometimes, but that's it. R e n t i n g the goods, is all.
11
You aren't i n . w h e n it's all happening. House has software for whatever
about m o r t a l i t y and fallibility of the flesh coalesce w i t h fears and a n x i -
the customer wants to pay for . . . " ' (Gibson 177). To pay for the body-
eties about technologies. In c y b e r p u n k novels this conceptual b o d y is
g u a r d t e c h n o l o g y , M o l l y w o r k e d as a p r o s t i t u t e . She l i t e r a l l y h a d to
f o u n d i n the urge to extend life t h r o u g h the use o f various t e c h n o l o -
rent out her body because w h e n she had to w o r k an i m p l a n t e d chip i n
gies: excessive organ transplantation of aged organs, bioengineering to
her brain w o u l d take over her body m o v e m e n t , reaction, and speech.
stop c e l l d e t e r i o r a t i o n . A l l k i n d s o f t e c h n o l o g i c a l i n t e r v e n t i o n s are
In the book these w o m e n are also referred to as "meat puppets." A n d
b r e a k i n g d o w n other l i m i t s of the body. M u s c l e s are t e c h n o l o g i c a l l y
a l t h o u g h this scenario m i g h t suggest for s o m e an easy w a y to m a k e
strengthened and made m o r e p o w e r f u l to s h o w m o r e endurance, or
m o n e y , there are side effects: not o n l y w o u l d she wake u p sore some-
are replaced by artificial limbs. O p t i c a l devices that can see beyond the
times, but she w o u l d also have occasional flashbacks or w o u l d w a k e u p
h u m a n scope and enable the user to display all kinds of extra i n f o r m a -
d u r i n g the action. T h u s , a l t h o u g h there is a certain m e r g e r between
tion i n their field of view replace the h u m a n eyes.
technology and body there are also still clear boundaries, and the subject not f u l l y n o r h a p p i l y embraces the technique.
These implants give the h u m a n body n e w kinds of possibilities and continually cross once stable borders and b l u r familiar boundaries. For
In the Wired article the opposite is happening. H o c k e n b e r r y uses his
instance, w h e n J o h n n y Ray, one o f the examples H o c k e n b e r r y uses i n
o w n experiences w i t h his wheelchair to explain, "In a straightforward
his article, was able to m o v e the cursor o n a c o m p u t e r screen v i a the
way that needs n o psychological jargon to explain, m y f o r m e r [before
electrodes i m p l a n t e d i n his brain w i t h o u t consciously t h i n k i n g about
the accident] body s i m p l y does not exist a n y m o r e . Like Isaac Stern and
each step o f the way, very m u c h i n the same w a y as he once w o u l d have
his v i o l i n , I a m n o w part chair, w i t h some capabilities that exceed m y
used his n o w paralyzed h a n d . H o c k e n b e r r y notes. " T h e fact that Ray's
original specifications" (105). T h u s , even w h e n there is still an obvious
c u r s o r is indistinguishable f r o m almost any other prosthesis raises an
physical b o u n d a r y between H o c k e n b e r r y and his wheelchair there is an
i m p o r t a n t p h i l o s o p h i c a l q u e s t i o n : Because of the i m p l a n t , is a D e l l
acceptance of the t e c h n o l o g y o n the level o f identity or his bodv image.
P e n t i u m c u r s o r n o w m o r e a part o f J o h n n y Ray t h a n one o f his o w n
This is no revolutionary n o t i o n , for psychologists and neurologists have
paralyzed arms?" (98). Indications were there had been a merger o n a
l o n g described h u m a n beings' abilities to i n c o r p o r a t e a n d a c c o m -
f u n d a m e n t a l level between the technology and the body, maybe even
modate any beneficial object the body comes i n close contact w i t h . This
reaching to the level of Ray's identity.
c o u l d be c l o t h i n g , tools, o r e v e n bigger objects l i k e cars a n d boats:
T h i s t o t a l b l u r r i n g o f t e c h n o l o g y a n d h u m a n also s u r r o u n d s an
Elisabeth G r o s z explains it: " T h e limits or borders o f the body image are
experimental technology described i n New Scientist. A t the U n i v e r s i t y of
n o t fixed by nature or confined to the anatomical 'container,' the s k i n .
T o t t o r i i n Japan scientists are w o r k i n g o n a device that w i l l enable par-
T h e body image is extremely fluid and d y n a m i c : its borders, edges, and
alyzed patients to c o m m u n i c a t e by t h o u g h t alone. T o this e n d they
contours are ' o s m o t i c ' — t h e y have the remarkable p o w e r of i n c o r p o -
analyze t h e e l e c t r i c a l b r a i n patterns o f subjects c o n c e n t r a t i n g o n a
r a t i n g and e x p e l l i n g outside and inside i n an o n g o i n g i n t e r c h a n g e . "
18
specific w o r d . T h e system t h e n c o m p a r e s this to a database o f elec-
H o c k e n b e r r y goes even a step f u r t h e r w h e n he writes, " W h e n y o u
t r o e n c e p h a l o g r a p h patterns f o r k n o w n w o r d s , i n this w a y a l l o w i n g
t h i n k J o h n H o c k e n b e r r y , t h i n k w h e e l c h a i r . T h i n k alternative p l a t -
the paralyzed subject to c o m m u n i c a t e . This is still a laborious activity,
f o r m " (96). T h e body and its m a r k e r — i n this case, disability—are inte-
and "the c o m p u t e r has a v o c a b u l a r y o f five w o r d s " ( T h o m a s 40). In
grated parts o f his identity. This goes f u r t h e r t h a n the liberal h u m a n i s t
T h o m a s ' s d e s c r i p t i o n , the boundaries between the database a n d the
view o f the b o d v as a mere vessel for the m i n d and goes m o r e i n the
subject disappear almost c o m p l e t e l y w h e n he uses the terms computer
d i r e c t i o n o f w h a t Hayles hopes the p o s t h u m a n w i l l achieve w h e n
and patient almost w i t h o u t distinction. He even speculates about w h a t
" e m b o d i m e n t replaces a body seen as a s u p p o r t system for the m i n d "
w o u l d h a p p e n i f the database contained m o r e w o r d s . W h o t h e n does
(288). T h a t H o c k e n b e r r y is still ambivalent about this can be seen f r o m
the thinking? T h e c o m p u t e r o r the subject? H e continues, asking, "[I]f
his description o f the body as "specifications" ( H o c k e n b e r r y 105). I w i l l
w e have software e m b e d d e d i n o u r brains, . . . w h a t h a p p e n s w h e n
c o m e back to this i n the description o f the f o u r t h body, the cyberbody.
there is a n e w h a r d w a r e u p g r a d e o r a n e w software release? W h a t i f
the enhanced body
somebody discovers a software b u g or a design error?" These c o u l d be i n t e r p r e t e d as p r a c t i c a l questions. B u t w h a t about the p h i l o s o p h i c a l
Before we can focus o n cyberbodies I w i l l discuss the e n h a n c e d body.
i m p l i c a t i o n s of a b u g i n t h e software i n g r a i n e d i n the h u m a n brain?
T h i s is the body whose boundaries are stretched to their u t m o s t and
W o u l d we still be able to make a distinction between a software b u g and
often even transgressed. It is also the place w h e r e fears and anxieties
psychological illnesses? It is apparent that w h e n he is describing these
p h i l o s o p h i c a l a n d e t h i c a l questions he p o i n t s to p o p u l a r c u l t u r e
materiality runs a distant second" (12). As she has s h o w n this attitude
because "even a H o l l y w o o d script w r i t e r w o u l d be hard-pressed to p i c -
has been prevalent i n cybernetics and related disciplines, but n o t e x c l u -
t u r e the consequences" (42). E v e n i f hard-pressed, T h o m a s seems to
sively, for w i t h i n c o n t e m p o r a r y science this attitude can also be w i t -
indicate that there is a role for p o p u l a r c u l t u r e i n envisioning the ethi-
nessed. Vivian Sobchack (1995) describes this as the "disappearance (or
cal and philosophical consequences o f these n e w techniques.
increased 'transparency') of the material, lived-body, its apparent displacement by technological prostheses that can enable and extend o u r
the cyber body
perceptual and expressive powers, provokes i n some the 'heady' sensa-
T h e last o f the f o u r conceptual bodies is the cyberbody. Especially i n
tions o f h a v i n g 'beat the meat." " O r as Wired f o r m u l a t e d o n its cover,
the c y b e r p u n k novels, these are bodies that n o l o n g e r m a k e the dis-
" Y o u r body. G e t over it. ( T h i n k m i n d over matter.)"
t i n c t i o n between beings of flesh and b l o o d versus beings m a d e o f or mediated by technology. W h e t h e r it is a m i n d u p l o a d e d and stored i n a c o m p u t e r m e m o r y o r a t e m p o r a r y v i r t u a l b o d y created i n cyber-
conclusion T h e o n g o i n g experiments i n t o alternative b r a i n - c o m p u t e r interfaces
space, the technology has become invisible, i n t e r n a l i z e d , or repressed.
have the ability to confront us w i t h some m a j o r philosophical and c u l -
F o r instance, i n the case of v i r t u a l reality, the interface has to w o r k i n
tural questions. There are n o easy answers to the questions raised earlier
s u c h a way that the user represses the material body and o n l y "lives"
r e g a r d i n g w h e t h e r w e are b e c o m i n g p o s t h u m a n and i n w h a t ways.
his c o m p u t e r - s i m u l a t e d life. In cyberpunk, moreover, the general pre-
N o n e of the texts discussed here offer clear or u n a m b i g u o u s possibili-
s u m p t i o n is t h a t t h e m i n d c a n l i v e o n i n a c o m p u t e r s i m u l a t i o n
ties. O n the one h a n d there seems to be a familiar and traditional n o t i o n
( a l t h o u g h the b o d y inevitably dies if it is deserted by the m i n d for too
of a Cartesian flight away f r o m the body, w h i c h is regarded as " m e a t " or
l o n g ) . It is remarkable h o w often the v i r t u a l state is preferred over the
physical "specifications w h i c h c o u l d be r e d r a w n at w i l l . " T h e body i n
material state: "Case n o d d e d , absorbed i n the patterns of the Sense/Net
this v i e w is o n l y regarded as a vessel f o r the m i n d ; the subject i n this
ice. This was it. This was w h a t he was. w h o he was, his being. H e forgot
view is coherent, i n c o n t r o l , u n i t a r y , the t r a d i t i o n a l liberal h u m a n i s t
to eat. M o l l y left cartons of rice and f o a m trays of sushi o n the corner
subject. O n the o t h e r h a n d , as w e have seen i n the m o d i f i e d and
of the l o n g table. Sometimes he resented h a v i n g to leave the deck to
enhanced bodies idea, there is also a m o r e embodied view of subjectivity
use the c h e m i c a l toilet they'd set u p i n a corner of the l o f t . . ." (Gibson
to be f o u n d . A s Hayles describes so beautifully, the b o d y can be i n t e -
76). In Cadigan's Synners one of the characters, V i s u a l M a r k , has chosen
grated w i t h t e c h n o l o g y o r w i t h o u t it, " b e i n g seduced by fantasies o f
t o r e m a i n i n the v i r t u a l w o r l d a l l the t i m e , a n d n o t disconnect any-
u n l i m i t e d p o w e r and d i s e m b o d i e d i m m o r t a l i t y , that recognizes and
m o r e because " t h e p r o s p e c t o f r e t u r n i n g to t h e m e a t o f b e i n g
celebrates finitude as a c o n d i t i o n of h u m a n being, and that understands
w e i g h t e d d o w n , was less appealing a l l the t i m e " (298). T h i s negative
h u m a n life is embedded i n a material w o r l d o f great complexity, one on
attitude t o w a r d the n a t u r a l b o d y is problematized, say, i n contrast to
w h i c h we depend for o u r c o n t i n u e d s u r v i v a l " (5). These different atti-
Neuromancer, w h e r e it is o f t e n accepted s i m p l y as a b y - p r o d u c t o f " a n
tudes are l i n k e d to different visions o f the p o s t h u m a n . It is n o t clear yet
increasing i n f i l t r a t i o n o f the b o d y by technologies t h a t seem to take its
w h i c h direction w i l l be taken, o r w h e t h e r o r n o t b o t h directions w i l l be
materiality a w a y . "
chosen. T h e disappearance o f o u r bodies w i l l n o t just result i n the exit
19
T h e Wired article by H o c k e n b e r r y also displays a negative attitude
o f "the m e a t , " but also l i k e l y to go w i l l be parts o f o u r i d e n t i t y , o u r
toward the n a t u r a l body. T h e way the brain responds to technological
pleasures and desires. It is unclear as yet w h e t h e r t e c h n o l o g y w i l l be
solutions for physical disabilities is o f c o n c e r n because "[t]his raises a
able to p r o v i d e us w i t h suitable substitutes. T h e r e f o r e , a c r i t i c a l eye
fairly r e v o l u t i o n a r y p o i n t about brains and the physical w o r l d . Bodies
needs to be kept o n the n e w technologies, because the fantasies a n d
are perhaps a s o m e w h a t arbitrary e v o l u t i o n a r y s o l u t i o n t o issues o f
dreams of transcendence m i g h t be too strong to resist, and this c o u l d
m o b i l i t y and c o m m u n i c a t i o n . By this argument, the brain has n o par-
leave us w i t h digital bodies suited o n l y to a virtual w o r l d .
ticular preference for any physical configuration as l o n g as functionality can be preserved
T h e brain-body-machine interface doesn't seem to
need the b o d y as m u c h as w e believe it does" (105). T h e body, i n this example, is n o t o n l y regarded negatively, it is even discarded; the b r a i n doesn't seem to need it. This is a typical example o f w h a t Hayles calls "a h i e r a r c h y i n w h i c h i n f o r m a t i o n is g i v e n the d o m i n a n t p o s i t i o n a n d
notes Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Science and Literature Conference, Buffalo, N.Y., October 11-14, 2001 and the symposium C u l ture Studies, Gender and ICT, Utrecht, November 22-24, 2001.1 want to thank Rosi Braidotti and Anneke Smelik for their comments and advice.
1. John Hockenberry, "The Next Brainiacs," Wired, August 2001. 94—105: hereafter, page numbers will be cited parenthetically in the text. 2. A n n e Balsamo, Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 1996); José van Dijck. Imagenation: Popular Images of Genetics (New York: New York University Press, 1998); and Donna Haraway, Primate Visions: Gender. Race and Nature in the World of Modern Science (New York: Routledge. 1990). 3. N . Katherine Hayles, How We Become Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 21—22; hereafter, page numbers will be cited parenthetically in the text. 4. Peter Thomas, "Thought C o n t r o l , " New Scientist, March 9, 1996, 38-42; hereafter, page numbers will be cited parenthetically in the text. 5. Donna Haraway, " A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science. Technology, and Socialist Feminism i n the 1980s," Socialist Review 5, no. 2 (1985): 65—107; Hayles. How We Become Posthuman; and Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston, "Introduction: Posthuman Bodies," in Posthuman Bodies, ed. Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995) 1—19; hereafter, page numbers will be cited parenthetically in the text. 6. For a discussion of this critique see Chris Weedon. "Postmodernism." in A Companion to Feminist Philosophy, ed. Alison M . Jagger and Iris Marion Jones (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 75-78. 7. See Cathy Pepper, " 'I've Got You under M y Skin': Cyber(sexed) Bodies in Cyberpunk Fictions," in Bodily Discissions: Gender, Representations, Technologies, ed. Deborah Wilson and Christine Laennec (Albany: State University of New York Press. 1997), 163-185. 8. Veronica Hollinger, "Cybernetic Deconstructions: Cyberpunk and Postmodernism," in Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Fiction, ed. Larry McCaffrey (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 1991), 205. 9. This matrix was inspired by the use of similar schedules in Balsamo. Technologies, and Hayles. How We Become Posthuman. 10. This means that the boundaries between technology and the body are clear. This does not prevent the technology from becoming naturalized or part of the body image. 11. Internal and external are not just distinctions between inside the body and outside the body. Technology can be inside the body and not be internalized or perceived as part of the body. 12. Human in this case stands for liberal, humanist subjectivity. 13. Posthuman is i n this case defined by, e.g., Katherine Hayles. How We Became Posthuman. 14. William Gibson, Neuromancer (London: Harper Collins, 1995); and Pat Cadigan, Synners (New York: Bantam Spectra. 1991); hereafter, page numbers for these works will be cited parenthetically in the text. 15. These two articles are representative for a larger sample of articles I discuss in my Ph.D. dissertation. Provisional title Marketing the Posthuman: The Technological Body in Tlieory, Cyberpunk, and Popular Science. 16. Balsamo uses the work of cultural anthropologist M a r y Douglas to exemplify this: "In her book Natural Symbols [New York: Pantheon Books, 1970], Douglas asserts that social perceptions of the human body are never free from determining cultural influences; the body is always compre-
hended as an interaction between the materiality of what is given in a particular body and the symbolic constructions of the 'bodv' embedded within a given culture:" Balsamo. Technologies, 24. 17. Kathleen Woodward, "From Virtual Cyborgs to Biological Time Bombs: Technocriticism and the Material Body," in Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology, ed. Gretchen Bender and Timothy Druckery (Seattle: Bav Press, 1994), 50. 18. Elizabeth Grosz. Volatile Bodies: Towards a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1994), 79. 19. Dani Cavallaro. Cyberpunk and Cyberculture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Athlone Press, 2000), 75. 20.
Vivian Sobchack. "Beating the Meat/Surviving the Text, or How to Get Out of this Century Alive." in Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment, ed. Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows (London: Sage, 1995), 211.
digitextual aesthetics
space invaders
f i v e
thoughts on technology
and the p r o d u c t i o n
of culture
p e t e r
l u n e n f e l d
aesthetics for aliens In the course of m y w o r k as an art critic, I was once asked to c o n t e m plate the n o t i o n of art for aliens. I w o n d e r e d h o w to propose, m u c h less define, an a l i e n aesthetic, a n d t h e n t h o u g h t about w h a t this m i g h t m e a n for artists, designers, a n d filmmakers i n the first decade o f the twenty-first century. I h a d to first dispense w i t h the n o t i o n that m y task was to b u i l d a full-fledged p r o g r a m for aliens over night, w h e n the idea of an alien h a d n o t even been f u l l y defined. D o we restrict ourselves to the kitsch c u l t o f extraterrestrial contact and abduction fantasies, c o m plete w i t h flying saucers, a n d antinomies between the malevolence of gray aliens a n d e x t r a t e r r e s t r i a l s ' treacly s e n t i m e n t a l i t y ? O r , are w e instead positing a m e c h a n i c a l other, one that manifests itself as artificial life and intelligent c o m p u t a t i o n — a n alien that we have ourselves created and that m a y lift us to a n e w r e a l m as gods, or abandon us as meaty l u m p s a l o n g the r o a d to greater e v o l u t i o n s i n consciousness? T h e
cyborg is yet another alien, intimately l i n k e d to b o t h the meat and the
T h a t same year, t h o u s a n d s o f m i l e s f r o m M o s c o w , a Sears store
m e c h a n i c a l , an other best k n o w n for its d y n a m i c hybridity, w h i c h by
opened i n Los Angeles at the intersection of Pico and San Vicente B o u l e -
c o n s t a n t l y r e s h a p i n g its o w n b o u n d a r i e s reshapes o u r o w n . F i n a l l y
vards. T h i s was one o f t h e retail giant's c r o w n jewels, a d e p a r t m e n t
there are the aliens whose definitions are all too familiar to us. w h o may
store whose b u i l d i n g was constructed f r o m the g r o u n d u p to showcase
even be u s — i n d i v i d u a l s w h o find themselves o n t h e w r o n g side o f
the merchandise. This syncretic c o n s t r u c t i o n was a fairly n o v e l concept
national boundaries i n this era of global migrations, instantaneous v i r -
i n w h i c h the tables, fixtures, space requirements for the different m e r -
t u a l c o m m u n i c a t i o n , a n d w e l l n i g h i n s t a n t a n e o u s jet t r a n s p o r t . If
chandise lines, c u s t o m e r flow and w i d t h o f aisles, as w e l l as the b u i l d -
aliens do e x i s t — a n d c e r t a i n l y one or m o r e of the p r e c e d i n g types
ing's shell itself, were all b u i l t around the selling-floor p l a n . A t the time,
m u s t — t h e n one task we can set ourselves is to o u t l i n e the contexts for
a rival merchandising executive offered tribute: "In m y l o n g experience
an alien aesthetic. In so d o i n g , we w i l l be able to get a fix o n w h a t aliens
i n the retail field." he said. "I have yet to witness a . . . u n i t w h i c h equals
w i l l have to learn f r o m o u r c u l t u r a l m o m e n t and what they c o u l d c o n -
Sears' Pico Store i n practical efficiency, merchandise engineering, oper-
tribute. T h e goals of this attempt are b o t h modest and absurd: p o i n t i n g
ation, layout and presentation o f merchandise."
1
o u t p o l i t i c a l markers a l o n g the way to a n alien aesthetic; p r o p o s i n g a
Setting the story u p this way appears to a u g u r a classic dialectic, one
c r i t i c a l m o d e l to deal w i t h t h e p r o d u c t i o n s o f this aesthetic; and
p i t t i n g c o m m u n i s t s h o w p l a c e against capitalist showcase. A f t e r the
p u t t i n g f o r w a r d w h a t I refer to as "the d y n a m i c nonconscious" as a spe-
events o f 1989. the conclusion w o u l d appear obvious: the v i c t o r y o f the
cific issue w i t h w h i c h an alien aesthetic s h o u l d deal. F i n a l l y , I offer a
market against the failures of the c o n t r o l economy. This w o u l d m i r r o r
coda that moves past nostalgia for the avant-garde and i n t o an era of
the self-congratulatory prose e m a n a t i n g f r o m the pages o f the A m e r i -
aesthetic triangulation.
can media. T h e tolerant, antistatist, neoliberal tone o f established media
political economy after 1989
like the New York Times cried o u t for lampoons, t h o u g h none were f o r t h c o m i n g i n 1999. a year i n w h i c h t r i u m p h a l i s m d o m i n a t e d (in large mea-
It was 1999 w h e n I tried to develop an aesthetic for aliens: it was also the
sure because of t h e o n g o i n g d o t - c o m e d y o f t h e so c a l l e d " n e w "
tenth anniversary of the fall of the B e r l i n Wall. By coincidence, 1999 also
e c o n o m y so dependent o n the fantasies o f digital o m n i p o t e n c e ) . T h e
saw the forced retirement of M i c h e l Camdessus f r o m the International
histories w e i n h e r i t tend to be the stories o f conflicts as w r i t t e n by the
M o n e t a r y F u n d (a post f r o m w h i c h he dispensed billions of dollars i n
victors, even w h e n they p u r p o r t , as w i t h neo-conservative intellectual
aid and loans to the f o r m e r Soviet U n i o n ) . In other words, the events
manqué Francis F u k u y a m a , to be c h r o n i c l i n g the history of the end of
of 1999 forced m e to consider politics a n d m o n e y regardless of the fact
history itself.
2
that aliens constituted m y erstwhile subject. In H o l l y w o o d , politics and
Discursive excesses aside, 1989 was of central importance i n the way
m o n e y usually manifest themselves i n the f o r m o f spectacular capital
we m a k e a n d t h i n k about c u l t u r e a decade later (even, and perhaps
(as opposed to the speculative capital o f N e w York's stock markets and
especially, alien aesthetics). T h a t year saw the C z e c h Velvet R e v o l u t i o n ,
the v e n t u r e capital o f the S i l i c o n Valley). I live i n Los Angeles, and i n
the fall o f the B e r l i n Wall, the reunification of G e r m a n y , the eventual
h o n o r of m y h o m e t o w n ' s devotion to visual storytelling, I w i l l weave a
fissioning o f the Soviet U n i o n , the emergence of the Baltic States, and
tale across continents, c o m p l e t e w i t h detail and e m o t i o n s t r e t c h i n g
the c o n t i n u e d extension of market reforms i n C h i n a ( w h i c h coincided
f r o m 1939 to 1989, and conclude w i t h that m o m e n t , n o w o u r past: the
w i t h the p o l i t i c a l repression o f T i a n a n m e n Square). T h e Polish trade
year 1999.
unionist, journalist, and n o w capitalist newspaper o w n e r A d a m M i c h -
In 1939, i n a six-hundred-acre park i n the n o r t h of Moscow, the E x h i b i t i o n o f t h e A c h i e v e m e n t o f t h e S o v i e t People's E c o n o m y o p e n e d .
nik puts it w e l l w h e n he notes that " T h e r e v o l u t i o n of 1989 was a great change w i t h o u t a great Utopia."
3
K n o w n as V D N X , this propaganda park was a P o t e m k i n Village, a trade
So, let's r e t u r n to V D N X and Sears today, after this "great change."
and technology fair, and a m o d e l f a r m , all w r a p p e d u p i n t o one. V D N X
By t h e mid-1990s t h e U n i o n o f S o v i e t S o c i a l i s t R e p u b l i c s was n o
was a phantasmagoric space i n w h i c h the Soviet iconography of happy,
m o r e , and n o r t h o f M o s c o w , a city once again i n a c o u n t r y called R u s -
healthy w o r k e r s , p o w e r f u l tractors, and glistening satellites was m i r -
sia, V D N X was t r a n s f o r m e d t h r o u g h that p e c u l i a r l y post-Soviet m i x
r o r e d by the b o u n t y o f prize pigs and luscious p r o d u c e . V D N X was a
of Perestroika, p r i v a t i s m , a n d gangster capitalism. As Jamey G a m b r e l l
central showplace of the Stalinist spectacle, and t r u l y fit M a x i m Gorky's
n o t e d i n 1994, t h e " E x h i b i t i o n ' s p a v i l i o n s , b u i l t as palaces f o r the
definition o f socialist realism as " r e v o l u t i o n a r y r o m a n t i c i s m . " V D N X
people, have been t r a n s f o r m e d i n t o c o m m u n a l apartments o f c o m -
showed life not as it was lived, but as it o u g h t to be lived.
m e r c e : V D N X is n o w a bLzarre s h o p p i n g m a l l . M a n y of t h e m o s t
o p u l e n t pavilions have become congested labyrinths o f t i n y stalls that
cumstances, p r e f e r r i n g instead t o retreat inside t h e h e r m e n e u t i c s o f
sell a j u m b l e o f c o n s u m e r g o o d s . " B y 1999, t h e Space E x p l o r a t i o n
suspicion developed m o r e t h a n three decades ago.
4
Pavilion was f u l l o f used cars, a l t h o u g h there were a few satellite and
It is probably w o r t h w h i l e g o i n g over the events o f 1968 once m o r e ,
r o c k e t m o d e l s s t i l l h a n g i n g f r o m t h e r o o f above t h e m . T h e less
just t o r e m i n d ourselves o f h o w m o m e n t o u s a t w e l v e - m o n t h p e r i o d it
grandiose pavilions had been rented o u t t o n e w Russian companies,
was. I n t h e U n i t e d States, t h e r e w e r e t h e assassinations o f M a r t i n
m a n y o f t h e m protected against Russia's r a m p a n t gangsterism by p r i -
Luther K i n g Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, student revolts at C o l u m b i a and
vate g u a r d services.
dozens of other universities, the days of rage d u r i n g the Chicago D e m -
Yet i f this is to be the story of t r i u m p h , we m u s t f o l l o w V D N X ' s rival
ocratic C o n v e n t i o n , and the expansion o f the w a r i n V i e t n a m r u n n i n g
i n Los Angeles. T h e o n l y p r o b l e m was. by the mid-1990s, t h e b u i l d i n g
headlong i n t o the explosion o f antiwar activism back h o m e . T h e rest o f
h a d been s o l d a n d was n o l o n g e r a Sears. N o w i t stands w h e r e t h e
the w o r l d was i n even greater t u r m o i l : there was the Prague S p r i n g i n
C e n t r a l - A m e r i c a n , K o r e a n - A m e r i c a n , and A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n c o m m u -
w h i c h Czechs tried to break free f r o m Soviet d o m i n a t i o n , o n l y t o find
nities m e l d d o w n t o w n , t h e C r e n s h a w district, and t h e southeastern-
Warsaw Pact tanks r o l l i n g across t h e i r b o r d e r s u n d e r orders f r o m
m o s t edges o f the r i c h west side. T h e first f l o o r was t a k e n over b y a
Moscow. In C h i n a , M a o Zedong's y o u t h f u l R e d Brigades had their so-
massive but always understocked discount hardware store. T h e second
called C u l t u r a l R e v o l u t i o n w e l l u n d e r w a y . B a t o n charges against
floor became the Pico Swap M a r t . M o s t o f the carefully designed walls
Catholic marchers ignited the Troubles i n N o r t h e r n Ireland. Police fired
were k n o c k e d d o w n and t h e w h o l e space was c u t u p i n t o a series o f
on demonstrators i n M e x i c o City, and the extent o f the real death t o l l
cubicles separated f r o m each other by metal fencing. S m a l l shopkeep-
has yet to be acknowledged t o this day. B u t of all the events of that year,
ers, p r i m a r i l y Koreans and Guatemalans, filled each little space w i t h a
n o t h i n g so crystallized the promise o f revolt, the efficacy o f reaction,
profusion o f the sort o f off-brand, odd-style goods that y o u expect to
and t h e change that intellectuals w e n t t h r o u g h i n this p e r i o d m o r e
see i n L i m a , M a n i l a , or M a r r a k e c h , but not expected i n the very heart o f
than the events o f M a y 1968 i n Paris.
the standardized, h o m o g e n i z e d U n i t e d States of A m e r i c a . In fact, there
S u p p o r t e d by t h e s t u d e n t and i n s t r u c t o r ' s u n i o n s , five t h o u s a n d
were probably similar off-brand items available at b o t h V D N X and the
Sorbonne students m a r c h e d t h r o u g h Paris's Latin Quarter, a d e m o n -
Pico Swap M a r t . As for the t h i r d floor of the f o r m e r Sears, it has s i m p l y
s t r a t i o n t h a t t u r n e d i n t o a riot at t h e barricades w h e n t h e p o l i c e
been shut off by m o r e of the c h a i n - l i n k fencing.
cultural theories post-1989/post-1968
attacked. W i t h echoes o f earlier revolts f r o m 1789 t o 1848, the fighting i n the streets was intense, a n d garnered s y m p a t h y t h r o u g h o u t France, w i t h m i l l i o n s o f workers g o i n g o n strike; the c o u n t r y itself seemed t o
W h a t l o o k e d like i t w o u l d be a facile history—-the v i c t o r y o f one sort
be teetering o n t h e b r i n k . B u t w i t h i n weeks, a massive s h o w o f force
o f b u i l t s y s t e m o v e r a n o t h e r , t h e t r i u m p h o f Sears's c a p i t a l o v e r
and savvy negotiating w i t h different power blocks by the g o v e r n m e n t
V D N X ' s ideology—-turns o u t to be m o r e c o m p l e x and problematic. By
of President Charles de G a u l l e q u e l l e d the r e v o l u t i o n a r y f u r o r i n the
1999, the question became h o w t o manage s u c h evidence, t o b u i l d sys-
streets, and eventually the state reaffirmed its power over the citizens
tematic ways to give context t o the c u l t u r e p r o d u c e d i n s u c h p o l i t i c a l
of France.
and e c o n o m i c circumstances. This is w h e r e the alien returns. T h e clear
For a generation, historians and critics have been t a l k i n g about art
a n t i n o m i e s between capitalist a n d c o m m u n i s t , between h u m a n and
and t h e o r y i n relation to t h e p i v o t a l year 1968, the a s s u m p t i o n being
m a c h i n e , and even between analog a n d digital are b l u r r e d , and i f we
that s o m e h o w the failed revolutions of that heady year so demoralized
c o n f i g u r e each as a n alien t o t h e o t h e r , points o f c o m m o n a l i t y a n d
the avant-garde that a l l c u l t u r a l p r o d u c t i o n since t h e n has been i r -
perhaps even c o m m u n i o n can enter i n t o the equation.
revocably altered. This k i n d o f periodization is what c u l t u r a l historians
This essay promised s y m m e t r i c a l narrative, m o v i n g f r o m 1939 t o '89
do. of course, and it has the same relationship to actual developments as
to '99, but I'm afraid I'll have t o break the pattern here for a flashback to
the m a p does t o the r o a d — i t is a useful guide, but o n l y an a p p r o x i m a -
1968, for i t strikes m e that m o s t intellectuals are still using the things
tion of the terrain. Yet other markers have s p r u n g u p since t h e n , and i n
they picked u p f r o m the generation o f 1968 t o deal w i t h the c u l t u r e —
terms o f t e c h n o c u l t u r a l p r o d u c t i o n especially, it strikes m e that 1989 is
especially t h e electronic c u l t u r e developed i n the computer's wake—•
the n e w d i v i d i n g line.
that has emerged f r o m t h e events o f 1989. A s already n o t e d , this has
Before the events of September 11,2001,1 wrote that " w i t h tribalism and f u n d a m e n t a l i s m a p p e a r i n g t o be t h e o n l y o t h e r o p t i o n s o n t h e political scene attractintr a d h p r p n t c ^ n o t ^ j , . — ; . i — • •
been a n era o f c a p i t a l i s m t r i u m p h a n t at least i n o n e o f its stages o f ascendancy, but we have yet t o deal f o r t h r i g h t l y w i t h these n e w c i r -
seem at this p o i n t as inevitable and all p o w e r f u l to the artists o f the West
tic. It is rigorously historicized: it lives i n its m o m e n t , eschews nostalgia,
as the C h r i s t i a n C h u r c h m u s t have been to artisans of eleventh-century
and a c k n o w l e d g e s t h a t o f t e n c o n s u m p t i o n is a c k n o w l e d g m e n t of.
France." I feel that the attack o n N e w Y o r k a n d W a s h i n g t o n , and the
rather t h a n subterranean resistance to, the global market.
reverberations thereafter i n A f g h a n i s t a n and a r o u n d the w o r l d , o n l y
A t the same time, it is vitally concerned w i t h d e t e r m i n i n g the f o r -
p r o v e this p o i n t . F o r those c o m i n g o f age i n a post-1989 w o r l d w h o
m a l characteristics o f c o n t e m p o r a r y art a n d c u l t u r e — e s p e c i a l l y i n
choose n o t to embrace the r i g i d certainties o f tribe o r f a i t h , a viable
their digital and electronic flavors—as opposed to m o v i n g directly i n t o
alternative to capitalism is s i m p l y not i n the offing, n o matter h o w fer-
a discussion o f their " r e v o l u t i o n a r y " use value. This is not to say that a
vent the desires o f antiglobalists manifest themselves o n the street. Post-
post-1989 t h e o r y w o r t h y of its ambitions functions i n t a n d e m w i t h the
1989 theories o f aesthetic p r o d u c t i o n thus begin w i t h the centrality of
marketers o f the digital " r e v o l u t i o n , " degrading the latter w o r d m o r e
the market and its forces. This is as opposed to b o t h p r e - and post-1968
f u l l y t h a n even the m o s t mediocre c u l t u r a l studies analyses. Post-1989
theories, w h i c h were originally predicated o n a direct opposition to the
t h e o r y c o m p l e t e l y rejects t h e m e r c a n t i l i s m o f f u t u r i s m (Wired, t h e
c u l t u r e of the market (classic Marxist/Leninist doctrine).
G l o b a l Business N e t w o r k , t h e l o a t h s o m e G e o r g e G i l d e r ) , a n d t h e
For artists and critics o n the left before the events o f 1968, that is. the emphasis was o n m a k i n g art and theory w i t h a specific use value: incit-
pseudoreligiosity of noospheric fantasy (the C h a r d i n - i n s p i r e d discourse of theorists like Pierre Levy).
i n g rebellion. W i t h the repression and/or exhaustion o f r e v o l u t i o n i n
But, as has been noted, post-1989 theory eschews the spirit of c o m -
the streets, however, the focus shifted i n w a r d , f r o m f o m e n t i n g social
plete renunciation; it lives i n , w i t h , and t h r o u g h these technologies i n
action to a n a l y z i n g social imaginaries. Critics w h o h a d been p u l l i n g up
complex and entirely self-conscious ways, wherever that m a y lead. It is
paving stones m o v e d f r o m the barricades to the text. T h e y , a n d even
e n o u g h to say r i g h t n o w that post-1989 t h e o r y is w a r y of u s i n g n i n e -
m o r e generally their students and interpreters, spent the t h i r t y years
t e e n t h - c e n t u r y analyses o f i n d u s t r i a l c a p i t a l i s m to engage w i t h t h e
after 1968 m i n i n g a l l f o r m s of c u l t u r a l p r o d u c t i o n for "sites o f resis-
postindustrial, interconnected w o r l d . It also takes some o f the ideas of
tance" to capitalist alienation. B y the t i m e that the discipline of c u l t u r a l
1968 m o r e seriously t h a n those w h o c l a i m e d that m a n t l e . T o o often
studies was firmly established i n the 1990s. A n g l o - A m e r i c a n scholars
those w h o identified the death of the author d i d so o n l y to p r o c l a i m the
were l a u d i n g so-called subversive consumers w h o watched Dynasty, lis-
birth o f the o m n i p o t e n t master theorist. For post-1989 theory, not every
tened to M a d o n n a , o r read Hustler. These critics took any s m i d g e n of
reflective surface is an invitation to rattle o n about Jacques Lacan and the
c u l t u r a l bricolage as a revolutionary act, and every fan club was seen as
m i r r o r stage. Sometimes a r h i z o m e is just a peanut, after all. It's m y hope
a c o n s p i r a t o r s ' c e l l . Q u i n t e s s e n t i a l post-1989 theorist/activist G e e r t
that post-1989 theory w i l l be able to take itself w i t h a grain of salt, and
L o v i n k notes t h a t t h e c u l t u r a l studies strategy, w h i c h he describes
truly accept that the master discourse is n o m o r e , a l l o w i n g for a m o r e
as the embrace o f "ambivalent feelings towards p o p c u l t u r e , " fulfilled
heterogeneous approach to c u l t u r e rather t h a n s i m p l y p u l l i n g a c o u p
its self-assigned role, liberating " m a n y f r o m rigid and d o g m a t i c a n t i -
and swapping its rote assumptions for those o f the generation of 1968.
positions." B u t L o v i n k notes that this "creative i m p u l s e was still opera t i n g f r o m w i t h i n n e w social m o v e m e n t s w h i c h have l o n g g o n e . It
dynamic nonconsciousness versus the alien
crossed borders, to r e t u r n safely."
I have elsewhere referred to the c o m p u t e r as a d y n a m i c nonconscious-
5
After 1968, what intellectuals had f o r m e r l y regarded as capitulating
ness. Those w h o t h r o w themselves into b i n d i n g relationships w i t h the
to the spectacle was c o m i n g to be seen as sly resistance. T h i s leads to
digital t h e n add a t h i r d , t r i a n g u l a t i n g element to the psychoanalytic
bizarre deformations, as w h e n certain academics w a r n that virtually any
dyad o f the conscious and u n c o n s c i o u s m i n d . T h e d y n a m i c n o n c o n -
attack o n pop culture can be read as an attack o n democracy itself. There
scious, t h e n , is the m a c h i n e part of the h u m a n - c o m p u t e r interface that
are exhortations to rally to the defense of the m u l t i b i l l i o n - d o l l a r gross-
most interests m e , especially i n relation to a n alien aesthetic. This c o n -
i n g c o m p u t e r games industry (as if such an economic juggernaut needs,
trasts w i t h an approach that too often overliteralizes its interests i n the
or even w o u l d be interested i n , the labors of m e d i a intellectuals o n their
alien. In artificial-life art. w h a t we too often encounter is n o t a replica-
behalf). These o d d calls for action bear a tenuous relationship to the for-
tion of life by the m a c h i n e b u t a replication of the m o d e l of life that has
m a l analysis c o n d u c t e d u n d e r the r u b r i c o f 1968. w h i c h was generally
been p r o g r a m m e d i n t o it. Likewise, w h e n we take the extraterrestrial
predetermined i n its p u r p o s e — t h a t being to locate "cracks and fissures,"
too seriously w e p e r f o r m the same alienating rituals that we perfected
those m o m e n t s i n w h i c h the ideological mask slips and the repressive-
as a species w i t h religion: t a k i n g the best and the worst o f ourselves and
ness of the d o m i n a n t discourse is revealed. Post-1989 theory is m o r e elas-
ascribing these characteristics to an i m a g i n a r y , a n t h r o D o m o r o h i z e d
e x t e r n a l i t y . A s C h r i s K r a u s notes i n h e r savage m e m o i r Aliens and
contributes. There are some, select artists for w h o m the research is the
Anorexia, o u r c u l t u r a l fantasies about o t h e r w o r l d l y encounters t e n d
w o r k , but quite often they are w o r k i n g w i t h i n a specifically conceptual f r a m e w o r k and w h a t t h e y t e n d to e x p l o r e ends u p b e i n g the idea o f
towards the sanitized or the p u r i t a n i c a l , just like established religions: " N o one ever says, I was kidnapped by aliens, and it's the best sex I ever had." It is
research itself, rather t h a n a specific topic (a metacritical project that is
too early to describe the boundaries of an alien aesthetic, b u t we w o u l d
m o r e ontological t h a n empirical).
6
do far better l o o k i n g into the d y n a m i c nonconscious that we w o u l d to
A n o t h e r p r o b l e m w i t h the artist as researcher is the sense i n w h i c h
fantasize about artificial life or, worse yet, recycle the spiritual i n h e r i -
the very concept implies that art s h o u l d be useful to society. A r t can be
tances that all but played themselves out i n the first m i l l e n n i u m , m u c h
useful, b u t the g l o r y o f it as a sphere of c u l t u r a l p r o d u c t i o n is that it
less the second, as we enter the t h i r d thousand-year epoch of the c o m -
does n o t have to be. Researchers a n d scientists are t r a i n e d differently
m o n era.
and have a different set o f expectations f o r t h e i r w o r k — t h e r e is an
the poetics of triangulation
expectation o f utility, and often of clarity (avoiding the detours of postm o d e r n science wars for a m o m e n t ) . This w h o l e artist-cum-scientist
I'd like to close off this discussion of the alien aesthetic and its political
confusion reminds m e of the 1980s w h e n w h a t we saw, especially i n the
economies by m e n t i o n i n g the ways i n w h i c h a post-1989 t h e o r y can
U n i t e d States, were a r t i s t s - c u m - s o c i a l workers. For every innovative
bear u p o n digital m e d i a p r o d u c t i o n . I ' m v e r y careful about u s i n g the
effort those o f T i m R o l l i n s and K A O S there were a t h o u s a n d dreary
t e r m avant-garde, even as I spend a great deal o f t i m e l o o k i n g at w h a t
" c o m m u n i t y - b a s e d collaborative projects" that existed for one reason
other generations did indeed t e r m avant-garde art and media. T h e very
and one reason o n l y : to get m o n e y f r o m the N a t i o n a l E n d o w m e n t for
t e r m needs to be given a rest, like a g o o d horse that has been ridden too
the A r t s ( N E A ) or local f u n d i n g agencies. Originally, by p u t t i n g i n some
hard for too l o n g . W h e n stylistic and technical "advances" c o m e f r o m
vague prosocial rhetoric, artists c o u l d get some s u p p o r t for the w o r k
all spectra o f digital media p r o d u c t i o n — c o m m e r c i a l , artistic, scientific,
they really wanted to do. but then they came to see the f u n d i n g scam as
academic, a n d the l i k e — t h e n o t i o n w e have i n h e r i t e d of a singular,
t h e i r w h o l e reason f o r b e i n g . W h a t began as s o m e t h i n g o f a s c a m
o p p o s i t i o n a l avant-garde serves l i t t l e p u r p o s e a n y m o r e . If o u r soft-
t u r n e d i n t o an entire aesthetic. T h e n , d u r i n g the " c u l t u r e wars" o f the
wares, music videos, c o m p u t e r games, and WAPS (wireless application
late 1980s and early '90s, conservatives i n the U.S. Congress neutered the
protocols, for cell phones and other mobile devices) are a l l to be termed
N E A and this entire brand o f practice died o u t — t h o u g h I see some o f
"avant-garde," t h e n that phrase has indeed been reduced to a market-
the same p e o p l e w h o w e n t after the s o c i a l - w o r k f u n d i n g n o w g o i n g
i n g t e r m l i k e " r e v o l u t i o n . " I d o n o t see t h e digital artist as b e i n g an
after m o n e y and t e c h n o l o g y f r o m hardware and software companies.
avant-gardist i n any classical sense of solidarity or shared artistic destiny;
A n o t h e r post-1989 figure to emerge is the artist as entertainer, a
i n fact, too m a n y mediocre talents have h u n g o n to just s u c h exhausted
notion that has been m u c h bandied about by the "beauty s c h o o l " asso-
tropes to support their o w n , weak brands o f practice.
ciated w i t h Las Vegas-based art c r i t i c D a v e H i c k e y . O n e o f the k e y
O n e of these tropes to have emerged over the past decade is the neo¬
debates i n the visual arts i n the last decade has been over the relation-
Renaissance figure: the artist as research scientist so prevalent i n n e w -
ship between art and entertainment. These issues are h a r d l y new to the
m e d i a circles. A t conferences, trade shows, and e x h i b i t i o n openings,
digital era. going back at least to the postwar critic C l e m e n t Greenberg's
one hears artists g o i n g o n about h o w they are n o w validated i n their
c o n d e m n a t i o n of kitsch, and p o p art's subsequent embrace o f it. Even
choice o f art as a profession because scientists and engineers respect
the v o c a b u l a r y we m i g h t t h i n k o f as b e i n g v i t a l to the m o s t recent
t h e i r " r e s e a r c h , " a n d t h e fact t h a t t h e y h a d grants f r o m I n t e l a n d
debates predates t h e m ; t h i n k o f so e - c o m m e r c y a w o r d as infotainment,
M i c r o s o f t . This attitude is i n c r e d i b l y o d d . C o l l e g i a l i t y is a w o n d e r f u l
w h i c h i n t e r e s t i n g l y e n o u g h was t h e t i t l e o f a s h o w a n d catalog o r -
t h i n g , b u t i n the final analysis, w h y s h o u l d artists give a d a m n about
ganized by Peter Nagy i n 1985 at N a t u r e M o r t e , a gallery i n N e w York.
w h a t engineers t h i n k about them? This "scientific m e t h o d " is g r o w i n g
I have to a d m i t that w h e n it comes to the intersection o f m e d i a and
rapidly w i t h the megaversity structure, i n w h i c h artists w h o can create
technology, m y interests a n d affections are pretty p r o m i s c u o u s . Yet n o
a practice t h a t apes t h e f o r m s o f scientific research get h i r e d and
matter h o w m a n y times I s u c c u m b to the seductions of pop, I k n o w m y
funded. T h e y hire and f u n d others like themselves, and thereby b u i l d a
limits. Mass m e d i a a n d e n t e r t a i n m e n t c u l t u r e are lovers so self-
peer n e t w o r k to evaluate the "results" of their w o r k . M o s t artists have
involved (and so ardently p u r s u e d by so m a n y others) that they are deaf
s o m e sort o f " r e s e a r c h " c o m p o n e n t to t h e i r o w n p r a c t i c e , b u t this
to anything m o r e nuanced t h a n the great b l a r i n g horns o f f a n d o m . So.
rpQparrh
WilPnm'pr f
is rrpriprall-u n n l u i m n n r t a n l " as if r p l a f p s t o t h e w o r k t n w h i c h it
„ —,
C.
-1
i . •.
unwashed bordello that is the Internet. 1 resolve to r e t u r n to the m o r e
one side, w i t h o u t sacrificing seriousness o f p u r p o s e i n the Narcissus
m u t u a l give-and-take of p i l l o w talk w i t h and about art. B u t I feel g u i l t y
p o o l o f mass media c u l t u r e o n the other.
u p o n m y r e t u r n . W h a t are artists to do i n times such as these, w h e n the rest o f the c u l t u r e seems ever m o r e obsessed w i t h the m i n u t i a e o f entertainment and celebrity? O n e strategy is to m a x i m i z e the m i n i m a l — t o make w o r k that slips i n t o the interstices, that waits w i t h baited breath for the attention the general p u b l i c m a y n o longer be capable o f b r i n g i n g to bear. This is an honorable choice, w i t h l i n k s to the t r a d i t i o n o f the artist as obsessive individualist or as avant-gardist w o r k i n g outside, or against, the m a i n stream. Recently, however, some have chosen not so m u c h to d u k e it o u t w i t h the spectacle as to tag along, like l o n e l y little siblings. U s u a l l y egged o n by critics w h o are themselves frustrated entertainers, they end u p p l a y i n g a game t h e y can't w i n , o f f e r i n g a m a t e u r theatrics m a s q u e r a d i n g as installations, performances that play like bad stand-up c o m e d y , a n d r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a l i m a g e r y t h a t c a n o n l y be t e r m e d o r p h a n e d illustration, w i t h o u t benefit of a paying client. It is m y sense, however, that a n o t h e r alternative has emerged for artists w h o w i s h to relate to the d o m i n a n t t e c h n o l o g i z e d e n t e r t a i n m e n t c u l t u r e . I refer to this strategy as triangulation, a t e r m derived f r o m a m e t h o d used by navigators and surveyors to determine the distance between points o n the earth's surface by d i v i d i n g u p larger areas i n t o a series o f connected triangles. In a like m a n n e r , artists can span the territorial divides between art and entertainment by negotiating a series of strategic a n d i n t e r c o n n e c t e d forays f r o m b o t h sides t o w a r d n e w g r o u n d . So w h a t w o r k effects this triangulation? It's not painting. This isn't to say that p a i n t i n g is d e a d — i t never was, t h o u g h it came close with a
fifteen-minute
c o m a i n the early 1970s—and the o n l y people
w h o still c l a i m that critics t h i n k so are dealers t r y i n g to sell canvases to collectors, as t h o u g h b u y i n g a p a i n t i n g was a r e v o l u t i o n a r y gesture rather t h a n the single m o s t conservative transaction i n the w h o l e art w o r l d . It's n o t sculpture or photography, either, t h o u g h b o t h are also selling quite w e l l , t h a n k y o u . R i g h t now, works that engage w i t h m e d i a technologies but e m p l o y t h e m to t h e i r o w n ends, p l a y i n g w i t h a n d against the powers o f the d y n a m i c nonconscious, are the ones to w a t c h . Artists w h o master the means o f m e d i a p r o d u c t i o n — c o m p u t e r graphics, a n i m a t i o n , film and video editing, projection e q u i p m e n t , s o u n d technologies, interaction design, and so o n — w i t h o u t f a l l i n g i n t o the w o r m h o l e of c o n t e m p o rary celebrity culture's banal self-referentiality have been able to capture the excitement of the electronic, weaving their w o r k all the while into larger c u l t u r a l and aesthetic contexts. Triangulating toward m e a n i n g f u l w o r k requires a sure h a n d to escape a r t - w o r l d insularity o n the
notes Meaghan Morris. "Banality i n Cultural Studies," Discourse 10, no. 2 (1988): 3-29. has had an obvious impact on my thinking. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler. eds., Cultural Studies (New York: Routledge. 1992) remains a central document to explore the impact of post1968 thinking on the then emerging discipline of cultural studies. The literature on 1968 is vast; three places to start are Todd Gitlin, Tlie Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam Books, 1987), George Katsiaficas, Tlte Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968 (Boston: South End Press, 1987), and Andrew Feenberg and Jim Freedman. When Poetry Ruled the Street: The French May Events of 1968 (Albany: State University of New York Press. 2001). This essay remixes elements of other publications I have written, including Snap to Grid: A Users Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000); "Enemy of Nostalgia: Victim of the Present, Critic of the Future: Peter Lunenfeld Interviewed by Geert Lovink," in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 70 (2002): 5-15: "Alien Aesthetics: Politics, Theory & Technology," i n Alien Intelligence, ed. Erkki H u h t a m o (Helsinki: Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, 2000), n.p.: and "HighQ A r t : The Seductions of Broadcast Romanticism," X-Tra 2, no. 3 (1999): . 1. For information on Sears, see <ww.sears.com/company/pubaff/1940.htm>. For V D N X , see Jamey Gambrell, "The Wonder of the Soviet World," New York Review of Books 41, no. 21 (1994), 30-35. 2. Francis Fukuyama. The End of History and the Last Man (New York- Avon Books, 1993). 3. Adam Michnik, "Ten Years after 1989: Postcommunist Reflections," Dissent (1999), Vol. 46. no. 4.16. 4. Gambrell, "Soviet World," 30. 5. Geert Lovink, "Fragments of Network Criticism." in Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002), 165. 6. Chris Kraus, Aliens and Anorexia (New York and Santa Monica: Semiotext( e) and Smart Art Press, 2000), 17.
the poetics of augmented space
s i X
ev
m a n o v i c h
augmented space T h e 1990s were about the v i r t u a l . We were fascinated by n e w " v i r t u a l spaces" m a d e possible b y c o m p u t e r t e c h n o l o g i e s . T h e images o f a n escape into a v i r t u a l space that leaves the physical space useless a n d o f cyberspace—a v i r t u a l w o r l d that exists parallel to o u r w o r l d — d o m i nated the decade. It started w i t h the media obsession w i t h v i r t u a l reality ( V R ) . In t h e m i d d l e o f the decade graphic browsers f o r t h e W o r l d Wide Web made cyberspace a reality for m i l l i o n s o f users. D u r i n g the second p a r t o f t h e 1990s y e t a n o t h e r v i r t u a l p h e n o m e n o n — d o t c o m s — r o s e to p r o m i n e n c e , o n l y to be crashed by the real w o r l d laws of economics. B y the end of the decade, the daily dose o f c y b e r s p a c e — using the Internet to m a k e plane reservations, to check e m a i l u s i n g a H o t m a i l account, o r to d o w n l o a d M P 3
files—became
such a normal
aspect o f daily existence that the original w o n d e r of cyberspace so present i n the early c y b e r p u n k fiction o f t h e 1980s a n d still evident i n the
original manifestos of v i r t u a l reality m o d e l i n g language ( V R M L ) evan-
b e c o m i n g larger and flatter: they n o longer require darkness to be
gelists o f t h e early 1990s was a l m o s t c o m p l e t e l y l o s t . T h e v i r t u a l
visible. In the short t e r m , we m a y expect large and t h i n video dis-
became d o m e s t i c a t e d , filled w i t h advertisements, c o n t r o l l e d by b i g
plays to become m o r e pervasive i n b o t h private and p u b l i c spaces
brands, and rendered harmless. In short, to use the expression o f N o r -
(perhaps u s i n g technology s u c h as e-ink); i n the longer t e r m , every
1
object m a y become a screen connected to the Net. w i t h the w h o l e
m a n K l e i n , it became an "electronic suburb." It is quite possible that the emphasis of the first decade of the 2000s
o f built space b e c o m i n g a set of display surfaces. O f course, physical
w i l l t u r n out to be about the p h y s i c a l — t h a t is. physical space filled w i t h
space was always augmented by images, graphics and type; but sub-
electronic and visual i n f o r m a t i o n . While enabling f u r t h e r development
stituting all these by electronic displays makes it possible to present
4
o f v i r t u a l s p a c e s — f r o m m o r e realistic c o m p u t e r games t o n e w 3 - D
d y n a m i c images: to m i x images, graphics, and type; and to change
technologies and standards for the W o r l d Wide Web such as D i r e c t o r 3D
the content at any t i m e .
to wider e m p l o y m e n t of c o m p o s i t i n g i n c i n e m a — c o m p u t e r and netw o r k technologies m o r e actively enter o u r real p h y s i c a l spaces. T h e previous image of a c o m p u t e r e r a — t h a t of the V R user traveling i n a virtual space—has become replaced by a n e w image: a person checking her e-mail or m a k i n g a phone call using her personal digital assistant / cell phone c o m b o w h i l e at the airport, o n the street, i n a car. or i n any other actually existing space. B u t this is just one example o f w h a t I see as a larger trend. Here are a few m o r e examples of the technologies that deliver data to, or extract data f r o m , physical space—and that already are widely e m p l o y e d at the t i m e of this w r i t i n g (early 2002): 1. Video surveillance is b e c o m i n g u b i q u i t o u s , e m p l o y e d i n mass n o l o n g e r by g o v e r n m e n t s , the m i l i t a r y , a n d businesses, but also by individuals: cheap, tiny, wireless and Internet-enabled, video c a m eras can n o w be p u t almost anywhere (for instance, m a n y taxicabs have video cameras c o n t i n u o u s l y r e c o r d i n g the g o i n g s - o n i n the cars' interiors). 2. If video and other types o f surveillance technologies translate the physical space and its dwellers i n t o data, cellspace technologies w o r k i n the opposite d i r e c t i o n : d e l i v e r i n g data to mobile-space dwellers. Cellspace is physical space filled w i t h data that can be retrieved by a user u s i n g a p e r s o n a l c o m m u n i c a t i o n d e v i c e . S o m e data m a y 2
c o m e f r o m g l o b a l n e t w o r k s s u c h as t h e Internet; s o m e m a y be i m b e d d e d i n objects located i n the space a r o u n d the user. M o r e over, w h i l e some data m a y be available regardless of where the user is i n the space, it can be also location specific. T h e examples of cell space applications include using global p o s i t i o n i n g systems (GPSs) to determine one's coordinates; or using a cell phone to check i n at t h e a i r p o r t , to pay f o r t h e r o a d t o o l , o r to retrieve i n f o r m a t i o n about a p r o d u c t i n a store.
3
3. While we can t h i n k o f cellspace as the invisible layer o f i n f o r m a t i o n
P o p u l a r m e d i a n o r m a l l y does n o t discuss these t h r e e t e c h n o l o g i e s together because they belong to different industries (electronics versus computers) and different markets (consumer versus professional). B u t f r o m the p o i n t o f view of their effect o n o u r concept of space and, c o n sequently, o u r lives as far as they are lived i n various spaces, I feel that they very m u c h belong together. T h e y m a k e the physical space i n t o a dataspace: extracting data f r o m it (surveillance) o r a u g m e n t i n g it w i t h data (cellspace, c o m p u t e r displays). It also makes sense to b r i n g together the surveillance/monitoring of space and its dwellers, and the a u g m e n t a t i o n o f space w i t h additional data, because these t w o functions often go h a n d i n h a n d . For instance, by k n o w i n g the location of a person equipped w i t h a cell phone, particular i n f o r m a t i o n relevant to this location can be sent to this cell phone. A. s i m i l a r r e l a t i o n s h i p exists i n t h e case o f software agents, affective c o m p u t i n g , and similar interfaces that take a m o r e active role i n assisting the user t h a n the standard graphical user interface. B y t r a c k i n g the user—her m o o d , her pattern o f w o r k , her focus of attention, her interests, and so o n — t h e s e interfaces acquire i n f o r m a t i o n that they use to help the user w i t h her tasks and automate t h e m . This close c o n n e c t i o n between surveillance and assistance is one o f the key characteristics o f high-tech society. This is h o w these technologies are made to w o r k , and this is w h y I a m discussing data flows from the space (surveillance, m o n itoring, tracking) and into the space (cellspace applications, c o m p u t e r screens, and other examples, below) together. Let's n o w add to these three examples o f the technologies already at work a n u m b e r o f research paradigms actively conducted i n u n i v e r s i ties and i n d u s t r i a l labs. (Note that m a n y o f t h e m overlap, m i n i n g the same territory but w i t h a somewhat different emphasis.) We can expect that at least some o f t h e m w i l l become a reality d u r i n g this decade: 4. Ubiquitous computing: the o r i g i n a l m o v e (1990—) at the X e r o x Palo A l t o
that is laid over the physical space and is customized by an individ-
Research C e n t e r ( P A R C ) away f r o m c o m p u t i n g centered o n desk-
ual user, p u b l i c l y l o c a t e d computer (video displays present the same
top machines t o w a r d s m a l l m u l t i p l e devices distributed t h r o u g h -
visible i n f o r m a t i o n to passers-by. T h e s e displays are g r a d u a l l y
out the space.
5
5. Augmented reality: another paradigm that originated a r o u n d the same
m a t i o n over the user's visual field. A n early scenario of a possible A R
t i m e , l a y i n g d y n a m i c and context-specific i n f o r m a t i o n over the
a p p l i c a t i o n d e v e l o p e d at X e r o x P A R C i n v o l v e d a c o p i e r r e p a i r m a n
visual field o f a user (see below for f u r t h e r details).
w e a r i n g a special display that o v e r l a i d a w i r e - f r a m e image o f copier
6
6. Tangible interfaces: t r e a t i n g the w h o l e o f physical space a r o u n d the user as part o f h u m a n - c o m p u t e r interface ( H O ) by e m p l o y i n g physical objects as carriers of i n f o r m a t i o n .
7
7. Wearable computers: i m b e d d i n g c o m p u t i n g and t e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n devices into c l o t h i n g .
insides over the actual copier the repairman was w o r k i n g o n . Today scenarios for everyday use are imagined as w e l l : for instance, a tourist w i t h A R glasses that overlay d y n a m i c a l l y c h a n g i n g i n f o r m a t i o n about the sites i n the city onto her visual field. In this n e w iteration, A R becomes conceptually s i m i l a r to wireless l o c a t i o n services. T h e idea shared by
8. Intelligent buildings (or intelligent architecture): buildings w i r e d to provide cell-space applications.
both is that w h e n the user is i n the vicinity o f objects, buildings, or people, the i n f o r m a t i o n about t h e m is delivered to the u s e r — b u t if i n c e l l -
9. Intelligent spaces: spaces that m o n i t o r the users that interact w i t h t h e m v i a m u l t i p l e channels, and that provide assistance for i n f o r m a t i o n retrieval, collaboration, and other tasks ( t h i n k o f the c o m puter H A L i n the m o v i e 2001: A Space Odyssey)? 10. Context-aware computing: an u m b r e l l a t e r m used to refer to all or some
space it is displayed o n a cell p h o n e or personal digital assistant ( P D A ) , i n A R it is laid over the user's visual field. T h e d e m i s e o f p o p u l a r i t y o f V R i n mass m e d i a a n d t h e s l o w b u t steady rise i n A R - r e l a t e d research i n the last five years is one example o f h o w the a u g m e n t e d space p a r a d i g m is t a k i n g over the v i r t u a l space
of the developments above, signaling a n e w paradigm i n c o m p u t e r
p a r a d i g m . A s we saw, if we use these system for w o r k , V R and A R —
science and H C I fields.
the virtual and the a u g m e n t e d — a r e the opposites of each other: i n the
9
11. Smart objects: objects c o n n e c t e d to the net; objects that can sense their users and display " s m a r t " behavior.
12
first case t h e user w o r k s o n a v i r t u a l s i m u l a t i o n , i n the second she works o n actual things i n actual space. Because of this, a typical V R sys-
12. Wireless location services: delivery o f location-specific data and services
tem presents a user w i t h a v i r t u a l space that has n o t h i n g to do w i t h the
to p o r t a b l e wireless devices s u c h as c e l l p h o n e s ( s i m i l a r to c e l l
immediate physical space of the user; i n contrast, a typical A R system
space).
adds the i n f o r m a t i o n directly related to this immediate physical space.
13. Sensor networks: n e t w o r k s o f s m a l l sensors that can be used for surveillance, intelligent spaces, and similar applications.
B u t we d o n ' t necessarily have to t h i n k of i m m e r s i o n i n t o the v i r t u a l and augmentation of the physical as the opposites. O n one level, the dif-
14. E-paper (or e-ink): a v e r y t h i n display o n a sheet o f plastic that can
ference between w h e t h e r w e can t h i n k of a p a r t i c u l a r situation as an
be flexed i n different shapes and displays i n f o r m a t i o n received w i r e -
i m m e r s i o n or as augmentation is s i m p l y a matter of scale—the relative
lessly.
size of a display. W h e n y o u are w a t c h i n g a m o v i e i n a m o v i e theater or
10
on a large-screen T V set, or p l a y i n g a c o m p u t e r game o n a game c o n W h i l e the technologies i m a g i n e d by these research paradigms a c c o m -
sole c o n n e c t e d to this T V , y o u are h a r d l y aware of y o u r physical sur-
plish this i n a n u m b e r of different ways, the end result is the same: they
roundings; practically speaking, y o u are i m m e r s e d i n virtual reality. B u t
all place layers o f data over the physical space. I w i l l use the t e r m aug-
w h e n y o u are w a t c h i n g the same m o v i e or p l a y i n g the same game o n
mented space to refer to this n e w k i n d o f space, w h i c h is s l o w l y b e c o m i n g
the s m a l l display o f a cell phone / P D A that fits i n y o u r h a n d , the expe-
a reality. A s I have already m e n t i o n e d , this o v e r l a y i n g is o f t e n made
rience is different: y o u r are still largely present i n physical space; the dis-
possible by tracking and m o n i t o r i n g the users—that is. the delivery of
play adds to y o u r overall p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l experience but it does not
i n f o r m a t i o n to users i n space and the extracting o f i n f o r m a t i o n about
take over. Thus, it all depends o n h o w we understand the idea o f addi-
these users are closely connected. Thus, augmented space is also m o n i -
tion: we may add additional i n f o r m a t i o n to o u r experience—or we may
tored space.
add an altogether different experience.
I derive the t e r m augmented space f r o m an older and already established t e r m , augmented reality ( A R ) .
1 1
C o i n e d a r o u n d 1990, the concept of aug-
' A u g m e n t e d space" may b r i n g associations w i t h one of the f o u n d i n g ideas o f c o m p u t e r c u l t u r e : D o u g l a s Engelbardt, and his concept o f a
m e n t e d reality is opposed to v i r t u a l reality ( V R ) . W i t h a t y p i c a l V R
c o m p u t e r a u g m e n t i n g h u m a n intellect, articulated f o r t y years ago.
system, all the w o r k is done i n a v i r t u a l space; physical space becomes
This association is appropriate, but we need to be aware o f the differ-
unnecessary and its vision is completely blocked. In contrast, an A R sys-
ences as w e l l . T h e vision o f Engelbardt, and the related visions of V a n -
t e m helps the user to do the w o r k i n a physical space by a u g m e n t i n g
nevar B u s h and J. C . R. Licklider, assumed a stationary u s e r — a scientist
this space w i t h additional i n f o r m a t i o n . This is achieved by l a y i n g i n f o r -
or engineer w o r k i n g i n his office. R e v o l u t i o n a r y for their t i m e , these
13
ideas anticipated the p a r a d i g m o f desktop c o m p u t i n g . Today, however,
how to c o m b i n e different spaces together. O f course, e l e c t r o n i c a l l y
we are gradually m o v i n g i n t o the next paradigm, i n w h i c h c o m p u t i n g
augmented space is u n i q u e , since i n f o r m a t i o n is personalized for every
and t e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s are delivered to a mobile user. A n d w h i l e it is
user; since i t can change d y n a m i c a l l y over t i m e ; since it is delivered
still m o r e efficient to r u n computer-assisted design. 3 - D m o d e l i n g , or
t h r o u g h an interactive m u l t i m e d i a interface, and so o n . Yet it is crucial
web-design software w h i l e sitting i n a c o m f o r t a b l e chair i n front of a
to see i t as a c o n c e p t u a l r a t h e r t h a n s i m p l y a t e c h n o l o g i c a l issue, as
t w e n t y - t w o - i n c h l i q u i d c r y s t a l d i s p l a y ( L C D ) , m a n y o t h e r types of
s o m e t h i n g t h a t already was o f t e n a p a r t o f o t h e r a r c h i t e c t u r a l a n d
c o m p u t i n g and telecommunications activities do not require being sta-
artistic paradigms.
tionary. T h u s , a u g m e n t i n g the h u m a n also comes to m e a n augmenti n g the w h o l e space i n w h i c h she lives or t h r o u g h w h i c h she passes.
augmented architecture
Augmented-space research gives us n e w terms to t h i n k about previous spatial practices. If before we w o u l d t h i n k of an architect, a fresco painter, o r a display designer w o r k i n g to c o m b i n e a r c h i t e c t u r e and images, o r architecture and text, o r i n c o r p o r a t i n g different s y m b o l i c
In the 1990s, c o m p u t e r h a r d w a r e m a n u f a c t u r e r s a n d t h e c o m p u t e r
systems i n one spatial c o n s t r u c t i o n , we c a n n o w say that a l l o f t h e m
game i n d u s t r y d r o v e t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of a p p l i c a t i o n s that use 3-D
were w o r k i n g o n the p r o b l e m of augmented space: h o w to overlay layers
interactive v i r t u a l spaces s u c h as c o m p u t e r games. W h i l e today's per-
of data o n physical space. Therefore, i n order to imagine w h a t can be
sonal c o m p u t e r s (PCs) are already too fast for practically all the appli-
done c u l t u r a l l y w i t h augmented spaces, we m a y begin by c o m b i n g pre-
cations needed for a typical h o m e or business user, real-time rendering
vious c u l t u r a l history for useful precedents.
of the detailed s i m u l a t e d w o r l d s can use still faster m a c h i n e s ; it also
To make m y a r g u m e n t m o r e accessible, I have chosen as m y e x a m -
requires special graphics cards. T h e industry therefore has a direct inter-
ples t w o w e l l - k n o w n c o n t e m p o r a r y figures. Janet Cardiff is a Canadian
est i n c o n t i n u o u s l y f u e l i n g the interest of the consumers i n m o r e and
artist w h o has become famous for her " a u d i o w a l k s . " She creates her
more "realistic" virtual spaces—because this is w h a t justifies the sales of
pieces by f o l l o w i n g a trajectory t h r o u g h some space and n a r r a t i n g an
n e w c o m p u t e r hardware.
audio track t h a t c o m b i n e s i n s t r u c t i o n s to t h e user ("go d o w n t h e
A u g m e n t e d space research has the potential for m a n y c o m m e r c i a l ,
stairs": " l o o k i n t o the w i n d o w " ; "go t h r o u g h the d o o r o n the r i g h t " )
consumer, and m i l i t a r y applications, and thus it receives f u n d i n g f r o m
w i t h n a r r a t i v e fragments, s o u n d effects, and o t h e r a u r a l " d a t a . " To
diverse groups. U l t i m a t e l y , it is probably of most concern to the huge
experience the piece, the user puts o n earphones c o n n e c t e d to a C D
t e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s industry. So i f the c o m p u t e r i n d u s t r y thrives on
player, and follows Cardiff's i n s t r u c t i o n s . In m y view her " w a l k s " rep14
sales of n e w PCs and graphics boards needed to r u n the latest c o m p u t e r
resent the best realization of augmented space paradigm thus f a r — e v e n
games, the telecom i n d u s t r y is interested i n selling n e w generations ol
though C a r d i f f does n o t use any sophisticated c o m p u t e r , n e t w o r k i n g ,
cell phones and P D A s that w i l l provide m u l t i m e d i a , e-commerce, and
or projection technologies. Cardiff's " w a l k s " s h o w the aesthetic p o t e n -
wireless l o c a t i o n s e r v i c e s — a n d o f course, g e t t i n g h u g e gains f r o m
tial of overlaying a n e w i n f o r m a t i o n space o n physical space. The power
charging the users for these services.
ot these " w a l k s " lies i n t h e i n t e r a c t i o n s b e t w e e n t h e t w o s p a c e s —
So m u c h for economics. W h a t about the p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l experi-
between v i s i o n a n d h e a r i n g ( w h a t the user is seeing and w h a t she is
ence o f b e i n g i n a n e w l y a u g m e n t e d space? W h a t a b o u t its c u l t u r a l
hearing), and between present and past (the time o f the user's w a l k ver-
applications, its poetics and aesthetics? O n e way to begin t h i n k i n g about
sus the a u d i o n a r r a t i o n , w h i c h l i k e any m e d i a r e c o r d i n g belongs to
these questions is to a p p r o a c h the design o f a u g m e n t e d space as an
some undefined t i m e i n the past).
a r c h i t e c t u r a l p r o b l e m . A u g m e n t e d space p r o v i d e s a c h a l l e n g e and
The Jewish M u s e u m o f B e r l i n , designed by D a n i e l Liberskind, can be
o p p o r t u n i t y for m a n y architects to r e t h i n k their practice, since archi-
thought of as another example o f augmented-space research. If Cardiff
tecture w i l l have to take i n t o account that layers o f contextual infor-
overlays a n e w data space o n existing architecture and/or landscape.
m a t i o n w i l l overlay the b u i l t space.
Liberskind uses the existent data space to drive the n e w architecture he
B u t is this a completely n e w challenge for architecture? If we assume
constructs. T h e architect p u t together a m a p that showed the addresses
that the overlaying of different spaces is a conceptual p r o b l e m not con-
. ii lews w h o were l i v i n g i n the n e i g h b o r h o o d of the m u s e u m site before
n e c t e d t o any p a r t i c u l a r t e c h n o l o g y , w e m a y start t h i n k i n g about
World War II. H e t h e n connected different points o n the m a p together
w h i c h architects and artists have already been w o r k i n g o n this problem.
and projected the r e s u l t i n g net onto the surfaces of the b u i l d i n g . T h e
To p u t this i n a different way, overlaying d y n a m i c and contextual data
intersections o f the net projection and the walls gave rise to m u l t i p l e .
i n Dhvsical SDace is a p a r t i c u l a r case o f a general aesthetic p a r a d i g m :
i r r e a n l a r \\7inr1r,«7t-
f",,f mainstream c o m p u t e r interfaces s u c h as the keyboard and mouse,
f r o m the ceiling; and so o n . In other words, if we are to make an analogy
< i\Jl. or c o m m e r c i a l web browsers. Similarly, the best of video, or m o r e
between an art object and a digital c o m p u t e r , we can say that i n m o d -
generally, m o v i n g - i m a g e installation artists, goes beyond the standard
ern art b o t h the "physical interface" and the "software interface" of an
video installation interface:—a dark r o o m w i t h an image o n one w a l l .
art object were not fixed b u t o p e n to experimentation. In other words,
Examples include D i a n a Thater, G a r y H i l l , D o u g A i t k e n , as w e l l as the
b o t h the physical appearance of an object and the proposed m o d e of
very first "video artist." N a m June Paik. The f o u n d i n g m o m e n t o f w h a t
interaction w i t h an object were ripe for experimentation. Artists have
same later to be called "video art" was Paik's attack o n physical interface
also experimented w i t h the identity of a gallery, f r o m a traditional space
Of a c o m m e r c i a l m o v i n g i m a g e — h i s first s h o w consisted o f television
of aesthetic c o n t e m p l a t i o n to a place for play, performance, public dis-
With magnets attached to t h e m , and T V m o n i t o r s ripped o p e n o f their
cussion, lecture, and so o n .
enclosures.
the electronic vernacular
ture c o v e r i n g the facade, and narrative paintings), V e n t u r i proposed
W h e n we l o o k at w h a t visual artists are d o i n g w i t h a m o v i n g image i n a gallery setting i n c o m p a r i s o n w i t h these other contemporary fields, we can see that the white gallery box still functions as a space o f c o n t e m plation, quite different f r o m the aggressive, surprising, o v e r w h e l m i n g spaces of a boutique, trade-show floor, airport, or the retail/entertainm e n t area o f a major m e t r o p o l i s . W h i l e a n u m b e r of video artists c o n 16
tinue the explorations o f the 1960s "expanded c i n e m a " m o v e m e n t by p u s h i n g m o v i n g - i m a g e interfaces i n m a n y interesting directions, outside of a gallery space we can find at least as rich a field of experimentat i o n . I w i l l single o u t t h r e e areas: First, i n c o n t e m p o r a r y u r b a n architecture i n particular, m a n y proposals of the last decade i n c o r p o rated large projection screens into architecture that w o u l d project the activity inside, such as: R e m Koolhaas's 1992 unrealized project for the new Z K M b u i l d i n g i n Karlsruhe; a n u m b e r of projects, also mostly u n r e alized so far, by Robert V e n t u r i to create w h a t he calls "architecture as c o m m u n i c a t i o n " (buildings covered w i t h electronic displays); realized architectural/media installations by D i l l e r + Scofilio s u c h as Jump Cuts and Facsimile ; the h i g h l y concentrated use of video screens and i n f o r 17
m a t i o n displays i n certain cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, or i n Times Square i n N e w Y o r k City. A second example is the use of video displays i n trade show design s u c h as i n a n n u a l Siggraph conventions. T h e t h i r d is the best of retail environments (I w i l l discuss this i n m o r e detail shortly).
that architecture s h o u l d r e t u r n to its traditional definition as information surface. O f course, i f the messages c o m m u n i c a t e d by traditional archi20
tecture were static and reflected the d o m i n a n t ideology, today's electronic d y n a m i c interactive displays make it possible for these messages to change c o n t i n u o u s l y and to be the space of contestation and dialog, thus f u n c t i o n i n g as the m a t e r i a l m a n i f e s t a t i o n o f the often invisible public sphere. A l t h o u g h this has n o t been a part of Venturi's core vision, it is relevant to m e n t i o n here a g r o w i n g n u m b e r o f projects w h e r e the large, publicly m o u n t e d screen is o p e n for p r o g r a m m i n g by the public, w h o can send images v i a the Internet o r choose i n f o r m a t i o n being displayed via t h e i r c e l l phones. E v e n m o r e radical is Vectorial Elevation, Relational Architecture #4 by artist Raffael L o z a n o - H e m m e r . This project has made 21
it possible for people f r o m all over the w o r l d to c o n t r o l a m u t a n t electronic architecture (made f r o m searchlights) i n a M e x i c o C i t y square. To quote f r o m the statement o f the j u r y o f Prix A r s Electrónica 2002, w h i c h awarded this project the G o l d e n N i c a i n the interactive category, Vectorial Elevation was a large scale interactive installation that transformed M e x i c o City's historic centre using robotic searchlights controlled over the Internet. V i s i tors to the project web site at c o u l d design ephemeral l i g h t sculptures over the
T h e projects and theories of Robert V e n t u r i deserve special consid-
National Palace, City H a l l , the Cathedral and the T e m -
eration since for h i m an electronic display is not an o p t i o n a l addition
p l o M a y o r A z t e c r u i n s . T h e sculptures, made by 18
b u t the v e r y center o f architecture i n the i n f o r m a t i o n age. Since the
xenon searchlights located around the Zócalo Square,
1960s V e n t u r i has c o n t i n u o u s l y argued that architecture s h o u l d learn
could be seen f r o m a 10-mile radius and were sequen-
f r o m v e r n a c u l a r and c o m m e r c i a l c u l t u r e (billboards, Las Vegas, strip
tially rendered as they arrived over the Net.
malls, architecture o f the past). A p p r o p r i a t e l y , his books Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture and Learning from Las Vegas are often referred to as the f o u n d i n g documents o f p o s t m o d e r n aesthetics. V e n t u r i argues that we s h o u l d refuse the modernist desire to impose m i n i m a l i s t ornamentfree spaces, and instead e m b r a c e c o m p l e x i t y , c o n t r a d i c t i o n , heterogeneity, and iconography i n o u r b u i l t e n v i r o n m e n t s .
18
In the 1990s he
articulated the n e w vision of architecture "as c o m m u n i c a t i o n for the i n f o r m a t i o n age (rather t h a n as space for the Industrial A g e ) . " Venturi 19
wants us to t h i n k of "architecture as iconographie representation emit-
The website featured a 3D-java interface that allowed participants to make a vectorial design over the city and see it virtually f r o m any point of view. W h e n the project server i n Mexico received a submission, it was numbered and entered into a queue. Every six seconds the searchlights w o u l d orient themselves automatically and three webcams w o u l d take pictures to d o c u m e n t a p a r t i c i pant's design.
22
t i n g electronic imagery f r o m its surfaces day and n i g h t . " P o i n t i n g out
Venturi's vision o f "architecture as iconographic representation" is not
some of the already m e n t i o n e d examples of the aggressive i n c o r p o r a -
without its problems. If we focus completely o n the idea of architecture as
tion of electronic displays i n contemporary environments such as Times
information surface, we m a y forget that traditional architecture c o m -
Square, a n d also a r g u i n g t h a t t r a d i t i o n a l a r c h i t e c t u r e has always
municated messages and narratives not o n l y t h r o u g h flat narrative sur-
i n c l u d e d ornament, iconography, and visual narratives (for instance, a
faces but also t h r o u g h the p a r t i c u l a r a r t i c u l a t i o n o f space. T o use the
medieval cathedral, w i t h its narrative w i n d o w mosaics, narrative sculp-
same example o f a medieval cathedral, it c o m m u n i c a t e d C h r i s t i a n nar-
ratives not o n l y through the images covering its surfaces but also through
B e g i n n i n g i n the mid-1990s, the avant-garde w i n g of retail industry-
its whole spatial structure. In the case of modernist architecture, it simi-
began to produce rich and i n t r i g u i n g spaces, m a n y o f w h i c h i n c o r p o -
larly c o m m u n i c a t e d its o w n narratives (the themes of progress, technol-
rate m o v i n g images. Leading architects and designers such as Droog/NL.
ogy, efficiency, and rationality) t h r o u g h its new spaces constructed f r o m
M a r c N e w s o n . Jacques H e r z o g & Pierre de M e u r o n , R e n z o Priano and
simple geometric f o r m s — a n d also t h r o u g h its bare, i n d u s t r i a l - l o o k i n g
R e m Koolhaas have created stores for Prada. M a n d a r i n a D u c k . Hermès.
surfaces. (Thus the absence of information f r o m the surface—articulated
C o m m e s des Garçons, and o t h e r h i g h - e n d brands: architect R i c h a r d
i n the famous "ornament is c r i m e " slogan by A d o l f Loos—itself became a
G l u c k s m a n colloborated w i t h artist Jenny H o l z e r to create a s t u n n i n g
powerful c o m m u n i c a t i o n technique of m o d e r n architecture).
H e l m u t Lang p e r f u m e shop i n N e w Y o r k that incorporates Holzer's sig-
A n i m p o r t a n t design p r o b l e m today is h o w t o c o m b i n e the n e w
nature use o f L C D . Stores featuring dramatic architecture and design,
f u n c t i o n i n g of a surface as an electronic display w i t h n e w k i n d of spaces
and m i x i n g a restaurant, f a s h i o n , design, a n d a n art g a l l e r y have
that w i l l symbolize the specificity o f o u r o w n t i m e .
W h i l e V e n t u r i fits
become a n e w p a r a d i g m f o r h i g h - e n d brands. O t t o R i e w o l d t labeled
electronic displays o n his buildings that closely f o l l o w traditional ver-
this p a r a d i g m " b r a n d s c a p i n g " — p r o m o t i n g the b r a n d by c r e a t i n g
23
n a c u l a r architecture, this is obviously n o t the o n l y possible strategy. T h e w e l l - k n o w n 1996 Freshwater Pavilion by NOX/Lars Spuybroek f o l lows a m u c h m o r e radical approach. T o emphasize that the interior of
unique spaces: "Brandscaping is the hot issue. T h e site at w h i c h goods are p r o m o t e d and sold has to reinvent itself by developing u n i q u e and unmistakable qualities."
26
the space constantly mutates. Spuybroek eliminates all straight surfaces
R e m Koolhaas's Prada store i n N e w York (2002) pushes brandscaping
and straight angles; he makes the shapes d e f i n i n g the space actually
to a n e w level. Koolhaas seems to achieve the impossible by creating a
m o v e ; and he introduces c o m p u t e r - c o n t r o l l e d lights that change the
flagship store f o r the Prada b r a n d — a n d at the same t i m e a n i r o n i c
i l l u m i n a t i o n of an i n t e r i o r . A s described by Ineke Schwartz. "There is
statement about the f u n c t i o n i n g o f brands as new religions. T h e i m a g -
24
27
floors,
inative use o f electronic displays is an i m p o r t a n t part of this statement.
w a l l s a n d c e i l i n g s . B u i l d i n g a n d e x h i b i t i o n have f u s e d : m i s t b l o w s
O n entering the store y o u discover glass cages h a n g i n g f r o m the ceiling
no d i s t i n c t i o n between h o r i z o n t a l a n d v e r t i c a l , b e t w e e n [sic]
around y o u r ears, a geyser erupts, water gleams and splatters all around
t h r o u g h o u t the space. Just as a c h u r c h w o u l d present the relics o f saints
y o u , projections fall directly onto the b u i l d i n g and its visitors, the air is
in special displays, here the glass cages contain the n e w objects o f w o r -
filled w i t h waves o f electronic s o u n d . "
s h i p — P r a d a c l o t h e s . T h e special status o f Prada clothes is f u r t h e r
25
I t h i n k t h a t S p u y b r o e k ' s b u i l d i n g is a successful s y m b o l f o r the
enhanced by placing small, flat, electronic screens t h r o u g h o u t the store
i n f o r m a t i o n age. Its c o n t i n u o u s l y c h a n g i n g surfaces illustrate the key
on horizontal shelves, a m o n g the merchandise. The clothes are equated
effect o f a c o m p u t e r r e v o l u t i o n : s u b s t i t u t i o n of every constant by a
to the ephemeral images p l a y i n g o n the screens, a n d vice v e r s a — t h e
variable. In other words, the space that symbolizes the i n f o r m a t i o n age
images acquire a certain materiality, as t h o u g h they are objects. B y posi-
is n o t a s y m m e t r i c a l and o r n a m e n t a l space o f traditional architecture, rectangular v o l u m e s of m o d e r n i s m , or b r o k e n and b l o w n - u p volumes of deconstruction; rather, it is space whose shapes are i n h e r e n t l y m u t a ble, and whose soft contours act as a m e t a p h o r for the key quality of c o m p u t e r - d r i v e n representations and systems: variability.
themselves but i n order to emulate the certain images and narratives presented by the advertisements o f these objects. Finally, o n the basement level o f the store y o u discover a screen s h o w i n g an interactive m u l t i m e d i a p r e s e n t a t i o n o f K o o l h a a s ' s t e a m research f o r his Prada commissions. O n e can list a l l Prada stores t h r o u g h o u t the w o r l d by
learning from prada V e n t u r i wants to p u t electronic o r n a m e n t and electronic iconography o n traditional buildings, w h i l e Lars Spuybroek. i n his Freshwater Pavili o n , does create a new k i n d o f space but reduces the c h a n g i n g i n f o r m a t i o n t o abstract c o l o r fields a n d s o u n d . In F r e s h w a t e r
tioning screens s h o w i n g m o v i n g images right next to clothes Koolhaas ironically refers to w h a t everybody today k n o w s : we buy objects n o t for
Pavilion
i n f o r m a t i o n surface functions i n a very particular way, displaying color fields rather t h a n text, images, o r n u m b e r s . W h e r e today can we find
square footage, l o o k at the team's analysis of the o p t i m a l locations for store placement, and study other data sets that underlie Prada's brandscaping. Koolhaas masterfully engages the "I k n o w it is an illusion but nevertheless" effect: we k n o w that Prada is a business governed by economic rationality, and yet we still feel that we are not simply i n a store but i n a m o d e r n c h u r c h .
interesting architectural spaces c o m b i n e d w i t h electronic displays that
It is symbolic that Prada has opened i n the same space that was pre-
show the w h o l e range of i n f o r m a t i o n , f r o m ambient color fields to fig-
viously occupied by a branch of the G u g g e n h e i m M u s e u m . The strate-
urative images and n u m e r i c a l data?
gies of b r a n d s c a p i n g are d i r e c t l y relevant to m u s e u m s and tralWi».,
w h i c h , like all other physical spaces, n o w have to compete against the n e w i n f o r m a t i o n , entertainment, and retail space: a c o m p u t e r or P D A screen connected to the N e t . A l t h o u g h m u s e u m s since the 1990s have similarly expanded their functionality, often c o m b i n i n g galleries, a store, film series, lectures, and concerts, design-wise they can learn f r o m retail design, w h i c h , as R i e w o l d t points out, "has learnt t w o lessons f r o m the entertainment industry. First: forget the goods, sell t h r i l l i n g experience to the people. A n d secondly: beat the c o m p u t e r screen at its o w n game by staging real objects of desire—and by adding some spice to the space w i t h maybe some audio-visual interactive gadgetry."
28
In a h i g h - t e c h society c u l t u r a l institutions usually f o l l o w the i n d u s try. A new technology is being developed for military, business, or c o n sumer use; after a w h i l e c u l t u r a l institutions notice that some artists are e x p e r i m e n t i n g w i t h it as w e l l , and start i n c o r p o r a t i n g it i n their p r o g r a m m i n g . Because they have the f u n c t i o n of collecting and preserving the artworks, art m u s e u m s today often l o o k like historical collections of media technologies of the previous decades. T h u s one m a y mistake a c o n t e m p o r a r y art m u s e u m f o r a m u s e u m o f obsolete t e c h n o l o g y . Today, w h i l e outside one finds L C D and P D A , data projectors and digital video cameras, inside a m u s e u m we m a y expect to find slide projectors, 16-millimeter film equipment, and 3/4-inch video decks. C a n this s i t u a t i o n be reversed? C a n c u l t u r a l i n s t i t u t i o n s p l a y an active, even leading, role as laboratories where alternative futures are tested? A u g m e n t e d s p a c e — w h i c h is s l o w l y b e c o m i n g a r e a l i t y — i s one o p p o r t u n i t y for these i n s t i t u t i o n s to take a m o r e active r o l e . W h i l e m a n y video installations already f u n c t i o n as laboratories for the develo p m e n t of n e w configurations of image w i t h i n space, m u s e u m s and galleries as a w h o l e c o u l d use t h e i r o w n u n i q u e asset—a p h y s i c a l space—to encourage the development of distinct n e w spatial forms of art and new spatial forms o f a m o v i n g image. In this way they can take a lead i n testing o u t one part of augmented space's f u t u r e . A t the same t i m e , t h e y c a n p l a y a n active r o l e i n d e v e l o p i n g the poetics of a u g m e n t e d space as a w h o l e . F o r i n a d d i t i o n to h a v i n g the resources of a physical space they have special access to another unique resource: the history of m o d e r n art that (as I suggested already) c o n c e p t u a l l y p r e p a r e d the a u g m e n t e d space p a r a d i g m . H a v i n g stepped o u t s i d e the p i c t u r e f r a m e i n t o t h e w h i t e cube w a l l s , floor, a n d t h e w h o l e space, artists a n d c u r a t o r s s h o u l d feel at h o m e t a k i n g yet another step: treating this space as layers o f data. This does n o t m e a n that t h e p h y s i c a l space b e c o m e s i r r e l e v a n t ; o n t h e c o n t r a r y , as the p r a c t i c e o f C a r d i f f a n d L i b e r s k i n d s h o w s , it is at t h e i n t e r a c t i o n o f the physical space and the data that some o f the most a m a z i n g art of o u r t i m e is being created.
notes 1. In the early 1990s the inventors of virtual reality modeling language designed it in order to model and access 3-D interactive virtual worlds over the Internet, and promoted it as the material realization of the idea of cyberspace. (See, for instance. Mark Pesce. "Ontos, Eros, Noos, Logos," keynote address for the International Symposium on Electronic Arts 1995, at . As of this writing (May 2002), Internet-based 3-D virtual worlds have still failed to become popular. 2. Coined i n 1998 by David S. Bennahum, the term cellspace originally referred to the then new ability to access e-mail or Internet wirelessly. Here I am using the term i n a broader sense. 3. It is interesting to think of GPS as a particular case of cellspace. Rather than being tied up to an object or a building, here the information is a property of the earth as a whole. A user equipped with a GPS receiver can retrieve a particular type of information relative to the coordinates of his location. GPS is gradually being integrated into various telecommunication and transportation technologies, from cell phones to PDAs to cars. 4. Recall the opening scene of Blade Runner (1982), where the whole side of a high-rise building acts as a screen. 5. Mark Weiser, "The computer for the twenty-first century," Scientific Amer¬ ican 265, no. 3 (1991): 94-104. 6. Wendy MacKay, Giles Velay, Kathy Carter, Chayoying M a , and Daniele Pagani, "Augmenting Reality: Adding Computational Dimensions to Paper," Communications of the ACM, 36, no. 7 (1993): 96-97; Kevin Bonsor, "How Augmented Reality Will Work" , accessed March 16. 2002. 7. See the Tangible Bits project at M I T Media Lab, , accessed March 16. 2002. 8. G u i d o Appenzeller, Intelligent Space Project , accessed March 16, 2002. Intelligent R o o m Projects, AI Lab, MIT, , accessed March 16,2002. 9. Tom Moran and Paul Dourish, Introduction to special issue on contextaware computing, Human Computer Interaction, 16 (2001): 108. 10. Ivan Noble, "E-paper moves a step nearer," BBC News Online, April 23.2001, . 11. For A R research sites and conferences, see . 12. Interestingly, this reversal can be said to be prefigured i n the very origins of V R . In the late 1960s Ivan Sutherland developed what came down i n history as the first V R system. The user of the system saw a simple wireframe cube whose perspectival view would change as the user moved his head. The wire-frame cube appeared overlaid over whatever the user was seeing. Because the idea of a 3-D computer graphics display whose perspective changes i n real time according to the position of the user became associated with subsequent virtual reality systems, Sutherland is credited with inventing the first V R system. It can be argued that his was not a VR system but an A R system, however, because the virtual display was overlaid on the user's field of vision without blocking it. In other words, in
94
Sutherland's system new information was added to the physical environment: a virtual cube. 13. Vannevar Bush. "As We May T h i n k " (1945); Douglas Engelbart, " A u g menting H u m a n Intellect: A Conceptual Framework" (1962); both i n The New Media Reader, ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort (MIT Press, forthcoming 2002.) 14. I experienced the "walk" that Cardiff created for P.S.I i n New York in 2001. 15. For those readers familiar with these concepts, the artistic augmented spaces I evoke can be thought of as 2-D texture maps while technological augmented spaces can be compared to a solid texture. 16. This passive and melancholic quality of video art was brilliantly staged in a recent exhibition design by LO/TEK for the exhibition Making Time: Considering Time As a Material in Contemporary Video and Film at the Hammer Museum i n Los Angeles (February 4—April 29, 2001). As N o r m a n Klein pointed out to me, LO/TEK designed a kind of collective tomb—a cemetery for video art. 17. Kn overview of Diller + Scofilio projects can be found at . 18. Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966); Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press, 1972.) 19. Robert Venturi, Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic Architecture: A View from the Drafting Room (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996). 20. Robert Venturi, i n a dialog with George Legrady, Entertainment and Value Conference, Universitv of California, Santa Barbara, M a y 4, 2002. The term infortnation surface is mine. 21. See . 22. Ibid. 23. See . 24. See Ineke Schwartz, "Testing Ground for Interactivity: The Water Pavilions by Lars Spuybroek and Kas Oosterhuis" . 25. Ibid. 26. Otto Riewoldt, qtd. in Mark Hooper, "Sex and Shopping," ID. May 2001, 94. 27. For an insightful analysis of the branding phenomenon, see Naomi Klein. No Logo (New York: Picador, 2000). 28. Riewoldt, quoted i n Hooper. "Sex and Shopping," 94.
too many notes
s e v e n
computers, complexity,
a n d c u l t u r e i n voyager
g e o r g e
e.
l e w i s
Voyager is a nonhierarchical. interactive musical e n v i r o n m e n t that p r i v ileges i m p r o v i s a t i o n . ' In Voyager, improvisors engage i n dialogue w i t h a c o m p u t e r - d r i v e n , interactive " v i r t u a l i m p r o v i s i n g orchestra." A c o m puter p r o g r a m analyzes aspects o f a h u m a n improvisor's performance m real time, using that analysis to guide an automatic c o m p o s i t i o n (or it y o u w i l l , i m p r o v i s a t i o n ) p r o g r a m t h a t generates b o t h c o m p l e x responses to t h e m u s i c i a n ' s p l a y i n g and i n d e p e n d e n t b e h a v i o r t h a t arises f r o m its o w n i n t e r n a l processes. This w o r k , w h i c h is one o f m y most widely performed compositions deals w i t h the nature of music and, i n particular, the processes by w h i c h improvising musicians p r o d u c e it. These questions can encompass not only t e c h n o l o g i c a l o r m u s i c - t h e o r e t i c a l interests b u t p h i l o s o p h i c a l political, c u l t u r a l , and social concerns as w e l l . This is consistent w i t h the instrumental dimension or tendency i n A f r i c a n musical organization or «mat Robert Farris T h o m p s o n identifies as "songs and dances o f social
allusion." one of several "ancient A f r i c a n organizing principles of song and dance that crossed the seas f r o m the O l d W o r l d to the N e w . "
2
Voyager's u n u s u a l a m a l g a m a t i o n o f i m p r o v i s a t i o n , i n d e t e r m i n a c y , empathy, and the logical, utterly systematic structure of the c o m p u t e r p r o g r a m is described t h r o u g h o u t this article not o n l y as an environment. but as a program, a system, and a composition, i n the musical sense of the t e r m . In fact, the w o r k can take o n aspects of a l l of these terms s i m u l t a n e o u s l y — c o n s i d e r i n g the c o n c e p t u a l l e v e l , the process o f creating the software and the real-time, r e a l - w o r l d encounter w i t h the w o r k as perf o r m e r o r listener. F l o w i n g across these s e e m i n g l y r i g i d c o n c e p t u a l boundaries encourages b o t h improvisors and listeners to recognize the inherent instability of s u c h taxonomies. M u s i c a l c o m p u t e r programs, like any texts, are n o t "objective" or "universal," but instead represent the particular ideas of their creators. As notions about the nature and f u n c t i o n of music become embedded i n t o the structure of software-based musical systems and compositions, interactions w i t h these systems t e n d to reveal characteristics of the c o m m u n i t y o f t h o u g h t a n d c u l t u r e t h a t p r o d u c e d t h e m . T h u s , it w o u l d be useful here to examine the implications of the experience of p r o g r a m m i n g and p e r f o r m i n g w i t h Voyager as a k i n d of c o m p u t e r music m a k i n g e m b o d y i n g A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n c u l t u r a l practice. A m o n g the fair n u m b e r of studies by artists/theorists w h o have w r i t ten cogently o n issues of race, gender, and class i n n e w technological m e d i a (such as L o r e t t a T o d d and C a m e r o n Bailey ), the ethnographic 3
s t u d y o f I n s t i t u t R e c h e r c h e et C o o r d i n a t i o n A c o u s t i q u e / M u s i q u e ( I R C A M ) by the anthropologist and i m p r o v i s o r G e o r g i n a B o r n appears to stand p r a c t i c a l l y alone i n the t r e n c h a n c y and t h o r o u g h n e s s o f its analysis of these issues w i t h respect to c o m p u t e r m u s i c . This viewpoint 4
contrasts m a r k e d l y w i t h C a t h e r i n e M . C a m e r o n ' s rather celebratory ethnography-at-a-distance of w h a t she terms " A m e r i c a n experimentalism," i n w h i c h the w o r d race never appears, and i n w h i c h her n o t i o n of a " m u s i c a l class s t r u c t u r e " is f r a m e d largely i n terms o f a n o w m o r i b u n d debate about relative privilege between Europe and A m e r i c a .
3
In contrast, B o m ' s explicit identification o f the nearly all-male, a l l w h i t e m u s i c a l and c u l t u r a l c a n o n articulated n o t o n l y by the French i n s t i t u t e b u t by its A m e r i c a n e q u i v a l e n t s traces t h e o u t l i n e s o f the development of a post-1950s aesthetic of trans-European experimentalism. G i v e n her as yet u n r e f u t e d thesis that the o v e r w h e l m i n g majority of c o m p u t e r m u s i c research and c o m p o s i t i o n a l activity locates itself
European c o n t e m p o r a r y concert music and, moreover, is not necessarily m o d e l e d as a narrative about " c o m p o s i t i o n . "
the aesthetics of multidominance In an i n f l u e n t i a l 1990s essay, the artist a n d c r i t i c R o b e r t L. D o u g l a s sought to formalize an A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n aesthetic, synthesizing visual 6
and musical elements of w h a t the painter Jeff Donaldson, founder of the Africobra art m o v e m e n t . has called " t r a n s - A f r i c a n " c u l t u r e . The aspect 7
of Douglas's theory that I wish to h i g h l i g h t here is the n o t i o n o f " m u l t i d o m i n a n t elements," w h i c h I w i l l henceforth call " m u l t i d o m i n a n c e . " According to Douglas, the aesthetics of m u l t i d o m i n a n c e , i n v o l v i n g "the multiple use o f colors i n intense degrees, or the m u l t i p l e use o f textures, design patterns, or shapes," are f o u n d quite r o u t i n e l y i n m u s i c a l and 8
visual works of A f r i c a and its diaspora. By way o f i n t r o d u c t i o n to his theory, Douglas recalls f r o m his artschool days that interviews w i t h " m o s t A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n artists w i t h Eurocentric art t r a i n i n g w i l l reveal that they received s i m i l a r i n s t r u c tions, such as 'tone d o w n y o u r colors, too m a n y c o l o r s . ' " Apparently, 9
these " h e l p f u l " pedagogical interventions were presented as s o m e h o w universal and transcendent rather t h a n as e m a n a t i n g f r o m a particular c u l t u r a l l y o r historically situated worldview, or as based i n networks of political o r social power. Douglas, i n observing that " s u c h c u l t u r a l l y narrow aesthetic views w o u l d have separated us altogether f r o m o u r rich A f r i c a n heritage if we h a d accepted t h e m w i t h o u t question," goes on to c o m p a r e this aspect o f E u r o c e n t r i c art t r a i n i n g to E u r o c e n t r i c music t r a i n i n g , w h i c h i n his v i e w does n o t equip its students to hear music w i t h m u l t i d o m i n a n t r h y t h m i c and m e l o d i c elements as anything but "noise," "frenzy," or, perhaps, "chaos."'" In fact, v i r t u a l l y every extant f o r m of black music has been characterized as "noise." As historian Jon C r u z notes, the history of this trope in the U n i t e d States dates back at least as far as the slavery period: " P r i o r to the m i d - 1 9 t h C e n t u r y black m u s i c appears to have been heard by captors and overseers p r i m a r i l y as n o i s e — t h a t is, as strange, u n f a t h omable, a n d i n c o m p r e h e n s i b l e . " ' ' H o w e v e r , as C r u z p o i n t s out, f o r slave owners to hear o n l y noise is " t a n t a m o u n t to being oblivious to the structures o f m e a n i n g that a n c h o r e d s o u n d i n g to the h e r m e n e u t i c world o f the slaves." To hear o n l y noise is to " r e m a i n r e m o v e d f r o m how slave s o u n d i n g s p r o b e d t h e i r circumstances a n d c u l t i v a t e d histories and m e m o r i e s . "
12
(however unsteadily at times) w i t h i n the belief systems and c u l t u r a l
T h e n o t i o n identified by C r u z that "the p r o d u c t i o n o f m u s i c and
practices of E u r o p e a n concert m u s i c , one can easily i m a g i n e a work
" t h e r c u l t u r a l f o r m s enabled slaves to c o l l e c t i v e l y exercise s y m b o l i c
that, l i k e Voyager, exemplifies an area of m u s i c a l discourse using corn-
control" addresses directly the issue o f h o w a f o r m a l aesthetic can artic-
outers that is not viewed c u l t u r a l l y and historically as a branch of trans-
ulate political and social m e a n i n g . S u c h m o d e r n - d a y (soon to be o l d 13
school) h i p - h o p groups as Public E n e m y , i n f u l l recognition o f the dis-
Conferences i n 1988 and 1994, Xebec H a l l (Kobe, Japan) and the Velvet
approbation o f their music by p o w e r f u l sectors o f the d o m i n a n t culture
Lounge i n C h i c a g o .
o f their o w n day, even appropriated and ironicized this trope, challeng-
21
T h e various versions o f Voyager have a l l been w r i t t e n i n dialects o f
i n g themselves, their listeners, and their detractors w i t h their explicit
F o r t h , the c u r i o u s l y h y b r i d compiled/interpreted e n v i r o n m e n t created
intention and exhortation to " b r i n g the n o i s e . "
by C h a r l e s M o o r e a r o u n d 1970.
14
22
Seemingly anti-authoritarian i n
Douglas's call for a f o r m a l i s t analysis does n o t exclude the realiza-
nature, d u r i n g the early 1980s F o r t h appealed to a c o m m u n i t y of c o m -
t i o n that t h e b o r d e r between f o r m a n d content is d i f f i c u l t t o police.
posers w h o wanted a n e n v i r o n m e n t i n w h i c h a m o m e n t a r y inspiration
M o r e o v e r , these f o r m a l abstractions are n o t universals: m u l t i d o m i -
c o u l d q u i c k l y lead to its sonic r e a l i z a t i o n — a dialogic creative process,
nance is n o t present i n a l l t r a n s - A f r i c a n m u s i c a n d art a n d certainly
emblematic of an i m p r o v i s o r ' s w a y of w o r k i n g . A s t h e F o r t h c u l t u r e
m u s t n o t be a p p l i e d as a sonic l i t m u s test. I n t h e p a r t i c u l a r case of
developed, languages such as Hierarchical M u s i c Specification Language
Voyager, however, the composition's A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n c u l t u r a l prove-
( H M S L ) and, later, F O R M U L A ( F O R t h M U s i c L A n g u a g e ) , created by
nance lends particular credence to an identification of m u l t i d o m i n a n c e
artists w o r k i n g i n t h e field, m a d e F o r t h a n d its dialects perhaps
at t h e levels o f b o t h the l o g i c a l s t r u c t u r e o f the software and its per-
the m o s t w i d e l y used language group for interactive music before the
formative articulation. M o r e o v e r , w h e t h e r o r n o t these m u l t i d o m i n a n t
advent o f M a x , a language that similarly centers t h e dialogic as part of
forms have been consciously conceptualized, exploited, and extended
the software c o n s t r u c t i o n process.
by artists w i t h f u l l awareness of their implications, they m u s t be viewed as c u l t u r a l l y contingent, historically emergent, and l i n k e d to situated structures of power and dialogue.
23
M y analysis o f Voyager as a n interactive c o m p u t e r music system uses Robert Rowe's t a x o n o m y o f " p l a y e r " a n d " i n s t r u m e n t " p a r a d i g m s ,
24
although these t w o models o f role c o n s t r u c t i o n i n interactive systems
The A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n composer O i l y W i l s o n has identified a set of
should be viewed as o n a c o n t i n u u m along w h i c h a particular system's
tendencies a n d principles characteristic o f A f r i c a n and A f r o - A m e r i c a n
m o d e l o f c o m p u t e r - h u m a n i n t e r a c t i o n c a n be l o c a t e d . I n R o w e ' s
music m a k i n g , w h i l e quite similar principles are identified by T h o m p -
terms. Voyager functions as a n extreme example of a "player" p r o g r a m ,
son i n examining African visual f o r m s .
where the c o m p u t e r system does n o t f u n c t i o n as a n i n s t r u m e n t to be
15
1 6
In particular, Douglas,
W i l s o n , a n d T h o m p s o n a l l identify r h y t h m as a c r i t i c a l l y i m p o r t a n t s t r u c t u r a l e l e m e n t i n A f r i c a n - d e r i v e d m u s i c . W i l s o n notices i n A f r i c a n - d e r i v e d m u s i c a " p r i n c i p l e o f r h y t h m i c and i m p l i e d m e t r i c a l contrast."
17
T h o m p s o n sees the black A t l a n t i c visual t r a d i t i o n as dis-
playing "a propensity for multiple meter,"
1 8
a n d his references
controlled by a performer. I conceive a p e r f o r m a n c e of Voyager as m u l t i p l e p a r a l l e l streams of music generation, emanating f r o m b o t h the computers and the h u m a n s — a nonhierarchical. improvisational, subject-subject m o d e l of discourse, rather t h a n a stimulus/response setup.
to M a n d e c l o t h w o r k as i n c o r p o r a t i n g a c o n c e p t i o n o f " r h y t h m i z e d
B o t h the sonic behavior and the p r o g r a m structure of Voyager exhibit
textiles" makes a direct c o n n e c t i o n w i t h b o t h A f r i c a n a n d A f r i c a n -
m u l t i d o m i n a n c e i n a n u m b e r of respects. First, the Voyager p r o g r a m is
American music.
conceived as a set o f sixty-four asynchronously operating single-voice
1 9
S i m i l a r l y , D o u g l a s c o n n e c t s t h e v i s u a l w i t h the
sonic: " t h e predisposition to use m u l t i p l e types o f r h y t h m i n musical
M I D I - c o n t r o l l e d "players," a l l generating m u s i c i n real t i m e . Several
c o n s t r u c t i o n speaks equally to a distinct aesthetic as does t h e m u l t i p l e
different (and to some, clashing) sonic behavior groupings, o r ensem-
use o f visual elements."
bles, m a y be active simultaneously, m o v i n g i n a n d o u t o f m e t r i c s y n -
20
computer music and trans-african formalism I conceived and p r o g r a m m e d the first version of Voyager between 1986 and
c h r o n i c i t y , w i t h n o necessary a r i t h m e t i c c o r r e l a t i o n b e t w e e n t h e strongly discursive layers of m u l t i r h y t h m . W h i l e this is h a p p e n i n g , a l o w e r - l e v e l r o u t i n e parses i n c o m i n g M I D I data i n t o separate streams
1988. T h e w o r k was created i n A m s t e r d a m at the Studio v o o r E l e k t r o -
for u p t o t w o h u m a n improvisors, w h o are either p e r f o r m i n g o n M I D I -
Instrumentale M u z i e k (STEIM); I added later ameliorations wherever I
equipped keyboards o r p l a y i n g acoustic i n s t r u m e n t s t h r o u g h " p i t c h
happened to be i n the e n s u i n g years. Since t h e n , Voyager has been per-
followers," devices that try to parse the sounds o f acoustic instruments
f o r m e d around the w o r l d , w i t h improvisors such as myself (trombone);
into M I D I data streams.
saxophonists Roscoe M i t c h e l l , J. D . P a r r a n . D o u g l a s E w a r t , and E v a n
The aperiodic, asynchronously r e c u r r i n g global "behavior specifica-
Parker; pianist H a r u n a Miyake; and extended cellist Jon Rose. T h e w o r k
t i o n " subroutine setphrasebehavior, w h i c h runs at intervals of between five
has been performed i n venues as diverse as the I R C A M S u m m e r A c a d -
and seven seconds, continually recombines the M I D I "players" into n e w
emy, the G r o n i n g e n Jazz M a r a t h o n , Internationa] C o m p u t e r M u s i c
ensemble c o m b i n a t i o n s w i t h defined behaviors. T h i s s u b r o u t i n e ( o r
" w o r d , " i n F o r t h parlance) first makes determinations as to h o w m a n y
visors. i n c l u d i n g Wadada Leo S m i t h , H e n r y T h r e a d g i l l . Douglas Ewart,
players w i l l be part o f the next ensemble. A d d i t i o n a l options i n c l u d e
loseph j a r m a n . Roscoe M i t c h e l l . A n t h o n y B r a x t o n , and others m o v e d
t u r n i n g off all players i n all ensembles and starting afresh w i t h this new
to develop m u l t i p l e voices o n a wide variety o f i n s t r u m e n t s .
g r o u p , t u r n i n g off just the m o s t r e c e n t l y instantiated ensemble, or
performances, the extreme m u l t i p l i c i t y of voices, embedded w i t h i n an
25
In A A C M
a l l o w i n g the n e w ensemble to enter the fray w i t h the groups that are
already h i g h l y collective ensemble orientation, p e r m i t t e d the t i m b r a l
already p l a y i n g .
diversity o f a given situation to exceed the s u m o f its i n s t r u m e n t a l parts,
T h e setphrasebehavior w o r d also includes constituent subroutines that specify for the n e w ensemble choices of t i m b r e , the choice o f one of fifteen
m e l o d y a l g o r i t h m s , the c h o i c e o f a p p r o x i m a t e l y 150 m i c r o -
affording a w i d e r palette of potential orchestrations to explore. The attempt to t h o r o u g h l y map, parse, and develop the i n p u t data is based o n the n o t i o n that, t h r o u g h the a c c u m u l a t i o n and articulation
t o n a l l y specified pitchsets, a n d choices of v o l u m e range, m i c r o t o n a l
of m a n y s m a l l details an interactive, adaptive i n p u t structure that gen-
transposition, tactus (or "beat"), t e m p o , probability o f p l a y i n g a note,
crates a sufficiently detailed representation of its i n p u t can t h e n p r o -
spacing between notes, i n t e r v a l - w i d t h range a n d M I D I - r e l a t e d o r n a -
duce a m u s i c a l o u t p u t perceptible by an i m p r o v i s o r as analogous to
m e n t a t i o n such as c h o r u s i n g , reverberation, and p o r t a m e n t o , and h o w
various states that were experienced d u r i n g improvisation. This n o t i o n
such parameters as tessitura and t e m p o can change over t i m e . M o r e -
of bidirectional transfer o f i n t e n t i o n a l i t y t h r o u g h s o u n d — o r , " e m o -
over, each n e w ensemble chooses not o n l y a distinct group sonority, but
tional t r a n s d u c t i o n " — c o n s t r u c t s p e r f o r m a n c e as a n i n t e n t i o n a l act
a unique response to i n p u t , deciding w h i c h i m p r o v i s o r s — o n e , b o t h , or
embodying m e a n i n g and a n n o u n c i n g e m o t i o n a l and m e n t a l intention.
n o n e — w i l l influence its o u t p u t behavior. F u r t h e r options include i m i -
In this way, I believe, the e m o t i o n a l state o f the i m p r o v i s o r m a y be
tating, directly opposing, or i g n o r i n g the i n f o r m a t i o n c o m i n g f r o m the
mirrored i n the c o m p u t e r partner, even if the actual material played by
improvisors.
the c o m p u t e r does n o t necessarily preserve the p i t c h , d u r a t i o n , o r
T h e response task w o r d setresponse, w h i c h runs asynchronously to the
morphological structures f o u n d i n the i n p u t .
phrase behavior task, processes data f r o m b o t h the low-level M I D I parser
In improvised music, improvisors often assert b o t h personal narra-
that collects and manages the raw data and a m i d l e v e l s m o o t h i n g r o u -
tive and difference as critical aspects of their w o r k . F o r me, w h a t Jerry
tine that uses this raw data to construct averages o f p i t c h , velocity, prob-
Garcia called the " a n t i - a u t h o r i t a r i a n " i m p u l s e i n improvisation led m e
ability o f note activity, and spacing between notes. This i n f o r m a t i o n is
to pursue the project o f deinstrumentalizing the c o m p u t e r . If the c o m -
used by setresponse to decide i n greater detail h o w each ensemble w i l l
puter is n o t treated as a m u s i c a l i n s t r u m e n t , b u t as an i n d e p e n d e n t
respond to elements o f the i n p u t , such as tempo (speed), the probability
i m p r o v i s o r . difference is p a r t l y g r o u n d e d i n the f o r m o f p r o g r a m
of playing a note, spacing between notes, melodic interval w i d t h , choice
responses that are n o t necessarily predictable o n the basis o f outside
of p r i m a r y pitch material (including a pitchset based o n the last several
input. As we have noted earlier, Voyager's response to i n p u t has several
notes received), octave range, m i c r o t o n a l transposition, and v o l u m e .
modes, f r o m complete c o m m u n i o n to utter indifference. This seeming
O f particular note here is the fact that i n the absence of outside input,
lack of u n i f o r m i t y is n o t necessarily correlated w i t h "lack o f structure,"
the complete specification of the system's musical behavior is internallv
as is so often expressed i n the v e r n a c u l a r discourse o f "randomness."
generated by setphrasebehavior. In practical terms, this means that Voyager
Hather. w h i l e tendencies over a l o n g period of t i m e exhibit consistency,
does n o t need to have r e a l - t i m e h u m a n i n p u t to generate m u s i c . In
m o m e n t - t o - m o m e n t choices can shift unpredictably.
t u r n , since the p r o g r a m exhibits generative behavior independently of
It is a fact, however, that the system is designed to avoid the k i n d of
the improvisor. decisions taken by the c o m p u t e r have consequences for
u n i f o r m i t y where the same k i n d o f i n p u t r o u t i n e l y leads to the same
the music that must be taken into account by the improvisor. W i t h no
result. Voyager's aesthetic o f variation and difference is at variance w i t h
b u i l t - i n h i e r a r c h y o f h u m a n leader/computer f o l l o w e r — n o " v e t o "
the i n f o r m a t i o n retrieval and c o n t r o l paradigm that late capitalism has
buttons, foot pedals, or physical c u e s — a l l c o m m u n i c a t i o n between the
found useful i n f r a m i n g its preferred approach to the encounter w i t h
system and the improvisor takes place sonically. T h e s i m u l t a n e o u s m u l t i p l i c i t i e s o f available t i m b r e s , m i c r o t o n a l
computer technology. A s I have observed elsewhere, interactivity has gradually b e c o m e a m e t o n y m for i n f o r m a t i o n retrieval rather t h a n
pitchsets, r h y t h m s , transposition levels, and other elements i n Voyager—
dialogue, p o s i n g the danger o f c o m m o d i f y i n g and u l t i m a t e l y reifying
all emblematic of an aesthetic of m u l t i d o m i n a n c e — r e f l e c t m y i n h e r i -
the encounter w i t h technology. A s I have noted, "the r a p i d develop-
tance f r o m the Association for the A d v a n c e m e n t o f Creative Musicians'
ment of standardized m o d e s f o r the relationships b e t w e e n h u m a n s
n o t i o n o f " m u l t i - i n s t r u m e n t a l i s m , " where a n u m b e r of A A C M i m p r o -
and c o m p u t e r s is u n f o r t u n a t e f o r s u c h a vouner and
nrp«nmaHv
q u i c k l y c h a n g i n g t e c h n o l o g y . T h e e v o l u t i o n o f the language used to
" i n d e t e r m i n a c y " o r aleatoric practices. " S o u n d " becomes identifiable
reflect t h e m u l t i m e d i a r e v o l u t i o n is a c o m p e l l i n g t e s t a m e n t to the
not w i t h timbre alone, but w i t h the expression of personality, the asser-
p o w e r o f corporate m e d i a . C o r p o r a t e p o w e r assumes a n i m p o r t a n t ,
tion o f agency, the assumption o f responsibility, and an encounter w i t h history, m e m o r y , and identity.
even d o m i n a t i n g role i n c o n d i t i o n i n g o u r t h i n k i n g about c o m p u t e r s , art, image, and s o u n d . M u c h o f the descriptive language s u r r o u n d i n g
Part of the task o f constructing Voyager consisted of p r o v i d i n g the p r o -
m u l t i m e d i a (and related areas, s u c h as -cyberspace') serves to hide the
g r a m w i t h its " o w n s o u n d . " In Voyager, this n o t i o n of s o u n d appears i n
power exercised by c o r p o r a t i o n s . "
tandem w i t h a k i n d o f technology-mediated a n i m i s m , expressed as an
26
interactive aesthetic of negotiation and independent c o m p u t e r agency.
Finally, W i l s o n notices i n African-derived music a tendency t o w a r d a h i g h density of events i n a relatively short t i m e f r a m e .
27
It is to be noted
that the w o r k of m a n y i m p o r t a n t A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n improvisors
in
This recalls the frequent references by M a l a c h i Favors Maghostut, con¬ trabassist and cofounder of the A r t Ensemble o f Chicago, to someone he
p a r t i c u l a r C e c i l T a y l o r . J o h n C o l t r a n e , and A l b e r t A y l e r — e x h i b i t s a
met o n his travels as "this A f r i c a n b r o t h e r w h o h a d i n s t r u m e n t s that
n o t i o n of extended f o r m that involves the sustained use. often for very
played themselves." F u r t h e r , the trope o f m u s i c a l performance o n an
l o n g p e r i o d s , of e x t r e m e l y r a p i d , m a n y - n o t e d i n t e n s i t y s t r u c t u r e s . Donaldson's 1988 visual w o r k , Jam Packed and Jelly Tight,™ exemplifies the a p p r o a c h o f the A f r i c o b r a artists w h o , a c c o r d i n g to D o u g l a s , " u s e d the jampack and jelly-tight concept as a means of filling u p the v o i d , to add as m u c h as possible t o the act o f c r e a t i o n . A f r i c o b r a m e m b e r s accept these concepts as a n A f r i c a n a x i o m : t h a t to a d d to life is to ensure that there is m o r e to share."
29
T h e Voyager p r o g r a m often combines dense, rapid accretions of sonic i n f o r m a t i o n w i t h sudden changes of m o o d , t e m p o , and orchestration, e s c h e w i n g the s l o w l y m o v i n g t i m b r a l n a r r a t i v e s c h a r a c t e r i s t i c o f m u c h i n s t i t u t i o n a l l y based c o m p u t e r m u s i c . T h u s , Voyager is i n clear v i o l a t i o n o f the d i c t u m t h a t D o u g l a s identifies here as E u r o c e n t r i c : " D o n ' t overcrowd y o u r composition w i t h too m a n y
elements."
30
i n s t r u m e n t as c o m m u n i c a t i o n between t w o subject intelligences is exemplified by Francis Bebey's d e s c r i p t i o n o f an i n c i d e n t w h e r e i n an a c c o m p l i s h e d A f r i c a n m u s i c i a n , after t r y i n g an i n s t r u m e n t briefly, handed it back to its o w n e r w i t h the remark that he had n o way of c o m m u n i c a t i n g w i t h "someone w h o did n o t speak the same language" as he did. Bebey, i n general discussion of African music, further maintains that i n a n u m b e r o f A f r i c a n musical traditions a musical i n s t r u m e n t "is often regarded as a h u m a n being." As evidence he offers the story of another African m u s i c i a n , w h o described his refusal to sell his d r u m (despite his near-destitution) by saying that he did n o t want to "deliver a slave into bondage."
34
T h e o t h e r i m p o r t a n t n o t i o n t h a t animates Voyager is t h a t o f the i m p r o v i s i n g orchestra. W h i l e Voyager can be seen as a p p r o p r i a t i n g or
These real d i s t i n c t i o n s f r o m m u c h i n s t i t u t i o n a l l y p r o d u c e d trans-
even p l a y i n g the d o z e n s
E u r o p e a n c o m p u t e r m u s i c l e d one p u z z l e d Italian listener to ask me
European orchestra, m y m o d e l i n this regard is the Javanese gamelan
" w h y so m a n y things are h a p p e n i n g at the same t i m e . " O r , to quote
ensemble, w h e r e a large n u m b e r o f players p l a y i n g a relatively fixed
the k i n g f r o m the m o v i e Amadeus, speaking o f M o z a r t ' s w o r k , "There are too m a n y notes."
31
35
w i t h the n o t i o n o f the n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y
composition nonetheless have considerable latitude i n interpretation, even at such p r i m a r y levels as p i t c h , d u r a t i o n , and r h y t h m . C o n t r o l o f musical process is shared a m o n g players; interplayer c o m m u n i c a t i o n
emotional transduction: sound, personality, difference
takes place w i t h o u t necessarily i n v o l v i n g a central authority. Local deci-
In the context o f improvised musics that exhibit strong influences f r o m
sions t a k e n by i n d i v i d u a l players percolate u p to the g l o b a l l e v e l , at
A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n ways o f music m a k i n g , m u s i c a l s o u n d — o r rather,
which the overall f o r m is maintained.
"one's o w n s o u n d " — b e c o m e s a carrier for history a n d c u l t u r a l iden-
The Javanese m u s i c i a n H a r d j a Susilo characterizes " i m p r o v i s a t i o n "
tity. As Yusef Lateef maintains, " T h e s o u n d of the i m p r o v i s a t i o n seems
in court tradition according to its interactive, social, or intentional role,
to tell us w h a t k i n d of person is i m p r o v i s i n g . We feel that we can hear
acknowledging h o w intentionality o f process affects the musical result.
character or personality i n the way the m u s i c i a n i m p r o v i s e s . "
32
Essen-
For example, the Javanese t e r m kembangan (literally, "flowering") refers
tially the same n o t i o n was advanced i n the 1940s by C h a r l i e Parker, who
to an i m p r o v i s a t i o n that adds beauty. Isen-isen ("filling") is an i m p r o v i -
declared that " M u s i c is y o u r o w n experience, y o u r thoughts, y o u r wis-
sation that "pleasantly fills a v a c u u m . " O n the o t h e r h a n d , ngambang
d o m . If y o u don't live it, it w o n ' t c o m e o u t of y o u r h o r n . "
("floating") refers to m u s i c i a n s w h o are i m p r o v i s i n g w i t h o u t clear
3 3
T h e i n c o r p o r a t i o n and w e l c o m i n g of agency, social necessity, per-
knowledge of where the music is going, and ngawur ("blunder") denotes
sonality, a n d difference as aspects of " s o u n d " d i s t i n g u i s h s u c h music
an out-of-style o r irrelevant i m p r o v i s a t i o n . T h u s , the success o f this
f r o m w o r k that "incorporates" or "uses" improvisation, or that features
heterarchically oriented approach to large-group m u s i c a l interaction
36
can be seen to depend n o t o n l y o n the performative skills of the players but u p o n their real-time analytic capabilities.
unstructured. In apparently w e l c o m e contrast, we are p r o v i d e d w i t h the role of the "composer," w h i c h can be usefully s u m m a r i z e d as "bringer
Finally, it is s t r i k i n g to note h o w an A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n perspective
of structure." T h e structure inevitably arrives i n the f o r m of a w r i t t e n
o n improvisation reflects a similarity w i t h recent t h i n k i n g i n the game
text, a coded set of symbols, intended for realization i n performance by
o f basketball, a n area i n w h i c h A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n players have c o n -
a "performer."
t i n u a l l y presented r e v o l u t i o n a r y possibilities. T h e situation w i t h i m -
This m é t o n y m i e dialectic between " c o m p o s e d " a n d " i m p r o v i s e d "
provisation, conventional classical m u s i c w i s d o m n o t w i t h s t a n d i n g , is
ways ot p r o d u c i n g musical texts serves to obscure a m o r e f u n d a m e n t a l
remarkably similar to basketball coach P h i l Jackson's description o f the
constructed binary c o m p r i s i n g the t w o m o s t i n f l u e n t i a l m u s i c a l c u l -
triangle offense, i n w h i c h "there are n o set plays, and the defense can't
tures of the twentieth century, the trans-European and t r a n s - A f r i c a n .
predict what's going to happen next." A s w i t h improvisation, the ideal
Proponents o f each f o r m - c o m p l e x tend to construct a n " o t h e r " f r o m
of the triangle system is for each player to be " a c u t e l y aware, at any
proponents of the c o m p l e m e n t a r y f o r m — p a r t i c u l a r l y i n creating
given m o m e n t , of what's h a p p e n i n g o n the floor."
W h i l e i n b o t h areas
competing notions of "art m u s i c " — b u t the asymmetrical distribution
triangle-offense author Tex Winter's d i c t u m that "the offense must uti-
of c u l t u r a l p o w e r clearly rests, for the m o m e n t , w i t h the "bringers of
lize the players' i n d i v i d u a l skills" has m a j o r relevance, it is absolutely
structure." In E u r o - A m e r i c a n art-music c u l t u r e this binary is r o u t i n e l y
crucial that b o t h basketballers and experienced i m p r o v i s o r s "develop
and s i m p l i s t i c a l l y f r a m e d as i n v o l v i n g the "effortless spontaneity" o f
an intuitive feel for h o w their movements and those o f everyone else on
i m p r o v i s a t i o n versus the c a r e f u l d e l i b e r a t i o n o f c o m p o s i t i o n — t h e
the floor are i n t e r c o n n e c t e d . "
composer as ant, the i m p r o v i s o r as grasshopper.
37
38
T h u s , continuous awareness is the means t h r o u g h w h i c h these pos-
To m o v e beyond this tendentiously posed opposition, a m e a n i n g f u l
sibilities are articulated i n performance. Part of the analytic task facing
distinction between these different ways of k n o w i n g — t h e i m p r o v i s a -
any i m p r o v i s o r ( w h e t h e r o r n o t t h a t i m p r o v i s o r is a c o m p u t e r )
tional and the c o m p o s i t i o n a l — m u s t inevitably t u r n u p o n the axis of
involves discovering or even p o s i t i n g ways i n w h i c h seemingly u n r e -
interaction. Improvisation m u s t be o p e n — t h a t is, open to i n p u t , o p e n
lated material can become part of either an existing o r a n e w structure
to c o n t i n g e n c y — a n d a r e a l - t i m e a n d ( o f t e n e n o u g h ) a r e a l - w o r l d
w i t h i n the emergent music. D e p e n d i n g o n context, the responses of the
mode o f p r o d u c t i o n . In m a c h i n e terms, w h a t we may have i n Voyager is
c o m p u t e r to the i m p r o v i s o r ' s i n p u t c a n p o t e n t i a l l y be seen as either
a c o m p o s i n g m a c h i n e that allows outside i n t e r v e n t i o n . If we do n o t
related or unrelated, either d u r i n g the improvisation itself or u p o n fur-
need to define improvised ways o f p r o d u c i n g knowledge as a subset o f
ther reflection. M o r e o v e r , the explicit possibility o f encountering c o m -
composition, t h e n we can s i m p l y speak o f an i m p r o v i s i n g m a c h i n e as
pletely unrelated material encourages the possibility o f changes i n the
one that incorporates a dialogic i m a g i n a t i o n .
music initiated by the c o m p u t e r as w e l l as the h u m a n s players.
Thus, i f there is to be serious talk about " o u r " identity as h u m a n s ,
Thus, w i t h b o t h computers and h u m a n s , the data gathered must be
those identities are c o n t i n u a l l y c o n d i t i o n e d and reinscribed t h r o u g h
viewed i n a variety of contexts and f r o m diverse perspectives i n order
processes o f i n t e r a c t i v i t y , w h e r e n e g o t i a t i o n , difference, p a r t i a l p e r -
to decide h o w the m a t e r i a l to be presented n e x t m i g h t f u n c t i o n i n
spective—and i n the case of music, sonic s i g n a l i n g — e n t e r the picture.
terms o f w h a t has already been presented. T h e relatedness o f particu-
Voyager asks questions c o n c e r n i n g ways i n w h i c h h i s t o r i c a l l y c o n -
lar m a t e r i a l s n e e d n o t be, a n d q u i t e o f t e n c a n n o t be, " o b j e c t i v e l y "
tingent m e a n i n g s are e x c h a n g e d t h r o u g h s o u n d . E v e n g i v e n m y
demonstrable. Rather, the f r a m i n g — b y a l l parties to the m u s i c mak-
emphasis o n the personal conception o f " s o u n d , " Voyager is n o t asking
i n g — o f the relationship that the n e w material has to the o v e r a l l piece
whether machines exhibit personality or identity, but h o w personali-
at that m o m e n t is a c r u c i a l factor i n s t r u c t u r e f o r m a t i o n . This process
ties and identities become articulated t h r o u g h sonic behavior. Instead
may be subsumed u n d e r the general h e a d i n g of "creativity."
afterword: structure and freedom Structure, as we understand it i n music pedagogy, is h i g h l y desirable. O n
of asking a b o u t the v a l u e p l a c e d (by w h o m ? ) o n a r t w o r k s m a d e by c o m p u t e r s , Voyager c o n t i n u a l l y refers to h u m a n expression. R a t h e r than asking i f c o m p u t e r s can be creative and i n t e l l i g e n t — t h o s e qualities, again, that we seek i n o u r mates, or at least i n a g o o d b l i n d d a t e —
the other h a n d , at the same t i m e that m o s t students learn fairly early
Voyager asks us where o u r o w n creativity a n d intelligence m i g h t lie: n o t
o n that " j a z z " (whatever that m i g h t be) is i m p r o v i s e d . T h e dominant
" H o w do we create intelligence?" b u t " H o w do we find it?" U l t i m a t e l y ,
c u l t u r e i n f o r m s t h e m , i n m y r i a d ways that are c o n t i n u a l l y reinscribed
the subject o f Voyager is n o t technology or computers at a l l , but m u s i -
across the breadth o f daily experience, that improvised is a s y n o n y m for
cality itself.
Meet the Machines," New York Times, October 14, 1997, E3; Zane East, "George E. Lewis: Voyager," Computer Music Journal 19, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 109-110.
notes 1. George E. Lewis, Voyager, Disk Union-Avan C D 014 (1992). 2. Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy (New York: Vintage, 1983). 3. Loretta Todd, "Aboriginal Narratives in Cyberspace," in Immersed in Technology: Art and Virtual Environments, ed. Mary Anne Moser and Douglas MacLeod (Cambridge, Mass.: M I T Press, 1996), 179-94. Cameron Bailey, "Virtual Skin: Articulating Race i n Cyberspace," i n Moser and MacLeod, eds.. Immersed in Technology, 29—49. 4. Georgina Born, Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez and the Institutionalization of the Avant-Garde (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1995). 5. Catherine M . Cameron, Dialectics in the Arts: The Rise of Experimentalism in American Music (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996). 6. Robert L. Douglas, "Formalizing an African-American Aesthetic," New Art Examiner, Summer 1991, 18—24. 7. Jeff Donaldson, "Africobra—African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists: 10 in Search of a Nation," Black World, October 1970, 81-89: A n n Gibson. "The African American Aesthetic and Postmodernism," in African American Visual Aesthetics: A Postmodernist View, ed. David C. Driskell (Washington. D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995). 8. See Douglas, "Formalizing an Aesthetic." 18. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Jon Cruz. Culture on the Margins: The Black Diaspora and the Rise of American Cultural Interpretation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 43. 12. Ibid.. 47. 13. Ibid.
22. Leo Brodie. Starting FORTH (Englewood Cliffs. N.J.: Prentice Hall. 1981). FORTH was spelled in upper case until the late 1970s because of the prevalence of upper-case-only I/O (in/out) devices. The usage "Forth" was generally adopted when lowercase became widely available because the word was not an acronym. E. D. Ratner, D. C o l b u r n and C. H . Moore, "The Evolution of F o r t h , " ACM SIGPLAN Notices 28. no. 3 (1993); online at . 23. Phil Burk, Larrv Polansky, and David Rosenboom. "HMSL: A Theoretical Overview," Perspectives of New Music 28, no. 2 (1990): 136-78. D. P. Anderson and R. Kuivila, "Continuous Abstractions for Discrete Event Languages," Computer Music Journal 3, no. 13 (1989): 11—23. D. P. Anderson and R. Kuivila, "Formula: A Programming Language for Expressive Computer Music." Computer IEEE24, no. 7 (1991): 12-21. 24. Robert Rowe. interactive Musk Systems (Cambridge, Mass.: M I T Press, 1992), 8. 25. References to the A A C M . one of the most creatively diverse organizations of the last thirty years, are present in international abundance, so I present here just three citations that detail the organization's structural and cultural strategies: George E. Lewis, "Singing Omar's Song: A (Reconstruction of Great Black M u s i c , " Lenox Avenue 4 (1998): 69-92: Ronald M . Radano, "Jazzin' the Classics: The A A C M ' s Challenge to Mainstream Aesthetics." Black Music Research Journal 12. no. 1 (1992): 79-95; Ekkehard Jost, "The Chicagoans," in Free Jazz (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994). 26. George E. Lewis, "Singing the Alternative Interactivity Blues." Front 7, no. 2 (1995): 18-22. 27. See Wilson. "Black Music," 84.
14. "Bring the Noise" is the second track on Public Enemy's second album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam Records, 1988).
28. Jeff Donaldson, Jam Packed and Jelly Tight, 1998; mixed media on canvas, 36 X 50 inches. The work is reproduced in Driskell, ed.. African American Visual Aesthetics, plate 10.
15. Oily Wilson, "Black Music As an Art Form," 77ieJazz Cadence of American Culture, ed. Robert G . O'Meally (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 82-101. 16. See Thompson, Flash of the Spirit, xiii.
29. 30. 31. 32.
17. See Wilson, "Black Music," 84. 18. Paul G i l r o y describes the "black A t l a n t i c " as an "intercultural and transnational formation" that encompasses Africa and its diasporas, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, including Europe (especially Britain), the United States, the Caribbean, and South America. In particular, he argues that '"the literary and philosophical modernisms of the black Atlantic have their origins in a well-developed sense of the complicity of racialized reason and white supremacist terror." See Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1993), ix—x. See also Thompson, Flash of the Spirit, xiii.
33. 34. 35.
See Douglas, "Formalizing an Aesthetic." 21. Ibid.. 18. Amadeus, dir. Milos Forman. 1984. Yusef A . Lateef, "The Pleasures of Voice in Improvised Music," in Views on Black American Music: Selected Proceedings front the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth an Seventeenth Annual Black Musicians' Conferences, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, no. 3. ed. Roberta Thelwell (1985-1988): 43-^6. Michael Levin and John S. Wilson, " N o Bop Roots in Jazz: Parker," Down Beat 61. no. 2 (1994): 24-25. Francis Bebey, African Musk: A People's Art (Westport. Conn.: Lawrence Hill, 1975), 119-20. "Playing the dozens" is a form of insult-play common in African American communities. The game emerges i n social gatherings as a kind of competition in improvised rhetoric in front of an impromptu audience. Hardja Susilo. "Toward an Appreciation of Javanese Gamelan," unpublished paper, 1992.
19. See Thompson, Flash of the Spirit, 207. 20. See Douglas, "Formalizing an Aesthetic," 19.
36.
21. Recent citations and reviews of this work are included in the following: Joel Chadabe, Electric Sound: The Past and Promise of Electronic Musk (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. 1997), 299-301; Ben Ratliff, "Improvisers
37. Phil Jackson, who during the 1990s won six National Basketball Association championships as head coach of the Chicago Bulls as well as the 2000 NBA championship with the Los Angeles Lakers, adopted as part of his
winning scheme coach Fred "Tex" Winter's unusual system of basketball offense, variously known as the "triple-post" (Winter's term) or the "triangle" offense. Jackson often describes the offense i n terms of its spiritual and cultural implications, as well as its efficacy i n basketball. See Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty, Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior (New York: Hyperion, 1995), 87. See also Fred Winter, The Triple-Post Offense (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962) for the original documentation of Winter's conception. 38. Jackson and Delehanty, Sacred Hoops, 91. See also Winter, The Triple-Post Offense.
the stories digital
selected discography George E. Lewis, Endless Shout, Tzadik T Z C D 7054 (2000). George E. Lewis, Homage to Charles Parker, Black Saint BSR 0029 ( 1980). George E. Lewis, Voyager, Disk Union-Avan C D 014 ( 1992). George E. Lewis and Douglas Ewart, George Lewis\Douglas Ewart, Black Saint SR 0026 (1979). Richard Teitelbaum. Concerto Grosso, hat A R T C D 6004 ( 1988).
e i g h t
t a r l e t o n
tools tell
g i l l e s p i e
The modernist belief that technology is n e u t r a l has been so discounted that it seems almost unnecessary to reiterate it. We k n o w the design of a technology has consequences that go w e l l beyond the explicit " f u n c tions" the t o o l is expected to p e r f o r m . It seems l i k e ages, t h o u g h it's been o n l y a few decades, since anyone c o u l d have asked, " i n view of the simplicity o f t e c h n o l o g i c a l engineering, and the c o m p l e x i t y o f social engineering, to w h a t extent can social p r o b l e m s be c i r c u m v e n t e d by reducing t h e m to technological problems? C a n we identify Q u i c k Technological Fixes for p r o f o u n d and almost i n f i n i t e l y c o m p l i c a t e d social problems, 'fixes' that are w i t h i n the grasp o f m o d e r n technology, and w h i c h w o u l d e i t h e r e l i m i n a t e the o r i g i n a l social p r o b l e m w i t h o u t requiring a change i n the individual's social attitudes, or w o u l d so alter the p r o b l e m as to m a k e its r e s o l u t i o n m o r e feasible?" • We're n o w amused, or a bit shocked, by the naïveté o f A l v i n Weinberg's tragically optimistic q u e s t i o n — n o t to m e n t i o n that his answer was a qualified
"yes." p o i n t i n g to, of all things, the hydrogen b o m b as a successful tech-
sources o f freedom and oppression, justice and injustice." If we are to
nological fix for the p r o b l e m o f war.
take this approach seriously, we m u s t adopt a different perspective o n
We c a n o n l y h o p e t h a t w e ' l l never be so o b l i v i o u s t o t h e conse-
3
the " t h i n g s " we s u r r o u n d ourselves w i t h . N o longer mere tools subor-
quences o f technologies, b u t it's a surprisingly slippery lesson. We still
dinated to the h u m a n w i l l , things m u s t be studied as a r t i f a c t s — " a n
l o o k for, and l o n g for. "technological fixes." We hope trigger locks w i l l
artifact is an aspect o f the material w o r l d that has been m o d i f i e d over
reduce c r i m i n a l violence, cameras fitted w i t h facial r e c o g n i t i o n algo-
the h i s t o r y o f its i n c o r p o r a t i o n i n t o g o a l - d i r e c t e d h u m a n a c t i o n . '
r i t h m s w i l l ensure p u b l i c safety, smart ID cards w i l l squelch terrorism,
Once we can see artifacts as crystallized forms of h u m a n labor, c o m m u -
or the V - c h i p w i l l protect c h i l d r e n f r o m sex and violence o n T V . These
nication, and value, the importance of h o w they shape activity becomes
technologies h o l d out the promise of attaining progressive social goals,
clearer. A n d it requires a subtle understanding of h o w a technology can
M
and of d o i n g so effectively and w i t h o u t d i s c r i m i n a t i o n — a promise built
have distinct p o l i t i c a l valences, p i c k i n g and c h o o s i n g a m o n g h u m a n
u p o n the persistent belief that technologies exist outside the frailty and
practices according to a veiled agenda.
selfishness o f h u m a n politics.
M o s t of the discussions of such political valences focus o n technolo-
A n d , as m o r e of o u r interactions w i t h the w o r l d a r o u n d u s — c o m -
gies that, o n the surface, do not c l a i m to regulate behavior. Winner turns,
mercial, political, c o m m u n i c a t i v e , and artistic—are i n digital f o r m , it's
controversially, to the L o n g Island h i g h w a y overpasses designed by
been surprisingly easy for us to once again forget w h a t we've learned.
Robert Moses. In b u i l d i n g particularly l o w bridges, the h i g h w a y — a n d
C a u g h t i n the blood-in-the-ears r u s h of hype, smitten by novelty, we
the beaches they led t o — w o u l d be m o r e accessible to w e a l t h i e r N e w
regularly overlook the m o s t glaring o f continuities. T h e immateriality
Yorkers w i t h cars, but less so to the (mostly African-American) w o r k i n g
o f digital tools has often been p o i n t e d to as p r o o f that they do not w o r k
class, w h o needed public busses to leave the city. The material design of
5
like m o r e earthly artifacts; o u r fantasies o f frictionless digital transac-
the bridges, their height and inflexibility, combine w i t h the class " d i m e n -
t i o n and intuitive interfaces preach the same mistaken f a i t h — t h a t our
sions" o f public and private transportation to enforce a particular social
tools are o u r silent partners, h e l p i n g us i n o u r goals w i t h n o agendas of
politics. The technology itself can "engineer relationships a m o n g people
their o w n . So, as we w o r k to develop increasingly sophisticated insights
that, after a time, become just another part of the landscape."
6
i n t o digital c u l t u r e , it is i m p o r t a n t to rehearse this critical lesson, to
B r u n o L a t o u r focuses o n a n even m o r e m u n d a n e object, the
r e m i n d ourselves to apply it to n e w technologies, and to develop a lan-
hydraulic "door-closer" that shuts the front d o o r of his department. H e
guage i n w h i c h it w i l l be less easily forgotten.
notes that technologies are n o n h u m a n "lieutenants" designed to replace the w o r k o f p e o p l e — b u t they always c o m e w i t h consequences: these
artifacts have politics
devices m a y h e l p s h u t the d o o r b e h i n d us, but they are k i n d e r to m e
T e c h n o l o g y is, f r o m the start and at every m o m e n t , f u l l y embedded i n
than to the s m a l l child, the disabled, or the deliverer o f heavy packages.
a social m a t r i x o f institutions, activities, and values: at the same time,
"If, i n o u r societies, there are thousands o f such lieutenants to w h i c h we
every h u m a n activity is b o t h b o u n d e d by and f u n d a m e n t a l l y i n negoti-
have delegated competencies, it means that w h a t defines o u r social rela-
ation w i t h a range o f technologies. As Wiebe Bijker notes, " A l l relevant
tions is, for the most part, prescribed back to us by n o n h u m a n s . K n o w l -
social groups contribute to the social c o n s t r u c t i o n o f t e c h n o l o g y ; all
edge, morality, craft, force, sociability are not properties of h u m a n s but
relevant artifacts contribute to the construction of social relations." A n
of humans accompanied by their retinue o f delegated characters."
2
7
analysis of software, t h e n , m u s t begin w i t h a sense o f the way technolo-
Winner hopes to show n o t o n l y that architecture regulates, but that
gies m a y have p o w e r f u l consequences for the social activities that hap-
architecture can be made to regulate; he is quick to i m p l y xenophobic
pen w i t h t h e m , i n the w o r l d s i m a g i n e d by t h e m : as L a n g d o n W i n n e r
intent ( w h i c h , considering Moses's other contributions to N e w York's
p u t it, these "artifacts have politics." T h e tendency to treat technology as n e u t r a l is so pervasive that it is
landscape, is n o t a h a r d case to m a k e ) . L a t o u r speaks m o r e o f consequences—particularly the unanticipated ones. This raises the question
literally difficult to question it. W i n n e r notes that "to argue that certain
of intentionality: m u s t the politics o f the artifact be deliberate? O r , to p u t it
technologies in themselves have political properties seems, at first glance,
another way, if we discover what we t h i n k are political valences i n a tool,
completely mistaken. We a l l k n o w that people have politics, not things.
can we safely assume that they represent the politics of its designer?
8
To discover either virtues or evils i n aggregates o f steel, plastic, transis-
It's easier to spot the political valence of technologies that are explic-
tors, integrated circuits, and chemicals seems just p l a i n w r o n g , a w a y of
itly designed to regulate. A f a m i l i a r e x a m p l e is the " p a n o p t i c o n , " a
mystifying h u m a n artifice and of avoiding the t r u e sources, the human
prison i m a g i n e d but never b u i l t by Jeremy B e n t h a m , and discussed by
M i c h e l F o u c a u l t . By designing t h e prison as a cylinder, w i t h light c o m -
we are ascribing causality, even agency, to the technology. D e t e r m i n -
i n g f r o m outside a n d t h r o u g h each c e l l , a single jailer at t h e center
ism remains the dark underbelly of discussions about technology; the
c o u l d see every prisoner simultaneously. A n d , the prisoners c o u l d n o t
sense that technology actively intervenes i n the w o r l d is a m o r e m a n -
see the jailer, b u t w o u l d k n o w that he c o u l d see t h e m : a c c o r d i n g to
ageable s h o r t h a n d for t h e c o m p l e x i t y o f t h e social. O u r second c o n -
F o u c a u l t , this w o u l d c o m p e l p r i s o n e r s t o experience s u r v e i l l a n c e
c e r n , t h e n , m u s t be t h e q u e s t i o n o f t h e causality w e a t t r i b u t e t o t h e
w h e t h e r o r n o t anyone was even w a t c h i n g . T h e p a r t i c u l a r design of
technology. We need to understand the interaction between people as
the prison serves political ends because it forces bodies i n t o lines o f sight
social actors and artifacts as mediated h u m a n activity. "We have to h o l d
9
that effectively discourage u n w a n t e d behavior.
the t w o t o g e t h e r , " writes L a t o u r . " C o m m e r c i a l interests, capitalist
Lawrence Lessig points to m o r e f a m i l i a r examples t o demonstrate
spirit, imperialism, thirst for knowledge, are e m p t y terms as l o n g as one
not o n l y that architecture can g o v e r n behavior, b u t that w e quite often
does n o t take i n t o account M e r c a t o r ' s p r o j e c t i o n , m a r i n e clocks a n d
use it as a basic regulatory intervention, especially w h e n other avenues,
their markers, copper engravings of maps, rutters, the keeping o f ' l o g
such as t h e law. are ineffective or costly. We m a y regulate d r i v i n g by
books'
arresting d r u n k drivers, enforcing speed limits, and posting cops at busy
and latitudes are calculated, clocks are b u i l t , l o g books are c o m p i l e d ,
intersections. B u t we also i n s t a l l speed b u m p s a n d guardrails to force
copper plates are printed, w o u l d make any difference whatsoever if they
drivers i n t o lanes a n d c o n t r o l their speed; w e p u t disruptive bumpers
did n o t h e l p t o m u s t e r , a l i g n , a n d w i n o v e r n e w a n d u n e x p e c t e d
between h i g h w a y lanes to keep drivers awake: and we install automated
allies."
barriers to ensure that n o one p u l l s i n front o f a n o n c o m i n g t r a i n or
engagement w i t h c o m m u n i t i e s o f people, cultures of practice, i n s t i t u -
leaves a p a r k i n g l o t w i t h o u t p a y i n g for t h e privilege. A n d , w e lay o u t
tional and social contexts, and discursive landscapes.
10
h i g h w a y s i n ways t h a t n o t o n l y regulate t h e practices o f i n d i v i d u a l drivers, b u t are massively consequential for the flow of people i n t o and out of, o r right by, certain u r b a n neighborhoods.
B u t , o n the other h a n d , n o i n n o v a t i o n i n the w a y longitude
13
A l o o k to t h e artifact m u s t q u i c k l y l o o k b e y o n d , t o see its
the politics of self-interpretation A n a l y z i n g digital tools to discover their h i d d e n politics is n o s i m p l e
This attention to the valences of technologies has been taken even
task: n o t o n l y d o w e lack the critical language for it. b u t technologies,
farther, to the very structure of h u m a n thought. Some critics of cogni-
like people, obscure their p o l i t i c s — i n an attempt to appear universal,
tive psychology argue that h u m a n t h o u g h t is n o t contained inside the
or n a t u r a l , o r just true. A n d technologies submerge their politics i n the
head, but is stretched across interactions between p e o p l e — a n d between
material itself, m a k i n g t h e m even m o r e difficult to u n e a r t h .
people a n d t h i n g s . L a t o u r notes, " C o g n i t i o n has n o t h i n g t o d o w i t h
O n e suggestion has been to b o r r o w the lessons learned i n the study
minds n o r w i t h individuals b u t w i t h the propagation o f representations
of l i t e r a t u r e a n d art; t o d o so. w e w o u l d n e e d t o d r a w a n a n a l o g y
t h r o u g h various media, w h i c h are coordinated by a very lightly equipped
between tools a n d texts. Steve W o o l g a r claims that, l i k e t r a d i t i o n a l
h u m a n subject w o r k i n g i n a group, inside a culture, w i t h m a n y artifacts
texts, the m e a n i n g of a t o o l is a p r o d u c t of its interpretation i n a partic-
and w h o m i g h t have i n t e r n a l i z e d some parts of the process."
ular context. A t the same time, the t o o l privileges some interpretations
11
Edwin
H u t c h i n s points to t h e n a u t i c a l chart; m o r e t h a n a c o m p u t a t i o n a l
over others, i n v i t i n g "readers" to o c c u p y carefully delineated positions
device, the chart is an artifact encrusted w i t h layer u p o n layer of the cog-
in relation to it. T h e artifact configures its user by delineating w h o the
n i t i o n of past participants: " T h e cartographer has already done part of
user is a n d attempts "to define, enable, and c o n s t r a i n " w h a t the use of
the c o m p u t a t i o n for every navigator w h o uses his chart
that artifact w i l l b e .
T h e naviga-
M
tor doesn't have to k n o w h o w the chart was made and doesn't need to
This approach is b o t h p r o d u c t i v e and treacherous. O n the one hand,
k n o w about the properties of the M e r c a t o r projection that give special
it helps reveal the m e a n i n g - m a k i n g qualities o f the t o o l — a s i n the title
c o m p u t a t i o n a l m e a n i n g t o straight l i n e s . "
of this essay, to reveal t h e "stories" that tools tell. T h e risk, however, is
12
T h e n a v i g a t o r is thus
engaged i n symbolic conversation w i t h everyone w h o contributed to its
a m e t h o d o l o g i c a l one. T r e a t i n g t h e material artifact like a discursive
construction; cognition literally happens i n the space between navigator
one m a y tend to h i g h l i g h t the discursive elements of the t o o l , and f u r -
and chart. A n d the navigator can o n l y understand t h e ocean t h r o u g h
ther obscure those elements that d o n o t present i n discursive terms.
the features of that t o o l .
And these m i g h t be the features we s h o u l d be m o s t interested i n .
T h e resolve of this argument m u s t be regularly tested, since it can so
This is n o t to say that a l o o k at the discursive elements o f a t o o l is n o t
easily s o u n d l i k e a sophisticated version of technological determinism.
productive. In the study o f material artifacts, we can find p l e n t y o f evi-
If t h e description of t h e technology is n o t a subtle one, i t w i l l seem as i)
lence that the t o o l is intended for particular uses, and that it presumes
the w o r l d to w o r k i n p a r t i c u l a r ways, by l o o k i n g at advertising c a m paigns, packaging, i n s t r u c t i o n m a n u a l s , c o m p a n y d o c u m e n t s , press descriptions, trade magazine profiles, and critical reviews. Inside these
and m u s i c superstores, j o u r n a l i s t i c i n f o r m a t i o n providers, b o u t i q u e specialty shops, pornographers, online investors, do-it-yourself entrepreneurs, and so o n .
texts the significance and m e a n i n g of the t o o l is being interpreted, often
T h e examples c o n j u r e d u p by M a c r o m e d i a m a k e an i m p l i c i t s u g -
by its o w n designers; this " s e l f - i n t e r p r e t a t i o n " o f w h a t the t o o l does,
gestion to users about w h a t k i n d o f site this p r o g r a m is designed to
and w h a t role it can play inside h u m a n activity, frames that a c t i v i t y -
produce and w h a t the web is for. " O l i v e B r a n c h " and "Scaal" are c o m -
s u c h that u s i n g the t o o l i n these ways makes "sense," and other uses
mercial sites, vested e n o u g h to have secure o n l i n e o r d e r i n g . T h e sites
and purposes seem less familiar, less likely, less viable. In digital tools,
are prestigious and specialized; the products are expensive and posh: the
these textual supplements are perhaps even m o r e potent because they
aesthetic is e a r t h y a n d s u m p t u o u s . " O l i v e B r a n c h " suggests b o t h
seem to be part of the t o o l itself. For the digital t o o l , p r o m o t i o n a l splash
earthy, O l d W o r l d n a t u r a l goodness and regal (and c o m m e r c i a l ) wis-
screens, h e l p menus, and affiliated websites accessible f r o m w i t h i n the
d o m , w h i l e " S c a a l " c o n n o t e s S c a n d i n a v i a n c r a f t s m a n s h i p a n d caf-
a p p l i c a t i o n narrate, w i t h s i m i l a r c o n n o t a t i o n s i n h o w they envision
feinated corporate d o m i n a n c e . These choices are d e l i b e r a t e — a story
the w o r l d i n w h i c h the t o o l is i n v o l v e d . A n d , packaged w i t h the t o o l itself, it is m o r e difficult to separate t h e m . M a c r o m e d i a Dreamweaver comes w i t h a "guided t o u r " that i n t r o -
told by M a c r o m e d i a about b o t h the use o f its application and the N e t itself. As their o w n corporate mission statement proclaims. M a c r o m e dia is " h e l p i n g to define w h a t the web can b e . "
18
duces its m a i n features. T h e tutorial is a short interactive design lesson,
A n d n o t o n l y is this p o w e r f u l n a r r a t i o n embedded i n the t o o l : this
s h o w i n g h o w each feature w o r k s o n a s i m u l a t e d website u n d e r c o n -
self-interpretation appears d u r i n g the process o f l e a r n i n g to use that
15
struction. In Dreamweaver 2.0. the m o c k site is for a fictional gourmet
tool. This means that its audience is likely to be uninitiated users, n e w
f o o d seller c a l l e d " O l i v e B r a n c h " — s e l l i n g " d e l i c a t e l y aged Asiago
to b o t h Dreamweaver and perhaps to the web. This glimpse i n t o w h a t a
cheese" and T w o Leaves w i n e , an "oaky, buttery cabernet"; a sweet and
website " i s " and w h a t its m o s t i m p o r t a n t features "are" sets an early
tangy " O c e a n Cape C r a n b e r r y M u s t a r d " is today's m u s t a r d special. The
frame for h o w these users encounter the web, p o s i t i n g a c o m p e l l i n g
company's mission statement is earthy and c u l t u r e d : "fresh f r o m our
example even before alternatives can appear. Basing the t u t o r i a l o n this
organic gardens to y o u r table, delectables to please the palette and the
site does n o t m a r k it as the ideal website; it marks it as the "everysite." so
s o u l . " Nonexistent customers are urged to "discover a w o r l d of flavors
c o m m o n that it can stand i n for all sites, f o r the sake o f l e a r n i n g the
direct f r o m o u r farms to y o u r table," as w e l l as to u t i l i z e the "secure
application.
online ordering" system.
I n v e r s i o n 3.0. the t o n e o f the site hasn't
(If o n l y to prove the point, a search o n a m a j o r web search engine for
changed, but the scope is dramatically m o r e global: the site is for "Scaal
the w o r d "scaal" t u r n e d u p hundreds of sites titled "Scaal H o m e Page." A
16
Coffee," a supposed S t o c k h o l m - b a s e d cafe that has n o w franchised.
tew were exact copies o f the D r e a m w e a v e r t u t o r i a l site; p r e s u m a b l y ,
Starbucks-style, i n t o "670 cities a r o u n d the w o r l d . " " A f t e r a l l , " we are
someone was practicing and inadvertently posted the pages to their p u b -
t o l d , "coffee is a ritual that transcends all c u l t u r a l boundaries. It makes
lic server. T h e majority were actual websites, for different products and
us feel alert, energetic and alive." T h e site sells n o t o n l y the history and
interests; it was clear that these users had generated their sites by m o d i -
prestige of their "brave n e w w o r l d coffee." w i t h its "fresh taste and rich
fving the H T M L (hypertext m a r k - u p language) code f r o m the tutorial,
a r o m a , " b u t also a C D , a t r a v e l m u g , a n d a $3.95 t i n o f " p o w e r f u l l y
but had failed to change the title of the homepage. M a n y o f these sites
refreshing mints." Visitors to this site w o u l d be rewarded by a not-so-
are strikingly similar to the Dreamweaver site i n terms of aesthetics and
subtle interpellative sales p i t c h : "Scaal has been serving fine coffee con-
layout, others less so. M o s t , t h o u g h not all, were c o m m e r c i a l sites.)
noisseurs like y o u for over 50 years."
17
B o t h examples are perfectly legitimate, and c o u l d easily be real web-
the politics o f design
sites. B u t the choices are also savvy ones, i n that they position the tool
As I suggested earlier, u s i n g i n t e r p r e t i v e strategies d r a w n f r o m the
v e r y carefully a m i d an array o f possible uses. W h i l e the web has been
study o f texts can overemphasize the discursive elements o f the artifact.
colonized by c o m m e r c i a l interests and advertisers, even to this day only
Fhe tutorial m a y frame the debate, m a y appear to the uninitiated as the
a few have discovered reliable ways to " N e t " a p r o f i t . E v e n n o w , the
typical site, m a y s u b t l y e m p h a s i z e the c o m m e r c i a l d i m e n s i o n s o f
debate continues about w h a t k i n d of m e d i u m the web w i l l be, h o w it
the web; but it cannot f u n c t i o n a l l y constrain use. B u t Woolgar d i d not
w i l l be f u n d e d , w h a t k i n d o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n w i l l h a p p e n there. A n d
intend to l i m i t o u r i n q u i r y i n this way; he proposed that we interpret
even c o m m e r c i a l sites exhibit a range o f approaches and purposes: book
the t o o l itself, its material or s t r u c t u r a l elements, its "affordances," for
the assumptions it makes about the user, the activities it encourages,
cations for their use—so m u c h so that the federal g o v e r n m e n t w o r r i e d
and the uses it literally makes impossible. This is a m o n u m e n t a l l y m o r e
that other uses had been rendered impossible. T h e struggle between the
difficult task, of c o u r s e — w e are still relatively untrained at articulating
record i n d u s t r y and file-sharing applications like Napster was n o t o n l y
h o w the material elements o f a t o o l themselves have consequences.
i n the courts but i n the technology, where proprietary file formats and
A l l tools have a f f o r d a n c e s — h a m m e r s are g o o d for f o r c i n g nails
software filters aimed to select those activities that h o n o r e d copyright
into w o o d because of their sturdy and inflexible materials, their flat head,
law and the c o m m e r c i a l imperatives the i n d u s t r y c h a m p i o n e d . Here I
their perpendicular handle, the distribution of weight toward the point
w i l l focus o n interface metaphors, the names given to the functions and
o f impact. B u t they are not particularly good for sewing u p a w o u n d , for
features o f a software a p p l i c a t i o n .
19
20
m a n y of the same reasons. T h e suggestion here is that such affordances
Software designers r a r e l y i n v e n t w o r d s f o r the v a r i o u s f u n c t i o n s
shape, urge, and constrain particular uses. M o r e o v e r , this regulation of
they offer a user; m o r e often, the m e n u o f choices is composed o f words
social practice is n o t r a n d o m or idiosyncratic; it is systematic, i n that the
they assume the typical user w i l l recognize, and that suggest w h a t that
activities encouraged all tend to envision the w o r l d i n a certain way.
feature offers. T h e designers at A p p l e certainly chose " c u t , " copy," and
T h e c a r i c a t u r e o f this is to say t h a t h a m m e r s see the w o r l d as a
"paste" for their linguistic f a m i l i a r i t y — a n d m a y have designed the fea-
b u n c h of things to be d r i v e n f o r c e f u l l y i n t o other things. B u t o u r c o n -
tures i n certain ways to fit the terms. S o m e applications are designed
c e r n is m u c h less absurd if we t a l k about the affordances of a p r i s o n .
w i t h a coherent, overarching metaphor, w h i l e others are a bricolage of
T h e architecture of a p r i s o n is n o t m e r e l y a f u n c t i o n a l means to c o n -
reference p o i n t s d r a w n f r o m several d o m a i n s . E i t h e r w a y , these
tain c r i m i n a l s ; it suggests and authorizes a m e n t a l i t y i n w h i c h enclo-
metaphors evocatively yet i m p l i c i t l y suggest p a r t i c u l a r uses and p u r -
sure, c o n t r o l , a n d boundaries have a h e i g h t e n e d salience, w h e r e the
poses for the t o o l , and the practices of users w i l l , i n subtle ways, tap into
walls that demarcate inside and o u t stand for all sorts o f c u l t u r a l and
the assumptions built i n t o these metaphors.
m o r a l l i n e s — r i g h t and w r o n g , just and depraved, h u m a n and other.
Interface metaphors are considered successful by designers i f they
A n d the particular design o f that p r i s o n , as F o u c a u l t noted, c a n have
seem " i n t u i t i v e , " and i f they help the u n i n i t i a t e d to q u i c k l y and c o m -
additional significance for the practices and p r e s u m p t i o n s that go o n
fortably adopt the t o o l i n ways that feel p r o d u c t i v e to t h e m . B u t we
b o t h i n s i d e a n d o u t . These affordances are always p u r p o s e f u l , and
need to be suspicious about s o m e t h i n g being " i n t u i t i v e . " Metaphors are
can t y p i c a l l y be validated i n terms that justify their presence: safety,
n o t c u l t u r a l l y n e u t r a l ; those t h a t achieve c i r c u l a t i o n d o so because
security, efficiency. B u t they have a double life; even as they organize
they are consistent w i t h the values o f the c u l t u r e . F u r t h e r m o r e ,
b e h a v i o r , t h e y also i n s t a l l a w o r l d v i e w b y w h i c h b e h a v i o r s they
metaphors reinforce themselves; metaphors " m a y create realities for us,
encourage or erase. A n d w h i l e they do n o t create a m e n t a l i t y i n their
especially social realities. A m e t a p h o r m a y t h u s be a guide for f u t u r e
u s e r s — m o s t people inside o f a p r i s o n , convict and guard alike, have
action. S u c h actions w i l l , of course, fit the metaphor. This w i l l , i n t u r n ,
c o m e t h e r e k n o w i n g w h a t t h e space is a b o u t — t h e y m a y m a k e it
reinforce the p o w e r of the m e t a p h o r to m a k e experience coherent. In
subtly m o r e difficult to envision practices that do n o t fit these b u i l t - i n
this sense metaphors can be self-fulfilling prophecies."
logics once they're inside.
often code f o r w h e t h e r the m e t a p h o r fits a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f the
T o consider software i n this way, w e m u s t l o o k at the design of the application itself. W h e n the t o o l offers a range o f choices, we m u s t c o n -
21
Intuitive, t h e n , is
w o r l d it already structures. P h i l A g r e suggests t h a t " m e t a p h o r s operate as a ' m e d i u m o f
sider w h a t is left off that list. W h e n the t o o l w o r k s w i t h the hardware
exchange'" between distinct semantic fields.
i n a particular way, we have to uncover the e c o n o m i c arrangements it
f r o m the fact that the similarity they c l a i m bridges a significant seman-
represents. W h e n the t o o l anticipates w h o the user is or w h a t he w i l l
tic g a p — e v e r y m e t a p h o r depends o n there being a difference between
22
T h e i r very p o w e r comes
likely do, we have to take i n t o account the character of the social w o r l d
the t w o domains. " T h e crucial element i n this f o r m u l a is the difference
those assumptions represent. A n d again, these political valences w i l l be
that exists between "the t h i n g ' and the ' s o m e t h i n g else,' " notes Steven
h i d d e n , or w i l l appear a n a t u r a l or obvious element of the technology,
J o h n s o n . " W h a t makes a m e t a p h o r p o w e r f u l is the gap between the
o r w i l l be praised i n the seductive terms o f efficiency, s i m p l i c i t y , and
two poles o f the e q u a t i o n . "
empowerment. T h e r e are a n u m b e r of design features i n software applications we
23
In this sense, m e t a p h o r s are w o n d e r f u l
tools; they take a p h e n o m e n o n t o o c o m p l e x to be u n d e r s t o o d i n its entirety, and n a m e it so that we m a y evaluate it and p u t it to use. T h e y
m i g h t consider. A l o o k at Microsoft's c o u r t r o o m battles suggest that
are particularly i m p o r t a n t i n the process of learning; "we tend to struc-
the interface between applications and operating systems has real i m p l i -
ture the less concrete and i n h e r e n t l y vaguer concepts . . . i n terms of
m o r e c o n c r e t e concepts, w h i c h are m o r e c l e a r l y d e l i n e a t e d i n o u r experience."
Lev M a n o v i c h argues t h a t m e t a p h o r s d r a w n f r o m existing media have s o m e t h i n g to offer the digital interface because their projects are
24
B u t i f t h e m e t a p h o r s w e circulate have consequences f o r h o w w e
similar. H e argues that "each o f these traditions has developed its o w n
evaluate the w o r l d , t h e n t h e ones w e choose s h o u l d be judged by the
unique ways o f h o w i n f o r m a t i o n is organized, h o w it is presented to the
representation o f the w o r l d they offer. George Lakoff and M a r k J o h n -
user, h o w space and t i m e are correlated w i t h each other, h o w h u m a n
son suggest that, i n every m e t a p h o r , some elements are d o w n p l a y e d ,
experience is b e i n g s t r u c t u r e d i n t h e process o f accessing i n f o r m a -
h i d d e n , and rejected because they do n o t fit—"a metaphorical concept
t i o n . " Each c u l t u r a l tradition becomes a "reservoir o f m e t a p h o r " f r o m
c a n keep us f r o m f o c u s i n g o n o t h e r aspects o f t h e c o n c e p t that are
w h i c h the interface can b o r r o w pretested dynamics.
28
A g r e imagines this as a spatial hier-
D i g i t a l m e d i a therefore negotiate a precarious relationship o f alle-
archy o f "centers" and " m a r g i n s " : "It is extraordinarily c o m m o n for a
giance, r i v a l r y , dependence, and transcendence w i t h t h e m e d i a that
inconsistent w i t h that m e t a p h o r . "
25
p h i l o s o p h i c a l system to elevate s o m e c e n t r a l category as a ' n o r m a l '
s u r r o u n d t h e m . These m e t a p h o r s establish a s t r u c t u r a l c o m p a r i s o n
case, so that the integrity o f the system depends o n its success i n h i d i n g
between the t w o domains, based o n an uneasy tension between similar-
or e x p l a i n i n g away t h e associated m a r g i n a l category."
These hierar-
ity and difference, stability a n d change, n o v e l t y a n d f a m i l i a r i t y . This
chical oppositions can be explicit o r tacit, b u t they structure a semantic
metaphoric comparison highlights some features for comparison w h i l e
26
landscape i n t o near and far that has implications for h o w t h e w o r l d is
relegating others to the margins. O u r perceptions of task and context are
perceived. W h a t is marginalized is w h a t cannot be explained: metaphors
structured i n part by the metaphors w e use and h o w they narrate the
suggest w h i c h features o f the w o r l d c a n be n a m e d , are w o r t h explain-
w o r l d . M o s t o l d m e d i a metaphors seem intuitive n o t because o f f a m i l -
i n g , and deserve attention.
iarity o f language, but because all these forms share familiar, u n d e r l y i n g
In M a c r o m e d i a D i r e c t o r ,
27
t h e user dictates t h e placement, m o v e -
ment, interaction, and t i m i n g of various m u l t i m e d i a e l e m e n t s images, sounds, movies, and text. These items, stored as separate files i n the computer's m e m o r y , are incorporated i n t o t h e p r o g r a m w h e n the
metaphors and patterns of organization—offering comfortable expectations for audience, representation, performance, and content.
the "author" in the authoring software
user adds t h e m t o t h e "cast." T h i s database keeps t r a c k o f every
The q u e s t i o n t h e n is, h o w m i g h t these choices, and t h e w o r l d v i e w s
i m p o r t e d i t e m available for use i n the current project. T h e elements are
they i m p l y , shape and constrain activity w h e n the t o o l is used? J. David
visible i n a "cast w i n d o w " that racks t h e m up like yearbook photos. The
Bolter and R i c h a r d G r u s i n argue that, w h i c h e v e r m e d i u m w e happen
user m u s t t h e n p u t these "cast m e m b e r s " o n the "stage"—the w i n d o w
to be experiencing, one o f the pleasures is seeing ourselves w i t h i n and
representing the project itself. Cast members can be dragged into place
t h r o u g h that m e d i u m : " W h e n we l o o k at a traditional p h o t o g r a p h o r a
o n the stage, o r they can be given coordinates and times and w i l l appear
perspective painting, w e understand ourselves as the reconstituted sta-
o n the stage as ordered.
tion p o i n t o f the artist o r the p h o t o g r a p h e r . "
These metaphors f r o m the theater are joined by an array o f others i n
29
This process o f identifi-
cation is n o t h i n g new. and has been considered before. But, w h e n a new
the D i r e c t o r interface, m a n y o f w h i c h c o m e f r o m o t h e r d o m a i n s of
media "remediates" older m e d i a forms, w e also m u s t negotiate the dif-
m e d i a . T h e m a j o r i t y o f a D i r e c t o r project is designed i n three m a i n
ferent available subject positions inscribed i n each. O u r sense o f o u r -
windows: the "stage" (theater), the "cast" (theater, film), and the "score"
selves, and o u r identification w i t h the m e d i u m , is partially s t r u c t u r e d
(theater, film, music). Cast members are placed onto the score into indi-
by the o l d senses o f self associated w i t h the f o r m s being i n v o k e d .
vidual "frames" (film), some of w h i c h can be marked as "keyframes" (eel
The same k i n d of intersection occurs w h e n p r o d u c i n g for a m e d i u m .
animation) to design character m o v e m e n t . There are "scenes" (theater,
When the tools articulate m u l t i p l e metaphoric relations, as i n the Direc-
film) that can be given "transitions" (film, video). Cast members can be
tor interface, users find they m u s t coordinate and negotiate m u l t i p l e
expanded into graduated variations o f a single image t h r o u g h a n " o n i o n
roles. " C a s t " a n d "stage" a n d " s c r i p t " suggest a theatrical p r o d u c t i o n ,
s k i n " technique (eel animation), c o m b i n e d into a single "sprite" ( c o m -
with us as "directors"; using "keyframes" and " t w e e n i n g " suggests that
puter programming) and given m o v e m e n t across frames by "tweening"
we consider ourselves animators, a v e r y different role i n the c u l t u r a l
(eel animation) between keyframes. The project can be viewed i n progress
i m a g i n a t i o n i n terms o f b o t h status and r e l a t i o n s h i p to t h e p r o d u c t .
using a " c o n t r o l p a n e l " (video); y o u r place w i t h i n the score is m a r k e d
Working the "editor" o n "pages" and "layout" suggests that we act as edi-
w i t h a "playback h e a d " (video). W h e n t h e project is c o m p l e t e , it is a
tors: "sprites" a n d "graphics" m a y suggest that we are c o m p u t e r p r o -
" m o v i e " (film) and is s h o w n using a "projector" (film).
g r a m m e r s : "palettes" a n d w o r k s p a c e s " posit us as artists. W i t h this
confluence o f media metaphors comes a confluence, or perhaps a contra-
such as images, tables, and h o r i z o n t a l rules . . . c l i c k i n g a b u t t o n creates
diction, of roles the user is invited to inhabit.
the specified object at the cursor l o c a t i o n . " B u t w h e n y o u "create" an
B u t it's less i m p o r t a n t to tease o u t the differences between these
image i n D r e a m w e a v e r , y o u are actually o n l y m a r k i n g the space f o r
i m p l i e d subject positions, a n d m o r e i m p o r t a n t to u n d e r s t a n d w h a t
an image to be placed. T h e t u t o r i a l later says "to insert an image, click
assumptions they a l l share; to do this, we can l o o k at h o w these tools
the image b u t t o n . " T h e verb has changed to one of "insertion"; the t o o l
and their m e t a p h o r s i m a g i n e the '•author." M u l t i m e d i a applications
presumes t h a t preexisting elements are b e i n g r e c o m b i n e d , w h e t h e r
such as Director and its competitors have come to be k n o w n as "author-
they are b o r r o w e d f r o m another website, designed w i t h another t o o l ,
i n g software"; o n Macromedia's website, Dreamweaver 2.0 got the same
or scanned f r o m another m e d i a source.
treatment, dubbed a "professional Web a u t h o r i n g e n v i r o n m e n t . "
31
Here
We c o u l d argue that these tools, because their affordances privilege
a claim is made about w h a t is being done w h e n these tools are used, and
collaboration and recombination, w i l l shape design practices i n this way
30
by w h o m . This is o n l y one articulation of the user offered here: there are
and w i l l help t r a n s f o r m the practices o f authorship. M a n y have argued
others. B u t it is one situated at an interesting juncture, or disjuncture.
that digital t e c h n o l o g y is d o i n g so as w e speak. H o w e v e r , the classic
between the assumptions about o l d and n e w media. T h e character of the " a u t h o r " has a long-standing but c o m p l e x c u l -
notion of the a u t h o r has a l o n g c u l t u r a l tradition, and w i l l not expire so easily. A n d it is the m e d i a metaphors b u i l t i n t o these tools that m a y
t u r a l history, and has come under fire i n recent critical theory, specifi-
p o w e r f u l l y c u r t a i l this t r a n s f o r m a t i o n . W h i l e the software seems to
cally i n relation to the p r o m i n e n c e o f digital media. T h e most c o m m o n
encourage a n u n e x p e c t e d range o f a u t h o r s h i p strategies, it dresses
image of the m o d e r n a u t h o r has been of the solitary w r i t e r at his draw-
those strategies i n a language d r a w n f r o m m e d i a f o r m s that have l o n g
i n g table, his n i m b l e m i n d feverishly c o n j u r i n g imaginary worlds of his
supported m o r e traditional principles.
o w n creation and p u t t i n g t h e m d o w n o n paper for the benefit of all
It's n o t clear w h i c h is m o r e c o m p e l l i n g — t h e f u n c t i o n , o r its
h u m a n i t y . E v e n t h o u g h the act o f a u t h o r s h i p takes o n m a n y forms,
metaphoric n a m e . Perhaps I s h o u l d pose it as a question: D o familiar,
very few r e s e m b l i n g this at a l l , the image still enjoys a c u l t u r a l reso-
o l d - m e d i a metaphors help t i m i d users find their way i n t o a d r a m a t i -
nance available to those w h o produce and encounter texts. O u r West-
cally n e w set o f c o g n i t i v e and c o m m u n i c a t i v e arrangements? O r do
ern attachment to a robust n o t i o n o f individualism, o u r dependence on
they translate everything innovative about these tools back into a c o n -
identity as a sign of originality and authenticity, and o u r mentalist the-
ventional and conservative set of c u l t u r a l relations? To begin to answer
ories of c o g n i t i o n converge to reinforce this i c o n of authorship. S o m e n e w m e d i a scholars have a r g u e d that d i g i t a l technologies,
this question, we m u s t remember that these tools are part o f a m o m e n t of transition, as the software i n d u s t r y looks to develop an ever broader
especially i n t h e i r emphasis o n c o l l a b o r a t i o n a n d r e c o m b i n a t i o n ,
c o n s u m e r base. A s c o m p u t e r s have b e c o m e c o m m o n h o u s e h o l d
expose the fallacy of m o d e r n a u t h o r s h i p m o r e t h a n previous media.
objects a n d t h e N e t has e x p a n d e d its r e a c h far b e y o n d academics,
T h e excitement a r o u n d the possibility of " i n t e r a c t i v i t y " anticipated a
researchers, and hobbyists, the designers and corporations that create
new collaboration between a u t h o r and reader, where the user has the
software n o w aspire to compete w i t h m o r e mainstream m e d i a forms.
chance to w a n d e r t h r o u g h a landscape o f i n f o r m a t i o n , rather t h a n
Where tools l i k e these were once designed f o r users w h o v e r y m u c h
being fed a sequence of choices premade by the a u t h o r — t h e w o r k itself
resembled the designers, n o w t h e y are m a d e f o r a n d p r o m o t e d to a
w o u l d be " a u t h o r e d " by b o t h . Digital design seemed to emphasize the
wider c o n s u m e r a u d i e n c e — a n d must resonate w i t h users w h o do not
m i x i n g a n d m a t c h i n g o f p r e e x i s t i n g a n d readily available elements,
consider themselves part o f this technical design c o m m u n i t y , and w h o
s o m e t h i n g the m o r e traditional n o t i o n of the author m i n i m i z e s i n its
bring to the table a very different set of assumptions.
valorization of originality.
These tools must n o w serve as boundary objects between two differ-
B o t h D i r e c t o r and D r e a m w e a v e r appear to p u t c o l l a b o r a t i o n and
ent c o m m u n i t i e s — t h o s e of designers and users—and thus must recon-
r e c o m b i n a t i o n at the forefront of digital design as they envision it. For
cile t w o significantly different investments i n the n o t i o n of authorship.
instance, Dreamweaver allows for the placement and m a n i p u l a t i o n of
Software designers affiliate themselves w i t h the w o r l d s o f science and
digital objects, but offers little help i n creating those objects. There is
engineering; as such, they often share their opinions about the nature of
even an o d d silence about w h e r e these "objects" are supposed to come
authorship, w h i c h tend to highlight collaboration as m u c h as originality.
f r o m . I n one m o m e n t of the D r e a m w e a v e r 2.0 t u t o r i a l , it says "the
But these tools n o w must appeal to users outside of this relatively limited
Objects palette contains buttons for creating various types o f objects.
circle. The users they seek are less familiar w i t h or dependent o n these dis-
iriDurea notions or authorship. They are likely to assume that "authori n g " carries the connotations they k n o w best—the solitary genius m i n d that produces original works of art and knowledge. T h e r e is a tension being negotiated here; a design c o m m u n i t y that embraces a distributed n o t i o n o f a u t h o r s h i p and a n o p e n text, using tools that destabilize the m o r e arcane of the c u l t u r a l assumptions about authorship, finds it m u s t tap those very assumptions i n order to distribute that t o o l and have it resonate w i t h users. This means that tools that m i g h t otherwise renovate traditional power relations are marginalized i n the very effort to m a k e t h e m available to a wider audience. A n d — n o surprise—this fits the c o m m e r c i a l logic o f the companies that produce these tools; as they desire b o t h the i n n o v a t i o n of the new and the status of the o l d , they must strike an awkward, c o m p r o m i s e d , and metaphoric balance between those c o m p e t i n g impulses.
conclusion These tools do n o t exist i n a v a c u u m . R u d i V o l t i suggests that we t h i n k about technologies n o t as material artifacts, b u t as "technological systems" w i t h a material artifact at the center. " W h e n technology is seen as a c o m b i n a t i o n o f devices, skills, a n d o r g a n i z a t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e s , it becomes natural to t h i n k of it as a system. For an individual technology to operate effectively m o r e is required t h a n the i n v e n t i o n o f a particular piece o f hardware; it has t o be supported by other elements that are systematically i n t e r c o n n e c t e d . "
32
M a c r o m e d i a D r e a m w e a v e r is n o t a
p r o g r a m ; i t is a t o o l , a c o m m u n i t y o f designers, a n array o f users, a m e d i u m , a corporation, and a series o f c u l t u r a l expectations; its i m p l i cations can o n l y be made clear once this "system" is b r o u g h t into focus. This is a way to r e m i n d ourselves that an i n q u i r y i n t o a piece of software m a y begin w i t h interface metaphors, but cannot end there. A n d it is also the s o l u t i o n to t h e p r o b l e m w e began w i t h , o f e n s u r i n g that we never slip back i n t o treating technologies as neutral objects. It was precisely this erasure of the social and i n s t i t u t i o n a l elements that helped us i m a g i n e technologies as n e u t r a l . Because w e d r e w the boundaries a r o u n d a technology at its metal o r digital edges, we c o u l d not see h o w its affordances were crystallizations o f social arrangements, its narrations were the claims and aspirations o f its designers and distributors, and its functions were a staging p o i n t o f a conversation between makers
lebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites. and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change. (Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press. 1995), 288. i. Langdon Winner, "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" Daedalus 109, no. 1 (1980): 122. 4. Michael Cole, Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1996), 117. 5. Bernward Joerges discusses the way the Moses parable has been my thologized i n the literature o n technology, noting especially that Moses's bridges may have been that height because of federal statutes, or architectural traditions that nostalgized low bridges as an American tradition. His point is not to discount Winner's theoretical claim, but to note how the intellectual discourse picks and chooses how and why it circulates such "splendid pieces of ready-made discourse" as parables. Steve Woolgar and Geoff Cooper question Winner's story for its apocryphal power i n their field as well, noting that anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that buses did travel to Jones Beach along the parkways. Their task is more epistemological, taking both Winner and Joerges to task for putting too much faith in technologies as definitive artifacts and dismissing articulation (even their own) as somehow secondary. Instead, they urge a renewed sense of "the essential ambivalence of artefacts." See Bernward Joerges, "Do Politics Have Artefacts?" Social Studies of Science 29, no. 3 (1999): 420; Steve Woolgar and Geoff Cooper, "Do Artefacts Have Ambivalences? Moses' Bridges, Winner's Bridges, and Other Urban Legends of STS," Social Studies of Science 29. no. 3 (1999): 443. 6. Winner, "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" 124. 7. Bruno Latour, "Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer," Social Problems 35 (1988): 276. 8. This is worth leaving as an open question, although we should start by taking particular care about whom we assume to be the "designer" of a particular technology. The question of intentionality presumes that an individual can be reliably labeled as the tool's originator, a presumption that deserves some skepticism. It may also be that focusing too much on intent ends up limiting the means for change; when the disabled community sponsored laws requiring wheelchair access, they did not get far by pointing only at the deliberate, malicious intent of particular architects and designers. It was more compelling to argue that the architecture itself discriminated against them, not the people; making the technology the enemy meant making fewer political enemies in the process. 9. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: Tlie Birth of the Prison, 1st American ed., trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), 195-228. 10. Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (New York: Basic Books. 1999).
and users about the w o r l d they intend to create.
U . Bruno Latour, "Review of Edwin Hutchins' Cognition in the Wild," Mind, Culture, and Activity 3, no. 1 (1996): 56.
notes
12. Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild (Cambridge, Mass.: M I T Press, 1995) 173.
1. A l v i n M . Weinberg, " C a n Technology Replace Social Engineering?" i n Technology and the Future, ed. Albert H . Teich. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. 2000), 32.
13. B r u n o Latour, "Visualization and Cognition: T h i n k i n g w i t h Eyes and Hands." Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present 6 (1986): 6.
14. Steve Woolgar. "Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials," i n A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power. Technology, and Domination, ed. John Law (London: Routledge, 1991), 69. 15. Macromedia is one of the most prominent producers of such tools, focusing primarily on applications that produce for C D - R O M and online environments. Macromedia was incorporated i n 1992 when two existing software companies, Macromind and Authorware, merged; n o w it's traded on N A S D A Q . In the nine months ending December 31, 2001, Macromedia earned $249.1 m i l l i o n . (Macromedia website, , accessed January 20,2002.) That revenue is drawn almost entirely from sales of its design applications: Director and Dreamweaver, as well as Flash, Freehand, Authorware, Fireworks, and ColdFusion. Introduced i n 1997, Dreamweaver marked Macromedia's entrance into the market of WYSIWYG—"what you see is what you get"—web editors. Like multimedia presentations, web sites were originally all written i n the computer code called H T M L . But as the web reached a wider audience, a market developed for tools that would bypass the need for H T M L expertise, offering users the chance to design websites simply by arranging text and graphics visually. Programs like Dreamweaver provide the design space and the controls, then compose the H T M L to match. 16. Macromedia Dreamweaver 2.0, guided tour. 17. Macromedia Dreamweaver 3.0, tutorial. 18. Macromedia website, , accessed January 20,2002. 19. For more on this subject, see Tarleton Gillespie, "Sleight of Hand: Law. Technology, and the Moral Deployment of Authorship i n the Napster and DeCSS Copyright Cases": Ph.D., diss., University of California, San Diego, January 2002. 20. I have to note at this point that I am, despite my own warnings, choosing a discursive feature of the technology to analyze; it's possible that I'm falling into the same trap as I noted before, where treating technology like a text a la Woolgar leads us to notice the most text-like aspects. However, interface metaphors are, I w o u l d argue, fundamentally different than something like a tutorial: the tutorial narrates the tool through example, whereas the interface metaphor literally stands for the function of the tool. Since these metaphors are the only visible element of a feature of the tool, what they fail to represent is, for argument's sake, simply not a part of the tool. 21. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 156. 22. Phil Agre, Computation and Human Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1997), 37. 23. Steven Johnson. Interface Culture (San Francisco: Harper Edge, 1997), 58-59. 24. Lakoff and Johnson. Metaphors, 112. 25. Ibid., 10. 26. Agre, Computation, 43. 27. Director, introduced by Macromind in 1984, was originally conceived as a two-dimensional computer animation tool. But after weak sales, a version 2.0 upgrade in 1990 significantly reimagined Director as a multimedia
design tool for business and education professionals—particularly bv adding Lingo, a scripting language that allowed the possibility of interactivity i n the presentations it produced. Director quickly found and dominated its market just as the C D - R O M seemed to have become a viable medium for business and a consumer market. When the C D - R O M format faltered and the web came to prominence, Macromedia again shifted Director's focus by developing Shockwave, a plug-in application for web browsers that can present Director projects delivered via the Internet. Macromedia released Director 8.0 i n 2001. 28. LevManovich, "Cinema as a Cultural Interface." Available at (1998). 29. J. David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 231. 30. Macromedia website, . accessed February 18, 1999.
_.
03
31. Ironically, Macromedia's copy editors caught this incongruency; the language was changed i n version 3.0, to "the Object palette contains buttons for inserting objects such as tables, layers, and images." See Macromedia Dreamweaver 3.0, Help menu, "Dreamweaver basics: Object palette". 32 Rudi Volti, Society and Technological Change, 3d ed. (New York- St Martin's Press, 1995), 5.
123
prefiguring r t
t h r e e
digitextuality
second-shift media aesthetics programming,
interactivity, and
user flows
j o h n
t.
c a l d w e l l
The show w i l l flow back and forth between the Web and T V . We're going to be laying some new g r o u n d ( w i t h Homicide.com). —writerI producer Aveiet Sela on newflowsresulting from Web-TV tie-in. The much-heralded Internet series (Homicide.com) has amassed n u m e r o u s awards, i n c l u d i n g two Inovision Awards for Story/Script and Web Design, and a prestigious 1998 ID Magazine Media Design Review. —Microsoft press release promoting Windows MediaPlayer as the means to witness NBC's convergence of the series Homicide: Life on the Streets, the website Homicide: Hie Second Shift, andaspecial "Homicide.com" episode. B o t h n e w and o l d m e d i a trade publications c o n t i n u e to i n v o k e m o d ernist notions of "cutting-edge" originality, i n n o v a t i o n , and radicalitv
to p r o m o t e progress i n their respective industries. T h e " H o m i c i d e . c o m "
i n the next season (by h y p i n g radical aesthetic i n n o v a t i o n and o n l i n e
sweeps-week stunt d u r i n g February 1999. for example, served as c u r a -
integration w i t h content), the vast m a j o r i t y of T V / d o t - c o m sites today
1
torial bait for an eclectic p h a l a n x of trade writers and vested interests
are far less ambitious narratively and aesthetically t h a n these showcased
intent o n p r o m o t i n g the expansion of the digital and d o t - c o m worlds.
exercises i n visionary convergence. Sifting t h r o u g h the various t e c h n i -
This event, m a n y s u r m i s e d , represented the u l t i m a t e integration and
cal and e c o n o m i c interests i n v o l v e d i n the H o m i c i d e . c o m s t u n t s u g -
seamless convergence o f o l d a n d n e w m e d i a . Since 1997. the website
gests that institutional relationships and industrial leveraging m a y have
H o m i c i d e : T h e Second S h i f t h a d d e p i c t e d life o n the flip side o f the
been far m o r e i m p o r t a n t t h a n the aesthetic forms that comprised the
show. T h a t is. as the p r i m e - t i m e stars left t h e i r one h o u r broadcast
event. " A u t h o r s h i p " for the s h o w was claimed by m a n y i n v o l v e d i n the
"shift," web surfers c o u l d w a t c h the precinct and replacement personnel
effort: N B C ( w h i c h aired the show), N B C D i g i t a l P r o d u c t i o n s ( w h i c h
o n the Internet d u r i n g the other "23 h o u r s " of the day. T h e acclaimed
produced the integrated project), N B C . c o m ( w h i c h p r o m o t e d the
sweeps stunt began w i t h second-shift detectives investigating webcast
show's site o n the web), the H o m i c i d e . c o m Internet p r o d u c e r A y e l e t
crimes c o m m i t t e d o n Wednesday and T h u r s d a y of the week. O n Friday
Sela ( w h o p i t c h e d and t h e n c o w r o t e the televised script), and B a r r y
night, the "first-shift" detectives o n N B C ' s televised series continued the
Levinson a n d T o m Fontana's p r o d u c t i o n c o m p a n y ( w h i c h produces
same investigation and sought to solve the ritualistic murders that had
and owns the show i n syndication). A u t h o r s h i p of this screen-Net stunt
earlier been webcast. T h i s search i n v o l v e d a descent i n t o the frenetic
was also c l a i m e d by the c o a l i t i o n o f business partners that created the
a n d dark w o r l d of Internet c u l t u r e , w i t h p r o d u c e r s a n d consultants
event, i n c l u d i n g Z D T V (an i n t e r n e t p r o g r a m m i n g a n d c o n s u l t i n g
bragging that there w o u l d be eighty scenes i n this special episode rather than the n o r m a l forty to sixty. This dramatized, televisual cyberworld 2
i n c l u d e d fake e - m a i l solicitations, chat r o o m s , and r e c u r r e n t hacker interventions. To solve the murders the onscreen detectives eventually enjoined all
firm);
3
I n t e r n e t p i r a c y c o n s u l t a n t s f r o m the Web series " C y b e r -
C r i m e T V " (lawyers A l e x W e l l e n and L u k e Reiter); and the M i c r o s o f t 4
corporation.
5
E a c h p a r t n e r leveraged the T V / d o t - c o m s t u n t to increase m a r k e t share i n its o w n industrial sector. Z D T V (an Internet "technology p u b -
members of the composite precinct to help solve the crime online, even
lisher w h o s e website covers tales o f h a c k i n g , [and] e l e c t r o n i c eves-
as they themselves were s h o w n between acts playing a c o m p u t e r arcade
d r o p p i n g " ) h y p e d its o w n m a r g i n a l l y rated webcast p r o g r a m m i n g .
game featuring a female figure blasting away at her animated prey. As
Consultant Wellen used the experience to create a segment for his o w n
the show built u p to its cliff-hanger. N B C ended the h o u r by advertising
Net series. Internet personnel at H o m i c i d e . c o m earned a p r i m e - t i m e
6
7
the website w h e r e the n a r r a t i v e w o u l d c o n t i n u e after the T V show
television screenwriting credit v i a the stunt. B u t Microsoft w o r k e d and
ended. H o m i c i d e . c o m t h e n showed the second-shift detectives contin-
spun the event w i t h as m u c h intensity as any of the other players. W i t h
u i n g the investigation, sifting t h r o u g h video fragments that h a d earlier
a s u m m a r y o f the event's aesthetic features as mere icing o n its lengthy
been webcast (before) o r broadcast (after) the first c r i m e had been c o m -
press release, M i c r o s o f t p r o c e e d e d t o p r o m o t e n o t just its W i n d o w s
m i t t e d . T h e site also gave web users at h o m e the ability to sift t h r o u g h
MediaPlayer as " t h e " w a y to access the celebrated synergy, b u t also
audio and video clips of the evidence itself, to i n t e r v i e w the suspects,
devoted considerable p r o m o t i o n a l copy to describing the wide-ranging
and to play an o n l i n e version of the very arcade c o m p u t e r game that
extent and nature o f its contractual business relationships t h r o u g h o u t
detectives o f b o t h shifts h a d played i n the analog a n d digital worlds.
digital and electronic media: " W i t h Microsoft, N B C owns and operates
8
Frenetic web use n o w pervaded each register o f reality available i n the
M S N B C , a 24-hour cable news network, and (the) Internet News Service
integrated convergent s t u n t : the televised cast, the webcast cast, and
at w w w . m s n b c . c o m . Also, together w i t h Microsoft and D o w Jones, N B C
actual web users all n o w logged-on, chatted, threatened, downloaded,
operates C N B C / D o w Jones Business Video
and p l a y e d the same d i g i t i z e d v i d e o a n d a u d i o clips a n d c o m p u t e r
vations f r o m N B C include interactive television initiatives w i t h Microsoft
games, and sifted t h r o u g h t the same clues, i n an ostensibly synergistic
WebTV f o r W i n d o w s a n d the W e b T V N e t w o r k Plus service, W i n k -
ecstasy o f digital euphoria.
enhanced p r o g r a m m i n g w i t h W i n k C o m m u n i c a t i o n s , N B C Intercast
M y suspicions at the t i m e about the significance o f the c r i t i c a l l y
O t h e r n e w media i n n o -
w i t h Intel C o r p . , e l e c t r o n i c p r o g r a m guides w i t h G e m s t a r , a n d o n -
acclaimed. seamless stunt p r o v e d warranted, as the a w a r d - w i n n i n g but
demand video services w i t h lntertainer
low-rated series and integrated site came and t h e n w e n t off the air and
WebTV N e t w o r k , Windows N T , and N e t S h o w are registered trademarks
Microsoft, Windows, WebTV.
offline. A n d w h i l e other shows like Fox's Freakylinks and Freakylinks.com
in the U n i t e d States." Executives at N B C h y p e d H o m i c i d e . c o m as i f it
c o n t i n u e d to angle for critical acclaim to get a leg u p i n the ratings wars
were akin to the second c o m i n g : " m o r e t h a n a simple tie-in between a
9
Web-site a n d a television s h o w : it is an actual convergence of entertainment
Groening, James L. Brooks, and company were m o c k i n g the fact that the
media." Microsoft, however, m o r e deftly deconstructed the subtext of
n e w c o m e r s (like t h e r e a l - w o r l d n e t w o r k T V wanna-bes " M o n d o
this convergent art f o r m via the (now essential) financial market lexicon:
Media," "JoeCartoon.com," and " S p u n k y " o n the Net) had o n l y actually
10
" F o u n d e d i n 1975, M i c r o s o f t (is listed o n ) Nasdaq as ' M S F T . ' " Like a
delivered c r u d e l y d r a w n , Q u i c k T i m e a n d Flash a n i m a t i o n s ( w h i c h
predatory male m a r k i n g its turf, M i c r o s o f t i n v o k e d a n endless series of
stuttered at glacially s l o w frame rates), w i t h content t h a t e m b o d i e d
proprietary, brand-related trademarks. Like an a l l - k n o w i n g conglomer-
infantile, male, adolescent sensibilities. Celebrated c u l t breakthroughs
1 1
ate, Microsoft sketched a networked empire so broad that the s u n might
like the animated series South Park had broken t h r o u g h to cable i n 1997-98
never stop s h i n i n g o n its endlessly a u g m e n t i n g parts. Like a boardroom
precisely because of such qualities. In hindsight, however, this discovery
sage t u r n e d earnest financial advisor. M i c r o s o f t discreetly shared an
t u r n e d o u t to be t h e e x c e p t i o n that p r o v e d t h e r u l e . The Simpsons/
insider's critically valuable stock investment tip: " M S F T . "
Fox/Newscorp/ H o l l y w o o d - v e r s u s - d o t - c o m / s t a r t u p episode, and the
A s this dense e x a m p l e suggests, c u t t i n g - e d g e a c c o m p l i s h m e n t i n
Homicide.com/NBC/WebTV/ Z D T V / M i c r o s o f t tie-in are m o r e t h a n just
digital aesthetics frequently provides pressure points and lucrative con-
displays o f p o s t m o d e r n cynicism o r conglomerate hype. B o t h examples
tact zones w h e r e a b r o a d set o f n e w i n s t i t u t i o n a l practices and p r o -
also stand as forms of institutional and market deployment; b o t h criti-
prietary strategies interact. This sort o f p h e n o m e n o n begs the question
cally exploit digital media aesthetics to leverage c u l t u r a l capital, visibil-
o f w h e t h e r film studies c a n continue t o talk p r o d u c t i v e l y about texts,
ity, and financial benefit; and b o t h h e l p — t h r o u g h b r a n d i n g strategies
aesthetics, ideology, and identity i n n e w m e d i a (all standby analytical
and discourses o f distinction—to position and value their respective c o n -
perspectives i n the field o f film studies) w i t h o u t also t a l k i n g about the
glomerates i n the capital markets.
industrial landscape that animates and fuels n e w - m e d i a development
T h e e m e r g i n g and e v e r - m o r p h i n g d i g i t a l mediascape that these
o n a wide scale. A n s w e r i n g such a question, I w o u l d argue, unsettles a
examples m a p challenges the unfortunate gap that exists between p o l i t -
n u m b e r o f recurrent assumptions and critical tendencies, as I hope to
ical-economy and i n d u s t r y research o n the one h a n d ( w h i c h tends to
show i n the pages that f o l l o w .
ignore texts and forms entirely), and critical studies i n the humanities on
It is n o longer entirely credible, for example, to imagine that digital
the other ( w h i c h tend to avoid issues o f economy, c o m m e r c i a l i z a t i o n ,
m e d i a is s o m e h o w m a r k e d by a radical break w i t h t r a d i t i o n a l media
and industry). B o t h practitioners and critical theorists invoke aesthetic
practices. T h e M i c r o s o f t - N B C c o n g l o m e r a t i o n scenario above shows
schemes, albeit i n different ways. T h i s chapter examines a range o f
h o w meticulously managed and prefigured " n e w " breakthroughs have
textual f o r m s used i n T V / d o t - c o m sites, and l o o k s closely at several
become. Even mainstream, primetime narratives i n the domestic sphere,
the a u t h o r considers t o be b o t h i n f l u e n t i a l and s y m p t o m a t i c o f n e w
for instance, n o w provide u n r e m a r k a b l e reflections o n the n o w naive
forms of user flows: H o m i c i d e . c o m , freakylinks.com, dawsonscreek.com,
and overly optimistic promises o f cybertech, t h e high-techs, and dot-
thexfiles.com; the websites o f the T V series Futurama and Sex and the City;
coms. A n episode o f The Simpsons that aired A p r i l 28, 2002, for example,
the n e t w o r k s H B O and W B ; and fan sites. F u r t h e r m o r e , the chapter
showed Bart struggling to develop his o w n animated series. After zero-
seeks to consider the ways that long-standing strategies i n television and
i n g i n o n t h e title " D a n g e r D a d , " B a r t d r e w c r u d e images o f father
broadcasting—programming, syndication, licensing, branding, and
H o m e r i n various states o f tirade, a n d t h e n p i t c h e d his series to leg-
flows—have
endary D C C o m i c s founder Stan Lee. The animated Lee—whose real-life
media forms.
counterpart was i n the process o f p r e m i e r i n g his o w n blockbuster film
emerged as textual engines that prefigure the design of new
1 d r a w a t t e n t i o n to t h e r a t h e r c o m m o n p l a c e e x a m p l e f r o m The
Spiderman worldwide five days later—scoffed at the quality of Bart's comic
Simpsons cited above n o t to show that o l d media has s o m e h o w " w o n " i n
b o o k . T h i s r e j e c t i o n sent B a r t to a n o t h e r possible b u y e r , and a new
its struggle over n e w media. Rather, I suggest that w h a t w e m i g h t t e r m
digital s t a r t u p — " B e t t e r t h a n T V . c o m " — w h i c h l a u n c h e d the rejected
"convergence m e d i a " i n the digital era is not defined by any n e w techni-
project as a n animated " o n l i n e series."
cally induced o r determined quality o r capacity, but instead defines itself
The Simpsons creators and its audience o n Fox were critically mocking
i n the ways that n e t w o r k s a n d studios use convergence initiatives to
online c u l t u r e ( w h i c h paid Bart and Lisa w i t h "stock options" dispensed
implement long-standing industry practices m e n t i o n e d above. Scholars
f r o m toilet paper rolls), the naïveté o f venture capitalists (whose startup
that ignore s u c h w o r k a d a y strategies and practices i n t h e o r i z i n g n e w
o n this show went d o w n i n the flames o f bankruptcy), and the hubris of
media place their o w n studies i n doubt. T h r o u g h o u t the 1990s, scholars
d o t - c o m C E O s ( w h o s o m e h o w i m a g i n e d t h e y were creating a viable
in the fields of visual arts and film studies i n particular rushed to embrace
alternative to the H o l l y w o o d animation and television industries). Matl
digital and new-media forms i n conferences and exhibitions as important
parts o f their changing disciplines. Yet a recurring pattern i n such venues
ing about texts; and impossible to talk of texts o r identity today w i t h o u t
was t h e a t t e m p t to c o n n e c t digital m e d i a w i t h early p r o t o c i n e m a t i c
also t a l k i n g about their corporate logic and institutional significance.
forms (in f i l m studies) and early avant-garde and art-world forms (in the
In some ways this assertion is a reaction to w h a t m i g h t be t e r m e d the
visual arts) that prefigured new media by as m u c h as a century. A s I have a r g u e d elsewhere, s u c h scholars s o m e h o w m a n a g e d
15
• gnostic" inclinations of critical theory to date; that is. to the tendency to disembody and deindustrialize meanings, ideology, power, and identity
( t h r o u g h ignorance o r intention) to ignore the sixty to seventy years o f
in t h e o r y .
television and broadcasting history that n o w seem to have assumed a
authoring and end-user activities are b o t h integral and strategic parts o f
m u c h m o r e central role i n inflecting and defining new media than
most business plans i n various media convergence schemes.
either film o r a r t - w o r l d practices.
12
Television, t o m a n y academics i n
the higher disciplinary castes, represents t h e w o r l d o f c o m m e r c e and easy entertainment. Television's preoccupation w i t h p r o g r a m m i n g and
16
T h e examples e x a m i n e d here suggest t h a t n e w - m e d i a
first-shift aesthetics: content flows, supertext, and programming strategies
s y n d i c a t i o n , t h a t is, a p p a r e n t l y pales i n t h e face o f t h e t h e o r e t i c a l
U n d e r s t a n d i n g second-shift aesthetics means re-considering the ways
opportunities promised w h e n one presupposes radical experiential and
that R a y m o n d W i l l i a m s ' s m o d e l o f television's " f l o w " a n d N i c k
cognitive results f r o m any n e w technology. I hope to suggest h o w view-
Browne's m o d e l o f television's " s u p e r t e x t " have b o t h developed and
i n g n e w m e d i a t h r o u g h the lens o f o l d m e d i a (and television i n partic-
adapted i n the increasingly digital w o r l d o f convergence m e d i a . B o t h
u l a r ) c a n p r o v i d e a range o f insights i n t o t h e i n c r e a s i n g l y c o m p l e x
paradigms were used to describe electronic m e d i a i n the analog age o f
strategies used i n the d e p l o y m e n t o f digital m e d i a f o r m s . I have hijacked and adapted the t e r m second-shift aesthetics f r o m the celebrated tie-in cited earlier n o t to describe digital technologies, interac-
Williams argued that the m o s t significant object o f critical research i n television was not the individual programs that critics tended to isolate, but rather the c u m u l a t i v e succession o f programs, p r o m o s , previews,
ditional and m o d i f i e d " p r o g r a m m i n g strategies" i n the design o f every-
ads, and b u m p e r s that c o u l d create a single f l o w o n a n e t w o r k across
t h i n g f r o m interface a n d software design t o m e r c h a n d i z i n g a n d
several p r o g r a m m i n g h o u r s . W h i l e this seemed l i k e a radical idea to
T h e v e r y t e r m aesthetics e m p l o y e d here h a d
many scholars at the time, flow theory actually existed i n n e t w o r k p r o -
largely disappeared f r o m film theory by the 1980s, since it was deemed
g r a m m i n g departments since the early 1950s. Browne's insight was to
an archaic approach b o u n d u p w i t h the retrograde ideologies o f classi-
link these flow strategies to several practices, i n c l u d i n g : p r o g r a m m i n g
cism and r o m a n t i c i s m . Yet I t h i n k t h e t e r m helps bridge the u n f o r t u -
"day-parts" (daytime, p r i m e time, off-prime time, late night, etc.); the
nate gap that has widened between academic studies of industry, f r o m a
p o l i t i c a l e c o n o m y o f the i n d u s t r y ; and t h e ideologies that m a n a g e d
p o l i t i c a l - e c o n o m i c perspective, and critical studies i n the humanities.
these t e m p o r a l , organizing strategies. T h e composite, televisual v i e w -
Producers and critical m e d i a theorists deploy aesthetic schemes, but to
ing forms that resulted he t e r m e d the " s u p e r t e x t " — a p a r a d i g m that
different ends. A c o n c e r n w i t h texts stands as t h e c o m m o n g r o u n d
required c r i t i c a l theorists to privilege t h e c o n t e x t u a l " c l u t t e r " (ads,
between the t w o professional c o m m u n i t i e s . Textualism, o f course, is a
promos, and previews interspersed t h r o u g h o u t any broadcast) i n addi-
d o m i n a n t perspective i n b o t h critical and c u l t u r a l studies, even t h o u g h
tion to and together w i t h any specific s h o w being aired.
revisionists n o w propose ways to eclipse i t .
14
3
network television and cable ( i n 1975 and 1984, respectively), and b o t h
to describe a g r o w i n g and ubiquitous w o r l d o f digital that employs tra-
13
PL
strategies have been challenged by recent digital media developments.
tive programs, o r software as b o u n d e d objects of analysis; rather, I hope
branding campaigns.
pj §
The supertext proposition allowed critical scholars to begin consid-
M e d i a professionals, o n t h e other h a n d — w h o ( w i t h little p r o m p t -
ering p o l i t i c o e c o n o m i c issues i n industry (context) as integral parts o f
ing) m i g h t denigrate the p o m p o u s pretensions o f critical intellectuals
any p r o g r a m (text). A l t h o u g h few critical theorists a c k n o w l e d g e d it,
w h o presume to speculate authoritatively o n media—themselves go to
the flow/supertext methodologies i n effect allowed critics to "discover"
great ends to e x p l a i n , rationalize, perpetuate, and c r i t i c a l l y evaluate
some v e r y basic strategies that broadcast and n e t w o r k p r o g r a m m i n g
film/video/new-media
c o n t e n t . A l t h o u g h t h e r e s u l t i n g c r i t i c a l dis-
d e p a r t m e n t s h a d m a s t e r e d a n d d e p l o y e d f o r decades i n i n d u s t r y .
courses rarely seem to i n t e r m i n g l e (let alone i m p a c t each other), both
Because I a m interested i n digital f o r m and aesthetics (as w e l l as i n s t i t u -
w o r l d s privilege t h e stuff at t h e heart o f the aesthetic exchange. F o r
tional analysis), I consider these (predigital) p r o g r a m m i n g strategies to
media practitioners this is t e r m e d "content"; for critics these are termed
comprise w h a t m i g h t be t e r m e d "first-shift" aesthetics. P r o g r a m m e r s
"texts." As I have argued elsewhere, it is almost impossible to talk use-
have since used various means to attract viewers organized a r o u n d the
f u l l y today of conglomeration, globalization, and industry w i t h o u t talk-
concept of day parts, w h i c h include the segments: m o r n i n g , afternoon,
533
early f r i n g e , p r i m e access, p r i m e t i m e , late f r i n g e , late n i g h t , a n d
works, all o f w h o m had developed and depended u p o n classical "first-
o v e r n i g h t . " C o u n t e r p r o g r a m m i n g " tactics c a n be d e p l o y e d i n any
shift" p r o g r a m m i n g campaigns f o r decades. I w o u l d argue that these
given day part, and involve a i r i n g programs that attract and award dis-
n e w t e c h n o l o g i e s d i d n o t o n l y increase " c h u r n " ( t h e rate at w h i c h
tinctively different demographics f r o m those o f a c o m p e t i n g network.
viewers c a n c e l l e d one service f o r a n o t h e r ) o r " g r a z i n g " ( t h e rate at
I n t h e late 1980s, f o r e x a m p l e , C B S p r o g r a m m e d M o n d a y n i g h t s as
w h i c h viewers t u r n e d t o a n d s c a n n e d o t h e r c h a n n e l choices w h i l e
" w o m e n ' s n i g h t " ( w i t h sitcoms l i k e Murphy Brown) as a c o u n t e r t o the
watching a show) but also attacked the f u n d a m e n t a l , institutional logic
m a l e - d o m i n a n t demographics o f A B C ' s Monday Night Football T h e new
that had served as the very f o u n d a t i o n o f n e t w o r k television. P r o d u c -
F o x n e t w o r k achieved m u c h o f its success a r o u n d t h e same t i m e by
ers, p r o g r a m m e r s , and content developers i n t h e digital era c o u l d n o
c o u n t e r p r o g r a m m i n g edgier fare l i k e t h e Simpsons against t h e m u c h
longer strategize and sequence their flows a r o u n d a n e c o n o m y o f dis-
older demographic i n CBS's Sunday evening l i n e u p . F r o m 2000 to 2002.
crete day-part demographics. Each specific day part h a d t r a d i t i o n a l l y
struggling weblet U P N c o u n t e r p r o g r a m m e d the ratings d o m i n a n c e of
been l i n k e d confidently to the spending practices o f very specific a u d i -
the major networks w i t h w h a t it t e r m e d " U P N M o n d a y s . " This attempt
ences s e c t o r s — w h i c h advertising agencies t h e n focused o n i n mass tar-
to grab a f o o t h o l d i n the market share actually consisted o f an evening
g e t - m a r k e t i n g c a m p a i g n s , a n d w h i c h n e t w o r k executives c u s t o m
of " b l a c k - b l o c k " p r o g r a m m i n g : f o u r successive s i t c o m s i n v o l v i n g
developed content for. Digital technologies are n o w integrated w i d e l y
A f r i c a n A m e r i c a n s (The Hughleys. One on One, The Parkers, and Girlfriends).
across industrial sectors and t h r o u g h o u t the m a j o r m e d i a c o n g l o m e r a -
H e r m a n G r a y has d e m o n s t r a t e d h o w this p r o g r a m m i n g marquee
tions. T h e difficulty o f creating o r p r e d i c t i n g a serial textual c o m p o s -
racially produced, popularized, and circulated "blackness" as one indus-
ite
trial key to the survival o f struggling U P N i n the " n e o - n e t w o r k " era.
difficult to predict linear v i e w i n g patterns, and to realize a viable flow
17
w i t h i n a single convergent m u l t i m e d i a c o m p a n y — m a k e s it very
C B S h a d demonstrated t h e effectiveness of another p r o g r a m m i n g
"inside" o f the b o u n d e d brand o f a n e t w o r k . A l t h o u g h p r o g r a m m i n g
strategy, " t e n t - p o l i n g , " i n the design o f its Sunday p r i m e - t i m e lineup
departments historically have attempted t o l o c k viewers i n t o a linear,
since 1980. F o r m a n y years the n e t w o r k showcased the h i g h l y rated and
sequential v i e w i n g pattern w i t h i n o r inside o f a single, b o u n d e d brand,
venerable 60 Minutes to b r i n g viewers " i n t o t h e t e n t " (as executives
the Internet, personal video recorders, and m u l t i t a s k i n g have made this
described it); that is. to gather viewers a r o u n d t h e less distinguished
an unrealistic and improbable goal.
shows that s u r r o u n d e d it o n that evening. A t h i r d p r o g r a m m i n g strategy is " h a m m o c k i n g " — a technique by w h i c h new and untested shows
second-shift aesthetics: niche-ing, dispersal, and user flows
are l a u n c h e d between t w o successful and ratings-proven series. N B C
Many cybertheologists like Pierre Levy and Paul V i r i l i o ( f o l l o w i n g M a r -
repeatedly used this strategy as part o f its T h u r s d a y n i g h t "must-see-
shall M c L u h a n ' s lead) have cultivated liberatory and
T V " campaign i n the 1990s, w h e n it p r e m i e r e d a succession o f new and
in their characterizations o f digital as a cyber-neural-spatial revolution i n
Utopian
assertions
untested s h o w s i n t h e m u c h - s o u g h t - a f t e r h a l f - h o u r slot between
consciousness.
Seinfeld a n d Fraser, f o r e x a m p l e . S u c h a slot guarantees t h a t any n e w
responsive " p u l l m e d i a " f o r m s rather t h a n " p u s h m e d i a " f o r m s (the
show i n it w i l l have the residual benefit o f the ratings leaders that pre-
latter, an " o u t d a t e d " type favored by H o l l y w o o d studios and n e t w o r k
cede a n d f o l l o w i t . P r o g r a m m i n g d e p a r t m e n t s s p e n d considerable
television, according to Nicholas N e g r o p o n t e ) — d i d n o t end the need
18
Yet digital media, the Internet, and A O L — a l l ostensibly
19
efforts d e p l o y i n g o t h e r tactics as w e l l , i n c l u d i n g " s t u n t i n g " (special
for p r o g r a m m i n g strategies. In fact, the dispersed, amorphous w o r l d o f
episodes that break genre f o r m u l a s d u r i n g sweeps weeks), a n d "seam-
digital n e t w o r k i n g and multitasking has made the need for content pro-
lessness." N B C c h a m p i o n e d t h e latter strategy w h e n i t e l i m i n a t e d all
gramming i n the digital era even m o r e c o m p e l l i n g . After the collapse of
breaks between shows o n the same network and required each successive
the virtual economies o f the dot-coms, any good business p l a n w i l l n o w
sitcom to start m i d a c t i o n rather t h a n w i t h obligatory and standardized
at least (attempt to) attest to this fact. Instead o f cleanly replacing first-
(but less attention-grabbing) title sequences. T h e goal o f a l l o f these
shift aesthetics, that is, the new landscape o f convergence has forced c o n -
strategies was t o keep viewers engaged w i t h a single network's propri-
tent providers to continue to adapt and overhaul the means and goals o f
etary, ad-sponsored "flow."
programming, i n order to succeed i n far m o r e volatile m e d i a markets.
Several f u n d a m e n t a l shifts upset the effectiveness o f these strategies.
These adapted strategies I t e r m "second-shift aesthetics." Second-shift
Cable, the V C R , the r e m o t e - c o n t r o l , m u l t i c h a n n e l cable and satellite
practices attempt to b r i n g n e w f o r m s o f rationality to unstable m e d i a
services, v i d e o - o n - d e m a n d , and finally the Internet a l l p r o m o t e d a frag-
economies. Venture capital requires this sort of r a t i o n a l i t y — i m a g i n i n g
mentation o f the flow, and thus a precipitous decline o f the major net-
that such things deliver a requisite predictability as w e l l .
In m a n y ways, second-shift practices are logical responses to several
s h o w (backpacks and l o c k e r p a r a p h e n a l i a o n the one h a n d ; t-shirts
interrelated historical and industrial shifts: f r o m broadcasting to m u l t i -
and m a r t i n i glasses o n the other). C l e a r l y second-shift augmentations
c h a n n e l narrowcasting; f r o m mass economies of scale to niche econo-
here " f l o w " the viewer outside of any televisual or digital text i n t o the
mies o f scope; a n d f r o m serial flows to tangential a n d c y c l i c a l flows.'
m a t e r i a l w o r l d of c o n s u m e r i s m proper. B u t the sites go f u r t h e r , and
Instead of the linear textual compositing m o d e l inherent i n supertext/
p r o v i d e w h a t are essentially " n a r r a t i o n s " t h a t user-purchasers c a n
flow theory, T V / d o t - c o m synergies n o w must learn to master textual dis-
e m p l o y to choreograph themselves once they enter the w o r l d of m e r -
persals and user navigations that can a n d w i l l i n e v i t a b l y migrate across
chandising. T h e Dawson's Creek site whispers directorial m o t i v a t i o n s to
brand boundaries. In essence, p r o g r a m m i n g strategies have shifted f r o m
t h e v i e w e r - c o n s u m e r - a c t o r s at h o m e : " B u y l i k e B r a d , give l i k e
notions of network program "flows" to tactics of audience\user "flows." Tar-
G w y n e t h . shop like a celebrity, w i n a $5,000 s h o p p i n g spree sponsored
geted day parts are a t h i n g of the past n o w that media users can digitally
by N e i m a n M a r c u s . c o m . " These s e c o n d - s h i f t a u g m e n t a t i o n s , w h i l e
go to almost any content, via m u l t i p l e channels, at any time of the day
n o t aesthetic texts i n the t r a d i t i o n a l sense, are s t i l l m a t e r i a l f o r m s :
or night. Successful m u l t i m e d i a development, therefore, means being
text-related m e r c h a n d i s i n g scenarios that are being c o m p r e h e n s i v e l y
able to track, m o n i t o r , and p r e d i c t — o r at least respond q u i c k l y t o —
p r o g r a m m e d as part of allied vested interests.
multidirectional user flows and migrations. As a result, digital p r o g r a m -
B u t what are we to make of flows that exit proprietary texts and mer-
mers must develop n e w units of temporal-user measurement.
chandising entirely i n order to preoccupy the user-viewer i n the w o r l d at
Second-shift aesthetics involves the m a n a g e m e n t of ancillary and
large? H B O encourages viewers, for example, to go to digital simulations
digital sites that users migrate to f r o m a p r i m a r y or initial site. In the
(and t h e n to the actual geographic sites) o f " t h e hottest a n d hippest
crudest formulations, n e t w o r k sports and news shows o n ESPN or C B S
nightspots" i n N e w York, to bars and restaurants that have no apparent
direct viewers to their respective websites (espn.com and cbs.com) to
fiduciary relationship to either H B O or the show's producers. This k i n d
m i n e the m i n u t i a e of sports statistics or financial and " C B S M a r k e t -
of extratextual dispersal gives at least some second-shift p r o g r a m m i n g the
W a t c h " data. A t other times, television networks like the W B use web-
profile of e n t r o p y — o f a declining, t h e n flat-lined dramatic a r c — a n d is
sites ( t h e w b . c o m ) as p r o g r a m indexes a n d p r o m o t i o n a l billboards to
about as far f r o m the h a r d sell o f traditional ad-driven electronic media
send viewers back to televised shows. B o t h of these unremarkable tac-
as one can imagine. Granted, we can always surmise that p r e m i u m ser-
tics still fit the traditional, u n i d i r e c t i o n a l m o d e l of flow/supertext. Yet
vices like H B O are really selling lifestyle and n o t just b o t t o m - l i n e elec-
m a n y o t h e r websites design b i d i r e c t i o n a l o r c i r c u l a r protocols i n the
tronic content. I w o u l d argue, however, that m o r e is going on here than
" c l i c k - t h r o u g h s " they privilege. In the Freakylinks.com/Fox tie-in (fall
general affirmations of cosmopolitanism. C u r r e n t research shows that
2000), online narrative clues directed users t o televised plots and clues
children and adolescents i n particular are very good at m u l t i t a s k i n g — a t
i n p r i m e time, w h i c h i n t u r n sent viewers back to the web for further
using the web, TV, phone, videogame, and C D player all at the same time.
t e x t u a l e l a b o r a t i o n a n d i n t e r a c t i o n d u r i n g the w e e k . T h e WB's
Yet what these H B O viewer-users are not doing (in the bars, restaurants,
www.dawsonscreek.com site allowed fans to read the personal diaries of
and nightlife of any city) is w a t c h i n g T V . H o w can this goal be a logical
characters i n the show, and to " h a c k " into the private e-mails of those
part of any cost-conscious p r o g r a m m e r ' s plans? T h e answer, I t h i n k ,
same characters. S u c h tactics elaborate the k i n d of "back s t o r y " that
comes i n the p r o g r a m m i n g logic of "tiering" and "branding."
screenwriters t y p i c a l l y i n c l u d e i n the p r o d u c t i o n c o m p a n y ' s "bible" that orients the series over its lifespan. This k i n d of second-shift tactic
a
gg g ting, tiering, branding r e
a
provides discursive grist for narratological analysis that is easily as c o m -
The e c o n o m i c rewards t h a t used to f o l l o w f r o m a p r o g r a m ' s mass-
plex as that offered by any novel. Websites for series as different at HBO's
audience share n o longer stand as realistic corporate goals. M e d i a corpo-
Sex and the City and WB's Dawson's Creek also a l l o w users to "direct" their
rations n o w m u s t t r y to master the c u m u l a t i v e "aggregation" o f
o w n v i r t u a l tours of the " a c t u a l " sets used i n the show as Q u i c k T i m e
audiences f r o m across the fragmented demographic niches that c o m p r o -
" m o v i e s " o n the N e t .
Again, these secondary textual activities can be
mise the proliferating, m u l t i c h a n n e l market. T h e success of narrowcast-
viewed, i n the t r a d i t i o n a l critical sense, as stylistic augmentations to
i n g as a p r o g r a m m i n g strategy i n the 1980s is said to have ended the
20
some original text. A l t h o u g h complicated, these aggregate texts still fit
"economies of scale" that defined the network era. Narrowcasting suc-
an easily recognizable aesthetic schema.
ceeded because of its ability to r e t u r n lucrative, " n i c h e " demographic
T h e Dawson's Creek and Sex and the City sites also a l l o w user-viewers to c l i c k a n d p u r c h a s e fashions a n d c o m m o d i t i e s used by stars o n the
segments of the audience to p r o g r a m suppliers and networks w h o could, as a result, charge higher advertising rates. The current media c o n g l o m -
erates. however, can no longer sufficiently capitalize their operations by
are n o w intended to w o r k w i t h i n their proprietary, and n e w l y aggre-
exploiting this k i n d of limited economy of "scope." Instead, large media
gated, w o r l d — e v e n t h o u g h m i g r a t i o n s n o w flow m u l t i d i r e c t i o n a l l y
companies seek t o i n c o r p o r a t e diversity and c u l t u r a l difference (and
across potentially endless numbers of channels and niches.
their attendant revenues) by c o m b i n i n g t h e m w i t h i n a single, integrated
This characterization o f intrabrand flows, of course, is the boardroom
corporate structure. The dispersed flows and migrations that I have char-
fantasy of m a n y a corporation. W h a t actually occurs i n T V - N e t usage is
acterized a b o v e — o f b o t h texts a n d v i e w e r s — p r o d u c e s h i g h l y frag-
that users migrate i n all sorts of directions that can only be loosely encour-
mented revenue streams. Since this k i n d of fragmentation is difficult to
aged w i t h incentives, rather t h a n controlled i n any sense. First-shift flow
associate w i t h single b r a n d i d e n t i t y , c o r p o r a t i o n s l i k e A O L / T i m e -
p r o g r a m m i n g is heavy-handed i f compared to the management o f dis-
Warner/HBO/Showtime/CNN/Turner n o w specialize i n "tiering" n u m e r -
persed flows that takes place i n second-shift arenas. H B O is w i l l i n g to p r o -
ous brand-inflected niches w i t h i n the u b e r - b r a n d . H B O n o w charges
vide m i n i m a l links to its affiliates outside of H B O (with links to "free A O L
cable and satellite users a gradation of p r e m i u m s for no less t h a n sixteen
service," to A O L Box Office, and to Turner's C a r t o o n Network, for exam-
"different" channel "tiers." There is n o need to go to Lifetime or Oxygen
ple). O t h e r entities try to partner and cobrand i n order to steer users to
w h e n w o m e n viewers have H B O Signature; n o need to go to IPC. Bravo,
corporations w i t h shared economic interests—even if they are i n different
or the Sundance C h a n n e l w h e n cineastes and aesthete-viewers can see
sectors o f the e c o n o m y . N B C c o u l d viably p a r t n e r w i t h M i c r o s o f t
"cutting-edge," vanguard film o n H B O Z o n e ; no need to go to the Dis-
( M S N B C ) b u t n o t H B O ; i t c o u l d create a p o r t a l w i t h S n a p . c o m and
ney C h a n n e l or Pax T V w h e n c h i l d r e n have H B O F a m i l y . N o need to
S h o p N B C rather t h a n w i t h A O L . B u t even these alliances "leak" o n the
switch to B E T w h e n African Americans are sold o n critically acclaimed
Net. This inherent Ieakiness i n flow management means that cable execu-
depictions of A f r i c a n Americans o n H B O and its sister brand Showtime
tives n o w strategize (and program) degrees of "stickiness" i n the second-
(in series like Soul Food). N o need to switch to general cable channels like
shift w o r l d (with stickiness being the extent to w h i c h providers can induce
M S N B C , either, w h e n H B O news viewers can switch instead to Turner's
users to stay w i t h a package o f services). A t the N C T A ( N a t i o n a l Cable
C N N , an i m p o r t a n t affiliate i n the H B O conglomerate.
Television Association) convention o n M a y 15. 2002, management p a n -
W h a t has essentially happened is that individual m e d i a c o n g l o m e r -
elists all concurred that the notion of homogenous content "convergence"
ates have attempted to engineer the m a n n e r i s m s o f the m u l t i c h a n n e l
is. i n m a n y ways, a m y t h . C E O s f r o m Time-Warner Cable. A T & T Cable.
universe w i t h i n the branded walls of the conglomerate. Brands i n the
Charter C o m m u n i c a t i o n s , and others asserted that viewer " c h u r n " o n l y
digital era are expected to f u n c t i o n i n far m o r e extensive and complex
improved w h e n companies provided a package of different services w i t h i n
ways t h a n they were i n the analog age. In the past, a l i m i t e d set of basic
a single delivery system (video, data, telephony, enhanced TV, etc.).
21
p r o d u c t and trademark names f u n c t i o n e d as brands, whose ad agencies
T h e C E O o f W i n k C o m m u n i c a t i o n s (an " e n h a n c e d T V p r o v i d e r " )
sponsored mass-audience television shows i n the n e t w o r k era. B r a n d -
s u m m e d u p the insight that h i g h e r c u s t o m e r satisfaction came f r o m
i n g has n o w become an obligatory specialization, one that requires c o n -
packaging different services and thus "creating value o n a single plat-
t i n u a l reinflection as t e c h n o l o g i c a l , m a r k e t , and r e g u l a t o r y changes
f o r m . " In some ways this n o t i o n (of diverse packaging/singular delivery) 22
ripple t h r o u g h the industry. B r a n d i n g aims to market services that are
mirrors the ways that branding (in the age of digital) works by p r o d u c -
identified not by specific products but by h i g h l y individuated and easily
ing diversity and difference w i t h i n a single uber-brand. B u t textual dis-
recognized corporate personalities. In this scheme, effective branding is
persal and flow Ieakiness also m e a n that content providers m u s t n o w
frequently praised for h a v i n g created psychological and empathic rela-
learn looser forms of management to master p r o g r a m m i n g i n the sec-
tionships w i t h consumers. H B O and its uber-conglomerate have prolif-
ond shift. O t h e r interests and sites can (and regularly do) p u l l users out
erated variants o f the m o t h e r brand, w h i c h i n v o k e c u l t u r a l difference
of branded confines. F o l l o w i n g the pattern established by CBS's Survivor
w i t h o u t straying f r o m the " e m o t i o n a l core" of the original brand. The
phenomenon, reality shows like A B C ' s The Bachelor provided Disney/ABC
A O L / T i m e - W a r n e r / H B O b r a n d is so c o m p l i c a t e d that m o s t websites
with intrabrand flow and tie-in possibilities. B u t as each female contestant
w i t h i n the c o n g l o m e r a t e p r o v i d e either linkages t o o t h e r corporate
was exiled f r o m the show, m a n y other news and entertainment shows
affiliates, or schematic descriptions, maps, and users' guides that help
aired by local stations ( K R O Q , KISS) or i n first-run syndication (Access
the web user understand his location w i t h i n the uber-brand.
Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight) also solicited and then showcased the ban-
Architects of c o n g l o m e r a t i o n regularly d e e m such relationship netw o r k s i n press releases as "synergies." S u c h practices also show, how¬ 4.1—*..—„„u
m0
i-atoc
hiivp
imnncprl and adanted flow strategies that
ished contestants as part of their o w n proprietary special segments.
23
These f o r m s o f regular textual a p p r o p r i a t i o n — a c r o s s c o m p e t i n g p r o p r i e t a r y brands a n d t e c h n o l o g i e s — a r e
n o w pervasive parts o f
media-business practice. M e d i a companies i n t e n d i n g to master the sec-
f r o m p r i m a r y or first-shift content by the brand stands as an exercise i n
o n d shift, that is. m u s t m o v e beyond unilateral p r o g r a m m i n g schemes
affect, and as a r e l a t i o n s h i p - b u i l d i n g gesture. O n e c o n s u l t a n t argues
i n order to master m o r e nuanced and dialogic forms appropriations. In
that consistency o f message, copy, content, or i n f o r m a t i o n is n o t the
place o f t h e " c o m m a n d - a n d - c o n t r o l " tactics o f first-shift p r o g r a m -
issue. Rather, "brand consistency lies i n core values . . . and identifiable
m i n g , e m e r g e d s e c o n d - s h i f t strategies o r i e n t e d m o r e l i k e t h e
style—not copy."
fluid
2 5
This e m o t i o n a l bond—based on "core values"
responsiveness preached i n Lao T z u ' s Art of War. M a t t Groening's series
rather t h a n i n f o r m a t i o n , and defined by t e m p o r a l d u r a t i o n i n cross-
Futurama o n Fox, for example, q u i c k l y generated a range o f " u n a u t h o -
c h a n n e l , cross-media, and cross-technology configurations—is the key
rized" fan sites (like " C a n ' t G e t E n o u g h Futurama [CGEFj). C G E F i m m e -
to c o m m e r c i a l second-shift p r o g r a m m i n g i n the era o f digital ubiquity.
diately pirated and offered downloads of each and every episode of the
A l l o f these practices indicate that the real "interactivity" i n the digital
series that F o x broadcast. T o add i n s u l t to i n j u r y , a banner ad o n the
era is n o t a user-technical process s o m e h o w i n h e r e n t i n the technical
C G E F site s o o n boasted " t h e R E A L F u t u r a m a s i t e " — a gesture that
interface. It is, rather, a f o r m o f responsive, m u l t i p a r t i c i p a n t textual
essentially taunted the producers, and denigrated the p o o r content, o n Fox's "official" Futurama website. F o x and N e w s c o r p initiated legal threats against the C G E F site that were o n l y partially successful: the p i r a t i n g and d o w n l o a d i n g went o n . B u t Fox had by n o w learned the potential
interactivity that n o w programs boundary-crossing content as part of second-shift aesthetics.
grazing, herding, navigation
of endless reciprocity n o w possible i n the second shift. T h e Futurama p r o -
Convergence television's most effective answer to the instabilities of viewer
d u c i n g staff established that they k n e w w e l l the forms o f appropriation
"grazing" does not always lie i n an attempt to " c o r r a l " the grazer w i t h i n a
that were going o n (and that they were h a r d l y threatened), w h e n they
single brand-bounded flow. Rather (to stick w i t h the unfortunate animal
added a p r o m i n e n t title to each televised episode: "Futurama, c o m i n g to
husbandry metaphor grazing, popularized by media management), m a n y
a n i l l e g a l D V D near y o u s o o n . " C G E F c o u n t e r e d t h a t t h e i r website
of the most effective countermeasures involve the process of coaxing or
downloads were still a m u c h better alternative t h a n w a t c h i n g Futurama
loosely " h e r d i n g " the grazing user across hospitable sites, noncompeting
o n a " p r i m i t i v e television screen." A n d so f o r t h .
third-party brands, and markets. In m a n y cases what is seen as viewer-user
Far f r o m being a significant legal case or fiduciary threat i n any sense,
"navigation" is actually strongly affected by built-in limits and channeling
this b a c k - a n d - f o r t h textual appropriation was actually just very g o o d
dictated by the contractual alliances that a m a j o r Internet p o r t a l (like
business for a marginally rated animated series like Futurama. M a n y other
AOL. Yahoo, or Earthlink) maintains. As any web user has experienced, the
examples o f t w o - w a y textual appropriations pervade the T V / N e t rela-
very same search—launched f r o m different portals o r search e n g i n e s —
tionship. Second-shift aesthetics, however, are not s i m p l y about TV/Net
hardly ever produces the same results. The strong-armed tactic of the web
relations. T h e y characterize new initiatives to " b r a n d " or "cross-brand"
provider (corralling) is to delimit and direct "click-throughs." The weak-
the w o r l d of wireless technologies as w e l l . Walt Disney, V i v e n d i U n i v e r -
armed, more subtle—and potentially m o r e lucrative—approach (herd-
sal, and A O L - T i m e Warner have a l l recently negotiated deals w i t h wire-
ing) is to provide inducements for c l i c k - t h r o u g h patterns that have the
less p h o n e c o m p a n i e s , " w i t h visions o f wireless p h o n e s b e c o m i n g
cumulative effect of benefiting the conglomerate and its aggregating parts.
hand-held entertainment centers."
U n i v e r s a l p i c t u r e s signed w i t h
Standard branding theory n o w argues that it is essential to cultivate the
N o k i a to p r o v i d e "logos and r i n g - t o n e s " f r o m its recognizable studio
inclinations and priorities of third-party sites so that any users y o u fink or
24
properties. D i s n e y is p r o v i d i n g "games, graphics and r i n g - t o n e s " to
send there w i l l be recognized and "harnessed" responsively via online "in¬
A T & T so its c u s t o m e r s c a n " i n d i v i d u a t e " and assign v a r i o u s s t u d i o
store" promotions. This responsiveness and favor adds value to the send-
songs a n d properties t o t h e p e r s o n a l i t y profiles o f i n c o m i n g callers.
ing site or content-channel source as w e l l . A s branding consultant M a r t i n
"Sony E r i c s s o n " is i n t r o d u c i n g w h a t it terms " m u l t i m e d i a p h o n e s " as
Lindstrom argues, i f success at this k i n d o f " c r o s s - b r a n d i n g " practice
platforms to p r o m o t e Sony "franchises" (like Men in Black and Charlies
doesn't happen, "failure occurs and synergy is lost."
26
Angels), and as portable PlayStation videogame consoles. W h i l e m a n y
W h e n Time-Warner merged w i t h A O L i n January 2001, m a n y analysts
n o w characterize such initiatives as evidence of a m o v e t o w a r d ( n o n -
a n n o u n c e d that this marriage of t w o w o r l d s — " o l d m e d i a " and " n e w
P C ) "ubiquitous c o m p u t i n g " and "digitally augmented space". I w o u l d
m e d i a " — w o u l d usher i n the final arrival of "convergence." "Leveraging"
argue that these technologies are also about b u i l d i n g a user-relation-
the proprietary content of Time-Warner, its networks, and its studios, that
ship i n time. T h e m u l t i m e d i a wireless experience is an o u t g r o w t h and
is. the Internet (dominated by A O L ) w o u l d at last provide the missing link:
development of second-shift p r o g r a m m i n g . D e f i n i n g experience away
a ubiquitous, worldwide, digital DiDeline into thp
h n m p Tlio .
1
ate's stockholder meeting sixteen months later, however, looked far more
e c o n o m i e s — a n d the dispersed and m i g r a t i n g texts that define t h e m —
like a lynch m o b than a marriage ceremony. The once "visionary" T i m e -
are not d e t e r m i n e d w h o l l y by the n o w familiar schemes of n e t w o r k i n g ,
Warner/AOL C E O G e r a l d Levin left the c o m p a n y i n disgrace. Analysts
virtuality, and simultaneity. Rather, p r o g r a m m i n g practices i n w h a t I
f r o m M e r r i l l L y n c h ( w i t h a b o r n - a g a i n w i s d o m d r i v e n by hindsight),
have t e r m e d the convergent industry's second shift are being rational-
reversed their m a n y earlier blessings of the corporate marriage and now
ized a r o u n d n e w f o r m s o f textual dispersal, reaggregating flows, and
eulogized, "It's a sad ending. This is the worst acquisition i n media history
temporal seriality. A l l of the predictions about digital's Utopian promise
given the decline i n m a r k e t value of A O L . "
N B C ' s news anchor T o m
as a responsive, " l e a n - i n . " " p u l l " t e c h n o l o g y aside, p r o g r a m m e r s and
Brokaw (who also served, intentionally or not. as the de facto spokesper-
the financial interests that d e p l o y t h e m w i l l c o n t i n u e to a t t e m p t to
2 7
son for a competing conglomerate) offered the last rites to a national audi-
" p u s h " content, to brand delivery systems, and to schedule media expe-
ence at the burial. He pronounced the earlier boast (that A O L w o u l d prove
rience. T h e austere economies of digital and v e n t u r e capital after the
to be the ultimate delivery route for content) a lie. and characterized the
d o t - c o m crash n o w favor those m a k i n g the case that they have mas-
pending divorce between A O L and Time-Warner as the "end of synergy"
tered such nuances as part o f an industrial aesthetics of the second shift.
and the end of the m y t h o f any n e a r - t e r m "convergence."
28
O n e over-
l o o k e d lesson i n all of this analysis, however, was that viable synergies w o u l d , arguably, come less f r o m forced marriages of pipeline and content than f r o m p r o g r a m m i n g ; less f r o m hard-sell control at the Net portal or cable "gate" (AOL/Time-Warner's original marriage fantasy), t h a n f r o m less-restrictive "value-added" digital user experiences. For those interested i n the b o t t o m l i n e — a n d i n a real industrial economy rather than a virtual o n e — m e d i a web strategies today attempt, out of necessity, to develop more effective and responsive management of multidirectional user flows throughout and across second-shift components of the conglomerate.
time versus space/seriality versus simultaneity Cybertheorists, Wired magazine, and scholars of new media have tended to emphasize the impact of digital technologies o n space m o r e so than time. This of course follows M c L u h a n ' s notions of h o w electronic media crosses boundaries and collapses geographic identities i n the creation of a netw o r k e d " g l o b a l village." In some ways, scholars have m a d e mediated geography and space the key to understanding new media. This privilegi n g o f space is i n f o r m e d i n part by M c L u h a n ' s sense of t e m p o r a l simultaneity, or w h a t he t e r m e d the "all-at-onceness" inherent i n electronic c o m m u n i c a t i o n . Television programmers, o n the other hand, have been far m o r e interested i n the interrelationships between digital media and sequential time. T i m e has always been the metric that broadcasters have been forced to master. T h e y strategize time to program content and they research and quantify time (rather than "box office") to rationalize their media economies. P r o g r a m m i n g tactics—adapted f r o m o l d media—have helped facilitate, prefigure, and i m p l e m e n t new-media development: but new-media technologies have i n t u r n altered those same tactics. T h e net result of this process s h o u l d c o m p e l scholars to shift f r o m a r e c u r r e n t emphasis o n n o t i o n s o f boundaryless space and collapsed geographies to n o t i o n s o f m e t i c u l o u s l y r a t i o n a l i z e d , m a r k e t e d , and p r o g r a m m e d t e m p o r a l i t y . A s this s t u d y has suggested, n e w media
notes 1. Microsoft, "Detectives to Solve 'Homicide' case Online and O n - A i r . " Microsoft Press Pass, February 1, 1999. <www.microsoft.com/presspass/ press/1999/Feb99/NBCTVpr.asp>. 2. Matt Beer, "Homicide Cops Get Hands-On Lesson in Internet Crime." San Francisco Examiner, February 3, 1999. posted online by The Kansas City Star, <www.kcstarxom/item/pages/fyi.pat,fyi/30dab8f8.203.html>. 3. Stephen McLaren, "Sci/Tech: T V and Net Combine to Catch Killer," BBC Online Network, February 3, 1999, . 4. Maria Seminario, " 'Homicide' Tackes Cybercrime," ZDNet News, February 2,1999, . 5. Microsoft, Microsoft Press Pass. 6. McLaren, "Sci-Tech." 7. Beer. "Homicide Cops." 8. See the second epigraph that opens this chapter, i n which Microsoft links MediaPlayer with the awards the web coalition has won. 9. Microsoft, Microsoft Press Pass. 10. N B C executive Thomas Hjelm, quoted i n Microsoft, Microsoft Press Pass: emphasis added. 11. Microsoft, Microsoft Press Pass. 12. John T. Caldwell, "Aggregating Form and Re-Purposing Content in the Culture of Conglomeration," in The Persistence of Television, ed. Lynn Spigel (New York: Routledge, 2003). 13. 1 use the term programming throughout this essay not i n the sense that a computer programmer would, but to describe the ways the networks and stations schedule programs and series, usually as part of a "broadcast programming" department. 14. See Toby Miller, "Revising Screen Studies," Television and New Media 2, no. 2 (2001): 92; and " C u l t u r a l Citizenship," Television and New Media 2, no 3 (2001): 185. 15. John T. Caldwell, "Critical Industrial Practice: Branding, Re-Purposing, and the Migratory Patterns of Industrial Texts," Television and New Media. forthcoming, 2003.
16. John T. Caldwell. Televisuality: Style. Crisis, and Authority in American Television (New Brunswick. N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 1995), 338—40. 17. For a particularly good analysis about this programming strategy as a production of "blackness" see Herman Gray, "The Travails of Blackness: Black Visibility in the Age of the Neo-Network," in Identity Globalization, Convergence: Ethnic Notions and National Identities in the Aye of Television and Digital, ed. John T. Caldwell and Bambi Haggins, forthcoming. 18. See Pierre Levy, Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (New York: Plenum, 1997); Paul Virilio, Open Sky (New York: Verso. 1995): and Marshall M c L u h a n , Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964, 1994). 19. See Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital (New York: Alfred A . Knopf, 1995). 20. The website for HBO's Sex and the Citv is <www.hbo.com/city/cm/city_styIe>. 21. The C E O of A T & T Cable, for example, found that their churn when providing video alone was 2 percent, but that when they added telephonv. the churn rate dropped almost in half to 1.2 percent. Public comments on The Future of Cable panel at the N C T A (National Cable Television Association) Convention, cablecast on CSPAN, May 16. 2002. 22. Maggie Wilderotter, CEO, Wink Communications, in public comments as a panelist on The Future of Cable panel at the N C T A Convention, cablecast on CSPAN, May 16.2002.
t e n
narrative mapping
23. The Bachelor ran on the Fox network starting in April 2002. Weekly installments of the series selectively culled the "most promising" of the female contestants and banished those considered less desirable by the bachelor judging the bevy of women in search of a potential bride. The show culminated as a sweeps-week showcase in May. 24. See Richard Verrier, "Wireless Outlets: Enticed by the Profit, Carriers and Media Giants A i m to Offer M o r e Audio and Video Content for Telephones." Los Angeles Times. May 13, 2002. C I . C7. 25. Martin Lindstrom, "Cross-Channel Branding," Click Z: Smarter Marketingl Brandmarketing newsletter, May 21,2002, <www.clickz.com/brand/brand.mkt/ article.oho/tl40681>. 26. Lindstrom. "Cross-Channel Branding." 27. Sallie Hofmeister, " Angry Investors Say Goodbye to AOL Chief," Los Angeles Times. May 14, 2002, A l , A28. 28. Tom Brokaw. on-air comments on the NBC Nightly News, April 24. 2002.
S t e p h e n
m a m b e r
I w o u l d like i n this essay to attempt to l i n k u p a variety of areas of creative endeavor w h i c h I believe have a c o m m o n goal. A s I d o n ' t t h i n k these strands have yet been p u l l e d together and given a name. I want to fry to do so here. This is also valuable because digital m e d i a b r i n g o u t the possibilities f o r f u r t h e r w o r k here like never before, especially for suggesting n e w interface possibilities. I call this activity "narrative m a p p i n g , " and give it a simple and broad definitton: an a t t e m p t to represent v i s u a l l y events t h a t u n f o l d over time. T h i s w o u l d be mapping ( r a t h e r t h a n j u s t p r e s e n t i n g a p i c t u r e ) because space, t i m e , a n d perhaps o t h e r c o m p o n e n t s o f the events would be accounted for. A visual i n f o r m a t i o n space is constructed that provides a f o r m u l a t i o n of c o m p l e x activities. These mappings m a y be of real or fictional narratives, but m y o w n teeling w o u l d be that the latter presents the greatest challenges, because mapping becomes a f o r m of c r i t i c a l v i s u a l i z a t i o n . (Critical visualization
m i g h t be a useful alternative t e r m to narrative mapping.) Take virtually
scenes a n d accidents. A l s o , narratives w i t h elaborate t e m p o r a l c o n -
any great w o r k of literature o r film and ask yourself. W h a t w o u l d a m a p -
structions, s u c h as flashback films, suggest a need f o r s o r t i n g o u t o r
ping o f this w o r k look like? W h i l e b o t h the fictional and the real can be
m a k i n g linear, w h i c h a m a p p i n g c o u l d p r o v i d e . A f o r m o f a m b i g u i t y
mapped, it's useful to distinguish between t h e t w o to consider possible
related to t e m p o r a l c o n s t r u c t i o n can also n a t u r a l l y be s p a t i a l — i t can
differences between m a p p i n g strategies. O u r conclusion m a y be that the
be d i f f i c u l t p a r t i c u l a r l y w h e n events closely o v e r l a p t e m p o r a l l y t o
o n l y difference is o f available i n f o r m a t i o n (finite, i n the case o f fiction). I
establish an order o r set o f relationships. We w i l l look at one such e x a m -
a m principally arguing that fictional m a p p i n g is b o t h possible and p r o -
ple s h o r t l y — S t a n l e y Kubrick's early c r i m e d r a m a The Killing. In general,
ductive, and extends f r o m r e a l - w o r l d m a p p i n g practices.
w h e n events are either c o n d e n s e d o r dispersed, s p a t i a l l y o r t e m p o -
T h e kinds o f activity that can be l i n k e d to this enterprise have been s h o w i n g u p i n a l o t o f places. W h a t has been h a p p e n i n g (or c o u l d happen) is a m e r g i n g o f i n f o r m a t i o n graphics, journalistic d i a g r a m m i n g , visualizations, reconstructions, a n d some c o n v e n t i o n a l - l o o k i n g (but
r a l l y — i n o t h e r w o r d s , t o o m u c h at once, o r just a l i t t l e over a l o n g period o f time, o r all i n close quarters o r all over the globe—these are instances where m a p p i n g provides a means to represent these events i n a coherent and c o m p e l l i n g m a n n e r .
ambitious) geographic maps, a l l i n service o f this idea o f l o o k i n g for
It c a n also be said that narratives m a y c o n t a i n implied m a p p i n g s , a
approaches t o representing a set o f spatially located, t e m p o r a l l y situ-
sense that u n d e r l y i n g their creation was a m a p p i n g that's been h i d d e n
ated events.
f r o m us. so we can be representing, i n a sense, what's already there b u t
To lay o u t this t e r r i t o r y , I w i l l d o t w o t h i n g s . First, I w i l l suggest some reasons this m i g h t be a productive area o f endeavor, and t h e n I'll briefly survey a n u m b e r o f attempts to d o this. T a k e n together, I hope this w i l l p u t narrative m a p p i n g " o n the m a p . "
four purposes of narrative mapping
h i d d e n . We m a y be r e - c r e a t i n g w h a t a n a u t h o r has w o r k e d o u t , yet chosen n o t to reveal so explicitly. 2. Analysis A m a p p i n g c a n itself be a means o f t h e o r i z i n g , a w a y o f isolating and exploring specific activities o f n a r r a t i v e — p a r t i c u l a r l y those that are n o t
I. Representation
immediately evident. O r . analysis can "go g l o b a l " i n a sense, p r o v i d i n g
M a p s c a n b e c o m e that w h i c h they represent. T h e y c a n stand i n for.
an overview o r synthesis that recasts the narrative i n a new light.
even replace, that w h i c h they seek to m o d e l . Particularly w i t h complex instances of narrative structure, they can d o w h a t all g o o d maps do
Aspects can be teased out, grouped, color coded, abstracted, o r otherwise r e f o r m u l a t e d , f o r t h e sake o f o f f e r i n g s o m e n e w perspective o r
offer a v i s u a l l y readable o p p o r t u n i t y to see b o t h g r a n d c o n t o u r s and
approach. M a p p i n g is clearly an interpretation, so it can be a k i n d o f tex-
areas o f specific interest. A narrative m a p , as it seeks to provide a visual
t u a l a n a l y s i s — a r e a d i n g as m u c h as a m a p p i n g . ' W h i l e g r o u n d e d as
theory o f the w o r k (or the event), subsequently vies w i t h the original
m u c h as possible i n the details o f a text, a m a p p i n g w i l l likely require a
(and o t h e r possible m a p p i n g s ) . A s i m p l e e x a m p l e w o u l d be a set of
certain a m o u n t o f conjecture, and also a willingness to a c c o m m o d a t e
visual t h u m b n a i l s representing scenes i n a film o n a D V D . W h e n the
ambiguities and contradictions regarding temporal and spatial questions.
t h u m b n a i l s are laid o u t so that they can t h e n be clicked o n by a user,
Where is a text g r o u n d e d i n t h e physical specifics needed f o r an u n a r -
one need never r e t u r n t o t h e o r i g i n a l f o r m . Instead of w a t c h i n g a film
guable m a p p i n g , and w h e r e m u s t the m a p p e r " f i l l i n " a pattern o r an
f r o m start t o finish, t h e m a p p i n g is n o w a n alternative m e t h o d w i t h
uncharted b u t indicated aspect? A g a i n , this is n o t so m u c h a reenact-
w h i c h to b o t h conceptualize and access the w o r k .
ment (a p i c t u r i n g o f narrative events) as it is a n abstraction—a m e t h o d
W h i l e i n the midst of a succession of events u n f o l d i n g over time, we
to translate significant aspects o f a w o r k into a theoretical construct.
m i g h t n o t have a sense of a "larger p i c t u r e " (or "bird's-eye v i e w " ) that a m a p p i n g can provide. T h e ability to u n p a c k — t o deconstruct, to reseq u e n c e — c a n be i n v i t i n g functions o f narrative m a p p i n g .
3. Information Space To m a p narrative is to m o d e l a n i n f o r m a t i o n space, o r i n part to c o n -
T h e r e are some types o f narrative that are especially appealing as
struct a n u n d e r l y i n g database that is t h e n v i s u a l l y represented. O n e
representation. As m e n t i o n e d , c o m p l e x narratives are one s u c h type, as
kind o f m a p p i n g is to connect aspects o f a narrative to things that led
are those that are ambiguous i n some f u n d a m e n t a l fashion. Narratives
to its creation (for example, l i n k i n g shots i n a film to their preceding
where the events themselves and their potential sequencing (and possi-
storyboards) and t h e n to w h a t has subsequently been said about it (like
ble simultaneity) have m u l t i p l e explanations or versions w o u l d be good
critical texts), so that t h e w o r k is positioned w i t h i n a n u n f o l d i n g p r o -
m a p p i n g subjects. E x a m p l e s o f s u c h narratives w o u l d i n c l u d e crime
cess o f creation, influence, a n d response. E v e n w i t h o u t l i n k i n g to the
before and the after, narrative m a p p i n g can develop a structure to posi-
H i t c h c o c k ' s The Birds is m o s t l y a c o n s t r u c t e d space ( d r a w n and c o n -
t i o n a n d contextualize bits o f i n f o r m a t i o n , as m u c h as b e i n g a visual
structed m u c h m o r e t h a n photographed), so apart f r o m mappings that
representation. T h e map is of a field of linkages, a m o d e l of h o w ideas
m i g h t place t h e film's characters o n an actual m a p o f the place, the
and like objects connect.
altered geography f r o m the w o r l d to the fictional w o r k m i g h t itself be a
4. Interface
and t h e n i n c o r p o r a t e v a r i o u s fictional aspects is o f t e n a r e w a r d i n g
Narrative can shift i n t o b e c o m i n g its o w n i n t e r f a c e — i n fact, I t h i n k a
enterprise.
c o n c e r n . In either event, the t e m p t a t i o n to use maps of actual places
well-designed narrative m a p cries o u t to be an interactive m e c h a n i s m leading one back to the source. W h e n a narrative is b r o k e n d o w n or segm e n t e d — i n t o scenes, shots, actions, or o t h e r u n i t s — t h e s e elements c a n b e c o m e t h e means to access t h e w o r k . T h i s is w h y h y p e r t e x t is already a f o r m of m a p p i n g , b u t any f o r m of abstraction or visual representation is a possible interface. G o o d maps s h o u l d a l l o w themselves easily to be clicked o n or to be m o v e d t h r o u g h , z o o m e d i n and o u t or left and right, or f r o m a location to a piece of i n f o r m a t i o n . So the map becomes the interface to the w o r k itself, the text its o w n invitation to user-initiated access. In a digital e n v i r o n m e n t , an interface is itself a f o r m of m a p p i n g i n that it can serve as a navigation guide to a set o f u n d e r l y i n g materials and experiences. W h e t h e r o n e is p l a y i n g a v i d e o game, e x p l o r i n g a m u s e u m collection, or reading a web-based newspaper, a well-designed interface w i l l present a n o r i e n t i n g r e p r e s e n t a t i o n o f an u n d e r l y i n g i n f o r m a t i o n m o d e l . So narrative m a p p i n g can be seen as a m e t h o d to m o v e critical activity (the conceptualizing o f a w o r k into visual f o r m , w i t h t e m p o r a l and spatial d i m e n s i o n s ) i n t o t h e r e a l m o f interface design. T h e r e s t r u c t u r e d views of the narrative m a p can become the means of access to the w o r k itself, since the m a p is already a representat i o n o f its structure.
2. Temporal Whether timelines or grids (we see both), an ordering i n time m a r k e d i n units is the expected counterpart to the Cartesian space of geographical mapping. Events can be placed i n sequence, revealing gaps and overlaps w h i c h are not as apparent i n their original presentation. A m a p p i n g over the space of time is r o u g h l y possible w i t h nearly all narrative works, and i n some cases can be a c c o m p l i s h e d w i t h considerable p r e c i s i o n . T w o examples, one o l d and one recent, w i l l be presented here. 3. Thematic or Structural While thematic m a p p i n g has a specific m e a n i n g i n the w o r l d of cartography, narrative m a p p i n g can isolate elements w i t h i n a w o r k and locate 3
t h e m against a m o d e l of the w o r k as a w h o l e . A color coding o f a film, for instance, c o u l d represent instances of m o v i n g camera, close-ups, or any other stylistic aspect. Appearances of a character, o f different visual motifs, o f virtually any repeated device are also mappable qualities. 4. Conjectural While aspects o f n a r r a t i v e m a p p i n g can i n v o l v e r e c o n s t r u c t i o n , we should r e m e m b e r these are often speculative o r hypothetical. M a p p i n g may be an a t t e m p t to visualize, and to fill i n what's either i m p l i e d or
the m o s t p o p u l a r types o f narrative m a p p i n g
altogether absent. W h i l e a d r a w n o r m o d e l e d i m a g e tends to have greater persuasiveness t h a n a w r i t t e n description, one appealing aspect
A.s a last means to underline the purposes of narrative m a p p i n g , I'd like
to narrative m a p p i n g is this crossing o f the line into the advancement o f
to characterize t h e m o s t c o m m o n types, after w h i c h w e ' l l consider
proposed alternatives. We can p i c t u r e the plane crash w h i c h left no liv-
some specific examples.
ing witnesses or the story t o l d elusively. Narrative maps can be guesses made visible.
I. Geographic A.s m i g h t be expected, m a n y narrative m a p p i n g s are geographically
5. Conceptual
based. A m o s t useful f o r m is the m a p p i n g o f fictional characters onto
This m a y apply to all g o o d narrative maps, but there is a special "all-at-
real and c o n s t r u c t e d spaces. N a r r a t i v e maps can l o o k l i k e "regular"
a-glance" q u a l i t y t h a t s h o w s t h e w o r k o r events u n d e r s t u d y i n a
geographic maps, b u t it s h o u l d be remembered that fictional works can
wholly fresh m a n n e r that invitingly contends w i t h whatever it is meant
2
enter this r e a l m as w e l l , and that the geography o f a fictional w o r k may-
to r e p r e s e n t — t h e m a p p i n g b e i n g the m o r e t h o u g h t o u t and u n a m -
or m a y not be any m o r e " r e a l " t h a n the characters being mapped. Par-
biguous alternative. W h e n one comes to understand the eloquence o f
ticularly i n the case of films, it has been easy to assume that the places
London or Tokyo subway maps, w h o w o u l d choose to visualize instead
being depicted, especially w h e n given the names o f actual places, are
the u n d e r l y i n g chaos they distill? Narrative maps at their boldest can
their r e a l - w o r l d counterparts. T h e Bodega Bay, for example, i n Alfred
reconceptualize. So m u c h c a n be i g n o r e d , w h i l e o t h e r aspects are
b r o u g h t to the fore i n a concentrated m a n n e r , that we see the events
a u t o n o m o u s narrative universes." H e ingeniously indicates class and
u n d e r s t u d y as is they never m a d e sense before, never h a d achieved
professional spheres of activity so that he can t h e n m a r k transgressive
their proper f o r m . A n d the subject and the m a p delightedly intertwine.
paths t h r o u g h t h e m .
H a v i n g n o w suggested these b r o a d categories, let's p u l l together some examples of w o r k f r o m a n u m b e r of areas and attempt to place
4
His m a p o f Bleak House w i l l serve as a case i n point. A c c o u n t i n g for at least t h i r t y characters, his m a p can place a single character i n a series of
t h e m all under this broad u m b r e l l a . If they seem to be strange c o m p a n y
realms a n d also s h o w h o w one character's p l o t m o v e s t h r o u g h this
to each other, that is w h a t I hope f o r — t o try for a m e r g i n g of disparate
series (notice the p l o t l i n e s — t h e y are literally lines). Elsewhere, M o r e t t i c o n v i n c i n g l y maps m a j o r cities t h r o u g h the p l a c e m e n t o f characters
w o r k , all as an instance o f narrative m a p p i n g .
f r o m m u l t i p l e novels o f an a u t h o r ( A r t h u r C o n a n D o y l e ' s L o n d o n , the examples
Zola's Paris), but I find h i m here w i t h Dickens at his m o s t a m b i t i o u s — leaving the city behind to m a p structures not entirely dependent u p o n
1. Franco Moretti M o r e t t i ' s recent b o o k Atlas of the European Novel: 1800-1900 is the single m o s t ambitious attempt at w h a t he calls " a geography o f literature." L o o k i n g at a u t h o r s s u c h as Jane A u s t e n , C h a r l e s D i c k e n s , a n d E m i l e Z o l a . M o r e t t i is often c o n c e r n e d w i t h ideas o f class that c o m e o u t by charting the geographical spheres o f all of a novel's principal characters. While m a n y of Moretti's examples are simple national or city maps u p o n w h i c h he has applied prodigious effort to indicate where certain narrative actions occur (and w h i c h characters are involved), sometimes he is prepared to leave geography b e h i n d . In a t o u r de force section on D i c k e n s . M o r e t t i notes t h a t his diagrams here " c o n s t i t u t e largely
geography. 2. The Birds T h i s is f r o m w o r k I've been d o i n g o n A l f r e d H i t c h c o c k . It is a few thumbnails short o f being every shot i n The Birds; it is also a visual database f r o m w h i c h one can get i n f o r m a t i o n about each shot, v i e w storyboards and scripts, and drag the mouse to see selected sequences. B u t I also like it this way, as an o p p o r t u n i t y to see a film all at once, a bird'seye view o f The Birds, as it were. W h i l e the first shot i n the film is at the upper left and nearly the last at the l o w e r right, the f u l l image is a narrative m a p p i n g . O n e can easily see starts and ends of scenes, shifts f r o m day to night, c o l o r prefer-
61. Bleak House
ences, a n d o t h e r w o n d e r f u l t h i n g s , a l l i n j u s t a s i n g l e s t i l l i m a g e
Mrsjellyby MrsPardiggle Mr Boy thorn JJ Lady Dedlock's sister J Jenny J addyjellyby J P Grandpa Smalweed ( Prince Turveydrop Grandma Smalweed Jy MrsGuppy Mr Skimp ole Volumnia Dedlock J Joblmg Esther Woodcourt Bob Stables ' Mrjarndyce \ Smalweed Guppy Sir Leicester Dedlock Ada MrTulkinghorn • „„ „ , Lady Dedlock ! Mr Bucket Z
0
W S
C
r d r o
ud
Rosa
1 MrChadband Mrs Chadband
r George Mr Rouncewell I M (Rouncewell) Watt Rouncewell Mathew Bagnet Mrs Bagnet
^-"^lemo/X MissFlite HawdorA man from Shropshire Mr Snagsby Kroofc M rs Snagsby Guster Charley
Phil Squod
1
Lady Dedlock's plot 1 Rouncewells ChesneyWold
Jamdyce Cook's Court, Bell Yard the Law
c o m p o s e d o f m a n y smaller images, each the o p e n i n g frame o f an i n d i -
1'
v i d u a l shot.
• -
B y altering the frequency (every fifth shot, say) o r t h e size, one can
- :
!-
•E AND S H t R R r ATBREAkT-AST 0AT5
• I — I B • I • -•
simulate " f l y i n g " over the film, just as one can w i t h conventional geo-
.
(NNV3 WOf
graphic maps. It is also a g o o d example o f the all-at-a-glance m a p p i n g
—
again, w h i c h shows y o u a f a m i l i a r t h i n g (a m o v i e ) i n a n unexpected manner.
»
.,
1IKE THE &
RANDY TV
5
-'if.. X '-
. and the C e n t e r
approaching and e x p l a i n i n g ideas that w o u l d otherwise be difficult to
for H i d d e n C a m e r a Research, <www.cinema.ucla.edu\Mamber2>.
express. It is an aid to visualizing-—a guide, an interface, an analysis, a
T h e map here ( f r o m the H i d d e n C a m e r a site) is m a i n l y a t i m e l i n e ,
c
critical m e t h o d .
but it is also a mapped selection of ten events i n a day's videotape of a
W h a t has been left unsaid here but is p l a i n l y i n evidence is that digi-
c h i l d a n d his n a n n y , taped by a h i d d e n camera. O n c e again, the m a p
tal environments greatly enhance the potential for narrative m a p p i n g ,
becomes the interface, as the user can click to see the video segments i n
and also increase the need for it. T h r e e - d i m e n s i o n a l m o d e l i n g , i n f o r -
question.
I
H i d d e n - c a m e r a footage is often so loose a collection of events (one
g
can wait hours for s o m e t h i n g to happen) that p r o v i d i n g a m a p can cre-
*
ate a narrative. Rather t h a n w a t c h e m p t y space for hours, a m a p can
PL
some brief conclusions
b o t h situate events and lead the user to t h e m . This is still quite different f r o m narrative constructed t h r o u g h actual editing. It is perhaps closer to a database i n this w a y t o o , w i t h segments tagged for easy retrieval f r o m the larger c o l l e c t i o n o f v i d e o . A l s o , this k i n d o f footage o f t e n requires extensive explanation, w h i c h is made available w h e n the video is played. W h e n visual material is "free f o r m . " or o n g o i n g for extensive p e r i ods m a p p i n g can provide overlays o f narrative structure w i t h o u t forci n g the viewer to accept these selections as the o n l y possible m e t h o d to access the material. A n y o n e w i s h i n g to draw u p o n larger a m o u n t s of the footage may do so. T h e maps provide w h a t maps often p r o v i d e — a guide to the terrain, and paths available t h r o u g h it.
m a t i o n graphics, and w h a t has been called m u l t i m e d i a cartography all play a role i n this n e w f o r m . M a n y narrative w o r k s w i l l contain m a p pings as a m a t t e r o f course. ( M u c h h y p e r t e x t already does.) A l m o s t every D V D , for e x a m p l e , comes w i t h t h u m b n a i l e d "chapter scenes" now, b o t h to aid access and to provide an overview. W h e n we w a l k into m a n y p l a n n e d e x h i b i t spaces, s u c h as m a l l s , m u s e u m s , a n d t h e m e parks, the m a p s w e are offered o f t e n have n a r r a t i v i z e d elements to t h e m — b i t s of schedules, tables of contents, and diagrams to aid i n o r i entation. A s space itself is narrativized, so too is the m a p . W h e r e narrative m a p p i n g can also play a significant role is i n theorizing n e w l y emerging narrative forms. W h i l e I t h i n k digital media provide the most challenging possibilities, existing forms also, o f course, are u n d e r g o i n g change. To take one example, there has been a spate of c o n t e m p o r a r y films t h a t are s t r u c t u r e d a r o u n d r e t e l l i n g the same events.
11
N a r r a t i v e m a p p i n g c a n serve as a t o o l to c h a r t differences
between s u c h versions, and also c o u l d be a w a y to a l l o w a v i e w e r to bring s u c h differences m o r e directly i n t o p r o x i m i t y o f each other. E v e n m o r e i m p o r t a n t , perhaps, such m a p p i n g c o u l d be part of an analysis of the t e m p o r a l notions at w o r k i n s u c h films. A f u r t h e r possibility yet to be explored is the t e m p o r a l i z i n g of n a r rative m a p p i n g itself: a n i m a t i n g s u c h maps so that they themselves u n f o l d over time, perhaps i n c o n j u n c t i o n w i t h the works they are m a p ping. T h e fluidity between the real and the virtual that we are
finding
in so m a n y spheres is very strongly evident here. We w i l l often have to ask: w h e n is the narrative the m a p , and vice versa?
notes 1. Norman J. W. Thrower, Maps and Civilization: Cartography in Culture and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 218. 2. It is the principal subject of Franco Moretti's book, Atlas of the European Novel: 1800-1900 (New York: Verso Books, 1999), as will be discussed shortly. 3. See, for example, Thrower, Maps and Civilization, 95. 4. Franco. Atlas of the European Novel, 131. J. See Mamber, Media Computing, for more on visual databases as narrative mappings.
v. J C C iviana Draun s essential book Picturing I ime for a lull and valuable assessment of Marey's contributions; Braun, Picturing Time: The Work of Etietme-Jules Matey (1830-1904) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 7. Tufte, Edward R. Envisioning Information (Cheshire. C o n n . : Graphics Press, 1990). 8. For more on The Killing, see Stephen Mamber, "Simultaneity and Overlap in Stanley Kubrick's The Killing," Postmodern Culture 8. no. 2 (1998), online at (subscription required). 9. "The Scene: A Carpet of Casings and Bullets." New York Times. December 10,1999. pageC21. 10. "Shooting Outside the White House," USA Today, December 21.1994. page 4A. 11. The films Blind Chance, Run Lola Run, Sliding Doors, The Family Man. and Go. to name but a few.
real-time e l e v e n
bibliography Bounford. Trevor and Alistair Campbell. Digital Diagrams: How to Design and Present Statistical Information Effectively. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2000. Cartwright, William, Peterson. Michael P., and George, Gartner, eds. Multimedia Cartography. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1999. Cubitt, Sean. "Cartographic Instruments. Narcissist Illusions. Regimes of Realism i n CGI," Millenium Film Journal 34 (1999): 66-81. Mamber. Stephen. "Space-Time Mappings as Database Browsing Tools," Media Computing: Computational Media Aesthetics. Edited by Chitra Dorai and Svetha Venkatesh. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2002. Marey, Etienne-fules. La Methode graphique dans le dciences expérimentales et principalement en physiologie et médecine. Paris: Librarie de l'Académie de Medécine, 1885. Monmonier. Mark. Mapping It Out: Expository Cartography for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Moretti, Franco. Atlas of the European Novel: 1800-1900. New York: Verso, 1999. "Shooting Outside the White House," USA Today, December 21,1994, 4A. Storr, Robert. Mapping. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994. "The Scene: A Carpet of Casings and Bullets," Neu York Times, December 10. 1999. C21. 1
fairy tales cinema prefiguring
digital anxiety
m a r k
W i l l i a m s
This essay w i l l endeavor to ask specific questions about grand transformat i o n s — a n d claims about such t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s — i n the contemporary media environment. The contemporary media environment has o n occasion been p r o m o t e d to be unprecedented: i n its tendencies toward and dynamics of convergence, i n its scale of socioeconomic impact, i n its capacity to rerender and reimagine the worlds of representation and mediated expression. Considering such a dramatic purchase o n the present, but also on the anxious and awed imagination of its futures, w h a t are the challenges, perhaps even the demands, of w o r k i n media history and historiography i n this context? W h i c h access to a historicized past affords what range of critical distance or consonance regarding this media environment? What is at stake i n positing and investigating these relationships? What role can such w o r k play i n better understanding o u r present, and the variegated tendril holds of new media discourse on the future? N o t surprisingly, this essay w i l l suggest that m e d i a history and historiography are c r u c i a l l y i m p o r t a n t i n this context. T h i s is especially
due to (and complicated by) the imperative of the n e w - m e d i a e n v i r o n -
w o u l d be i n the service o f c o m b a t i n g the tendency t o w a r d overstate-
m e n t t o inflect and construct b o t h o u r n o t i o n o r concept o f " h i s t o r y "
ment and totalizing pronouncements that characterizes m u c h c o n t e m -
and the range o f particular historical narratives and events necessary to
porary discourse about the m e d i a . Especially i n l i g h t of the critique o f 3
apparatus t h e o r y i n its f o u n d a t i o n a l guise, its d e p l o y m e n t regarding
the reality effect u n d e r l y i n g n o r m a t i v e subjectivity. M o r e surprising m a y be the call i n this essay for the critical r e t u r n to
c o n t e m p o r a r y m e d i a s h o u l d be precisely t o f o r e g r o u n d m e d i a speci-
a m e t h o d o l o g y that has been itself regarded as a historicized anomaly:
ficity i n the age o f presumed convergence, rather t h a n contribute to the
apparatus t h e o r y .
erasure o f difference i n the consideration o f quite v a r i e d instances o f
1
T h i s a p p r o a c h t o m e d i a has been v a r i o u s l y
denounced as elitist, naive, totalizing, and hopelessly partial. W h a t pos-
media formats and devices. In other words, the r e t u r n to apparatus the-
sible advantage o r insight c o u l d be afforded by the reconsideration o f
ory m a y serve to specifically raise questions o f differance i n the consider-
such a methodology? W h a t follows is an initial foray into these questions
ation o f n e w m e d i a rather t h a n elide t h e m .
and issues, inspired i n part by t w o particular digital-era films that render
These are pressing issues e n d e m i c t o digital c u l t u r e , especially i n
questions about this era i n relation to questions about h u m a n subjectiv-
light o f the vast recent t e c h n o l o g i c a l changes w r o u g h t across m e d i a
ity, especially i n their depictions of c h i l d h o o d . O n e film. Fairy Tale: A True
and mediated c u l t u r e . (These include the rise i n h o m e and office c o m -
Story (Sturridge, 1997), reconsiders a significant incident i n the history of
puters, c o m m u n i c a t i o n peripherals s u c h as personal digital assistants
mediated representation. T h e other, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg,
and c e l l phones, digital television i n the f o r m o f digital satellite and
2001), u l t i m a t e l y imagines a l i t e r a l l y p o s t h u m a n f u t u r e , i n w h i c h
cable delivery, digital receivers and recording devices, c o m p u t e r games,
2
h u m a n s are history a m i d a w o r l d o f advanced i n f o r m a t i o n a l dynamics.
and so on). It is beyond the scope o f this essay t o provide a cogent his-
By virtue of their c o m m o n themes (fairy tales, technology, and the
t o r y o f these d e v e l o p m e n t s ; i n fact, i t is one desire o f this essay t o
construction of childhood), and their opposite temporal configurations
encourage that w o r k o n such a vast historical field be rigorously u n d e r -
(the past, the future), these films can be seen to configure a range of f u n -
taken. This w i l l entail n e w understandings of significant emergent
damental questions about the digital age and subjectivity. Or, m o r e accu-
intermedial associations and differences, i n specific historical instances.
rately, they m i g h t be seen t o prefigure anxiety about these questions,
Apparatus theory w o u l d therefore place a certain purchase o n these
including the fact that these questions indeed exist. T h e sweep of real and
issues o f media specificity ("the ensemble of the equipment and opera-
imagined transformations ascribed to the rise of digital culture, and the
tions necessary" to the workings of a m e d i u m ) . It w o u l d also encourage 4
nature of certain issues endemic to digital representation, may be under-
considered attention t o a second major trope w i t h i n apparatus theory:
stood to have rerendered popular uncertainty regarding core questions
issues regarding the address to and constructed positionality of subject
about origins and futures, a n d m e d i a t e d representations
themselves.
effects regarding these media. It is significant i n this regard to note that as
These films can serve as an index for some of these questions and anxieties.
the rise o f digital c u l t u r e has become evident, so has p o p u l a r interest i n
Part o f the significance i n r e t u r n i n g t o m e t h o d s and questions of
media history, i n c l u d i n g interest i n the m e d i a as industries. Essays and
apparatus theory regarding such a project is to suggest the importance
feature articles about m e d i a history/industry n o w appear regularly i n
of considering m e d i a specificity i n analytical w o r k about media history. This attention is significant to the historical contextualization of these films, and also of course to their consideration as films w i t h i n the c o n vergent technological and i n d u s t r i a l practices apparently c o m m e n s u rate t o d i g i t a l c u l t u r e . A n o v e r v i e w o f h o w s o m e o f these issues contribute t o contemporary issues of m e d i a historiography can therefore serve to introduce an analysis o f the films themselves.
news and c u l t u r a l magazines (e.g., Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker). T h e New York Times has greatly expanded its coverage of m e d i a and t e c h n o l ogy, and other newspapers have f o l l o w e d suit. Documentaries and talks h o w discussions about m e d i a t e c h n o l o g y , m e d i a m o g u l s , m e d i a conglomerates, and media effects have become standard fare o n PBS and several n e w cable channels. C o n t e m p o r a r y m e d i a d y n a m i c s (textual, industrial, economic, interpersonal, etc.) and an apparently attendant desire to understand h o w they are and have been determined, n o w exist
from "liveness" to "real time": notes toward an
at an unprecedented level—as staple topics for news and i n f o r m a t i o n
electronic culture dispositif
media outlets.
O n e key trope of historical analysis afforded by a r e t u r n t o apparatus
This popular attention to media dynamics further suggests the perti-
theory is an enhanced attention to m e d i a specificity, and thus to broad
nence of apparatus theory, since it seems to involve a desire to understand
attendant questions of m e d i a d e f i n i t i o n , h y b r i d i z a t i o n , convergence,
the m e d i a and o u r mediated experiences w i t h greater detail and c o m -
and dissonance. T h e m o s t effective d e p l o y m e n t o f this trope, however.
plexity. It suggests, i n other words, a k i n d of shift i n attention and degree
of interest and self-consciousness regarding o u r k n o w l e d g e about the
Just as key aspects of n e w m e d i a spectatorship can be traced to devel-
media and o u r mediated selves. I w o u l d argue this must entail at some
opments i n predigital television, the dynamics of new media temporality
level a recognition or underlying sense that we have tended to ignore or
must be understood i n relationship to the oddly protean temporality of
repress, rather than be merely unaware of, some of the media matters we
television. C e n t r a l to this relationship is a contrast between the l i k e
n o w seek to understand. S u c h a process suggests a relationship to issues
concepts o f televisual liveness a n d n e w - m e d i a real time. B o t h t e r m s are
surrounding the dispositif, w h i c h concerns mediated relationships to atten-
grounded i n the capacity for electronic media to represent s o m e t h i n g at
dant d y n a m i c s of subjectivity. O n e key aspect of the trope of dispositif
roughly the same m o m e n t it occurs. B u t each t e r m , i n significantly dif-
analysis is whether and h o w the process of disavowal may be seen to be
ferent registers, also designates a key d y n a m i c of disavowal, i n that each
constitutive to the power and allure of media. The enhanced public inter-
names an act of m e d i a t i o n but also the desire to experience this act as
est i n media history today seems to suggest the emergence of new equi-
unmediated.
libria regarding the particulars and even the valuation of the desire for
As 1 have discussed elsewhere, liveness has developed across broadcast
knowledge about the media, and therefore begs certain questions regard-
history i n t o one of the most semantically saturated terms i n the study
ing processes of disavowal w i t h i n and around these equilibria.
of m e d i a . W h a t began as a description of the technological relation to a 7
T h i s quality and capacity for disavowal regarding the m e d i a is the
referent that a m e d i u m was i n the process of representing, based o n the
concern of m u c h of this essay. Disavowal, and the economies of belief
o n t o l o g i c a l status of that referent, has become today a description of
related to t e c h n o l o g y a n d m e d i a t i o n i n digital c u l t u r e , are topics of
w h a t an electronic m e d i u m is representing at this m o m e n t . W h a t is
study i n m e d i a h i s t o r y t h a t b e c k o n the m e t h o d o l o g i e s of apparatus
" l i v e " o n T V today is w h a t T V is showing/enunciating now. regardless
t h e o r y . T h e y are also topics that can r e n d e r unstable the u n s p o k e n
of the status of the referent. M i m i White has suggested a crucial trope i n
a s s u m p t i o n s of n o r m a t i v e subjectivity a n d i d e o l o g y . T h e e n h a n c e d
this development, regarding the persistent use of the t e r m history i n rela-
contemporary degree of interest i n questions about media/technology is
tion to television. A s television becomes less ontologically "live," and its
therefore not unrelated to concomitant questions about o u r w o r l d and
temporality grows m o r e c o m p l e x w i t h the development of surfing, z i p -
ourselves, a n d therefore the relationships between media/technology,
ping, and time-shifting devices, it relies even m o r e o n g r o u n d i n g its dis-
the socioeconomic-political sphere, and subjectivity itself.
cursive address i n relation to a range of modalities t h a t approximate
I w i s h to address i n some detail one aspect of m e d i a disavowal w i t h
claims to the historic and the historical. Televisual liveness, t h e n , can be
vast implications and also great utility as a topic w i t h i n m e d i a history
u n d e r s t o o d to be a h i s t o r i c a l l y m u t a b l e , s i t u a t i o n a l effect t h a t leans
and historiography: the electronic mediation of temporality. The
u p o n o r is p r o p p e d o n t o history as a key trope of its t e m p o r a l dispositif.
potential significance of attending to this aspect of w h a t I a m calling an
C o m p u t e r - r e l a t e d electronic media, by contrast, are characterized
electronic culture dispositifincludes its c o n t r i b u t i o n to an intermedial u n d e r -
by the properties and desires attendant to real time, w h i c h can be u n d e r -
standing of the " n e w " m e d i a environment, and especially a recognition
stood to be propped onto the near f u t u r e . T h e evident d e m a n d i n c o n -
of t h e o f t e n absented c o n s i d e r a t i o n o f t e l e v i s i o n as c o n s t i t u t i v e t o
temporary media society for faster processing, fatter data pipelines, and
rather t h a n transcended by this e n v i r o n m e n t .
immediate downloads is constitutive of real-time desire. This desire is 8
This involves t w o moves regarding the consideration of the rise of
crucially e n t w i n e d w i t h the overall purchase o n the p o p u l a r i m a g i n a -
the digital i n media history, b o t h related i n a way to the concept of dis-
tion and conceptualization of the near f u t u r e that relies o n the claims
avowal. O n e is the o n g o i n g reconsideration of the object and methods
and promises made about digital c u l t u r e .
of study regarding " c i n e m a " i n the contemporary m e d i a e n v i r o n m e n t .
5
Like liveness, the t e r m real time refers to a mediation of the present: like
A s assayed by A n n e Friedberg, m a n y o f the changes i n spectatorship
liveness, i t refers to a s i t u a t i o n a l v a l u a t i o n o f this m e d i a t i o n , w h i c h
v a u n t e d to be distinctive to digital m e d i a were i n h e r e n t to d e v e l o p -
appears to proffer a (desired?) virtual transposition of values as its l i m i t
m e n t s i n t e l e v i s i o n i n the p r e d i g i t a l 1970s a n d '80s. T h e rise o f the
point: the act of mediation itself may render s o m e t h i n g as m o r e live or
r e m o t e c o n t r o l , cable television, and the V C R p r o d u c e d an "interac-
more real t h a n it w o u l d be if encountered unmediated. T a k e n together,
tive" m o d e of viewing that began to dissolve the "historical differences"
liveness and real time can be understood to possess the synergistic capacity
between film and T V . This shift crucially i n v o l v e d not o n l y changes to
for a frenzy of the t e m p o r a l , such that the reference to time as a tradi-
corporate hierarchies i n these industries (e.g., weakened n e t w o r k hege-
tional anchor for certainty is t h o r o u g h l y postmodernized into a fluidity
m o n y ) , but also significant m a n i p u l a t i o n s of t e m p o r a l i t y i n relation to
that questions rather t h a n assumes the relation of the present to w h a t
these m e d i a (e.g., time shifting).
m i g h t have or w i l l occur.
6
T h e resultant potential for w h a t m i g h t be called the real-time sub-
tivized r e w o r k i n g of fears, concerns, and problems pertinent to a c o n -
j u n c t i v e is one way to render the bramble o f anxieties and enthusiasms
t e m p o r a r y audience (that o f the digital era), but rendered i n a f o r m
that have c a p t u r e d the p u b l i c fascination about digital c u l t u r e . M a r k
b o t h familiar and distanced.
9
W o l f has suggested that the d o c u m e n t a r y quality o f certain c o m p u t e r
T h e film m e t i c u l o u s l y constructs the p e r i o d of the C o t t i n g l e y inci-
simulations has p r o d u c e d an elongation of the indexical l i n k p r e s u m e d
dent (circa 1917—1920), establishing a tone that is historically precise but
to anchor representations to the real w o r l d . Regarding credible images
also m y t h i c i n quality (see notes for a plot synopsis). The public and c o l -
constructed f r o m data, w h i c h m a y represent "speculation as m u c h as
lective excitement o f audiences i n rapt attention is rendered f r o m the
o r m o r e t h a n existing objects." W o l f posits a semantic slippage f r o m the
start, and is often tied to celebrities that m a r k the t i m e frame. C l e a r l y
perceptual to the conceptual. This slippage is g r o u n d e d less i n a critical
meant to reference o u r o w n experience o f this film (perhaps filmgoing i n
i n v e s t i g a t i o n o f w h a t is represented t h a n i n a p o p u l a r a n d scientific
general), these events are portrayed w i t h an emphasis o n the construct-
esteem for the status o f the m a t h e m a t i c a l basis for c o m p u t e r s i m u l a -
edness of theatricalized (staged) intrigue. T h e famous audience participa-
t i o n , w h i c h W o l f suggests is today perhaps even greater t h a n the status
tion segment f r o m Peter Pan that is referenced i n the opening montage of
10
course foreshadows the encounter w i t h fairies to come i n the film. B u t it
typically given to photography. These concerns and dynamics of the real-time subjunctive character-
also underscores the process of w i l l f u l desire for belief ("Do y o u believe i n
ize the issues and themes explored i n the films Fairy Tale and A.I. Each
fairies?") that is inherent to the pleasures pursued i n such mediated set-
demonstrates a related b u t distinct " f i g u r i n g " of anxiety about digital
tings. The fuller emotional timbre of the period, however, is rendered by
culture. A n a l y z e d together, they can be seen to demarcate m a n y issues
the isolated and comparatively anonymous act of m o u r n i n g (the m o t h e r
of the electronic dispositif i n t r o d u c e d i n the discussion above. O n e film
at the gravesite), a register o f e m o t i o n a l duress that is i m p o s e d rather
engages w i t h issues o f "history," and is steeped i n an u n p a c k i n g of issues
than sought out or w i l l f u l l y pursued. T h e pivotal context of W o r l d War I
about disavowal and their relation to the specific technologies and p r o -
in assigning this emotional timbre as widespread and defining of this era is
cesses o f an apparatus o f representation. T h e o t h e r is set i n the near
part o f the m y t h i c tone evoked, t h o u g h not the exclusive determinant of
future, and is engaged i n an u n p a c k i n g of issues regarding disavowal and
it. (Mrs. Wright, we w i l l learn, m o u r n s her son, w h o died of p n e u m o n i a
the process o f subjectivity. Each film received a p r o b l e m a t i c p o p u l a r
at age twelve). B u t m o u r n i n g is positioned as one key condition of possi-
response regarding its negotiation of themes related to digital c u l t u r e .
bility for the complex dynamics of belief w h i c h follow. That the celebrities
As such, they provide a useful i n t r o d u c t o r y cross-section of the
introduced w i l l become involved w i t h and even w o r k to evaluate these
figuring
of our c u l t u r a l response to the c o m p l e x potentialities o f the digital.
prefiguring new economies of belief Fat'rv Tale: A True Story (1997), an impeccably appointed film directed by
dynamics further contributes to the m y t h i c rather t h a n merely prosaic sense of " h i s t o r y " i n the film, and contributes as w e l l to the m o v e m e n t toward fluidity across binaries that is evident as part of the film's project (e.g., across public/private, famous/anonymous, fantastic/real).
Charles Sturridge, presents by its very title an intentional paradox. H o w
M u c h o f this fluidity can be seen to be referenced i n the semantic
can a fairy tale, part o f w h a t is regarded as the m o s t emphatically recre-
nexus o f meanings that flow across these images and scenes. Key to this
ative a n d fantastic genre, bear an equivalence to a c t u a l events? O n e
d y n a m i c is a play o n the n o t i o n of "wings," w h i c h tropes and mobilizes
m i g h t recognize the title as a sort of p u n . since the film is a rendering of
the connotations o f this t e r m ( i n c l u d i n g the notions o f flight, airiness,
events i n v o l v i n g the alleged photos o f the C o t t i n g l e y fairies—perhaps
liberty, perspectives above the g r o u n d , etc.). T h e sense o f entrapment
the m o s t w i d e l y k n o w n and debated instance of reputed contact w i t h
and incarceration that introduces a H a r r y H o u d i n i segment, for e x a m -
the supernatural. B u t the c l a i m that a standard of absolute veracity (a
ple, is u l t i m a t e l y met w i t h his eventual u n f u r l i n g o f the straitjacket, as
t r u e s t o r y ) has been a p p l i e d to m a t t e r s t y p i c a l l y c o n s i d e r e d to be
if m o l t e d i n t o a f r e e d o m o f b e c o m i n g . ( H o u d i n i is l a t e r seen to be
i n c r e d u l o u s (a fairy tale) seems intractable. W h a t this p a r a d o x b o t h
advertised as " T h e W o r l d Famous Self-Liberator.") M o r e significantly,
implies and announces for the makers of fairy Tale is a license and even
the d e p i c t i o n o f the p r o d u c t i o n o f Peter Pan extends the " w i n g " m e t a -
an a m b i t i o n to e x a m i n e the fluidity between s u c h apparently binary
p h o r across n o t o n l y its m o s t l i t e r a l d e p i c t i o n s (the m o t h s seen to
terms (e.g., fairy tales and true stories) so as to recognize and accentuate
accumulate o n the lamps b e h i n d the stage), but also w h a t is perhaps its
the b l u r r i n g o f notions o f certainty that seem i n h e r e n t to the charac-
most abstract level of m e a n i n g : affording the deconstruction of the site,
ters and events of this historical tale. T h e film can be seen to attempt,
the p r o d u c t i o n , a n d t h e experience o f spectacle, " f r o m the w i n g s . "
in ntHpr words, the k i n d of t r u t h evoked bv m a n y fairy tales: a narra-
(This references the attention to m e d i a specificity and disclosure w i t h i n
apparatus theory.) T h e film is a n n o u n c i n g , i f y o u w i l l , at the very out-
unprecedented and at the same time has c o m e to be seen as necessary
set, its i n t e n t i o n to represent and evoke a range o f w h a t I w o u l d c a l l
to the appeal and " p r o m i s e " o f this k i n d o f film. Indeed, I w o u l d suggest
experiences of enthrall—from
p o p u l a r entertainment, to the experience of
that by the dictates o f c o n t e m p o r a r y cinema, for a film o f this budget
the natural w o r l d , to that o f m o u r n i n g — t h a t it w i l l place into a k i n d of
you can't not show the fairies. (Such a d y n a m i c is part of a larger series of
critical, historicized consideration.
questions to pursue along these lines, regarding the "pressure" to rep-
W h a t consolidates the assignation of fairy tale w i t h i n this historicized
resent according to w h a t digital technology affords us.) A s s u c h , Fai'rv
and m y t h i c s t r u c t u r e , o f course, is the attention to a n d emphasis o n
Tale takes part i n the t r a d i t i o n o f e n t h r a l l i n g p o p u l a r e n t e r t a i n m e n t
c h i l d r e n a n d their p e r c e p t i o n s — a set o f issues that the film engages
i n v o k e d earlier, b u t also raises questions about i m p l i c i t a n d e x p l i c i t
w i t h great care. In l i g h t o f generic tendencies regarding c h i l d r e n and
dynamics o f the real-time subjunctive.
their representation, especially as detailed i n critical w o r k o n the genre
It does so i n w h a t seems to m e an e n l i g h t e n i n g way. A s opposed to
by M a r i n a Warner, Fairy Tale can be seen to f o l l o w the Utopian rather
the plot-and-character-lite, pseudocarnival rides that can dominate the
t h a n conservative goals of the genre, even i n , or perhaps especially i n ,
box office (e.g., Jurassic Park, Tw/sier.and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Men-
the often troublesome area o f gender roles.
N e i t h e r as h a r r o w i n g as
ace), w i t h digital effects that attempt to approximate an i m m e r s i v e ideal
m a n y fairy tales n o r as mysogynist, the film affords its t w o central char-
or v i r t u a l enclosure w i t h i n the w o r l d created, these creatures i n Fairy
11
acters, Elsie and Frances, a k i n d o f nascent " g i r l p o w e r " as they f o r m
Tale seem to m e positioned as precisely contingent and conditional, beg-
bonds w i t h one another and w o r k together to f o l l o w the faith of their
ging the question of the credulity of digital effects and especially placing
convictions. These include a keen sense o f curiosity and an active sense
into a new perspective the legacy of mediated fairy images that the film
of the p o w e r f u l attributes o f i m a g i n a t i o n — a t odds w i t h the already-
shares w i t h the C o t t i n g l e y photos.
u n d e r s t o o d character o f the a d u l t w o r l d a r o u n d t h e m , b u t also the
C e n t r a l l y i m p o r t a n t is the film's u n p a c k i n g of the process of p h o -
larger m y t h s of inquisitive females as the d o w n f a l l of m a n . (In this, the
tography i n its deliberation of the issues of belief regarding the Cottingley
film bears a resemblance to early Spiritualist movements, w h i c h are of
incident. T h e t r u t h claims readily ascribed to p h o t o g r a p h y — w h i c h are
course a topicality w i t h i n its diegesis.) T h e girls' sense o f imagination,
generally tied to a collapsing of its process and a fixation o n the m o m e n t
u p o n w h i c h m a n y of the questions about the C o t t i n g l e y incidents arise,
of shuttered exposure—are parsed o u t across various permutations i n
is handled somewhat obliquely, and never i n the conventional assump-
the analysis o f the photographic process. In this way, the film participates
tion of a child's p o i n t of v i e w (i.e., c h i l d as "person t h r o u g h w h o m we
in the t r o p e o f h i s t o r i c i z i n g o u r c o n s i d e r a t i o n o f the
see"). Warner complains that the conventional point o f view is often an
" m o m e n t , " such as is pursued i n w o r k o n the constructedness of liveness
excuse for a d u l t d e n i a l i n the n a m e o f a prelapsarian i d e a l : the c o r -
and real-time mediation today.
12
mediated
r u p t e d innocence of the child's gaze as inevitable guarantor o f the loss
The decision to omnisciently image the fairies outside o f this investi-
of ideals the adult spectator wishes to naturalize. T h e film rather auda-
gation, t h e n , can be recognized to figure the question of the fairies' exis-
ciously adopts a m o r e omniscient p o i n t o f view regarding the appear-
tence as irrelevant to the d e t e r m i n a t i o n o f w h e t h e r the fairy photos
ance o f the fairies w i t h i n the diegesis, i n t r o d u c i n g these "characters"
were falsified. (This is i n fact h o w the events were u l t i m a t e l y described
explicitly outside the shot/reverse-shot conventions that w o u l d " c o n -
by the real-life Elsie a n d Frances C o t t i n g l e y , late i n t h e i r lives: t h e y
t a i n " their rendering w i t h i n the points o f view o f the c h i l d r e n .
admitted they d i d fake the photos, b u t also insisted they h a d actually
T h e omniscient perspective i n the rendering of the fairies has been
seen fairies.) T h e simple binary on/off m o d e l o f belief typically ascribed
the locus for criticisms o f the film, m a n y of w h i c h c l a i m it confuses the
to the photos is expanded by virtue of the film's fuller contextualization
issues the film wishes to raise by insisting o n the facticity o f fairies. (Even
of the photographic process ( f r o m issues o f camera operation, to p r o -
Roger Ebert was a m o n g the m a n y critics w h o c o m p l a i n e d that the film
duction o f the negative, to the development o f a positive print, to the
s o m e h o w w a n t e d to "have its cake and eat it t o o . " )
range o f degrees o f r e c e p t i o n ) .
13
This seems to indi-
14
T h e film w o r k s t h r o u g h , i n o t h e r
cate w h a t i n Barthesian terms we can call a hermeneutic split, a difficulty i n
words, the refusal of an expected indexical assurance, t o w a r d the insis-
the narrative e c o n o m y o f k n o w l e d g e and epistemology. I w o u l d sug-
tence o n an attention to questions of process—an attention that is n o w
gest that one result is that the film offers an o p p o r t u n i t y to reflect on
r e c o m m e n d e d by theorists o f digital m e d i a to be c o n s t i t u t i v e o f the
the uses and implications o f w h a t has become a f u l c r u m o f contempo-
new c o n d i t i o n o f reception i n o u r postphotographic era. T h e call for
rary H o l l y w o o d c i n e m a : the p r o l i f e r a t i o n o f digital special effects. It
such m e t h o d o l o g i c a l c o m p l e x i t y f u r t h e r r e c o m m e n d s a u t i l i t y f o r
offers, first o f all, a k i n d of spectacle and attraction that is i n some ways
apparatus theory regarding digital c u l t u r e .
Steven Spielberg's 2001 film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (famously based o n
True Story, A.I. also e x p l i c i t l y demarcates a b l u r r i n g o f t h e expected
a project gestated by Stanley Kubrick, w i t h Spielberg's participation) reg-
boundaries of this genre, w h i c h is consonant w i t h other issues of b l u r -
isters a different degree o f self-consciousness regarding media, media his-
ring i n the film, b u t the film equivocates between b l u r r i n g s of episte-
tory, and desire. Like Fairy Tale, it participates i n the still-viable tradition
mológica! categories versus gendered categories.
15
by w h i c h m o t i o n pictures adopt a special purchase o n the realm of public
David eventually comes i n contact w i t h a public spectacle k n o w n as
fantasy, especially via narrativized renderings. Also like Fairy Tale, it affords
Flesh Fair that involves the extravagant destruction of artificial life forms.
a reflexive perspective o n the anxieties about digital culture, t h o u g h w i t h
A c c o m p a n y i n g its credo that this activity is an avowed celebration o f
an emphasis o n the component process o f subjectivity itself.
" l i f e " is t h e c o n d i t i o n that s u c h a celebration is predicated u p o n the
This emphasis is perhaps ironic i n l i g h t of the critical response to the
demolishing of "artificiality." Such an insistence o n a p u r e binary defini-
film, w h i c h has tended to focus o n the "paternity" of its final realization
tion and distinction is therefore equated w i t h the w i l l for violence and a
(e.g., K u b r i c k or Spielberg as the auteur/pater; the film as problematic
marked brand of (virtual) incivility o n the part of the participants. B u t
" h y b r i d . " etc.). M y discussion w i l l n o t be especially invested i n s u c h
w h e n David is teamed w i t h another recluse robot. G i g o l o Joe, the implicit
g ^
auteurist debates (as indicated above, I refer to it as a Spielberg film), and
gendered modalities of subjectivity are somewhat m o r e binarily secured.
m y interest i n responses to the film has m o r e to do w i t h its narrative
Joe is like an ideal big brother to David, especially i n that his sexual per-
trajectory. Like m a n y Spielberg films. A.I. reworks a classic narrative
sona as a gigolo robot becomes merely supplementary to his pedagogical
f r o m the Disney studios, i n this case Pinocchio. B u t the inflections o n this
and epistemological function: he introduces David to the city (character-
narrative raise i n t r i g u i n g questions a n d issues regarding the definition
ized by blatant sexual figurations), and works to find someone w h o can
of " h u m a n " subjectivity less f r o m its d i s t i n c t i o n to p r e h u m a n f o r m s
provide an answer to David's riddle-like inquiries.
t h a n f r o m its potential relationship to p o s t h u m a n forms.
3
16
T h e segment w i t h the perhaps i r o n i c a l l y titled D r . K n o w literalizes
W i t h i n A.I., the concerns w i t h subjectivity are quite l i t e r a l , even
the b l u r r i n g of generic boundaries, as D a v i d and Joe realize they m u s t
s o m e w h a t clinical, and infused w i t h a variety of figures and scenarios
combine D r . K n o w ' s categories ("flat fact" and "fairy tale") i n order to
that can be seen to be friendly to post-structuralist theories o f the sub-
render an answer that satisfies David's i n q u i r y . T h e resultant j o u r n e y
ject. T h e film concerns the i n t r o d u c t i o n of a domestic robot boy, David,
culminates i n a two-stage reencounter w i t h David's origins of subjec-
i n t o a nuclear f a m i l y , and David's exploits i n e n a c t i n g his desire for a
tivity, w h i c h mobilize the most t r o u b l i n g and suggestive aspects of the
level or k i n d of subjectivity that can f u l f i l l the subjective demands he is
film's treatises o n subjectivity.
w i r e d to respond to. T h e attendant issues o f his subjectivity i n relation
D a v i d ' s r e t u r n to t h e lab at w h i c h he was d e v e l o p e d conflates a
to parentage are quite precisely focused o n the ( m ) o t h e r as the site of
r e t u r n to the " f a t h e r " (his i n v e n t o r ) w i t h a stark r e c o g n i t i o n of the
an e m o t i o n a l interface that approximates David as h u m a n - l i k e , and the
m y t h o f his individuality. His encounter w i t h another D a v i d unleashes
subsequent problems that David's artificiality produces i n this regard.
his o w n violent response to "artificiality," as he demolishes the doppel¬
T h e scene of David's transformation into a loving/loved object is espe-
ganger robot i n a m a n n e r not dissimilar to that seen at the Flesh Fair.
cially redolent of poststructuralist theories of subjectivity. His " m o t h e r "
This is f o l l o w e d by w h a t is perhaps his c u l m i n a t i n g crisis, as D a v i d rec-
chooses to trigger the p r o g r a m that w i l l engender David's e m o t i o n a l
ognizes not o n l y that his subjectivity is mass-produced (scores of Davids
attachment to her. Looking directly into his eyes, she engages a physical
boxed for distribution), but that sexual differentiation appears to be far
interface (pressure points o n the back of David's neck) w h i l e speaking an
less stark a b i n a r y t h a n he m i g h t have expected (scores o f boxes o f a
arbitrary series of words. T h r o u g h this c o m b i n a t i o n o f m a t e r n a l gaze,
female v a r i a n t o f his m o d e l ) . T h e effect o f this n e w a n d d i s o r i e n t i n g
physical proximity and touch, and especially the introduction of language
k n o w l e d g e — w h i c h again approximates the u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f subjec-
as an abstract code that accesses and promises to define the " h u m a n "
tivity according to poststructural theories—drives h i m to the b r i n k o f
interface, the scene approximates a condensed performance o f the Lacan-
despair. D a v i d sits dejectedly at the edge o f the b u i l d i n g , a n d s o o n s i m -
ian imaginary and m i r r o r stage. David's need for evidence and assurance
ply falls off i n t o the depths b e l o w .
17
of his (m)other's love ultimately proves unwieldy for the long-term c o m -
This quasi-suicide u l t i m a t e l y leads to David's fantasmatic encounter
fort of the family, especially due to the jealousy he instills i n his "brother."
w i t h the B l u e Fairy, t h e very goal that he has been seeking for m u c h
and David is discarded/abandoned i n the woods.
of the film. H e r appearance i n the flooded and decaying c a r n i v a l set-
T h i s s c e n a r i o a l r e a d y c o n n o t e s t h e fantastic a n d e m o t i o n a l l y
t i n g ( w h i c h again literalizes a fairy tale) designates a c u l m i n a t i o n of
charged terrain of the fairy tale. As w i t h the title of the film Fairy Tale: A
sorts to David's narrative. His eventual s e m i p e r m a n e n t interface w i t h
159
this statue is one o f the m o s t c o m p e l l i n g figurations i n the film, and
facts—can be seen to trouble standardized modes of knowledge and belief,
in m y experience is the place where m a n y audience members (actually,
including those of genre, gender, and even species, and is redolent of the
e v e r y o n e I have s p o k e n to a b o u t t h e film) believe t h e film s h o u l d
dynamics of the real-time subjunctive: Fairy Tale's unfettered broaching of
have ended.
a hermeneutics of mediated knowledge and epistemology via the
figuring
T h e apparent displeasure that results f r o m the film m o v i n g beyond
of what m i g h t be called the " e x t r a - h u m a n " (fairies, angels, etc.), and A.I.'s
a (literally) f r o z e n m i r r o r stage w i t h the B l u e Fairy is i n t r i g u i n g . T h e
foregrounded actualization of fairy tale scenarios and literalization of the
scenario o f subjectivity figured here seems to condense (1) the perpet-
post-human (robots o n l y ) — w h a t m i g h t even be called the e x - h u m a n .
ual c y c l i n g o f desire that is p r o d u c e d by and directed t o w a r d the Imag-
This r e a l - t i m e subjunctive, I have suggested, describes i n part the
i n a r y dyad, w i t h the B l u e Fairy representing b o t h the u r - m o t h e r and
creative d y n a m i c o f these films (a n e w r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a l license, f o r
the supposed font o f u r - k n o w l e d g e , and (2) the m a c h i n i c subjectivity
example, but also a pressure to represent digitally). It also describes i n
of David, w h i c h can o n l y register the d y n a m i c "lack" at the center of his
part the anxieties that they mediate. It arose i n relation to the jugger-
subjectivity, w i t h n o self-awareness of s u c h . T h e section o f the f i l m that
n a u t c y b e r - e c o n o m y a n d c u l t u r e o f the late 1980s a n d '90s, w i t h its
follows this sequence therefore seems to suggest that there is m o r e to
attendant c o m p l e x of w h a t I have called real-time desires, w h i c h are
examine i n the issues o f David's subjectivity. His discovery by still m o r e
recognizable via a frenzy o f t e m p o r a l i t y understood to be i n lineage to
futuristic robots, and the subsequent scenario of desire they are capable
the "liveness" of television. T h e saturation of the t e r m " l i v e " i n relation
and w i l l i n g to construct for h i m , i m p l y that he has been p r o g r a m m e d
to television can be described i n relation to a series of semantic slippages
for "lack," and has yet to experience " l o s s " — t h e e m o t i o n a l t i m b r e of
regarding the g r o w t h o f that m e d i u m , especially sliding notions of its
w h i c h w i l l constitute his m o v e t o w a r d the " h u m a n . "
enhanced "present" and "presentness" i n everyday life—spatially, t e m -
O n e irony of this m o v e m e n t is that it occurs i n a w h o l l y posthuman
porally, and i n relation to the d e t e r m i n a t i o n o f j u s t - i n - t i m e c u l t u r a l
context (2000 years later), w h e n apparently o n l y robots n o w exist o n the
capital. A similar k i n d o f d y n a m i c m i g h t be seen to be t r u e o f cyber-
frozen earth. David is prized as a rare historical find, since he is the last
culture, w i t h its extraordinary purchase o n the near-future. Its acceler-
sentient artifact to have experienced an indexical contact w i t h h u m a n life
ated g r o w t h was p r o m o t e d a n d p r o j e c t e d f o r w a r d , i n a s e e m i n g l y
forms. This quality and capacity for transience, and m o r e specifically for
totalizing way (packed w i t h disavowals about the credulity of these p r o -
mortality, is the final aspect of subjectivity that David accesses. Again this
jections), t o w a r d a transformative, charged t o m o r r o w — a s i f M o o r e ' s
19
is rendered i n decidedly gendered and Oedipal terms, as David is afforded
Law c o u l d guarantee perpetual e x p a n s i o n — w h a t m i g h t be posited as
one day to spend w i t h his " m o t h e r " (based o n a regenerated D N A
the u l t i m a t e " r e a l - t i m e " fairy tale. W h a t h a d become a " f u t u r e " that
sample), at the end of w h i c h she. and apparently he, w i l l drift off to sleep
you did n o t w a n t to not be part of, became w h a t i n another context has
and death. T h e tone established for this conclusion is quietly p o w e r f u l ,
been called T h e N o t Yet Meets the A l r e a d y G o n e .
20
and disturbing i n its elegance and beauty. Sleep, w i t h w h i c h David had no
Like the televisual "live." cyber-culture's "real-time" can also be refer-
previous acquaintance, is designated as the place w h e r e dreams are
enced v i a semantic saturations and slippages—this t i m e i n the terms
b o r n — a n d by relation, creativity and art. Yet the scene renders this via a
" c u r r e n t " a n d " c u r r e n c y " — r e g a r d i n g its ties to c u l t u r a l capital (and
decidedly precise f o r m of classical oedipal "perversion," as David lies con-
eventually literal and v i r t u a l e c o n o m i c capital). To have a grasp o n , to
tentedly i n bed w i t h his m o t h e r — o r , m o r e specifically, her corpse.
have access to the near-future defined w h a t it was to be "current," happening, p r o m i s i n g — e v e n t u a l l y , perhaps w o r t h investing i n . To be c u r -
some conclusions
rent (to assume or affect the state of "currency"; perhaps even to attract
A l t h o u g h representing a significantly different historical address than Fain
invested currency/dollars—to be " m o n e y " ) was to be directly l i n k e d to
Tale, A.I. shares w i t h that film a figuration of digital anxiety via an unpack-
the newest electronic media, w h i c h was to be " w i r e d , " to be jacked into
ing of apparatus issues i n relation to processes of subjectivity. The rather
the escalating, accelerating promise of the near-future: perhaps even lit—
startling frankness of the c o n c l u d i n g scenario, i n c o n j u n c t i o n w i t h the
eralizing and p e r f o r m i n g that promise via day-trading of d o t - c o m stocks
overall trajectory of references to difficult and uncomfortable issues of
on a P C laptop. The basis for such a spiralling configuration, the actions
mediated psychic demands, drives, and determinations, suggests a rela-
and effects of w h i c h both blurred and m u t u a l l y reinforced one another, is
tionship of the film to theories of subjectivity and disavowal significant to
a large part o f what I a m referring to i n this essay as "real-time" desire.
apparatus t h e o r y . T h e evident trope of b l u r r i n g i n b o t h
films—in
21
the
M y claims for these films can therefore be seen i n relation to other
most general sense, their crossing of fairy tales w i t h true stories and flat
recent and significant w o r k o n n e w m e d i a and theory ( a l t h o u g h m o r e
18
precisely rendered relations w i l l be deferred to a subsequent version of this essay). Indeed, the n o t i o n o f " p r e - i i g u r i n g " digital anxiety directly alludes to D a v i d R o d o w i c k ' s w o r k o n the " f i g u r a l , " a t e r m w h i c h he defines and describes i n relation to n e w media's capacity to invent and critique a n d even to be p r o d u c e d by d y n a m i c s "ahead o f p h i l o s o p h y . " T h e figural, for R o d o w i c k , is a concept ( m o r e t h a n a t h i n g ) "meant to describe a distinct m u t a t i o n i n the character of c o n t e m p o r a r y forms o f representation, i n f o r m a t i o n , and c o m m u n i c a t i o n . " to " h e l p characterize the social physiognomies of postindustrial capitalism and the i n f o r m a t i o n society," n o t by the logic of identity, b u t by " t r a c i n g o u t what M o d e r n p h i l o s o p h y has systematically excluded or e l i d e d . "
22
The rise of digital c u l t u r e , and its attendant "pressure" to render and actualize the near future ( w h i c h determines i n part the aesthetics of the real t i m e subjunctive), m i g h t be seen to have p r o d u c e d , i n p o p u l a r c u l ture but also elsewhere, evidence of a likewise pressure t o w a r d different equilibria of "belief" as regards o u r relationships to m e d i a — r e l a t i o n ships that we typically take for granted, the complexities of w h i c h we disavow.
23
T h i s has s i g n i f i c a n t i m p l i c a t i o n s r e g a r d i n g t h e r o l e and
responsibility of m e d i a studies i n this c u l t u r a l context. D i g i t a l anxietyis often rendered i n r e l a t i o n to shifts i n the economies o f avowal: for example, as a result of digital culture's crisis o f indexicality, h o w can one trust what one sees? Apparatus theory can help us to recognize that changes i n the economies o f avowal also necessarily entail changes i n the economies o f disavowal (and. m o r e broadly, occlusion, repression, foreclosure, etc.). These m a y be the spaces where different, even radi24
cal sorts of intervention can reside and occur. M e d i a studies and w o r k i n media history have a responsibility to facilitate this negotiation.
notes 1. By the phrase apparatus theory, I am referring generally to the development of a set of critical methodologies i n the 1970s (but also since), related to theoretically-informed studies of spectatorship and constructions ot mediated subjectivity. This range of studies can be implicitly or explicitly materialist i n nature, and is informed by post-structural theory (especially Marxism and psychoanalysis) i n the attempt to address specific technologies and modes of address i n relation to theories of subjectivity and subject effects. The list of critics and theorists I would consider pertinent to these critical methodologies may be more expansive than is typical: Baudry, Metz, C o m o l l i , Dayan, Heath, Bellour, Vernet, Kuntzel. Mulvey, etc. The pertinent texts by these authors are not therefore suggested to evidence one coherent or boiler-plated set of critical operations, nor a reified and closed historical object termed "apparatus theory." Mv contention is instead that apparatus theory, especially i n light of its grounding i n dynamic theories that identify and interrogate contradictions, is less necessarily totalizing and tautological than perhaps even some of its founders and practitioners may have decreed or implied. In
our contemporary critical and theoretical context, such a dvnamic perspective on both the theoretical foundations of apparatus theorv and the historicized responses that worked to contain-disdain it mav better afford a re-engagement of its premises regarding contemporarv media (if onh situational re-engagements). As indicated by the scope of work by the writers noted above, the range of factors and determinants assessed i n the materialist terms of apparatus theory are certainlv not exclusive of sociohistorical concerns such as industrial history and political and ideological context, including historiographic aspects of fields such as gender, race, ethnicity, and queer studies. 2. The key text i n defining and elaborating on the notion of the post-human is N . Katherine Hayles. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999). 3. John Caldwell discusses such totalizing tropes i n his essav "Introduction: Theorizing the Digital Landrush" i n Electronic Media and Technoculture, ed. John Thornton Caldwell (New Brunswick. N.J.: Rutgers University Press 2000), 1-31. 4. This demarcation of two aspects of apparatus theory is drawn from JeanLouis Baudry, "The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality i n the Cinema," i n Narrative. Apparatus. Ideology, ed. Phil Rosen (New York: C o l u m b i a University Press. 1986), 299-318: see especially note 2. For an example of how various theoretical and critical approaches—including those of apparatus theory—can be utilized i n assessing issues of media specificity i n digital culture, see Lev Manovich's discussion of computer animation i n relation to Bazin, C o m o l l i , and Bordwell-Staiger in Hie Language of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001) pp. 185-191. 5. M y interest i n this topic was inspired by the work of artist Zoe Beloff. who visited a course I co-taught with Brian Miller i n 1999. Her website entitled Philosophical Toys is premised on her contention that the rise of digital culture allows us to reconsider the age of pre-cinema. with both eras at opposite ends of a more constrictive media continuum. Implicit to the strata of pre-cinematic "toys" is the potential for a great multiplicity of "cinemas." each with a distinct "philosophy." The development of dominant cinema, however, severely constrained and delimited this multiplicity for nearly a century, until the rise of contemporary digital culture, which again promises a new plethora of "cinemas." A similar model of cinema history was enunciated by Tom Gunning in his closing remarks at the 2000 GRAFICS Conference at The University of Montreal on "Stop M o t i o n and Fragmentation of Time: Cinematography. Kinetography. Chronophotography." Gunning's governing metaphor was a rope of cinema history, with strands of pre-cinematic devices that became woven tightly into dominant cinema, coming unwound again in the digital age. Recent publications that evidence some of the historiographic potential for such reckonings of cinema history include Barbara Maria Stafford and Frances Terpak's catalog for the Devices of Wonder exhibit, published by the Getty Research Institute. A related historiographic trope is the reconsideration of cinema history from the "lens" of the digital era's essentially electronic characteristics, a project which seems to me more genealogical than archaeological. Donald Crafton's important volume i n the History of Cinema series, The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound. 1926-1931.
for example, reconsiders the early sound era of U.S. cinema as a founding transformation of the medium i n relation to burgeoning electronic culture. Also pertinent to this line of inquiry is my own research on early television history i n Los Angeles, i n which I found that one key audience for the first experiments with "electronic" television i n the city were electrical engineers and sound technicians newly arrived to assist with the development of "talkies." 6. A n n e Friedberg, "The End of Cinema: Multimedia and Technological Change," i n Reinventing Film Studies, ed. Christine G l e d h i l l and Linda Williams (London: Arnold, 2000), 438-52. 7. Mark Williams, "History i n a Flash: Notes on the M y t h of T V 'Liveness.'" in Collecting Visible Evidence, ed. Jane M . Gaines and Michael Renov ( M i n neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 292—312. 8. See for example Joseph Turow. Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), Damien Broderick. The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed bv Rapidly Advancing Technologies (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2001) and Jeremy Rifkin. Tlie Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism Wliere All of Life is a Faid-For Experience (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2000) for three very different explications of the effects of the rise of new media and technologies. 9. M y interest i n thinking about the subjunctive i n relation to contemporary and cyber-culture was initiated by Marjorie Garber's positing of the "prurient wishful subjective," regarding celebrity biographies and the marked role that rumors of homosexuality can play i n them. See Marjorie Garber, Vice Versa; Bisexualitv and the Eroticism of Everyday Life (New York: Touchstone, 1995), p. 137. The term has been directly applied to computer-mediated culture i n Mark Wolf's fine essay "Subjunctive Documentary: Computer Imaging and Simulation," in Collecting Visible Evidence edited by Jane M . Gaines and Michael Renov (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999): 274-291, which is briefly discussed above. 10. The basic plot of the film (which is not especially steeped i n the historical facts of the incident) involves 12-year-old Elsie and her visiting cousin. 8-year-old Frances, who are both committed to fairy lore, and who take photographs of what they claim are actual fairies. As the film opens, it cross-cuts between the lives of two celebrities and that of the girls' family, touched by World War I and the flu epidemic that arose in its wake. A r t h u r Conan Doyle attends a public performance by Harry Houdini, who escapes f r o m a strait-jacket; the mother of the family, Polly, grieves at the headstone of her son lost to illness; Frances attends a performance of the play Peter Pan enthusiastically exclaiming her belief in fairies: Elsie is at play with the fairy cottage and furniture that her late brother designed. The fuller dynamic of their respective emotional states soon becomes more clear. Frances arrives at the family home, awaiting word about her father, who may have been lost while serving in the war. Elsie's father A r t h u r is concerned that Polly w i l l not accept her son's death; she believes i n angels and contact with the afterlife, and attends events such as a meeting of The Theosophical Society. The girls are more empathetic to her, and take an interest i n Elsie's father's camera, borrowing it for their excursions into the woods. When the resultant photos of fairies come to the attention of Conan Doyle, a believer in Spiritualism who lost his o w n son during the war, he elicits opinions
f r o m a skeptical H o u d i n i and also the chemists of Kodak labs before working to publish the pictures i n the popular magazine Tlie Strand. A more broad public speculation and interrogation of the girls and their claims ensues, before a climactic return of the fairies on the night that Frances' father arrives home. 11. See Marina Warner, "Through a Child's Eyes," i n Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment: Lectures, Seminars, and Essays by Marina Warner and Others, edited by Duncan Petrie (London: British Film Institute. 1993): 35-50. 12. See Alex Owen, Tlie Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Nineteenth Century England (London: Virago Press. 1989); R u t h Brandon, Tlie Spiritualists (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1983); and Tom Gunning, "Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations: Spirit Photography, Magic Theater. Trick Films, and Photography's Uncanny," in Fugitive Images: From Photography to Video, edited by Patrice Petro (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995): 42-71. 13. This phrase is not literally taken from Ebert's review, but did appear i n more than one review with sentiments similar to this, obtained via a LexisNexis search. 14. For a solid introduction to some of the ideological issues implicit to photography and its processes, see Suren Lalvani, Photography, Vision, and the Production of Modern Bodies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996). 15. M y analysis of the film that follows contains a plot svnopsis sufficient to this working paper. It should be mentioned that I intend to expand my discussion of both films at a later date. 16. This scene also establishes a relationship between the experience and fate of the discarded robots and certain thematic connotations regarding the history of slavery, including a parallel between the Flesh Fair and practices of lynching. (The robots, like slaves, are mandated to be nonh u m a n property, whose existence nevertheless threatens to blur the boundary with the human. The public spectacle of their subjugation is intended to reify a " h u m a n " stature w h i c h assumes the " n a t u r a l " power to perform such a violent scene of demarcation.) The casting of African-American comedian Chris Rock is significant, as the first robot to be decimated. 17. This scene is strikingly similar to the conclusion of Rosselini's Germany Year Zero (1947), the culmination of his war trilogy, which follows ayoung German boy i n war-ravaged Berlin. The purpose of such a reference is not entirely clear, although it seems to reference an utter bleakness of spirit in both characters. It also perhaps raises an odd tension within the Spielberg ouvre, crossing David's gendered crisis of subjectivity with that of German post—World War II subjectivity. (Spielberg of course has become a major figurehead i n contemporary Holocaust studies.) 18. For more on issues of disavowal and the "utopias" implicit to much of the discourse on digital and cyber-culture, see Philip Rosen. Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Tlieory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), especially chapter 8, titled "Old and New: Image. Indexicality, and Historicity in the Digital Utopia." Rosen's book, which in signal ways continues his reflections and analysis of what he terms 1970s film theory, will clearly be an important text to consider regarding any future deployment of apparatus theory. Michael Renov has discussed the significance of disavowal and ambivalence i n the digital era i n "Documentary Disavowals, or, the Digital. Documentary and Postmodernity" Polygraph 13 (2001): 93-111.
[75
19. A. significant transition i n these representational dynamics that occurred partially in relation to the rise of digital effects is analyzed as "televisuality," i n John Thornton Caldwell, Televisualitv: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 1994). 20. See Steven Holl, Parallax (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000), especially the chapter entitled "Duration." 21. James Gleick suggests that the very phrase "real time" began with the invention of computers, but attained special significance upon the recognition of a demand for computer processing i n bank transactions and money exchanges. See James Gleick, Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (New York: Pantheon Books. 1999), pp. 66-67. 22. D. N . Rodowick, Reading the Figural, or, Philosophy After the New Media (Durham, N C : Duke University Press, 2001), p. 43, 49. Other recent work that seems keenly related to a re-deployment of apparatus theory includes Patricia Ticineto Clough, Autoaffection: Unconscious Tlwught in the Age ofTeletechnology (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2000), which directly addresses Richard Dienst's important work on television, and Mark Hansen, Embodying Technesis: Technology Beyond Writing ( A n n Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000). Each of these books is explicitly engaged in assessing the value of psychoanalytic discourse to work on new media. Psychoanalysis may itself become recognized as a historicized relic of epistemology, available for its mythic potential to contain the realization and dread of new media and posthuman dynamics. 23. It is worth mentioning that Spielberg's subsequent futurist film, Minority Report, can be described i n the terms of this essay as invested in PVR temporarily and desire. PVR's, which are a cross between a V C R and a computer hard-drive, produce their own inflections upon the real-time subjunctive. Their capacity, for example, to "freeze" the "live" image, and then provide "real time" options by which to subsequently delay, fast-forward to, or simply jump to re-synchronize with the "live," represents the newest wrinkle of temporal frenzy within mediated culture. The premise of Minority Report can be seen to perform the desire implicit to P V R temporality: to (subjunctively) fast-forward and "record" into the future, for later playback. There are a number of aspects of this film to discuss i n relation to the other films analyzed here. One interesting point to note is that like Fairy Tale, A.I. also concerns a family grieving the apparent loss of a child: Henry (the father), concerned about the emotional state of Monica (the mother) due to the coma suffered by their son M a r t i n , arranges for a new experimental robot child named David to be provisionally adopted. Minority Report again situates its dramatic premise about subjectivity and mediated temporality i n relation to a protagonist who still grieves the traumatic loss of a child. This trope suggests the likely pertinence of trauma theory as well to the consideration of these films and their attendant themes. 24. One important aspect of foreclosure i n the digital discourse, for example, is the privileged absenting and re-positioning of labor issues within the digital economy, issues that began to reappear with the recognition of the dot-com bust. See for example, Jonathan Weber, " A Worker's Paradox," The Industry Standard 3:30 (August 14,2000): 11, and Jill Andresky Fraser, White Collar Sweatshop: The Deterioration of Work and Its Rewards in Corporate America (New York: WW. Norton & Company, 2001).
bibliography Baudry, Jean-Louis. "The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in the Cinema." In Narrative, Apparatus. Ideology: A Film Tlieory Reader, ed. Philip Rosen. New York: Columbia University Press. 1986. Beloff, Zoe. Philosophical To\ World. . Binkley, Timothy. "Camera Fantasia: Computed Visions of Virtual Realities." Millenium FilmJournal 20-21 (1988-89): 6-43. Brandon, Ruth. The Spiritualists. Buffalo: Prometheus Books. 1983. Broderick, Damien. Tlie Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed bv Rapidly Advancing Technologies. New York: Tom Dohertv Associates. 2001. Bukatman. Scott. "The Artificial Infinite." In Visual Display: Culture beyond Appearances, ed. Lynne Cooke and Peter Wollen. Seattle: Bav Press. 1995. Caldwell. John Thornton. "Introduction: Theorizing the Digital Landrush." In Electronic Media and Technoculture. ed. John T h o r n t o n Caldwell. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 2000. . Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 1994. Cha. Theresa Hak Kvung, ed. Apparatus: Cinematographic Apparatus; Selected Writings. New York: Tanam Press. 1980. Clough. Patricia Ticineto. Autoaffection: Unconscious Thought in the Age ofTeletechnology. Mmnneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2000. Crafton. Donald. The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926—1931. History of the American Cinema. Volume 4. Berkeley: The University of California Press. 1997. Dienst. Richard. Still Life in Real Time. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press. 1994. Fraser, Jill Andresky. Wliite Collar Sweatshop: The Deterioration of Work and Its Rewards in Corporate America. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. Friedberg, A n n e . "The End of Cinema: M u l t i m e d i a and Technological Change." In Reinventing Film Studies, ed. Christine G l e d h i l l and Linda Williams. London: Arnold. 2000. Garber, Marjorie. Vice Versa: Bisexualitv and the Eroticism of Everyday Life. New York: Touchstone. 1995. Gleick, James. Faster: The Acceleration of Just about Everything. New York: Pantheon Books, 1999. Gunning, Tom. "Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations: Spirit Photography, Magic Theater, Trick Films, and Photography's Uncanny." In Fugitive Images: From Photography to Video, edited bv Patrice Petro. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Hansen, Mark. Embodying Technesis: Technology beyond Writing. A n n Arbor: U n i versity of Michigan Press. 2000. Hayles. N . Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics. Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1999. Lalvani, Suren. Photography, Vision, and the Production of Modern Bodies. Albanv: State University of New York Press. 1996. Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: M I T Press. 2001. Mayne. Judith. Cinema and Spectatorship. New York: Routledge. 1993. Metz, Christian. The Imaginary Signifier. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1977.
Morse. Margaret. Virtualities: Television, Media Art, and Cyberculture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. Owen, Alex. Tlie Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Nineteenth Century England. London: Virago Press, 1989. Petrie, Duncan. Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment: Lectures, Seminars, and Essays by Marina Warner and Others. London: British Film Institute, 1993. Poster. Mark. The Second Media Age. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. Renov, Michael. "Documentary Disavowals," Polygraph 13 (2001): 93-111. Rifkin, Jeremy. The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism Where All of Life is a Paid-For Experience. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2000. Rodowick. D. N . Reading the Figural, or, Philosophy after the New Media. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001. Rosen, Phil. Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. . ed. Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Tlieory Reader. New York: C o l u m bia Unviersity Press. 1986. Sobchak. Vivian. "Nostalgia for a Digital Object: Regrets on the Quickening of Quicktime." Millenium Film journal 34 (1999): 4-23. Stafford. Barbara Maria and Frances Terpak. Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2001. Turow, Joseph. Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World. Chicago:
t w e l v e
tulip theory
University of Chicago Press, 1997. Warner, Marina. "Through a Child's Eyes." In Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment: Lectures, Seminars, and Essays by Marina Warner and Others. Edited by Duncan Petrie. London: British Film Institute, 1993. Weber, Jonathan. " A Worker's Paradox," The Industry Standard3, no. 30 (2000): 11. White. M i m i . "Television: A N a r r a t i v e — A History." Cultural Studies 3, no. 3 (1989): 282-300. Williams, Mark. "History in a Flash: Notes on the M y t h of T V 'Liveness.'" In Collecting Visible Evidence, ed. Jane M . Gaines and Michael Renov. M i n neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Wolf. Mark. "Subjunctive Documentary: Computer Imaging and Simulation." In Collecting Visible Evidence, ed. Jane M . Gaines and Michael Renov. M i n neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
J e f f r e y
s c o n c e
After the N A S D A Q / d o t - c o m crash of 2000, business reporters searched for a historical parable to p u t the disaster i n proper perspective. Several settled o n Charles Mackay's account of " t u l i p o m a n i a " i n his canonical chronicle of h u m a n folly, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841). For those unfamiliar w i t h this w o r k . Mackay recounts the introduction of the tulip to Western Europe i n the seventeenth century and h o w G e r m a n and D u t c h aristocrats became so e n a m o u r e d of this Turkish i m p o r t that a " m a n i a " drove the price of the flowers to unbelievable heights. Rare, exotic, and i n d e m a n d ( t h o u g h essentially useless except as ornamentation), tulips became the foundation for a w h o l e new speculative economy. Mackay reports of one m a n trading twelve acres of land for a single tulip! C o m i c stories abounded of u n w i t t i n g bystanders mistaking a precious t u l i p b u l b for a deformed o n i o n and accidentally eating an i n v e s t m e n t equal to a year's wages. B y 1636, as t u l i p o m a n i a spread beyond the moneyed classes, even the "lowest dregs" (Mackay's words) began to speculate i n the tulip trade, p o o l i n g their m o n e y to buy
and sell t u l i p futures o n the D u t c h stock exchange. M a c k a y takes this
departments a r o u n d "vapor studies." W h i l e such scrutiny m a y seem a
story to its inevitable conclusion: " A t l a s t . . . the m o r e prudent began to
rather solipsistic pursuit, changes i n the academic Zeitgeist do eventu-
see that this folly c o u l d not last forever. R i c h people n o longer bought
allv t r i c k l e d o w n to o u r students w h i l e also setting t h e b o u n d a r i e s
the flowers to keep t h e m i n their gardens, but to sell t h e m again at cent
for f u t u r e research i n t h e field (indeed, s u c h changes h e l p define the
per cent profit. It was seen that somebody must lose fearfully i n the end.
"field"). W i t h t h e e m e r g i n g field o f n e w - m e d i a studies, w e have the
As this conviction spread, prices fell, and never rose again."
chance to see an academic discipline i n its e m b r y o n i c stages. A n d , at
1
As a parable o f the stock m a r k e t , the parallels are obvious. This is
least i n the early days o f digital studies, there seems to be a disconnect
w h a t happens w h e n people wake u p and realize that there is n o "there"
between the increasingly banal applications of digital m e d i a i n the "real
t h e r e — t h a t the e c o n o m y is based o n t u l i p s (or o n l i n e services w i t h
w o r l d " and the favored objects o f digital study i n the academy. C y b e r -
slick p i t c h m e n , great graphics, and n o customers). T h e f o l l o w i n g rant
studies c o n t i n u e to trade i n t u l i p s despite t h e fact t h a t evidence o f
considers h o w this t u l i p o m a n i a has spread b e y o n d t h e c o r r i d o r s of
sweeping transformations i n identity, reality, art, and politics remains
N A S D A Q , market power and into the hallways o f university programs
scant. Yes. a few i B o o k anarchists used e - m a i l to r a l l y m o r e people to
i n f i l m , television, and other mass media. As any fossil still teaching film
j u m p u p and d o w n o n police cars d u r i n g the W o r l d Trade Organization
and television realizes, it's a l l about "digital c u l t u r e " n o w . This is true
meetings i n Seattle, b u t m a n y m o r e " N e t i z e n s " are interested i n o r -
i n terms of f u n d i n g , h i r i n g priorities, and general i n s t i t u t i o n a l e n t h u -
ganizing to protest h o w s l o w A O L is for d o w n l o a d i n g p o r n . Despite the
siasm. A t the same t i m e , however, I t h i n k m o s t o f us w o u l d be hard-
incredible f r e e d o m and creativity p r o m i s e d by h y p e r t e x t fiction, few
pressed to t h i n k of a discipline i n w h i c h m o r e pages have been printed
people (beyond its practitioners) seem to be c l a m o r i n g for it. There m a y
about things that haven't happened yet (and m a y never) or p h e n o m -
come a day w h e n people t h r o w over Stephen K i n g and J o h n G r i s h a m
ena that i n the l o n g r u n are s i m p l y n o t very i m p o r t a n t (Jenni-cam.
novels for the pleasures of h o t l i n k i n g t h r o u g h a t o r t u r e d bohemian's
anyone?). O f course, o n l y an i d i o t w o u l d c l a i m that digital m e d i a are
interactive a c c o u n t of h e r p e r c e i v e d c h i l d h o o d a b u s e — b u t I d o u b t
not w o r t h y o f analysis, an assertion that w o u l d sadly replicate the hos-
it. D i g i t a l l y based v i s u a l a n d p e r f o r m a n c e arts, finally, are e v e n less
tility toward film and television studies encountered i n the last century.
popular t h a n m i d d l e class culture's previous w h i p p i n g boys—abstract
N o one doubts the importance o f digital m e d i a as a n e w f o r m o f distri-
expressionism and atonal m u s i c . T h o u g h cyberenthusiasts have t e m -
b u t i o n for the c u l t u r e industries or as a new m o d e of t e l e c o m m u n i c a -
pered their claims i n the past few years (often t h r o u g h an obligatory
tions for b o r e d office w o r k e r s . T h e place o f digital m e d i a i n b o t h the
and half-hearted reference to the "digital divide"), there persists i n n e w
political and c u l t u r a l economies of the f u t u r e is certain. B u t generally,
media c u l t u r e a r e v o l u t i o n a r y discourse " i m p l y i n g some larger social
this isn't r e a l l y w h a t n e w m e d i a scholars are interested i n s t u d y i n g .
change, as if the major s t r u c t u r a l problems confronting o u r democracy
A c a d e m i c " t u l i p o m a n i a " can be f o u n d i n the seemingly endless claims
were merely technical s h o r t c o m i n g s . "
3
that the internet, M U D S ( m u l t i u s e r domains), avatars, v i r t u a l reality
There are of course m a n y scholars d o i n g excellent w o r k i n the p o l i t -
( V R ) , T i V O . Palm-pilots and w h a t n o t have led to radical redefinitions
ical, financial, and c u l t u r a l economies of n e w media, e x a m i n i n g digital
o f identity, race, gender, narrative, subjectivity, c o m m u n i t y , d e m o c -
culture less as a giddy r e v o l u t i o n t h a n as p r o d u c t and extension of m o r e
racy, the body, and so o n . " T h e m o r e visionary proponents and analysts
entrenched social forces. B u t let's face it: t h u m b i n g t h r o u g h the course
o f cyberspace c o m e to v i r t u a l t e c h n o l o g i e s f r o m a v a r i e t y o f back-
schedules o f m a n y m e d i a departments and the catalogs of major u n i -
grounds and perspectives," notes Robert M a r k l e y , "but they share the
versity presses, this isn't the sexy, grant-grabbing, tenure insurance that
belief t h a t cyberspace m a r k s a r e v o l u t i o n a r y e x p a n s i o n — a n d libera-
makes for a career these days. R e a d i n g the m o r e v a p o r y w o r k o n n e w
t i o n — o f o u r senses o f identity and r e a l i t y . " A l l t o o f r e q u e n t l y s u c h
media, one gets the feeling that most o f its claims about the recasting of
academic claims depend n o t o n any tangible historical or sociological
body, identity, and subjectivity are based o n either p o p u l a r representa-
evidence c o n c e r n i n g anyone's actual identity or reality but o n theoret-
tions of these technologies, avant-garde art incorporating these t e c h n o l o -
ical p o s t u r i n g buttressed by little m o r e t h a n science fiction or digital
gies, or critical theory projected onto these technologies. In the p o p - c u l t
2
gallery installations said to " e x p l o r e " issues o f identity and reality.
realm, calling W i l l i a m Gibson's Neuromancer the "bible" o f cyberstudies is
D i g i t a l p u n d i t s refer to fantastic b u t as yet u n r e a l i z e d c o m p u t e r
not far off the mark. Like the bible, Gibson's novel has also become a fic-
applications as "vaporware." G i v e n the c o n t i n u i n g emphasis o n t u l i p y
tion d i v o r c e d f r o m history, a m y s t i c a l d o c u m e n t o f parables that the
speculation that permeates m a n y n e w technology claims, we m i g h t do
faithful take as absolute truth.' M e a n w h i l e , as the l o w l y masses c l a m o r
w e l l to explore the implications of b u i l d i n g m o r e and m o r e media
for T i V O , WebTV, and other digital technologies that w i l l aid i n a m o r e
1
interactive a n d e m a n c i p a t e d c o n s u m p t i o n o f Everybody Loves Raymond.
all other extinct technologies). A s it so happens, the people interested
gallery installations featuring digital media give the impression that we
i n " n e w m e d i a " are o f t e n m u c h better at n e t w o r k i n g a n d r a i s i n g
are all experiencing such a crisis of cybernetic fragmentation that it's a
m o n e y — w h i c h administrators love. They're also very good at convinc-
wonder anyone can find their way to w o r k i n the m o r n i n g . N e w media
i n g deans and provosts that " o l d m e d i a " like books, film, and television
t h e o r y , finally, o f t e n places the c y b e r - a p p l e c a r t before the v i r t u a l
are actually old media. T h e fact that many, m a n y m o r e people still read
h o r s e — d i s c u s s i n g a w o r l d o f d i g i t a l s p e c u l a t i o n as i f it were i n fact
books, go to movies, and w a t c h television t h a n explore the frontiers o f
already digital reality.
cyberspace matters little. Digital m e d i a are the future, we are t o l d , and
As a media historian and intermittent n e w - m e d i a pedagogue, I t h i n k
no one wants to be left behind. In any case, the creation of n e w - m e d i a
the i m p a c t o f digital c u l t u r e , digital media, and digital studies o n the
studies provides a strategic p o i n t o f entry for renegotiating resources,
academy raises fascinating and i m p o r t a n t questions. W h a t exactly is the
priorities, and profiles w i t h i n m e d i a studies itself m o r e b r o a d l y c o n -
mission o f n e w m e d i a studies'. As m o r e and m o r e academic programs
ceived. Often at stake here is a vision as to w h a t s h o u l d constitute m e d i a
change t h e i r names to a c c o m m o d a t e d i g i t a l m e d i a , w h a t exactly is
s t u d i e s — f u t u r e - l o o k i n g techno-boosters ready to w i r e and f u n d the
being added? H o w does the addition o f digital m e d i a to film and televi-
department for the n e w m i l l e n n i u m , or bedraggled historians trapped
sion departments i m p a c t other research projects and paradigms? H o w ,
i n their m u s t y cubicles w o r r i e d about days l o n g gone. " W h i l e the t w o
finally,
d i d we get to a state o f affairs w h e r e the c y b e r c o n t o r t i o n s of
types sometimes meet at conferences, the terms o f engagement are t y p -
Stelarc the M a g n i f i c e n t stand as a m o r e i m p o r t a n t c o m m e n t a r y on
ically o n l y superficial." notes L y n n Spigel. " T h e h i s t o r i a n s . . . get carted
technology and the b o d y t h a n the daily travails o f a n o v e r w o r k e d tele-
out to present c o l o r f u l anecdotes about 1950s housewives decorating
marketer? Part of the answer, I believe, is to be f o u n d i n the
fluctuations
their T V sets o r n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y k o o k s u s i n g x-rays to m u t i l a t e
of t w o academic economies, the marketplaces o f university resources
their h a n d s . . . . M e a n w h i l e , the f u t u r e is narrated by the n e w - t e c h n o l -
and m e d i a theory.
ogy c r o w d , m a n y of w h o m are so steeped i n e n l i g h t e n m e n t notions of
cybercarrots
rr
¡3-
o
progress' and r o m a n t i c dreams o f c o m m u n i t y and transcendence o n the N e t that history seems o n l y a dead weight bogging Utopia d o w n . "
5
M e d i a scholars w h o have read this far (and w h o else would read this far?)
The constant repetition of this narrative i n individual departments and
are n o d o u b t f e e l i n g the pressure a r o u n d f u n d i n g f o r t h e i r depart-
t h r o u g h o u t the larger discipline has solidified the idea that n e w tech-
m e n t s . M a n y o f us, I i m a g i n e , began i n the h u m a n i t i e s as E n g l i s h
nologies are a " g r o w t h field"—a place where money, o p p o r t u n i t y , and
majors or art history majors, l o o k i n g f o r w a r d to the day that we w o u l d
prestige await all w i l l i n g to forge ahead and stake their c l a i m .
have tenure, a decent office, and the o p p o r t u n i t y to consume the texts
T h u s , at m a n y i n s t i t u t i o n s o f h i r e d l e a r n i n g , d i g i t a l m e d i a have
of o u r choice, t h i n k about t h e m , and then teach and write about t h e m .
b e c o m e one o f the juiciest carrots ever to h a n g i n f r o n t of the sad,
O f course, over the past few years, s u c h a m o d e l of scholarship has been
d o w n t r o d d e n l i t t l e d o n k e y t h a t is n o w the l i b e r a l arts. In the n e w
rearticulated i n p o p u l a r c u l t u r e and university administration as rather
c o r p o r a t e m o d e o f u n i v e r s i t y o r g a n i z a t i o n , d i g i t a l m e d i a h o l d the
rarefied and parasitic. N o w we are a l l greatly encouraged to find "exter-
promise o f c h a n n e l i n g revenue streams i n t o (gasp!) h u m a n i t i e s p r o -
n a l f u n d i n g , " m a k e l u c r a t i v e c o n n e c t i o n s to p o t e n t i a l d o n o r s , and
grams, a l l o w i n g t h e m to at last fall i n line w i t h the v o c a t i o n a l m o d e l
contribute to p e c u n i a r y — t h a t is, pedagogical—advances t h r o u g h "dis-
that m a n y students, parents, a n d regents w a n t to see i n a u n i v e r s i t y
tance l e a r n i n g . " A l l o f these activities w i l l h e l p fill the coffers o f our
e d u c a t i o n . H a v i n g y o u r s o n o r d a u g h t e r b e c o m e o n e o f the state's
various institutions and offset the cost of us h a n g i n g out i n coffee shops,
leading experts o n Finnegans Wake is s o m e h o w less p a i n f u l i f they also
engaged i n the u n p r o d u c t i v e labor o f t h i n k i n g , w r i t i n g , and m e n t o r -
l e a r n h o w to design a Finnegans Wake w e b s i t e — a t least that's practical
ing. Some take to this challenge like a fish to w a t e r — s o enthusiastically
experience that m i g h t be of interest to prospective employers. That's
t h a t o n e w o n d e r s w h a t attracted t h e m to academic life i n the first
all w e l l and g o o d to the extent that it helps departments survive, gives
place. O t h e r s have to be dragged k i c k i n g and s c r e a m i n g o u t o f the
graduates a n o t h e r career p a t h , and perhaps even u n d e r w r i t e s those
library to hustle for grants, donations, and the spare cash that m i g h t fly
cranks still interested i n o l d m e d i a and o l d history. W h a t is t r o u b l i n g ,
out the w i n d o w of a passing C E O ' s Mercedes.
however, is w h e n the integration of s u c h vocational t r a i n i n g leads to
This often creates tension i n m e d i a departments between those w h o
r a m p i n g u p p r o g r a m s w i t h resources and p e r s o n n e l that overrepre-
study " n e w m e d i a " and those w h o r e m a i n m i r e d i n " o l d m e d i a " (film,
sent a v e r y n a r r o w (and potentially fleeting) intellectual and t e c h n o -
television, radio, the telegraph, books, semaphores, cave paintings, and
logical m o m e n t . As m a n y w o u l d n o d o u b t agree, these are b o o n years
183
f o r those w h o k n o w ( o r c a n fake t h e i r w a y t h r o u g h ) basic software
o u t i n t o t h e w o r l d a n d b r i n g back s o m e t h i n g t h a t c o u l d be e d i t e d
packages. Since so m a n y o f us i n m e d i a departments are m i d d l e - a g e d
together i n t o a c o m p e l l i n g w o r k of art. Jean-Luc G o d a r d using a shop-
farts still d a z z l e d every t i m e w e figure o u t h o w to access o u r e - m a i l
p i n g cart f o r a d o l l y w h i l e s h o o t i n g Breathless was a s t o r y o f h e r o i c
f r o m a remote location, freshly m i n t e d Ph.D.s w h o can p u t u p a w e b -
improvisation and creativity. N o w , however, we have all been so t h o r -
site w i t h o u t starting a m i n o r housefire become as v a l u e d (or m o r e so)
o u g h l y interpolated by Wired magazine's m a r k e t i n g discourse that the
t h a n those t y i n g to survive o n i n t e l l e c t u a l o r s c h o l a r l y ability alone.
s h a m e o f t e c h n o l a g is f o r e v e r u p o n u s — o f t e n a c t i v a t i n g i n f a n t i l e
Sadly, g i v e n t h e c h o i c e b e t w e e n h i r i n g a b r i l l i a n t l o g o c e n t r i c a n d
regression i n departments around w h o has the newest c o m p u t e r . Those
s o m e o n e w h o c a n teach P h o t o s h o p , m a n y m e d i a d e p a r t m e n t s w i l l
o f us w h o s i m p l y w r i t e f o r a l i v i n g c o u l d p r o b a b l y s t i l l get b y o n a
n o w choose the latter i n fear that someone else o n campus w i l l e n d u p
C o m m o d o r e 64, but not if the dude i n the next office is gettin' a D e l l ! So
teaching a l l the P h o t o s h o p courses. If said P h o t o s h o p i n s t r u c t o r c a n
strong is this i m p u l s e that we occasionally see the sad spectacle of once
teach courses l i k e " P h o t o s h o p a n d t h e B o d y , " " G l o b a l i z a t i o n a n d
highly c o m m i t t e d Marxists sincerely debating w h e t h e r o r not the n e w
P h o t o s h o p , " o r "the V i s u a l C u l t u r e o f P h o t o s h o p , " so m u c h t h e bet-
LMac design is a g o o d m o v e for A p p l e .
ter. N e v e r m i n d t h a t a n y r e a s o n a b l y m o t i v a t e d t h i r t e e n - y e a r o l d
Beyond enabling o u r forays i n t o m e d i a p r o d u c t i o n and s t i r r i n g o u r
a r m e d o n l y w i t h a s i x - p a c k o f Pepsi, a W a l k m a n , a n d a n operator's
love o f t h e h a r d w a r e , d i g i t a l media's m o s t p r o f o u n d i m p a c t o n t h e
m a n u a l can teach herself P h o t o s h o p i n an afternoon.
m a r k e t p l a c e o f academe m a y w e l l be i n h o w w e c o n c e p t u a l i z e o u r
This i n f l u x o f hardware into the humanities has also l e d to a r e c o n -
relationship to research and w r i t i n g . Obviously, c o m p u t e r s have vastly
ceptualization of what constitutes productive labor i n an academic envi-
accelerated o u r ability to organize i n f o r m a t i o n a n d generate m a n u -
r o n m e n t , a fantasy that can appeal to b o t h administrators and faculty.
scripts. We are that l u c k y m i n o r i t y i n t h e digital age w h o thrive o n the
Again, administrators do not m i n d if one uses departmental resources to
acceleration o f i n f o r m a t i o n . A s A n d r e w Ross observes o f i n f o r m a t i o n
design a devastatingly subversive T h e o d o r A d o r n o C D - R o m , as l o n g as
professionals, " O u r tools are v i e w e d as artisanal, and they can h e l p us
i n the process the exercise helps students find jobs i n corporate graphics
w i n comparative advantage i n t h e field i f they c a n access and extract
departments o n d o w n the road. For faculty, meanwhile, new media lib-
the r e l e v a n t i n f o r m a t i o n a n d results i n a t i m e l y f a s h i o n . I n s u c h a
erate a lifetime of frustrated creative fantasies. Those w h o have studied
reward e n v i r o n m e n t , i t makes sense to respond to t h e heady promise
film and television over t h e years have generally been excluded f r o m
of velocification i n all its f o r m s . . . . " Ross's concern is to delineate the
m e a n i n g f u l arenas of p r o d u c t i o n . Digital technologies, however, make
cybercaste system that supports the m o r e s u b l i m e manifestations o f
the p r o d u c t i o n o f websites, hypertexts, C D - R o m s , digital v i d e o , and
digitopia ("Let's n o t forget that for every one of us w h o wants o u r PCs
o t h e r creative formats relatively easy. T h i s indulges academics i n the
and software to go faster, there are fifty others w h o w a n t t h e m to go
vibrant fantasy that they can be b o t h producers and critics of media (or
s l o w e r , " h e n o t e s ) . We s h o u l d also c o n s i d e r , h o w e v e r , w h a t this
7
8
even worse, producers of critical media). For once, academics seem to be
"velocification" has done w i t h i n o u r o w n r e a l m o f professional i n f o r -
b u i l d i n g t h e f u t u r e rather t h a n s i m p l y w a t c h i n g i t arrive. T h i s m o v e
m a t i o n . A s a n undergraduate E n g l i s h major, I r e m e m b e r being h i g h l y
f r o m reflection to p r o d u c t i o n is n o t w i t h o u t its hazards. T h e " g u s h o f
impressed by a professor's assertion that W i l l i a m F a u l k n e r w r o t e As I
workaday, real-time analysis of the future m a y seem to provide a band-
Lay Dying o n a t y p e w r i t e r i n six m o n t h s w h i l e he was w o r k i n g f o r t y
w a g o n o p p o r t u n i t y f o r m e d i a studies scholars, w h o have w a i t e d
h o u r s a w e e k i n a G e n e r a l E l e c t r i c p l a n t . W h i l e i t has been r a t h e r
patiently for their place at the table o f c o m m e r c i a l , p u b l i c discourse,"
unfashionable to talk about creative genius i n the past few years, this
notes John C a l d w e l l . " B u t technospeak also issues a n effusive density of
story (if true) certainly speaks to a drive and focus I ' m sure m a n y o f us
conceptual clutter that m a y actually m u d d y the waters and meanings of
wish we c o u l d harness today ( m y T V - a d d l e d brain certainly c o u l d n ' t
digital technologies."
w h e n i t came t i m e f o r m y t e r m paper o n F a u l k n e r ) . T h e r e has been
6
This shift i n academic m e d i a c u l t u r e f r o m " t h i n k i n g " to " d o i n g " is also a f u n c t i o n o f o u r c o n t i n u i n g fetishization of the technology itself.
m u c h w r i t t e n about h o w c o m p u t e r s change t h e act o f w r i t i n g itself, but i f we were to b o i l this t r e n d d o w n for its i m p a c t o n academic c u l -
We've a l l seen (and probably participated) i n this d r a m a — t h e glazed
ture, we m i g h t consider i f the ease of w r i t i n g afforded by the c o m p u t e r
l o o k that comes over a colleague's face w i t h t h e a n n o u n c e m e n t that
is countered by a lack (or at least an acceleration) o f critical reflection.
t h e n e w p o w e r b o o k has h i t t h e stores. " H a v e y o u seen t h e n e w G4?
Imagine, f o r example, t h e terror sweats we w o u l d experience today i f
Heard the iPod?" I n the h a l c y o n days o f film studies, w e all a d m i r e d the
we were t o embark o n t h e Arcades project o r Negative Dialectics a r m e d
1j
i„
— ~~.,1,1 f U 0
a
nr> n\A U n l o v r Q m p M and a rranltv Narjra
o n l y w i t h a n o t e p a d o r a t y p e w r i t e r ! Indeed, t h e i d e a o f a m a s t e r -
w o r k — t h e c u l m i n a t i o n o f a life's t h o u g h t a n d
reflection—seems
T h o s e w i t h an " i n s t r u m e n t a l i s t " interest i n t h e o r y e m p l o y it t o
almost absurd n o w i n the age o f ephemeral digitality. N o doubt some
"solve" problems and avoid charges o f naive positivism. W i t h i n the " c u l -
w i l l regard s u c h c o n c e r n s as the r e s i d u a l a n x i e t y o f a c r a n k y m o d -
ture o f t h e o r y , " however, rote " a p p l i c a t i o n " becomes less i m p o r t a n t
_ h e paradigms o f w o r k and k n o w l e d g e n o w have the potential
t h a n creative "performance." A s the stakes o f theoretical performativity
to change i n l i b e r a t o r y and progressive ways, we are t o l d . A l l t e c h -
become higher, the c u l t u r e o f theory increasingly engages i n dialogue
nologies, o f course, o p e n n e w possibilities w h i l e e n d i n g others, and I'm
w i t h itself rather t h a n the ostensible "objects" and " p r o b l e m s " it once
e r n i s t
t
certainly not arguing that we s h o u l d go back to h u n t i n g and p e c k i n g
distantly addressed. Defenders o f " g r a n d t h e o r y " (as it is sometimes
o n o u r S m i t h and Coronas. S t i l l , w h o a m o n g us has n o t w o n d e r e d if it
called) m i g h t argue that s u c h metaspeculation is essential to intellectual
is a b i t too easy to w r i t e a n d p u b l i s h t o d a y . O n t h e b r i g h t side, t h i s
progress, constituting a laboratory where the theory of t o m o r r o w takes
hyperacceleration of o u r w o r k m a y lead to m o r e t i m e l y interventions
shape. I w o u l d agree that theoretical research and d e v e l o p m e n t is an
i n p u b l i c debate a n d a n e v e n t u a l facsimile o f academic t r u t h . T h e n
essential c o m p o n e n t o f the d i s c i p l i n e — e v e n i f it does occasionally lead
again, it m a y m e a n , i n the spirit o f H e n r y D a v i d T h o r e a u , m o r e and
to blind alleys o r open u p academia i n general to charges o f irrelevance
m o r e of us w i l l realize faster and faster that, i n the e n d . we have less
by the various anti-intellectual dullards so p o p u l a r o n the Fox News net-
and less to say.
w o r k and elsewhere. Citizens o f a poststructuralist age, m o s t o f us prob-
9
ably feel there is n o final answer to any critical question, and that the t h e o r y club
split between theory and object, like that between f o r m and content, is
If digital m e d i a i n the academy have accelerated f u n d i n g o p p o r t u n i -
at best a heuristic convenience. Theories and objects constantly redefine
ties, the lust for hardware, and o v e r a l l w r i t i n g o u t p u t , they have also presented a fertile t e r r a i n for the c u l t i v a t i o n of T h e o r y w i t h a capital T. M a n y o f us s t i l l i m a g i n e t h e o r y to be s i m p l y an i n t e l l e c t u a l t o o l : questions exist, and t h e o r y helps us e x p l a i n t h e m . A n d yet. there is
one another t h r o u g h the dialogue o f history and critical practice; therefore, we s h o u l d resist the empiricist temptation to dismiss even the most impenetrable metatheory as mere speculative posturing. Nevertheless, the c u r r e n t intersection o f theory c u l t u r e and digital
also a " c u l t u r e of t h e o r y " i n academia that is equally i m p o r t a n t . H e r e
media has presented a particularly fascinating historical conjuncture, a
theories exist as c o m m o d i t i e s subject to the vicissitudes o f any other
m o m e n t w h e n the acceleration o f digital theorization threatens to o u t -
m a r k e t o f exchange, c o m p e t i n g for fleeting status as the discipline's
r u n the development and d e p l o y m e n t o f any actual digital media. " T h e
" c u t t i n g edge" i n w h a t Pierre B o u r d i e u m i g h t c a l l the " i n t e l l e c t u a l
f u t u r e . " writes C a l d w e l l , "has never been so systematically envisioned,
field."
Perhaps because m e d i a studies is a y o u n g d i s c i p l i n e , it has
aggressively analyzed, and grandly theorized as i n the present r u s h to
been h i g h l y i n t e r d i s c i p l i n a r y i n nature; indeed, one m i g h t argue the
the cyber and d i g i t a l . " R a y m o n d Williams once said o f television that it
explosion o f interest i n film studies i n the 1970s m a r k e d the b e g i n n i n g
was the first t e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s t e c h n o l o g y to be devised w i t h o u t
10
11
of the increasingly vibrant i n t e r d i s c i p l i n a r y nature o f a l l h u m a n i t i e s
regard to its eventual content. "It is n o t o n l y that the s u p p l y o f broad-
research today. A s w i t h any s t r e n g t h , however, there is also a weak-
casting facilities preceded their d e m a n d , " he writes, "it is that the means
ness. T h e t h e o r e t i c a l " p r o m i s c u i t y " o f m e d i a s t u d i e s — i t s constant
of c o m m u n i c a t i o n preceded their content."
quest t o a s s i m i l a t e o t h e r p a r a d i g m s so as t o r e i n v e n t i t s e l f — c a n
the seemingly i n t u i t i v e logic o f technological d e t e r m i n i s m , his p o i n t
12
A M a r x i s t salvo h u r l e d at
also lead to accelerated cycles of theoretical fashion ( n o t to m e n t i o n
was that social forces implement technologies; they are not radically trans-
r a m p a n t d i l e t t a n t i s m ) . T h i r t y - y e a r veterans o f m e d i a studies have
f o r m e d by t h e m . If broadcasting technology developed i n advance o f its
seen a d i z z y i n g parade o f p a r a d i g m s m a r c h b y : a u t e u r i s m , genre
content, grand theory's discovery o f digital media goes one step further,
theory, semiotics, M a r x i s m , psychoanalysis, s t r u c t u r a l anthropology,
creating an academic discipline i n advance o f its "object." M o r e a c c u -
p e r f o r m a n c e t h e o r y , gender t h e o r y , queer t h e o r y , f o r m a l i s m , neof o r m a l i s m , c u l t u r a l studies, ethnography, p o s t m o d e r n i s m , a n d postc o l o n i a l i s m , just to n a m e a v e r y few. S o m e paradigms find a place and r e m a i n a v i t a l part o f the i n s t i t u t i o n ; others fade away i n t o historical o b l i v i o n . A n d , at any g i v e n m o m e n t , n e w approaches vie for ascendancy as a means o f r e c o n f i g u r i n g a p r i o r set of questions related to the study o f m e d i a .
rately, n e w - m e d i a studies m a y w e l l be the first discipline where "theo r y " does n o t derive f r o m a study o f the "object"; rather, the object of n e w - m e d i a studies derives (so far) m o r e f r o m theoretical conjecture t h a n demonstrable i m p a c t . A s society i m p l e m e n t s m e d i a , so too the academy i m p l e m e n t s theory. In this respect, the language o f theory (dismissed as " j a r g o n " by its foes) is a m u c h a p r o d u c t i v e force as a descriptive r h e t o r i c . Say, for
w h o demonstrates a mastery o f almost every relevant theoretical para-
an ongoing recasting of the Baudrillardian strain of postmodern theory.
d i g m , generating w o r k i n the points o f contact and conflict between
For those w h o remember the 1980s theoretically, simulation and hyper-
v i s i o n a r y e x e m p l a r s . T h e s y n t h e s i z e r o f t e n sets t h e o v e r a l l t e r m s
reality used to be rather sinister concepts, seen (perhaps wrongly) as the
of debate for a field and brokers w h a t is or is n o t " h o t " i n the w o r l d o f
final electronic victory of advanced capitalist spectacle. N o w , of course,
theory. B e l o w the synthesizer is the dogmatist, a critic w h o masters one
s i m u l a t i o n a n d h y p e r r e a l i t y are states to be d e s i r e d — d i g i t a l m e d i a
theoretical approach, applies it to all c u l t u r a l p h e n o m e n a f r o m opera
promising us any reality we care to construct, even helping us to better
to car repair, and t h e n learns h o w to reasonably defend h i m s e l f f r o m
understand o u r o w n core identity. Finally, there is the residue of seven-
the assaults of other paradigms. B e h i n d the dogmatist is the bricoleur, the
ties era film theory (via Jacques Lacan and Louis Althusser) that posited
l o w version o f the synthesizer, p i l l a g i n g the "greatest hits" o f various
media (as a f o r m o f language) m u s t have some direct, productive rela-
22
theoretical paradigms w i t h no real sense of their history or i n t e r c o n -
tionship w i t h subjectivity. 'Apparatus theory," as it was called, stumbled a
nection. A t the b o t t o m of the heap: insufferable positivists.
bit w h e n applied to television, and yet its fundamental premise that media
A t present, I w o u l d argue the s t u d y o f " d i g i t a l c u l t u r e " i n v o l v e s
technologies produce "subjectivity" remains an influential concept.
competition a m o n g m a n y "synthesizers" v y i n g to generate the visionary
Turkle's w o r k w i t h M U D s presents an interesting intersection of the
exemplar. This c o m p e t i t i o n has m a n y faces. In his i n t r o d u c t i o n to Elec-
abstractions of h i g h theory and the specificity of media ethnography. The
tronic Media and Technoculture, C a l d w e l l demonstrates, rather u n n e r v i n g l y ,
more vapory w i n g of new media studies, however, does not so m u c h map
the a l m o s t m i r r o r e d r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n academic a n d i n d u s t r i a l
theory onto "real" people as cite digital art as evidence of significant trans-
tropes of n e w media, suggesting that each d o m a i n places its o w n i n t e r -
formations i n c u l t u r e and society. Like the w o r l d o f h i g h theory, avant-
pretive spin o n shared assumptions about technology and the f u t u r e .
garde art is often m o r e a dialogue a m o n g a closed circle o f connoisseurs
20
T h e i n d u s t r y ' s s p i n , as w e m i g h t i m a g i n e , derives f r o m the h o p e o f
than a dialogue w i t h audiences o r their w o r l d . As yet, we do n o t have
expanding profits and marketplaces. T h e academic spin o n n e w media,
fully immersive V R , or unnervingly sentient artificial intelligence, or even
however, seems m o r e a c o m p e t i t i o n a m o n g f o r m e r critical exemplars,
v e r y impressive cybernetic prosthetics; b u t we do have p l e n t y o f art
bodies o f theory conceptualized i n a logocentric universe n o w pressed
premised on the idea that the attending changes i n vision, identity, reality,
i n t o s e t t i n g t e r m s o f debate f o r the d i g i t a l f u t u r e . O n e o f the m o s t
subjectivity, the body, the h u m a n , and so o n have already taken place. In
p r o m i s i n g candidates for an exemplar i n n e w m e d i a studies (judged i n
this respect, the field we call "digital c u l t u r e " is a product of the dialogue
terms of course assignments and n u m b e r of citations) is Sherry Turkle's
between theory and avant-adventurism, a critical discussion that implies,
Life on the Screen. In her i n t r o d u c t i o n , T u r k l e quite explicitly addresses the
as is fitting of vapor, that somewhere, somehow, a really interesting p o t
c u r r e n t " s y n t h e t i c " intersection between o l d t h e o r y and n e w m e d i a .
of ideas is o n the boil. M a n y of the titles s o u n d p r o m i s i n g : race/gender/
She writes. " M o r e t h a n twenty years after meeting the ideas of Lacan,
identity/subjectivity/the b o d y and cyberspace/virtuality/the Internet/
Foucault, Deleuze, and G u a t t a r i , I a m m e e t i n g t h e m again i n m y new
digital media. But, given the current speculative configuration of digital
life o n the screen. B u t this time, the G a l l i c abstractions are m o r e c o n -
media, surely these are examples of a single, wispy electronic tail wagging
crete. In m y c o m p u t e r - m e d i a t e d w o r l d s , the self is m u l t i p l e , fluid, and
several h u m o n g u s dogs. If one encounters a gallery i n s t a l l a t i o n that
c o n s t i t u t e d i n i n t e r a c t i o n w i t h m a c h i n e c o n n e c t i o n s : it is made and
examines the relationship between race and digital media, for example, it
transformed by language; sexual congress is an exchange of signifiers:
doesn't necessarily f o l l o w that there actually is a significant relationship
and understanding follows f r o m navigation and t i n k e r i n g rather t h a n
between race and digital media (or m o r e to the point, digital media may
analysis. A n d i n the machine-generated w o r l d of M U D s , I meet charac-
not be the most vital arena of cultural power i n w h i c h to explore the p o l -
ters w h o p u t m e i n a n e w relationship w i t h m y o w n i d e n t i t y . "
itics o f race). B y the same token, i f I analyze a gallery installation that
21
Turkle's comments here map quite nicely some of the exemplars that
examines the relationship between race and digital media, then I'm really
have h e l d sway over media studies (indeed, all of the humanities) for the
writing m o r e about the vicissitudes of art and theory than about a w o r l d
past twenty years or so. First, there is the post-Foucauldian m o v e toward
out there that contains race and digital media.
post-Enlightenment accounts of the body, agency, identity, power, and
M a n y vapor studies seem to recognize this is a potential p r o b l e m . A
space. W h i l e the ideal of rational agents w o r k i n g toward secular d e m o -
c o m m o n rhetorical strategy, therefore, is to showcase an esoteric and
cratic equality seemed like a good idea earlier i n the century, we n o w find
isolated example of digital practice, universalize it as if it has some larger
it is actually a trap! N e w media, it w o u l d appear, w i l l help us out of this
i m p o r t a n c e , a n d t h e n close w i t h a passing reference to the " d i g i t a l
fix t h r o u g h " m u l t i p l e , " " f l u i d , " "cybernetic" identities. Second, w e have
divide" so as to absolve oneself o f the g u i l t associated w i t h seeming to
i g n o r e m o r e c o n c r e t e issues of race, class, and gender. W h a t makes these invocations of the digital divide particularly a n n o y i n g is that they still carry the assumption that the digital is m o r e i m p o r t a n t t h a n the divide, rather t h a n c o n f r o n t i n g the unpleasant fact that the digital is m o r e a f u n c t i o n of the divide. T e n years ago academics laughed w h e n N e w t G i n g r i c h proposed solving the nation's poverty by giving welfare m o t h e r s t h e i r o w n c o m p u t e r s , b u t one w o n d e r s w h a t the r e a c t i o n w o u l d be today if the same suggestion were made by a m e m b e r of the "digerati." appealing to issues of malleable " i d e n t i t y " rather t h a n economic empowerment. T h e o r y is like a shark; it m u s t keep m o v i n g or die. N o doubt it w i l l (and should) find new ways for scholars (and their students) to reinvent, resee, and reshape their worlds. In this respect, h i g h theory and h i g h art may have a similar goal. T h e danger, to the extent that any development i n academia can be called dangerous, is the potential for distorting o u r relationship to media, and i n t u r n , the media's relationship to the "real w o r l d " (however it m a y be conceived). W h e n the allocation of u n i v e r sity resources and the culture of theory join forces to trade i n tulips, to study vapor, it creates a formidable apparatus of potential misdirection. As C a l d w e l l asks, " W h a t becomes of critical theory w h e n the showcased digital art, hacker, and counter practices that first set theory i n m o t i o n fade: w h e n boutique cyberaesthetics recede i n the gush of the workaday e - c o m m e r c e a n d e-business o n s l a u g h t ; w h e n d i g i t a l a c t i v i t y f i n a l l y becomes as c o m m o n p l a c e , pervasive, and ubiquitous as television?" A s 23
the digital m u n d a n e continues to outpace the digital sublime, this p r o cess is already i n m o t i o n , challenging us to ask w h a t w i l l be left after the vapor clears. W i l l we have an institutional and critical apparatus i n place to address a l l m e d i a i n the twenty-first century, whatever f o r m they
3. Jesse Drew. "Media Activism and Radical Democracy" i n Markley, ed Virtual Realities and Their Discontents. 72. The discussion of vaporware and theory i n this chapter builds on two previous accounts both published i n the same year. See Peter Lunenfeld's critical elaboration of "vapor-theory" i n Snap to Grid: A Users Guide to Digital Arts, Media and Culture (Cambridge Mass • MIT Press, 2000), 33-36; and John Caldwell's examination of vaporware as a theorizing practice in "Introduction: Theorizing the Digital Landrush " Electronic Media and Technoculture. ed. John T. Caldwell (New BrunswickRutgers University Press, 2000), 6-8. 4. For a more complete discussion of Gibson's influence on the culture of new media, see Allucquere Rosanne Stone, " W i l l the Real Body Please Stand Up? Boundary Stories about Virtual Cultures," i n Cyberspace: First Steps, ed. Michael Benedikt (Cambridge, Mass.: M I T Press, 1991), 81-118. 5. Lynn Spigel, "Yesterday's Future, Tomorrow's H o m e , " i n Welcome to the Dreamhouse (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001), 404. 6. Caldwell, Introduction, i n Electronic Media and Technoculture, 2. 7. Andrew Ross. "Jobs i n Cyberspace." i n Real Love (New York: New York U n i versity Press, 1998), 25. 8. Ibid.. 20. 9. Henry David Thoreau, On Walden Pond. (New York: Vintage Books. 1991). 10. For a more detailed discussion of the "intellectual field" (as constituted i n France i n the 1960s), see Pierre Bourdieu, Homo Academicus (Stanford, Calif.Stanford University Press, 1998). 11. Caldwell, "Introduction," 1. 12. Raymond Williams. Television: Technology as Cultural Form (Hanover N H • Wesleyan University Press, 1992), 12. 13. David Bordwell. Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), 24-25. 14. Erik Davis, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic Plus Mysticism in the Age of Information (New York: Three Rivers Press. 1998), 9. 15. Allucquere Rosanne Stone, preface to Electronic Culture: Technology and Visual Representation, ed. Timothy Druckery (New York: Aperture, 1996), 9.
m i g h t take; or, w i l l we still be g l e e f u l l y r e i g n i n g deathblows o n the
16. Timothy Druckrey, introduction to Druckery, ed. Electronic Culture. 15.
already well-bruised body of René Descartes'. A relentless alchemy c o n -
17. Mary A n n e Moser, introduction to Immersed in Technology: Art and Virtual Environments (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 1996), xxii.
tinues to stalk electronic m e d i a a n d electronic m e d i a studies, determ i n e d t h a t c y b e r w i z a r d s w i l l one day t u r n bodies i n t o m a c h i n e s , consciousness i n t o i n f o r m a t i o n , reality i n t o s i m u l a t i o n . T u r k l e captures this metaphysic succinctly i n a single question: " A r e we l i v i n g life on the screen o r life in the screen?" - B u t there is a t h i r d o p t i o n . Perhaps we 2
1
should begin exploring the m o r e banal yet productive possibility that we are s i m p l y living life with the screen.
18. Jeffrey Sconce, "Tulip Theorv," i n Digitextuality, ed. John T. Caldwell and A n n a Everett. (New York: Routledge. 2003). 19. Beth E. Kolko, Lisa Nakamura, and Gilbert B. Rodman, introduction to Race in Cyberspace (New York: Routledge, 2000), 1. 20. Caldwell, "Introduction," 7-8. 21. Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (New YorkTouchstone. 1995), 25. 22. See Jeffrey Sconce. "Simulation and Psychosis." in Haunted Media: Electronic
notes 1. Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds ( 1841: reprint New York: Farrar. Straus and Giroux, 1992), 95. 2. Robert Markley, "Introduction: History, Theory and Virtual Reality," in Virtual Realities and Their Discontents, ed. Robert Markley (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 2.
2000)"
T d e a r a p h y
t 0
T e l e v i s i m
23. Caldwell, "Introduction," 28. 24. Turkle, Life on the Screen. 21.
- (Durham, N . C . : Duke University Press.
digitextual a r t
f o u r
practices
net ratings
t h i r t e e n
defining a new m e d i u m
by the o l d , m e a s u r i n g
internet
t a r e n
s.
f.
audiences
b u z z a r d
In the 1990s, the economic m o d e l e m p l o y e d so successfully by the television n e t w o r k s increasingly was transferred to the Internet i n d u s t r y t h r o u g h the development of sites, k n o w n as portals, w h i c h , like the T V networks, conglomerated content. A key part of this emerging Internet business m o d e l was the rise of a system o f audience m e a s u r e m e n t to identify and track its users. Wall Street investors; banner, p o p - u p , and pop-under advertisers; domains; and web-property owners desired such i n f o r m a t i o n i n a variety of breakdowns. A l t h o u g h traffic measurements offered Internet companies a means o f p r o d u c t d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n i n o r d e r to enter t h e m a r k e t , t h e second key business objective was the ability to d o m i n a t e the m a r k e t place, o r g a i n m a r k e t p o w e r . A s B a r r y L i t m a n has suggested, m a r k e t power has its roots i n t h e f r a m e w o r k of the e c o n o m i c s of cost efficiencies, p r o d u c t differentiation, and vertical i n t e g r a t i o n . It is derived f r o m creating an inelastic d e m a n d ( l o y a l f o l l o w i n g o f customers) for the p r o d u c t . W i t h n o close substitutes the p r o d u c t is indispensable to
customers a n d thereby enables firms to charge h i g h prices and e a r n excessive p r o f i t .
instance, l e t t i n g s m a l l e r firms initiate n e w f o r m s o f t e c h n o l o g y and m e t h o d s , e n t e r i n g w h e n its o w n r e s e a r c h a n d d e v e l o p m e n t p r o -
1
B y 2002. A . C . Nielsen's business tactics, e m p l o y e d so successfully i n
d u c e d a v i r t u a l k n o c k o f f o f r i v a l p r o d u c t s and m e t h o d s a n d w h e n it
the traditional w o r l d of T V , led to its dominance of the Internet ratings
c o u l d use its e c o n o m i c m u s c l e to m e r g e w i t h m o r e e x p e r i e n c e d
marketplace. T o better u n d e r s t a n d this process, this article examines
r i v a l s — e n a b l i n g it to g a i n t h e i r advantages. A s F. M . Scherer notes
the entry, methods, and business tactics of what were four m a j o r p l a y ers i n the race to measure the Internet and w h y N i e l s e n was able to d o m i n a t e this new m e d i a despite its later entry into the marketplace. It examines t h e system o f m e t r i c s d e v e l o p i n g to measure t h e Internet audiences a n d c o m p a r e s t h e m to t r a d i t i o n a l T V r a t i n g s . F i n a l l y , it examines the d o m i n a n t business m o d e l developing i n l i g h t of the c u r -
m a r k e t - d o m i n a t i n g firms t e n d to be s l o w i n d e v e l o p i n g n e w p r o d ucts b u t " r o a r back l i k e l i o n s " w h e n s m a l l e r rivals challenge t h e m
5
C o m p e t i t i o n f r o m rivals h a d been the d r i v i n g force b e h i n d m a n y of t h e t e c h n o l o g i c a l a n d m e t h o d o l o g i c a l changes
made: Neither
N i e l s e n n o r its clients-was w i l l i n g to upset the status q u o w i t h o u t an external threat.
rent focus o n merger m a n i a w i t h i n the Internet business today, w h a t
Just as i n other markets, i n the w o r l d o f Internet measurement, hav-
some call a t r e n d t o w a r d " p o r t a l o p o l y . " As the market has contracted
i n g m u l t i p l e services makes for lower prices and better products but it
to o n e p r o v i d e r o f I n t e r n e t r a t i n g s , t h e m e t h o d o l o g y has b e c o m e
also made for conflicting traffic figures. As Eileen M e e h a n has suggested
rooted i n a m o d e l p r o v i d e d by the t r a d i t i o n a l m e d i a i n order to give
concerning T V measurement, having m u l t i p l e contradictory ratings for
2
c o m p a n y a n d advertisers c o m p a r a b i l i t y o f data across m e d i a . In fact.
any single t i m e slot complicates and disrupts the routine o f b u y i n g and
D o u g M c F a r l a n d . president o f J u p i t e r M e d i a M e t r i x ( J M M ) , u n t i l
selling. In fact, this disruption had predisposed networks and advertisers
recently the d o m i n a n t Internet ratings service, has criticized Nielsen's
to accept a m o n o p o l y . R a l p h D e M u c c i o , research manager at AltaVista
N e t R a t i n g s for " s h o e h o r n i n g the Internet i n t o a n o u t d a t e d m o d e l . "
puts it this way: "It's like h a v i n g 3 watches o n that all have a different
A c c o r d i n g to M c F a r l a n d , "We [Jupiter M e d i a M e t r i x ] are i n essence, c h i l d r e n of the N e t . We grew u p w i t h the m e d i u m . W h e n Nielsen views the w o r l d , everything looks like a T V screen."
3
i n d u s t r y shake d o w n : the battle to be the " n i e l s e n o f t h e n e t " goes t o n i e l s e n
6
time. Y o u don't k n o w what the h e l l time it i s . " A s a result, the d r i v i n g 7
engine o f the T V ratings i n d u s t r y had traditionally been a combination o f b o t h m o n o p o l y and c o m p e t i t i o n . A s economists F. M . Scherer and David Ross note, " M u c h theory and empirical evidence suggests that the most successful market structure for rapid technical progress is a subtle blend of competition and m o n o p o l y , w i t h m o r e emphasis o n the former
Nielsen, the foremost T V ratings company, was slow to enter into the
than the latter and w i t h the role o f monopolistic elements d i m i n i s h i n g
Internet ratings fray. This delay was because of an intense battle it was
w h e n rich technological opportunities exist."
waging against four potential entrants i n t o its T V "peoplemeter" m a r ket. Because of its later entry, the d o o r to the market was w i d e o p e n
8
the history of internet services and their methods
4
for such pioneer ratings services as M e d i a M e t r i x . Relevant K n o w l e d g e , and NetRatings.
Web t r a c k i n g services a l l o w advertisers to p u t a face as w e l l as age. gender, a n d h o u s e h o l d i n c o m e o n I n t e r n e t surfers. U n l i k e the p e o p l e -
C r u c i a l to traditional analysis of technological innovation and its rela-
m e t e r , t h e device used t o m e a s u r e n e t w o r k T V , t h e w e b software
tionship to market structure has been some k i n d of first-mover advan-
provides i n f o r m a t i o n as it occurs i n real t i m e and does n o t depend o n
tage. T h e first firm to complete its research and development successfully
its recruited sample to r e m e m b e r to p e r f o r m some task, s u c h as p u s h a
receives a patent that allows it to m o n o p o l i z e the relevant product m a r -
peoplemeter b u t t o n , to indicate viewer demographics.
ket more or less permanently. However, i n the case of Internet ratings, as
T h e oldest p i o n e e r service f o r Internet ratings was Jupiter M e d i a
we shall see, Nielsen was not a first m o v e r i n terms of development of the
M e t r i x . U n t i l its 2001 purchase by Nielsen, some felt it was destined to
t e c h n o l o g y - d o w n l o a d a b l e software—that m o n i t o r e d surfer activity on
be the industry leader since it accounted for 85 percent of the advertising
the Internet. Patents d i d n o t prove to be the key to its success. In fact,
dollar before the d o t - c o m crash. J M M was o w n e d and ( u n t i l recently)
J M M had filed a patent infringement suit against Nielsen.
managed by T o d d Johnson, president o f N P D G r o u p , a m a r k e t i n g ser-
Instead, as the e m p i r i c a l evidence bears o u t . N i e l s e n f o u n d it m o r e
vice. T h e o r i g i n o f w h a t was first k n o w n as P C M e t e r c a m e i n 1994,
profitable to p u r s u e a fast second p o l i c y a l l o w i n g s m a l l e r pioneers
w h e n Steve Coffey, heading u p the advanced research and development
m o d e s t i n r o a d s before r e s p o n d i n g aggressively. R a t h e r t h a n take a
team at N P D G r o u p , h a d t h e idea o f creating a m e t e r i n g device that
leadership role i n i n n o v a t i o n , it f o l l o w e d the business p o l i c y — i n this
c o u l d measure actual software usage i n c o m p u t e r s . Previously, p u r -
chase data were a m o n g the o n l y figures available to estimate software ownership and usage.
I n t e r n e t a d v e r t i s i n g m e a s u r e m e n t t e c h n o l o g y . In July 2000, M e d i a M e t r i x b o u g h t Jupiter C o m m u n i c a t i o n s to b e c o m e Jupiter M e d i a
A year later, Coffey and his team began installing meters on panelists'
M e t r i x ( J M M ) i n order to add m o r e analysis to its reports and to better
computers to m o n i t o r and project usage of those computers. This i n v e n -
position itself to compete w i t h Nielsen N e t R a t i n g s . To protect its posi11
t i o n w o u l d be critical i n b u i l d i n g w h a t w o u l d be one o f the Internet's
t i o n f r o m competitors using the same or similar software, J M M soon
most influential companies, as w e l l as paving the way for the g r o w t h o f
filed i n f r i n g e m e n t suits against key c o m p e t i t o r s . It was successful i n
e-commerce and e-marketing. For not o n l y did the meter indicate what
f o r c i n g a two-year upstart, P C Data, f r o m the field and had filed t w o
software was used, it also had the capability to specify the webpages users visited. J M M patented its meter device, w h i c h measures actual software usage i n computers.
9
additional suits—against Paris-based N e t V a l u e , a c o m p a n y o w n e d by T a y l o r , N e l s o n , and Sofres. a E u r o p e a n research leader, a n d against Nielsen N e t R a t i n g s .
12
W i t h the meter patent i n place, the N P D G r o u p l a u n c h e d P C M e t e r
A n o t h e r major competitor i n the field. NetRatings, was a spin off o f
as a separate c o m p a n y i n 1995, t h e n r e n a m e d it M e d i a M e t r i x i n 1997 i n
Hitachi, and was the o n l y service to provide lifestyle and c o n s u m p t i o n
order to reflect its expanded coverage o f digital media. T h e earliest sub-
i n f o r m a t i o n that helped advertisers to target niche groups. However, it
scribers to M e d i a Metrix's syndicated reports included leading N e w York
was c r i t i c i z e d f o r its m e t h o d o f s o l i c i t i n g p a n e l m e m b e r s f r o m w e b
advertising agencies a n d m e d i a companies w h o h a d learned about its
banner ads. In N o v e m b e r 1998, just t w o weeks after the M e d i a M e t r i x -
products t h r o u g h p r o m o t i o n s at i n d u s t r y conferences and trade shows. Jupiter M e d i a M e t r i x p u r s u e d a p a t h o f t e c h n o l o g i c a l i n n o v a t i o n and aggressive e x p a n s i o n and s o o n developed n e w generations of its patented m e t e r i n g m e t h o d o l o g y . T h e t e c h n o l o g y w o r k e d w i t h p e r s o n a l - c o m p u t e r operating systems and Internet browsers to passively m o n i t o r all user activity, i n c l u d i n g that of the W o r l d W i d e Web. p r o prietary o n l i n e and e-mail services, software applications, and hardware o w n e r s h i p a n d usage i n real t i m e , c l i c k by c l i c k , page by page, a n d m i n u t e by m i n u t e . T h e c o m p a n y offered m o n t h l y , weekly, and daily
Relevant Knowledge merger, it teamed w i t h Nielsen M e d i a Research to f o r m Nielsen NetRatings. The merger helped NetRatings overcome its weakness i n p a n e l size a n d s e l e c t i o n ( o r i g i n a l l y 3,500 c o m p a r e d to 40.000 f o r J M M ) by offering the benefits of Nielsen's considerable experience i n audience panels to the n e w l y c o m b i n e d service. T h e partn e r i n g also offered N e t R a t i n g s the ability to l a u n c h a global service, eRatings, as Nielsen NetRatings had earlier joined w i t h A . C . Nielsen to invest $500 m i l l i o n over the next t w o years to get a service r u n n i n g i n thirty-three companies by 2001.
data c o l l e c t i o n . M o r e o v e r , M e d i a M e t r i x c a p t u r e d i n - d e p t h d e m o -
W i t h the c o m p e t i t i o n r e d u c e d to t w o m a i n c o m p e t i t o r s , it was
graphics for each sample member i n c l u d i n g age, gender, household size
Jupiter M e d i a M e t r i x w h o buckled under the financial pressure. In 2000,
and c o m p o s i t i o n , i n c o m e , e d u c a t i o n l e v e l , geographic l o c a t i o n , and
J M M recorded revenues o f $143 m i l l i o n c o m p a r e d to Nielsen N e t R a t -
m o r e , a l l o w i n g user behavior to be l i n k e d w i t h p r o d u c t demographic
ings' $20 m i l l i o n . B u t by 2001, the situation had reversed w i t h Nielsen
characteristics.
NetRatings m a k i n g $335 m i l l i o n to J M M ' s $20 m i l l i o n .
10
1 3
The dot-com
In addition to its o w n innovations and organic g r o w t h , a key strat-
m e l t d o w n had resulted i n a loss o f 22 percent of its subscriber base lead-
egy for M e d i a Metrix's c o n t i n u e d leadership was to acquire and partner
i n g to a net loss o f $48.2 m i l l i o n i n 2001 c o m p a r e d to $7.6 m i l l i o n i n
w i t h other leading companies: In 1998, M e d i a M e t r i x merged w i t h R e l -
2000. In response, the c o m p a n y u n d e r w e n t m a j o r r e s t r u c t u r i n g
evant K n o w l e d g e , a t o p internet ratings c o m p e t i t o r . F o u n d e d by t w o
changes i n top management. In an effort to help bail o u t the troubled
f o r m e r executives f r o m T u r n e r B r o a d c a s t i n g , R e l e v a n t K n o w l e d g e
company, T o d d Johnson loaned J M M a $25 m i l l i o n letter of credit. B y
added l o c a l market ratings and analysis of fast-breaking events i n real
late October. J M M , struggling to r e m a i n afloat, had slashed operating
time, adding speed of delivery to M e d i a Metrix's numbers i n p r o v i d i n g
expenses by $40 m i l l i o n and had laid off 300 employees. " 1
1
o v e r n i g h t reports, rather t h a n the p r e v i o u s l y used m o n t h l y m a i l - i n
Later t h a t same m o n t h deals w e r e u n d e r w a y f o r the p u r c h a s e
diary. T h e merger ended a w a r between the t w o companies that p r e v i -
o f J M M by N i e l s e n N e t R a t i n g s , w h o also p u r c h a s e d A . C . Nielsen's
ously criticized each other i n the press for b o t h the size and quality of
eRatings, its international Internet ratings business, i n order to stream-
their samples and the timeliness of their data.
line Internet ratings i n t o a single brand and create a de facto standard
In February 1999, M e d i a M e t r i x forged a strategic research alliance
for the Internet. The merger w o u l d have effectively made the California-
w i t h M c K i n s e y and C o m p a n y to develop an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of o n l i n e
based Nielsen NetRatings the largest player i n audience measurement.
c o n s u m e r behavior and its i m p l i c a t i o n s for e-businesses. In October
(The o n l y r e m a i n i n g c o m p e t i t o r , at this w r i t i n g , is the upstart C o r n -
1999, M e d i a M e t r i x acquired AdRelevance, an i n n o v a t o r and pioneer i n
Score N e t w o r k . ) Nielsen NetRatings agreed to loan J M M $25 m i l l i o n to
chase data were a m o n g the o n l y figures available to estimate software
I n t e r n e t a d v e r t i s i n g m e a s u r e m e n t t e c h n o l o g y . In J u l y 2000, M e d i a
ownership and usage.
M e t r i x b o u g h t Jupiter C o m m u n i c a t i o n s to b e c o m e Jupiter M e d i a
A year later, Coffey and his team began installing meters on panelists'
M e t r i x ( J M M ) i n order to add m o r e analysis to its reports and to better
computers to m o n i t o r and project usage o f those computers. This i n v e n -
position itself to compete w i t h Nielsen N e t R a t i n g s . To protect its posi-
t i o n w o u l d be critical i n b u i l d i n g w h a t w o u l d be one o f the Internet's
t i o n f r o m competitors u s i n g the same or similar software. J M M soon
m o s t influential companies, as w e l l as paving the way for the g r o w t h of e-commerce and e-marketing. For not o n l y did the meter indicate what software was used, it also had the capability to specify the webpages users visited. J M M patented its meter device, w h i c h measures actual software usage i n computers.
9
11
filed i n f r i n g e m e n t suits against key c o m p e t i t o r s . It was successful i n f o r c i n g a two-year upstart, P C Data, f r o m the field and h a d filed t w o additional suits—against Paris-based N e t V a l u e , a c o m p a n y o w n e d by T a y l o r , N e l s o n , and Sofres, a E u r o p e a n research leader, a n d against Nielsen N e t R a t i n g s .
12
W i t h the meter patent i n place, the N P D G r o u p l a u n c h e d P C M e t e r
A n o t h e r major competitor i n the field, NetRatings, was a spin off of
as a separate c o m p a n y i n 1995, t h e n r e n a m e d it M e d i a M e t r i x i n 1997 i n
Hitachi, and was the o n l y service to provide lifestyle and c o n s u m p t i o n
order to reflect its expanded coverage o f digital media. T h e earliest sub-
i n f o r m a t i o n that helped advertisers to target niche groups. However, it
scribers to M e d i a Metrix's syndicated reports included leading N e w York
was c r i t i c i z e d for its m e t h o d o f s o l i c i t i n g p a n e l m e m b e r s f r o m w e b
advertising agencies and m e d i a companies w h o h a d learned about its products t h r o u g h p r o m o t i o n s at i n d u s t r y conferences and trade shows. Jupiter M e d i a M e t r i x p u r s u e d a p a t h o f t e c h n o l o g i c a l i n n o v a t i o n and aggressive expansion and soon developed n e w generations o f its patented m e t e r i n g m e t h o d o l o g y . T h e t e c h n o l o g y w o r k e d w i t h p e r s o n a l - c o m p u t e r operating systems and Internet browsers to passively m o n i t o r all user activity, i n c l u d i n g that o f the W o r l d W i d e Web, p r o prietary o n l i n e and e-mail services, software applications, and hardware o w n e r s h i p a n d usage i n real t i m e , c l i c k by c l i c k , page by page, and m i n u t e by m i n u t e . T h e c o m p a n y offered m o n t h l y , weekly, and daily
banner ads. In N o v e m b e r 1998, just t w o weeks after the M e d i a M e t r i x Relevant Knowledge merger, it teamed w i t h Nielsen M e d i a Research to f o r m Nielsen NetRatings. T h e merger helped NetRatings overcome its weakness i n p a n e l size a n d selection ( o r i g i n a l l y 3,500 c o m p a r e d to 40.000 f o r J M M ) by offering the benefits o f Nielsen's considerable experience i n audience panels to the n e w l y c o m b i n e d service. T h e partn e r i n g also offered N e t R a t i n g s the ability to l a u n c h a global service, eRatings, as Nielsen NetRatings had earlier joined w i t h A . C . Nielsen to invest $500 m i l l i o n over the next t w o years to get a service r u n n i n g i n thirty-three companies by 2001.
data c o l l e c t i o n . M o r e o v e r , M e d i a M e t r i x c a p t u r e d i n - d e p t h d e m o -
W i t h the c o m p e t i t i o n r e d u c e d to t w o m a i n c o m p e t i t o r s , it was
graphics for each sample m e m b e r i n c l u d i n g age, gender, household size
Jupiter M e d i a M e t r i x w h o b u c k l e d under the financial pressure. In 2000,
and c o m p o s i t i o n , i n c o m e , e d u c a t i o n l e v e l , geographic l o c a t i o n , and
J M M recorded revenues of $143 m i l l i o n compared to Nielsen N e t R a t -
m o r e , a l l o w i n g user behavior to be l i n k e d w i t h p r o d u c t demographic
ings' $20 m i l l i o n . B u t by 2001, the situation h a d reversed w i t h Nielsen
characteristics.
NetRatings m a k i n g $335 m i l l i o n to J M M ' s $20 m i l l i o n .
10
1 3
The dot-com
In addition to its o w n innovations and organic g r o w t h , a key strat-
m e l t d o w n had resulted i n a loss of 22 percent of its subscriber base lead-
egy for M e d i a Metrix's c o n t i n u e d leadership was to acquire and partner
i n g to a net loss o f $48.2 m i l l i o n i n 2001 c o m p a r e d to $7.6 m i l l i o n i n
w i t h other leading companies: In 1998, M e d i a M e t r i x merged w i t h R e l -
2000. In response, the c o m p a n y u n d e r w e n t m a j o r
restructuring
evant K n o w l e d g e , a t o p internet ratings c o m p e t i t o r . F o u n d e d by t w o
changes i n top management. In an effort to help bail o u t the troubled
f o r m e r executives f r o m T u r n e r B r o a d c a s t i n g , R e l e v a n t K n o w l e d g e
company, T o d d Johnson loaned J M M a $25 m i l l i o n letter o f credit. B y
added l o c a l m a r k e t ratings and analysis of fast-breaking events i n real
late October, J M M , struggling to r e m a i n afloat, had slashed operating
time, adding speed of delivery to M e d i a Metrix's numbers i n p r o v i d i n g
expenses by $40 m i l l i o n and had laid off 300 employees.
14
o v e r n i g h t reports, rather t h a n the p r e v i o u s l y used m o n t h l y m a i l - i n
Later t h a t same m o n t h deals w e r e u n d e r w a y f o r the p u r c h a s e
diary. T h e merger ended a w a r between the t w o companies that previ-
o f J M M by N i e l s e n N e t R a t i n g s , w h o also p u r c h a s e d A . C . Nielsen's
ously criticized each other i n the press for b o t h the size and quality of
eRatings, its international Internet ratings business, i n order to stream-
their samples and the timeliness of their data.
line Internet ratings i n t o a single brand and create a de facto standard
In February 1999, M e d i a M e t r i x forged a strategic research alliance
for the Internet. T h e merger w o u l d have effectively made the California-
w i t h M c K i n s e y and C o m p a n y to develop an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of o n l i n e
based Nielsen NetRatings the largest player i n audience measurement.
c o n s u m e r behavior a n d its i m p l i c a t i o n s for e-businesses. In October
(The o n l y r e m a i n i n g c o m p e t i t o r , at this w r i t i n g , is the upstart C o r n -
inno \Aarlio
Score N e t w o r k . ) Nielsen NetRatings agreed to l o a n J M M $25 m i l l i o n to
Afl^t-riv a r n n i r p f l
AdRelevance, an i n n o v a t o r and pioneer i n
replace its letter of credit between Jupiter and Todd Johnson. The l o a n was
studies to decide h o w to project data and h o w to weigh its sample, to
considered c r u c i a l for J M M to last l o n g e n o u g h to c o n s u m m a t e t h e
m a k e it representative of the o v e r a l l I n t e r n e t - u s i n g p o p u l a t i o n . T h e
merger. Interestingly, J M M and Nielsen NetRatings had b o t h been criti-
c o m p a n y also switched to a technique k n o w n as r a n d o m digit dialing to
cized for reporting widely disparate figures for the number of unique visi-
gather r e c r u i t s . Based o n the premise that the telephone is the m o s t
tors to the same sites. W i t h the merger, this p r o b l e m w o u l d disappear.
pervasive technology i n the h o m e i n the U n i t e d States, phone numbers
However. NetRatings and Jupiter M e d i a Metrix were forced to call off their
are chosen at r a n d o m and recruits are asked to disclose i n f o r m a t i o n
13
$71.2 m i l l i o n merger agreement after federal trade officials raised concerns
about their Internet usage. Recruiters convince t h e m to load m o n i t o r -
about the competitive impact of the merger that w o u l d consolidate m u c h
i n g software o n their c o m p u t e r . Nielsen samples have g r o w n to 165,000
of the Internet measurement business i n the hands of NetRatings.
w o r l d w i d e (as o f January 2002) w i t h 70,000 i n its U.S. panel, i n c l u d i n g
T h e e c o n o m i c incentives t o w a r d m o n o p o l y h a d been s t r o n g , e n couraged by the advantages offered i n reaching o p t i m a l size ( t h r o u g h economies of scale, diversification, and vertical integration) and by the Internet ratings i n d u s t r y it served, w i t h its desire for o n l y one set o f noncontradictory numbers. This t i m e that incentive was foiled due to antitrust concerns.
developing a system of web metrics Let us consider n o w t h e v a l u e o f w e b - t r a c k i n g services over l o g files.
8,000 people at w o r k . B u t because the universe of websites is greater t h a n the n u m b e r of T V channels, the industry desires a m u c h larger sample.
16
who uses web-tracking services? T h e first web-ratings clients included stock analysts and certain business or commercial websites. A l l were h u n g r y for information about the people visiting their sites and eager to set themselves apart f r o m the c r o w d . Ratings helped analysts value the various web properties i n hot stock m a r kets and these figures were used for buying and selling. Websites sought to
Web services offer w h a t m a y be called audience-centric over site-centric
give advertisers as m u c h i n f o r m a t i o n as possible about h o w m a n y and
measures. L o g files measure hits to a site and page requests, as w e l l as
w h o were the people v i e w i n g o r s u r f i n g their sites. A c c o r d i n g to B e t h
h o w l o n g visitors r e m a i n o n a site. However, the technology has several
Haggerty, vice president o f w o r l d ad sales at InfoSeek, " Viewership ratings
faults. First o f a l l , serve logs c a n be m i s l e a d i n g since caches c a n skew
and measurement w i l l have a major i m p a c t o n h o w the Internet is per-
i n f o r m a t i o n collected. Second, they are faceless.
ceived as a mainstream media, to h o w Wall Street values Internet c o m p a -
B y comparison. Internet ratings estimate the n u m b e r of site visitors by c a p t u r i n g the surfing behavior of a particular audience. C o m p a r e d t o t h e expensive h a r d w i r i n g o f t h e set-top b o x t h a t p o l l s t e r s use to measure T V viewing, those recruited i n s t a l l (by d o w n l o a d i n g ) m o n i t o r
nies, to h o w our customers measure value of market investments."
17
metrics, or what do they measure? B o t h Nielsen and J M M have been t r y i n g to establish a definitive system
software. T h e n u m b e r , age, and sex of surfers' eyeballs o n a website cor-
of web metrics. So far, this had resulted i n f o u r types o f measurements:
relate d i r e c t l y to c o m p e n s a t i o n for any p i x e l a t i n g c o r n e r o f the real
web property rankings; website rankings; domains; and u n i q u e visitors
estate of its pages, just as ratings do for t e l e v i s i o n . U n l i k e t h e i r o l d -
to each site, t y p i c a l l y r e p o r t e d by w e e k a n d m o n t h , as w e l l as t h e
m e d i a c o u n t e r p a r t , w e b raters offer t h e i r c l i e n t s n o t o n l y size a n d
a m o u n t of t i m e each person spent at a website. A web property is defined as
demographics breakdowns of their sites, b u t also specific data o n what
a c o l l e c t i o n o f websites o w n e d by one c o m p a n y . Some have criticized
site visitors bought. This i n f o r m a t i o n is used by the Internet i n d u s t r y to
J M M f o r u s i n g t h e t e r m s site a n d web property s y n o n y m o u s l y , w h i c h
set advertising rates.
masks i n d i v i d u a l sites and p r o d u c e s obfuscated r a t i n g figures. T h e y
the sampling process
m a t i o n was i n c l u d e d i n their web measurements rather t h a n J M M p r o -
Just as it does w i t h T V viewers, N i e l s e n N e t R a t i n g s recruits samples
viding an independently standardized metric f o r m u l a t i o n . For instance,
have been criticized as w e l l as for letting site owners c o n t r o l w h a t i n f o r -
of surfers w h o agree to provide data o n site visits, i n c l u d i n g w h e n and h o w often t h e visits o c c u r . T h e i r samples are called panels. A l t h o u g h N e t R a t i n g s ( p r i o r to its m e r g e r w i t h N i e l s e n ) o r i g i n a l l y r e c r u i t e d surfers f r o m websites, it c a m e u n d e r heavy c r i t i c i s m f r o m i n d u s t r y observers because web-recruited surfers tend to be heavier users, disproportionately male and m u c h m o r e experienced t h a n typical web users. After its m e r g e r w i t h N i e l s e n , N e t R a t i n g s began u s i n g e n u m e r a t i o n
Lycos owns, i n addition to its flagship portal, the H o t B o t search engine, and the T r i p o d h o m e page. T h e c o m b i n e d traffic of all these sites and 18
all the other Lycos-owned property sites m a k e u p the Lycos web p r o p erty figures (see table 13.1). A website, by c o m p a r i s o n , is an i n d i v i d u a l site, such as the G o o g l e search engine. J M M and Nielsen define unique visitors as the actual n u m b e r of total users w h o visited the Web site once i n a given t i m e p e r i o d .
A l l u n i q u e visitors are u n d u p l i c a t e d ( o n l y c o u n t e d once). U n i q u e visitors are a measure of reach, the percentage of the p o p u l a t i o n that
search engine, then, the web-property ratings are useless since they m i x i n people w h o went to Lycos, H o t B o t , and T r i p o d as w e l l .
visits a website o r web property over a specific time p e r i o d . If we m u l t i -
T h i s explains h o w i n January 1999, G o . c o m j u m p e d f r o m 21 to 34
ply the percentage of unique visitors by the n u m b e r of times an average
percent i n surfer n u m b e r s i n J M M ' s reports. G o . c o m h a d decided to
person visits a website d u r i n g the same period, or frequency, we can get
include web-property figures, not just website figures. A c c o r d i n g to an
estimates of gross, terms familiar to the traditional w o r l d of advertising.
A p r i l 4, 2000, Search Engine Reports article, this practice is "comparable to
In a d d i t i o n . Nielsen's reports were u n i q u e i n r e p o r t i n g banner ad
Fox c o m b i n i n g ratings for shows like Ally McBeal and the Simpsons into
c l i c k - t h r o u g h and their demographics o n a w e e k l y and m o n t h l y basis.
ratings for Titus, to s h o w it was m o r e p o p u l a r t h a n Friends." Just as w i t h
A.s such, it established a special category for top web advertiser and b a n -
T V . it is crucial to k n o w the hit shows since they can m a k e or break a
ner ads. J M M h a d been w i d e l y c r i t i c i z e d f o r r a n k i n g a l i t t l e - k n o w n
n e t w o r k . T h e c o m b i n a t i o n o f different sites i n t o one n u m b e r allows
20
camera-maker website, the X10. a m o n g the Internet's five top destina-
web m e d i a owners to hide bad shows, and it obfuscates true data about
tions. T h i s was because the X10 h a d used p o p - u p s (advertising that is
w h i c h of the sites' business partners are the actual hits for the property.
automatically l a u n c h e d by webpages) and pop-unders (advertising that
Some search engines have begun r e p o r t i n g the n u m b e r o f queries per
opens a news browser w i n d o w beneath the webpage) to boost its a u d i -
day to give a better measurement of search-specific traffic.
ence counts. Nielsen had weeded o u t advertisements f r o m the numbers aimed at j u d g i n g the p o p u l a r i t y of websites. J M M r a n k e d b o t h the top fifty websites and web properties. Nielsen, by c o m p a r i s o n , o n l y ranks web properties. Subscribers to Nielsen, as a
how are web ratings shaping the dominant business model for the Internet today? T h e central m e t a p h o r that i l l u m i n a t e s the d o m i n a n t business m o d e l
result, h a d to m a k e a special request to receive i n d i v i d u a l site data.
operating today o n the web is the board game Monopoly. Similar to Monop-
Some feel that the absence o f standardized i n d i v i d u a l site data p o t e n -
oly, Internet businesses, b o t h n e w and established, have rushed to stake
tially poses a critical p r o b l e m . Significantly, Internet ratings are similar
claims to Internet properties i n order to o w n and rent valuable Internet
to the ratings used f o r t e l e v i s i o n . T V ratings m e a s u r e h o w m a n y
real estate, a game, as I've m e n t i o n e d , that s o m e analysts c a l l " p o r -
people t u n e d i n t o a n entire n e t w o r k d u r i n g a g i v e n week o r m o n t h
talopoly." The game is played like this: Internet companies are racing to
(the counterpart to the web property) or h o w m a n y watched a p a r t i c u -
build sites ( k n o w n as portals) that serve as hubs or gateways to the larger
lar p r o g r a m (the counterpart to the website). Web property numbers,
Internet. Just as local T V stations served the needs of their local a u d i -
like n e t w o r k numbers, indicate h o w m a n y people a web media owner
ences u n t i l networks came along to aggregate content, traffic, and rev-
can r e a c h . F o r e x a m p l e , i n F e b r u a r y 2000, the Y a h o o ! n e t w o r k h a d
enue, so do portal sites serve a similar f u n c t i o n . Portals f u n c t i o n like the
forty-five m i l l i o n people, compared to t h i r t y - t w o m i l l i o n for Lycos and
mass c i r c u l a t i o n magazines or T V networks: they are sites that meta¬
twelve m i l l i o n for A l t a V i s t a . Website numbers are comparable to i n d i -
aggregate content and offer a range of services i n order to be the h o m e
vidual T V show ratings. T h e y indicate h o w p o p u l a r a website is a m o n g
page for as m a n y users as possible, thereby attracting m o r e advertising
surfers, just as y o u m i g h t w i s h to determine h o w p o p u l a r a particular
revenue. T h e space they occupy has become the coveted promised land.
19
show is. If, for example, I want to k n o w the p o p u l a r i t y of a particular
These portals have evolved to i n c l u d e a l a u n d r y list o f free services s u c h as e - m a i l , news, and weather. S o m e see these portals as the n e w shopping malls, t o w n centers, and news hubs all rolled into one.
Table 13.1
Many
of today's portals were once k n o w n as i n n o c u o u s search engines but are
R a t i n g Traffic Patterns
n o w o n the verge o f m a t u r i n g into the new media conglomerates of the
The Top Five Web Properties for December 2001, U.S. Source:
n e w m i l l e n n i u m . T h e n e w m e d i a giants i n c l u d e Yahoo, Excite, Lycos,
Nielsen NetRatings
^
Property
Unique Audience
Reach %
Time per person
65.522,808
62.72
0:44:54
2. Yahoo
58. 030.507
55.55
1:20:31
3. M S N
49,551.935
47.43
1:08:28
4. Microsoft
30.160.176
28.27
0:10:22
5. Amazon
23,733, 016
22.72
0:17:18
1. AOL Time Warner
21
A O L , AltaVista, Snap and InfoSeek, not to m e n t i o n Microsoft.
the distinction between a search engine and a portal: google is a search engine; yahoo is a portal The six o r seven t r a d i t i o n a l portals are facing c o m p e t i t i o n f r o m such c o n t e n t sites as t h e New York Times on the Web, C h a r l e s S c h w a b , a n d Fidelity, w h i c h are beginning to lure customers t h r o u g h free e-mail ser-
vice a n d other features. Schwab's start page, the M a r k e t B u z z , aggre-
T h e p o r t a l idea is a n expensive business m o d e l , b u t b e c o m i n g the
gates c o n t e n t f r o m o t h e r f i n a n c i a l sites s u c h as T h e S t r e e t . c o m a n d
gateway for m i l l i o n s and translates i n t o m i l l i o n s w i t h lucrative adver-
T h o m s o n ' s MarketEdge. Sports sites s u c h as CBS's S p o r t L i n e . c o m also
tising deals and m u l t i m i l l i o n deals i n r e n t i n g o u t valuable real estate to
have t h e potential to be p o r t a l s .
c o m m e r c e partners. F o r example, Excite w i l l pay $70 m i l l i o n f o r a t w o -
22
In this landscape, the name of the game is market share. C o m p e t i tion f o r eyeballs has led to a spate o f acquisitions, partnerships and dis-
year p e r i o d to power Netscape's Netcenter Search Engine. A s t h e i n d u s t r y becomes m o r e c o n c e n t r a t e d , search engines a n d
t r i b u t i o n deals. G i v e n estimates n u m b e r i n g 580.78 m i l l i o n w o r l d wide
others are c o m p e t i n g to demonstrate their d o m i n a n t p o s i t i o n t o a d -
Internet users as of 2002, companies are spending m i l l i o n s i n the hope
vertisers. P o r t a l site suppliers a n d c o m m u n i t y sites are p a i r i n g u p to
of e v e n t u a l l y c a s h i n g i n before t h e w i n d o w o f o p p o r t u n i t y closes.
create vertically integrated m e d i a companies. Yahoo has merged w i t h
Presently, portal stocks are soaring and companies are i n t u r n using this
GeoCities, A O L w i t h ICQ/Netscape, InfoSeek w i t h Disney, and AltaVista
stock t o acquire n e w properties. Since t h e m a j o r portals m a r k e t has
w i t h C o m p a q . (The logic is that c o m m u n i t y sites, e-mail, and the like
become h o m o g e n i z e d w i t h sites that contain similar customization fea-
attract viewers/visitors w h o tend to be "sticky," to stay longer i n a site,
tures, i t m a y take longer and exclusive content deals for these sites to
thus creating advertising opportunities.)
develop identities of their o w n . A c c o r d i n g to Patrick Keane. an analyst
Portals offer a business m o d e l similar to n e t w o r k television. T h e y are
at Jupiter C o m m u n i c a t i o n s , " A t o n e t i m e differentiation was a d d i n g
big advertisers, audience-gathering sites that act as hubs, feeding traffic
features. N o w the true search and directory players all provide the same
to other sites and gathering content f r o m sites f o r a n integrated c o m -
things. Search has become a c o m m o d i t y . "
m u n i t y — n o t u n l i k e the n e t w o r k s ' role i n television. A l t h o u g h T V has
23
t h e p o r t a l b u s i n e s s o r h o m e p a g e as o n e - s t o p gateway t o t h e w e b
become fragmented, w i t h hundreds of channels available, the big four T V networks still are the focus o f a l o t o f viewing. Studies indicate that the same gigantism that afflicts the o l d m e d i a
In an effort to attract n e w Internet users, portals are spending m i l l i o n s
n o w dominates the new. Despite the Internet's m y t h o f indestructible
of dollars. T h e goal is to get users to designate a specific company's p o r -
diversity, cyberspace is also vulnerable to m o n o p o l i s t i c tendencies. T w o
tal site as the homepage o n their browsers. Once that is done, the page is
years ago 60 percent of all time spent o n the Internet was o n sites o w n e d
the first one seen o n l o g g i n g i n a n d l a u n c h i n g browsers. T o keep t h e
by 110 companies. B y 2001, f o u r t e e n companies c a p t u r e d the largest
surfers there, portals are l o a d i n g their sites w i t h c u s t o m i z e d features
share o f t h e user's t i m e a n d 50 percent o f a l l t i m e is spent w i t h f o u r
and accessories. T h e longer users stay, the m o r e features they m a y use.
companies.
24
These c o m p a n i e s n o w steer visitors to o t h e r sites t h e y
and the m o r e revenue they generate for portals. Apparently, the future
o w n or cross-promote. Mergers and marriages have w h i t t l e d d o w n the
w i l l be determined b y those w h o c o n t r o l the first screen to be seen o n
field w h i l e the evaporating dot-coms have forced weaker sites to close.
whatever user device of the f u t u r e is t u n e d i n (i.e., c o m p u t e r . T V , or
A l t h o u g h anyone can still get o n l i n e , having a p o w e r f u l voice once y o u
some c o m b i n a t i o n thereof), w h e t h e r it be called the homepage, p o r t a l
get there is b e c o m i n g a different matter.
site, electronic p r o g r a m m i n g guide, system interface, or "first boot." A p o r t a l site c a n e a r n t h e coveted spot o f homepage i n t w o ways: getting users to m a n u a l l y p l u g its address into their web browser or by delivering a p r e p r o g r a m m e d browser to the users w i t h its sites already designated as t h e h o m e p a g e . M o s t prefer t h e latter strategy a n d are m a k i n g deals w i t h Internet service providers. F o r example, A T & T has signed deals w i t h three portals sites—Lycos, Excite, a n d InfoSeek—to f o r m a "web-based o n l i n e service." M C I a n d Y a h o o have also j o i n e d forces to f o r m a "web-based o n l i n e service." a homepage l i n k e d to a p o r t a l . (This idea was pioneered by S N A P of C N E T . b u t their version lagged behind others such as Yahoo and Excite.) T h e traditional T V networks, fearful of being left behind, have m a j o r p o r t a l investments: A B C i n G o . c o m ( o w n e d b y Disney), C B S i n i W o n . c o m , and N B C i n N B C i .
notes 1. Barry Litman. "Network Oligopoly Power: A n Economic Analysis," i n Hollywood in the Age of TV, ed. Tino Balin (Boston: U n w i n Hyman, 1992), 115-16. 2. Jim H u , "Racing to the Start Line," CfNET News, M a y 14, 1998, . 3. Doug McFarland, quoted i n Justin Oppelaar, "Web Ratings Gladiator," Variety 380, no. 9: S34, 2002. 4. Karen S. F. Buzzard, "The Peoplemeter Wars: A Case Study of Technological Innovation and Diffusion i n the Ratings Industry," Journal of Media Economics, forthcoming (winter 2002). 5. F. M . Scherer, High Technology Competition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U n i versity Press, 1992), 158.
6. Eileen Mehan, "Why We Don't Count: The Commodity Audience," i n Logics of Television, ed. Patricia Mellencamp (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 126. 7 Ralph DeMuccio, quoted i n " M e d i a M a t r i x : First Ever M u l t i - C o u n t y Internet Audience Measurement Results Released by Media M a t r i x , " CNN Disclosure. June 19.2000, 5. 8. F. M . Scherer and David Ross, Industrial Market Structure and Performance. 3d ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), 660. 9. Material provided to the author by Jupiter Media Matrix, 2000. 10. "Company Measures Web User Patterns," Dot.Com 5 (1998), 1.
flashing digital
11. Ken Kerschbaumer, "Media Metrix—Jupiter Merge," Broadcasting and Cable, July 5,2002,35. 12. Maryann Thompson, "Ratings Firms Vie for Global Domination," Industry Standard, October 25,1995, 3. 13. Erin Joyce and Christopher Sanders. "NetRatings to Buy Jupiter Media Matrix, eRatings.com," Advertising Report, October 25, 2001, 3-4. 14. "Jupiter Feels the Dot.com Loss," Advertising Report, July 30,2001,1-2. 15. Oppelaar, "Web Ratings Gladiator," S34.
f o u r t e e n
animations pixar's digital aesthetic
16. Pete Barlas, "Rivals Vie to Be Nielsen of the Net," Investors Business Daily, July 9.1998,3. 17. Beth Haggerty, quoted i n "InfoSeek Hosts 'Great Ratings Debate,'" PR Newswire Associate. July 11, 1998. 12. "The Problem with Ratings Services," Search Engine Reports, April 4,2000,2. Ibid. Ibid. Dawn Kawamoto. "Cashing In on the Portal Fever," C/NET News, May 14, 1998, . 22 Beth Lipton Kriegal, "Content Sites As Portal Competition," CjNET News. ' May 14,1998, . 23. Patrick Keane, quoted i n H u , "Racing to the Start Line."
18. 19. 20. 21.
k a t h e r i n e
s a r a f i a n
24. Catherine P. Taylor, "Jupiter Offers Vertical Reports for Nine Areas," Advertising Age, April 9, 2001.28.
Art challenges technology and technology inspires art. — J o h n Lasseter, Executive Vice President of Creative at Pixar Animation Studios The c o m p u t e r - a n i m a t e d feature film is the all-digital p r o d u c t o f a p r o d u c t i o n process t h a t joins t r a d i t i o n a l
filmmaking
techniques w i t h
emerging technologies and tools. P r o d u c t i o n designers m i g h t consider a w i d e range o f possibilities i n defining a c o m p u t e r - a n i m a t e d movie's visual w o r l d , w h i c h w i l l be m a n u f a c t u r e d completely, pixel by pixel. A digitally created w o r l d can have a unique, never-before-seen aesthetic o r a k i n d o f hyperrealism that o n l y digital art, i n a l l its precision, m a t h ematical perfection, o r p r o g r a m m e d randomness can achieve. W i l l the c o m p u t e r m o v i e m a k e r , w i t h a t e a m o f t r a d i t i o n a l a n d digital artists, programmers, animators, and cinematographers, use the versatile d i g ital m e d i u m to create a w o r l d t h a t has lived o n l y i n artists' i m a g i n a tions? O r w i l l the artist attempt to represent t h e most r e a l - l o o k i n g o r
real-seeming o f w o r l d s — m a n u f a c t u r e d to evoke the very imaginings
r e v o l u t i o n - e r a filmmaking practices readily c o m e to m i n d . It is true
of the populace, the expected dream lives .
that we n o w live i n an increasingly digital w o r l d , an ever m o r e auto-
7
T h e Forrest Gump visual effects tricks and Titanic constructions of pasts and presents, c o m m i n g l i n g b o t h the w h i m s i c a l and true, are intended to deceive audiences, to have t h e m suspend disbelief f o r the t i m e it takes to tell stories. A c o m p u t e r m o v i e m a k e r , video game creator, or
m a t e d w o r k p l a c e , h o m e , a u t o m o b i l e , g y m , and m o v i e theater. B u t , there are precedents. In 1928. D z i g a Vertov's The Man with a Movie Camera was created as a m i r r o r reflection o f the r e v o l u t i o n of its t i m e . T h e film, made " i n the
digital graphic artist can attempt the opposite: c o m p u t e r moviemakers
transitional period immediately preceding the i n t r o d u c t i o n of s o u n d . . .
create fantasy w o r l d s that c a n n o t be seen elsewhere, and w i l l n o t be
joins the h u m a n life cycle w i t h the cycles o f w o r k and leisure o f a city
seen w i t h o u t their particular kinds o f eyes. These are not the kino-eyes
f r o m d a w n to dusk w i t h i n the s p e c t r u m of industrial p r o d u c t i o n . " The
of filmmakers past, n o r the literal eyes and camera lenses of live-action
p r o d u c t i o n includes segments about
auteurs. These are the tools o f a different trade, and they make possible
presents as a "range of productive labor processes," as w e l l as c o m m u n i -
techniques and looks that expand the imagination and stretch the c i n -
cations, construction, m i n i n g , and the textile industry assembled o n film
filmmaking
itself, w h i c h V e r t o v
" i n a seamless, o r g a n i c c o n t i n u u m , whose i n t e g r i t y is c o n t i n u a l l y
ematic aesthetic. T h e c o m p u t e r moviemaker's eyes are part of a t o o l kit o f digital and
asserted by the strategies o f a visual analogy and r h y m e . " F i l m scholar
nondigital parts. These artists have a virtual camera, w i t h a field of view
A n n e t t e M i c h e l s o n ' s c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n o f Vertov's s t o r y t e l l i n g i n the
set w h o l l y i n the computer. T h e y select lenses for the effects they desire;
silent c i n e m a is instructive: " T h e r h y t h m and rhymes are i n fact the f o r -
a different lens means a different view on the artist's m o n i t o r . The w o r k -
m a l instantiation o f a general c o m m u n i t y , of the c o m m o n stake i n the
station m i g h t consist of a hard drive, keyboard, mouse, stylus pen. digi-
project that retains both division o f labor as indispensable to i n d u s t r i a l -
tal s h o t recorder, p l a y b a c k m o n i t o r , and earphones. A r t i s t s have
ization and rationalization as indispensable to the construction of social-
characters, sets and props: digital sculpts, t h r e e - d i m e n s i o n a l objects
i s m , a p r o j e c t t h a t has r a d i c a l l y r e o r g a n i z e d the p r o p e r t y relations
existing i n virtual space, placed into layouts, arranged i n the computer's
subtending industrial p r o d u c t i o n . "
1
virtual set and lit w i t h key, fill, and r i m lights. Characters' costumes are
N o w , i n a t w e n t y - f i r s t - c e n t u r y digital c u l t u r e , the f o r m a l m o v i e -
texture maps, shaders and digital paintings applied w i t h c o m p u t e r paint
m a k i n g process uses every available technology, as Vertov surely w o u l d
brushes to the 3-D objects. D i g i t a l dailies are r u n off a shot recorder,
have, and it also mirrors the s u r r o u n d i n g contemporary culture o f labor,
w h i c h plays back c o m p u t e d , rendered scenes for the director and crew.
p r o d u c t i o n , p r o d u c t i v i t y , and c o m m u n i c a t i o n s — a l l processes m o r e technologized t h a n ever. If a l m o s t n o part o f day-to-day life has gone
storytelling
u n t o u c h e d by digital technology, t h e n the kino-eye is alive and w e l l i n
A t Pixar A n i m a t i o n Studios, the c o m p u t e r f e a t u r e - f i l m m a k i n g process
computer moviemaking. B u t instead of striving after a " t r u t h " attempted
begins traditionally. Artists sketch, paint, pastel, and doodle by h a n d , o n
by Vertov's kino-eye, the constructs of computer cinema range f r o m the
paper. T h e y sculpt sets and characters i n clay or they construct scale
m a n i p u l a t e d fantastic (special effects, over-the-top explosions, ghouls,
m o d e l s . Pixar art directors design p r o d u c t i o n s as o t h e r
and Dragonheart's digital monster) to the "real" {Titanic, w i t h digital effects
filmmakers
w o u l d , but w i t h an almost endless w o r l d o f possibilities for the c o m -
created to make the re-creation o f a past reality as accurate as possible).
pletely created, pixel-by-pixel digital aesthetic. T h e n , technical artists,
Clearly, revolutionary media practices drive the industry today, just as i n
a n i m a t o r s , a n d d i g i t a l painters revise p r o d u c t i o n s i n the c o m p u t e r ,
the past. This is nontraditional filmmaking produced w i t h some h i g h l y
object by object and shot by shot. T h e y p l a n o n paper and i n clay and
traditional methods. Today, computer animation m a y be a different k i n d
w i t h databases; t h e n they b u i l d fantastic worlds i n the c o m p u t e r , layer
o f m o v i e m a k i n g , but it is rooted i n the m o s t traditional o f storytelling
by digital layer. W i t h so m a n y kinds of artists t o u c h i n g each shot, f r o m
and m o t i o n - p i c t u r e - p r o d u c t i o n techniques. In some ways, this is stan-
m o d e l i n g , shading, and layout to animation, s i m u l a t i o n , l i g h t i n g , and
dard, f a m i l i a r m o v i e p r o d u c t i o n : a m o t i o n p i c t u r e aesthetic w i t h a
effects, the c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n process is t r u l y collaborative. A l l of
m o t i o n picture vocabulary and process that are at once rooted i n and dif-
these artists use d i f f e r e n t k i n d s o f t o o l s , b o t h n e w a n d t r a d i t i o n a l ,
ferent f r o m live a c t i o n and t w o - d i m e n s i o n a l a n i m a t i o n p r o d u c t i o n .
enabling t h e m to see w i t h different kinds of eyes. If the late twentieth
Audiences o f computer animation m a y expect to experience a look they
and early twenty-first centuries have been times of r e v o l u t i o n and tech-
have never seen, a completely new. inventive visual w o r l d , but n o matter
nological development leading to the f o r m a t i o n o f a digitally saturated
what dazzling, groundbreaking looks computer imagery achieves, feature
c u l t u r e for everyday life, w o r k and play, t h e n earlier r e v o l u t i o n s and
film audiences expect a good story, w e l l told.
Digital moviemakers use n e w and e v o l v i n g tools t o tell their stories, but however n e w the tools, the techniques still must be rooted i n effective s t o r y t e l l i n g . Like any other storytellers, c o m p u t e r artists use the tools that best tell their stories. These tools range f r o m paper, p e n . and p a i n t b r u s h to 3 - D c o m p u t e r m o d e l s , pixels, lines o f code, and digital naint Character performances are n o t c o m p u t e r - a n i m a t e d at a l l . but are h a n d - a n i m a t e d by artists whose w o r k is grounded i n puppetry, acti n g dance, and 2 - D a n i m a t i o n . It is h u m a n w o r k , n o t c o m p u t e r w o r k . It is art and story translated t h r o u g h an apparatus, l i k e m o s t movies paintings, books, and plays. T h e apparatus is n o t a w o o d p u p p e t w i t h strings, but a 3-D m o d e l w i t h digital textures and l i g h t i n g .
the computer animation process T h e first c o m p u t e r - a n i m a t e d feature film was b o r n n o t just of Toy Story director J o h n Lasseter's love o f toys and the idea that toys c o u l d c o m e to life- it was b o r n o f the r i c h l o o k Lasseter k n e w he c o u l d achieve w i t h the 3-D qualities, detailed textures, emotive lighting, and depth o f c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n . M a k i n g the a t t e m p t t o achieve t h e distinct l o o k o f nlastic toys and the angular surfaces i n Andy's b e d r o o m i n Toy Story also made sense for artists w o r k i n g w i t h Pixar's developing c o m p u t e r tools^ Before Toy Story, Lasseter's short films Luxojr. a n d KnickKnack presented t h e w o r l d s o f i n a n i m a t e o b j e c t s - l a m p s a n d s n o w globes, respect i v e l y — w i t h a 3-D realism m i x e d w i t h a c o l o r f u l cartoonishness. T h e c o m p u t e r was Lasseter's t o o l for achieving moods, character animation, and acting nuances i n a pair o f gray l a m p s that 2 - D a n i m a t i o n m i g h t have expressed quite differently.
Developing the story for Pixar's second feature film A Bug s Life, direct o r Lasseter was taken w i t h t h e idea o f a cast o f insect characters. " I n t h i n k i n g o f subject m a t t e r that lends itself t o this m e d i u m , one that came u p very q u i c k l y was insects—because o f their physical attributes: exoskeletons, c o l o r , iridescence, translucence. A l l o f these properties translate to o u r m e d i u m b e a u t i f u l l y . " As t e c h n o l o g y and s t o r y t e l l i n g 2
s o p h i s t i c a t i o n f o r t h e m e d i u m have progressed t h r o u g h t h e years, directors have challenged the c o m p u t e r and the digital artists, asking for w h a t is m o s t difficult f o r machines t o c o m p u t e : soft lines, organic f o r m s (i.e. h u m a n hair), water, fire, and fog. Consequently, directors and artists have p u s h e d the machines beyond existing technology standards, designing movies that use simulated c l o t h and fur, all the w h i l e a s k i n g software engineers t o d e v e l o p i n n o v a t i v e processes that w i l l a l l o w artists to achieve these m o r e complicated looks. the artist
*
A r e c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n artists w o r k i n g w i t h digital limbs and keyboard prosthetics? A r e t h e y t h e cyborgs h y b r i d s o f D o n n a Haraway's human/machine unity? Surprisingly, the qualities of the digital artist are n o t w h a t one m i g h t expect. A t first glance, the digital artist is the u l t i mate w i r e d studio e m p l o y e e . T h e m a c h i n e s — k e y b o a r d , mouse, foot pedal, playback m o n i t o r , earphones—are the tools, and a digital artist at w o r k i n a c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n studio wears the machine, at times, as an extension of the hand. Like any users w h o have become intimately f a m i l iar w i t h a piece o f software, digital artists anticipate w h a t the software w i l l d o next. T h e y are as at one w i t h keyboards and c o m m a n d s as the pastel artist is w i t h the chalk and the carpenter is w i t h the h a m m e r . So it becomes clear that, per Haraway's vision of a digital culture, " O n e consequence is that o u r sense o f connection to o u r tools is heightened."
3
B u t s o m e t h i n g else is happening: the digital artist surrounds herself w i t h the nondigital as w e l l . H a n d - d r a w n art, sketches, a n i m a t i o n t h u m b n a i l studies o n paper, pastels for color reference, clay sculpture: these are the tools piled o n t o p o f c o m p u t e r artists' m o n i t o r s and desks. C o m p u t e r animation, as it is practiced today, is still a m a n u a l artistic process. It is n o t automated. T h e very t e r m computer animation c a n be deceptive; the c o m puter does n o t animate. A n i m a t o r s animate; the c o m p u t e r is the t o o l , like a pencil o r paintbrush. Haraway's cyborg suggests a creature so u n i fied that i t is " n o t clear w h o makes a n d w h o is m a d e i n t h e r e l a t i o n between h u m a n and machine. It is not clear w h a t is m i n d and what body i n machines that resolve into c o d i n g practices." Pixar's digital artist, i n 4
contrast, is a separate and distinct partner w o r k i n g i n t a n d e m w i t h his tools. Thus, artist and t o o l are n o t at u n i o n , b u t at times are i n partnerFigure 14.1. Luxo, Jr., copyright Pixar Animation Studios.
ship, collaboration, and c o m m u n i o n to achieve a set goal.
H o w does one create for a nascent m e d i u m that s i m u l t a n e o u s l y is g r o u n d e d i n and transforms its predecessors—that is. live-action filmm a k i n g , 2-D a n i m a t i o n , sculpture, painting, print, photography,
film,
e x a m p l e , k e e p i n g t h e a n i m a t i o n software w o r k i n g q u i c k l y a n d efficiently. Finally, he m i g h t load m o r e elements i n t o the shot: a character's feet, arms, and m o u t h .
c o m p u t e r science, and the Internet? It is the partnership of traditional
" Y o u can do a n y t h i n g i n a n i m a t i o n , performance-wise." notes Pixar
and nontraditional techniques and practices that forges innovative and
a n i m a t o r A n d r e w G o r d o n . " Y o u can capture s o m e t h i n g , m a n u f a c t u r e
n e w m e t h o d s . T h e artist w h o places t h e digital lights keeps a h a n d -
a p e r f o r m a n c e s o m e t i m e s w i t h m o r e c o n t r o l t h a n e v e n a n actor
d r a w n pastel, the t r u e c o l o r reference for the scene, p i n n e d to her b u l -
w o u l d . " M a n y h u m a n actors w o u l d n o t consider the m i n u t e details of
l e t i n b o a r d . A c o m p u t e r a n i m a t o r d o o d l e s t h u m b n a i l sketches o n
a performance the way c o m p u t e r animators must. H u m a n actors study
paper, or videotapes himself acting o u t the m o v e m e n t of the scene. T h e
the m o t i v a t i n g details o f a character, t h e n they m i g h t i m p r o v i s e the
layout artist flies a s m a l l camera a r o u n d a clay m o d e l of the set to scout
acting once they are " i n character." C o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n characters, by
locations, inspiring camera angles w e l l before the virtual set is built. T h e
contrast, are always i n character. T h e y were b o r n i n character. A n i m a -
5
process is less a transformation f r o m classical art to h i g h - t e c h art t h a n ,
tors need to finesse certain details and m a k e the acting seem i m p r o -
again, a p a r t n e r s h i p — a c o p r o d u c t i o n of established art practices w i t h
vised, matter-of-fact, natural.
emerging technology's tools.
the tools
The layering of digital detail i n c o m p u t e r animation continues b e y o n d t h e a n i m a t i o n d e p a r t m e n t . S h a d i n g , set dressing, l i g h t i n g , rendering, and digital paint add m o r e detail i n t o shots, w e l l after the
If the keyboard becomes an extension of the artist's h a n d , according to
a n i m a t o r ' s w o r k is d o n e . T h e actor/animator herself m a y n o t k n o w
the cyborg analogy, t h e n the c o m p u t e r screen is a k i n d of augmented
all the details that w i l l be visible i n a shot u n t i l the shot is c o m p l e t e l y
eye. d i s p l a y i n g the artist's defined field of view. W i t h these enhance-
c o m p u t e d o r digitally rendered. Results are n o t always i m m e d i a t e , as
ments, the possibilities m a y be endless, but the parameters are not; they
c o m p u t e r s , often heavy w i t h artistic data, render images a frame at a
are set by t h e c o m p u t e r artist. T h e v i r t u a l c a m e r a does n o t fly a n y -
t i m e for playback at film speed. Speed is a n issue i n c o m p u t e r a n i m a -
where that the layout artist has n o t p r e d e t e r m i n e d . If a c o m p u t e r lay-
t i o n ; w h a t m i g h t be p e r c e i v e d as t h e m o s t a d v a n c e d i n t e r a c t i v e
o u t artist m o v e s t h e c a m e r a o u t s i d e t h e b o u n d a r i e s o f a designated
m e d i u m o f all is actually s l o w m u c h o f the t i m e . A n artist's interaction
shot, she m i g h t find that the sets have not been b u i l t to be seen so wide.
w i t h c o m p u t e r tools depends o n h o w an individual artist works, h o w
If the camera z o o m s i n o n an area and the textures o n objects i n that
he sets up the scene and layers i n the details.
area were n o t designed to be seen close-up, t h e r e s u l t i n g scene m a y
Thus, w i t h the intricate process comes a k i n d of delayed gratification
have a n u n d e s i r e d plastic, u n f i n i s h e d l o o k . C o m p u t e r artists have
for the artists. T h e y learn to create for a m e d i u m that responds g r a d u -
m a n y tools at their disposal, but they do not have the o p t i o n o f visiting
a l l y as s o l i t a r y frames c o m p u t e , r a t h e r t h a n i m m e d i a t e l y as a p a i n t
a physical studio to find that ideal weathered o l d chair. Instead, they
brush moves across a canvas. T h e artists' interactions w i t h tools o f the
m u s t b u i l d a 3-D chair m o d e l and paint the wear and dirt onto it digi-
n e w technology are such that they experience the actual manifestation
tally; t h e n they prepare the chair m o d e l to be seen either i n close-up or
of their creative energy and o u t p u t incrementally, as lines of code c o m -
i n wide shots, depending o n w h a t level of digital dirt a scene requires.
pute or as frames render finally i n completed f o r m . T h e reward for this delayed g r a t i f i c a t i o n is t h e p e r f o r m a n c e created f r o m a l m o s t n o t h -
animation
ing
T h e digital artist's tools c o m e c o m p l e t e w i t h possibilities a n d c h a l -
an automated, p r o g r a m m e d task list i n the c o m p u t e r . The reward is a
not m o t i o n - c a p t u r e d f r o m live m o v e m e n t , and n o t the result of
lenges. Details l i k e v e r y slight facial squashes (contortions), flesh jig-
c o m p l e t e p e r f o r m a n c e m a n u f a c t u r e d t h r o u g h a c o l l a b o r a t i o n o f art
gles, o r o t h e r b o d i l y subtleties are possible t o r e n d e r i n t h e 3 - D
and technology, a performance n o t d e t e r m i n e d w h o l l y by m e c h a n i c a l
c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n m e d i u m , b u t they c o m e f r o m a different w a y of
means o f r e p r o d u c t i o n and data processing. It is. at its best, an excep-
w o r k i n g . A n i m a t i o n , l i k e o t h e r phases i n t h e p r o d u c t i o n process,
t i o n a l l y n a t u r a l , organic p e r f o r m a n c e , w h i c h arguably is achieved i n
involves a gradual, step-by-step layering o f detail, m o t i o n , and acting.
Pixar's recent film Monsters. Inc.
W i t h early-stage a n i m a t i o n b l o c k i n g , a c o m p u t e r a n i m a t o r can see a r o u g h v e r s i o n o f a s h o t v e r y q u i c k l y . F i r s t , a basic c h a r a c t e r body,
computer models
broad-strokes m o t i o n , and o v e r a l l physical acting are r o u g h e d i n . A n
A character's shape (termed "geometry" i n c o m p u t e r animation), once
a n i m a t o r m a y start a character scene w i t h o u t the character's arms, for
approved by directors as a c o m p u t e r m o d e l , is like a toy action figure: it
is fixed. A n i m a t o r s create performances f r o m the very b i r t h of the c o m -
film's core group o f characters—the a n t s — t h e attributes m o s t essen-
puter m o d e l w h e n they request particular articulation points f r o m the
tial to the story. A n t s live i n colonies, and they needed to be grouped
t e c h n i c a l t e a m . A n a n i m a t o r m a y require certain facial a r t i c u l a t i o n
i n t o massive crowds and animated as a m u l t i t u d e rather t h a n as i n d i -
controls, l i m b stretches, a n d flexibility that w o u l d n o t be b u i l t i n t o a
viduals. F o r director Lasseter, t h e story required c o m p u t e r c r o w d tech-
r i g i d a c t i o n - f i g u r e m o d e l . So t h e t e c h n i c a l t e a m places a r t i c u l a t i o n
n o l o g y ; the story's success w o u l d n o t have been possible w i t h o u t i t :
p o i n t s i n t o t h e m o d e l s , d e v e l o p i n g characters t h a t c a n act w i t h as
" T h e l i v i n g organism is the entire ant colony, it's n o t the individual ant
m u c h subtlety o r largeness as a n a n i m a t o r can imagine w i l l be neces-
It's such an i m p o r t a n t t h i n g , and i t became the theme o f the story
sary. F o r t u n a t e l y f o r a n i m a t o r s w h o need a range o f acting tools f o r
individually, [the ants] c o u l d be defeated, but i f they stand u p together
characters, o n l y the character's geometry is fixed early. A n i m a t o r s w o r k
and they w o r k together, there's n o t h i n g they can't d o . " Pixar t e c h n i 7
w i t h t h e t e c h n i c a l t e a m f o r m a n y m o n t h s to define t h e necessary
cal artists developed c o m p u t e r tools to generate ant " c r o w d s " i n A Bugs
m o t i o n points. If an a n i m a t o r tests a m o d e l and cannot get the desired
Life and. m o r e i m p o r t a n t , to m a k e those crowds believable so that they
acting f r o m t h e existing version, a d d i t i o n a l a r t i c u l a t i o n points can be
w o u l d w o r k as the critical storytelling t o o l the film required.
placed i n the m o d e l and finer detail can be achieved. Once a character's
T h e idea o f ants as a m u l t i t u d e was essential to the audience's u n d e r -
shape has been fixed and articulated, animators w o r k w i t h the l i m i t a -
standing o f the p o w e r o f ant colonies, and digital technology made the
tions and possibilities o f the m o d e l , k n o w i n g that if they p u s h it t o o far
replication o f the ant colonies possible. C o m p u t e r artists d i d n o t b u i l d
it m i g h t literally break. T h e c o m p u t e r m o d e l is a digital being. It can
one ant, t h e n "copy and paste" i t i n t o batches; instead, they animated
have glitches, i m p e r f e c t i o n s , system errors, and crashes. If a h u m a n
scenes o f crowds w i t h techniques that traditional 2 - D a n i m a t i o n c o u l d
actor is p u s h e d to a p o i n t o f extreme e m o t i o n , he m i g h t break d o w n
n o t have achieved. C o m p u t e r artists created t e c h n o l o g y that w o u l d
and weep, become exhausted, o r giggle. Similarly, c o m p u t e r characters
a l l o w t h e c r o w d s o f ants t o d i s p l a y i n d i v i d u a l characteristics. D a l e
react t o extreme m a n i p u l a t i o n s like overbends, overextends, smiles t o o
M c B e a t h , the supervising a n i m a t o r o f A Bugs Life's c r o w d team, notes
large for faces, and eyes that open t o o wide. A n eyelid m i g h t intersect a
" T h e c r o w d s h o u l d be treated as a character i n and o f itself, w i t h a per-
cheek; teeth m i g h t penetrate lips; elbows m i g h t b u c k l e and c o n t o r t i f
sonality and attitude, made u p o f individuals w h o are reacting together
bent along u n i n t e n d e d axes. A l t h o u g h it seems counterintuitive, G o r -
but n o t identically to each other." T h e goal o f a n i m a t i n g m o r e t h a n a
d o n i n f o r m s us that " t h e best t h i n g y o u c a n d o i n a n i m a t i o n is p u s h
t h o u s a n d ants i n one shot was m o s t successfully achieved w i t h c o m -
s o m e t h i n g t o o far. You're c a r i c a t u r i n g life i n a n i m a t i o n . Better stuff
p u t e r t e c h n o l o g y , w h i c h c a n assign specific attributes and " i n s t r u c -
c o m e s t h r o u g h e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n , once y o u k n o w t h e p o i n t o f t h e
t i o n s " to the crowds o f characters: " T h e [crowd] team b u i l t u p a very
scene." Directors' shot briefings give animators the guidance they need
large l i b r a r y o f a n t 'behaviors' s u c h as c u r i o u s , angry, i n c r e d u l o u s ,
to create shots that w i l l w o r k and thereby avoid a v e r y specific p r o b l e m .
happy, and n e r v o u s . E a c h o f these behaviors was g i v e n a n u m b e r o f
"We have to w a t c h o u t n o t to get t o o live a c t i o n - y " , w a r n s G o r d o n .
n a m e d characteristics, and each character was f u l l y animated w i t h its
6
Indeed, c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n artists w a l k a v e r y fine l i n e . Characters
o w n distinct personality," M c B e a t h explains. "We broke u p the a n i m a -
built i n t h e Pixar aesthetic can appear quite lifelike, w i t h r e a l - l o o k i n g
t i o n o f each c r o w d a n t i n t o s m a l l e r a n i m a t i o n snippets c a l l e d
hair o r fur, detailed expressions, a n d emotive eyes. Pixar's digital u n i -
'states'.. . . W h e n p r o v i d e d a set o f rules about h o w these states c o u l d
verse is n o t a hyperreal w o r l d , n o r is it a surreal w o r l d , n o r a real w o r l d
be connected, and the probability that a state w o u l d happen next, we
that m i m i c s life. It is an ot/ierworld, neither m o r e n o r less real t h a n the
achieved great flexibility i n m e e t i n g o u r needs. W h a t we ended u p w i t h
actual, physical w o r l d outside. It is w h o l l y different at t h e same t i m e
were very large crowds made u p o f u n i q u e individuals."
that it is familiar, familiar e n o u g h that audiences have c o m e t o expect a
8
Pixar t e c h n i c a l artists even w r o t e special software t o a d d a n t e n n a
certain level of believability f r o m Pixar's brand of productions.
t w i t c h i n g and general m o t i o n to the ant bodies. T h e A Bugs Life c r o w d
l e t t i n g c o m p u t e r s d o w h a t t h e y d o best
between twenty-five and one thousand ants per scene, and those ants did
t e c h n o l o g y r e s u l t e d i n over f o u r h u n d r e d scenes w i t h a n y w h e r e
Creating a believable w o r l d means using technology and special effects
what they needed to do: they furthered the story as colonies made u p o f
as storytelling tools, n o t as attention-grabbing eye candy for the audi-
alive, "acting" individuals, w i t h o u t calling specific attention to any par-
ence. A n i m a t o r s needed special controls and acting skills t o m a k e A
t i c u l a r ants o r actions w i t h i n t h e c r o w d . T h e result was a digital ant
Bug's Life's i n d i v i d u a l insect c h a r a c t e r s expressive, a n d t h e y needed
colony that acted like an actually existing ant colony. The c o m p u t e r was
sophisticated techniques u n i q u e t o c o m p u t e r t e c h n o l o g y to give the
the t o o l whose characteristics—logic, response t o i n s t r u c t i o n , l i n k e d
dependencies—were best suited to the storytellers' needs. As Lasseter
the m o r e difficult it is to d o . T h e m o r e geometric and r i g i d , the eas-
notes, "This is where the technology w i t h computer a n i m a t i o n . . . really
ier."
worked for [the] m o v i e . There's no way y o u c o u l d do this by h a n d . "
10
A Bug's Life's characters presented a different k i n d o f challenge.
Bugs w i t h exoskeletons m i g h t have seemed easy at first, b u t "they had
9
to be visually interesting e n o u g h to h o l d y o u r attention. T h e faces still
the aesthetic
needed to convey all the range of expression any character actor w o u l d
Toy Story is particularly notable for the impact it d i d not have. T h e world's
have, w h i c h means the faces actually have as m u c h c o n t r o l and flexibil-
first computer-animated feature film was k n o w n for its story and for its
ity as any h u m a n face."
11
endearing characters. W o o d y and B u z z Lightyear, the cowboy and the
T h e Pixar aesthetic represents a convergence o f these stylized-yet-
space toy, a n d n o t p r i m a r i l y f o r its deft use o f h i g h - t e c h c o m p u t e r
believable c h a r a c t e r designs a n d e n v i r o n m e n t s w i t h a r e a l - l o o k i n g
imagery. The same is true of Pixar's early short films, f r o m Red's Dream to
w o r l d o f props and sets. A Bug's Life, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and Monsters. Inc.
Luxojr. These films t o l d stories: c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n was the m e d i u m
are set i n realistic fantasy worlds. Final Fantasy, also a c o m p u t e r - a n i m a t e d
that expressed the message. In 1995. audiences were given a traditional
feature film i n recent release, has a m o r e p h o t o - r e a l aesthetic, w h i l e
genre picture: Toy Story was a buddy film that was created i n the emerging
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is m o r e c a r t o o n e d a n d w h i m s i c a l . Pixar films
m e d i u m of c o m p u t e r animation. T h e c o m p u t e r animation aesthetic, as
have tended t o w a r d a convergence o f the real w i t h the stylized.
Pixar defines it. is not " c o m p u t e r y " at all. In fact, the c o m p u t e r m o v i e and its techniques are rooted i n a t r a d i t i o n a l aesthetic. Painting, liveaction m o t i o n picture p r o d u c t i o n , and a m o r e traditional
the digital image for the filmmakers
filmmaking
F r o m the c o m p u t e d digital m o v i e comes the pristine m o v i e o u t p u t , the
vocabulary are all at w o r k i n the studio's c o m p u t e r animation p r o d u c -
digital image. Frames o f a n i m a t i o n are c o m b i n e d and layered w i t h tex-
t i o n pipeline.
tures, backgrounds, l i g h t i n g , and effects, t h e n rendered. C o m p u t a t i o n
A digital artist i n the current feature film climate may fight the c o m -
is the
fixative
t h a t adheres the elements t o g e t h e r , m a k i n g t h e m
film-
" a c t u a l " instead of v i r t u a l . It is the archive and the quality c o n t r o l . R e n -
m a k e r s w o r k to m a k e t h e i r c o m p u t e r effects appear as seamless as
d e r i n g is i n s o m e respects t h e u l t i m a t e c i n e m a o f t h e c o m p u t e r
possible, c o m p u t e r animation artists create looks that m o v e t o w a r d the
m o v i e m a k i n g process: it layers the details beyond acting, camera direc-
puter aesthetic, avoiding a " c o m p u t e r y " l o o k . Just as live-action
real. A s t e c h n o l o g y and the d i g i t a l artists' tools have e v o l v e d , artists
tion, textures and l i g h t i n g . T h e rendering stage is about processing the
have c o m e to realize t h a t the r o b o t i c , h i g h - t e c h l o o k m o s t r e a d i l y
digitally created w o r l d , m a k i n g it appear real. R e n d e r i n g is w h a t makes
achieved w i t h a c o m p u t e r and software are appropriate o n l y for certain
c o m p u t e r images accessible to audiences. Before it is rendered, w o r k
kinds of stories and w o r l d s . F o r Pixar films, the m o s t successful looks
m a y appear b r o k e n , plastic, and r o u g h . Finessed w o r k is processed to
are achieved w i t h a p r o d u c t i o n design that prioritizes story and art over
m a k e the images digestible and real. D i g i t a l p r o j e c t i o n , increasingly
digital bells and whistles. In the c o m p u t e r m e d i u m , finding the l o o k — t h a t appealing charac-
available i n the U n i t e d States, does n o t take digital movies to the next level so m u c h as it keeps digital movies at their pristine, high-resolution level. It
ter quality and design—is a m o n g the greatest of challenges. A character
avoids the d o w n g r a d e step o f t r a n s f e r r i n g h i g h - r e s o l u t i o n d i g i t a l
design does n o t o n l y have to be w o n d e r f u l o n paper. It needs to be
images to a n a l o g film. D i g i t a l presentation is a c o m p u t e d , m a n u f a c -
appealing f r o m all angles, and it needs to s u p p o r t the story and fit into
t u r e d w o r l d at its m o s t accurate and p u r e .
a rich, textured w o r l d . For Pixar films, a character design needs to w a l k
T h e vocabulary o f digital projection differs f r o m that o f traditional
a line between " p h o t o - r e a l " and cartoon. A 3-D character is seen f u l l y
analog presentation t e r m i n o l o g y . G o n e are words likeflicker,jitter, weave,
f o r m e d a n d f u l l y r e n d e r e d ; it has d i m e n s i o n , d e p t h , a n d c i n e m a t i c
film grain, and transfer. Replacing the analog language are terms like pure,
l i g h t i n g that m a k e the f o r m l o o k so real that audiences can h o l d the
clean, sharp, perfect, and, as presentation (not representation), from the digi-
character to a certain standard o f believability. F o r A Bug's Life, artists
tal source. It is a vocabulary o f p u r i t y and mathematical perfection for a
designed a d e t a i l e d w o r l d o f leaves, foliage, d i r t , a n d d a n d e l i o n s .
w o r l d that has been created to appear as real, organic, and n o n - " c o m -
N a t u r e ' s shapes a n d f o r m s were d i f f i c u l t to create i n the c o m p u t e r ,
p u t e r y " as possible. The digitally created, digitally p r o d u c e d , digitally
w h i c h prefers geometric shapes, straight lines, and right angles. Against
projected m o t i o n picture is at once pure and organic, b o r n as m u c h of
this tendency, A Bug's Life required soft, organic shapes. " S o m e o f the
clay sculpture, paint o n paper, and i n k drawings as o f lines o f technical
m o s t difficult things to do i n c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n are organic," John
code. Lev M a n o v i c h sees digital c i n e m a as a k i n d of r e t u r n to cinematic
i ^ is t h e place w h e r e a l l o f t h e data w i l l be p u b l i s h e d . O u r i n t e r n a t i o n a l p a r t n e r s also post t h e i r o n g o i n g research questions a n d discuss this p r o j e c t w i t h o t h e r interested m e d i a researchers a n d p o l i c y analysts. I n t h e f u t u r e , television a n d Internet p r o d u c e r s w i l l perhaps interact w i t h our website and respond to o u r research iniatives. W h a t e v e r t h e fate of O x y g e n i n the intensely c o m p e t i t i v e climate for n e w f o r m s of m e d i a convergence, t h e H y d r o g e n website w i l l c o n t i n u e to serve as a f o r u m for the discussion of w o m e n , n e w media, and democratic access t o t e c h n o l o g v (see fig. 15.1).
studying a media institution in the age of convergence D u r i n g t h e past decade, t e c h n o l o g i c a l changes have h a p p e n e d so q u i c k l y t h a t t h e m e r e task o f d e s c r i b i n g t h e m has i t s e l f b e c o m e a grea challenge. O n e o f t h e central tasks o f o u r p r o j e c t has been to develop a m e t h o d o l o g y that w i l l a l l o w us to keep u p w i t h t h e speed o f capital T h a t is, w e have t r i e d to develop a n a n a l y t i c a l m o d e l that w i l l enable us n o t j u s t t o s t u d y b u t t o intervene in n e w - m e d i a t e c h nologies a n d i n s t i t u t i o n s as t h e y take shape. I n a n effort to address this issue, w e have created a n i n t e r d i s c i p l i n a r y m e t h o d t h a t c o m bines approaches f r o m m e d i a and c u l t u r a l studies, h i s t o r y , a n t h r o pology sociology, c o m m u n i c a t i o n , and feminist criticism O u r m e t h o d is designed to foster m u l t i d i s c i p l i n a r y t h i n k i n g a n d l e a r n ing, recognize n e w possibilities f o r m e d i a analysis and c r i t i c i s m , foreg r o u n d o u r d u a l p o s i t i o n as b o t h c o n s u m e r s a n d scholars o f m e d i a
and describe-the specific m a t e r i a l a n d t e x t u a l c o n d i t i o n s that define
T h e f o u r t h cluster o f o u r research examines issues related to a u d i -
t e c h n o l o g i c a l convergence.
ences and f a n d o m . O u r analysis o f audience and f a n d o m w i l l consider O x y g e n executives' attempts to i m a g i n e a n d c o n s t r u c t an audience
Since O x y g e n is a site of m e d i a convergence, a site where relations between television, satellite, and c o m p u t e r technologies and industries
(m the i n d u s t r i a l discourse Ien A n g describes i n Desperately Seeking the
are being renegotiated, it represents the potential to revise and extend
Audience) as w e l l as fans' o w n r e w o r k i n g s o f O x y g e n texts (as C o n -
some of the premises of existing critical m e d i a approaches. O u r project
stance Penley and H e n r y Jenkins have described o f Star Trek fans) O x y -
involves five o v e r l a p p i n g research clusters. First, we consider the f o r -
gen has struggled to b u i l d a n audience w i t h m u l t i - p l a t f o r m ( o n l i n e
m a t i o n o f Oxygen's emergence i n r e l a t i o n to t h e broader h i s t o r y of
cable, and satellite) d i s t r i b u t i o n and a website designed to solicit ideas
w o m e n ' s m e d i a . We discuss t h e h i s t o r i c a l precedents for O x y g e n
f r o m a n d i n t e r a c t w i t h v i e w e r s a n d fans. Because o f t h e n e t w o r k ' s
i n c l u d i n g w o m e n ' s reading groups, w o m e n ' s magazines, genres such as
o n l i n e presence, c o m p u t e r users a r o u n d t h e w o r l d that are beyond
the soap opera and the talk show, and the Lifetime network.* In other
the range o f O x y g e n ' s cable a n d satellite d e l i v e r y can s t i l l access its
words, our project explores h o w the c u l t u r a l and economic viability of
content. Since one o f the n e t w o r k ' s early promises was to "superserve
O x y g e n M e d i a is predicated u p o n a set of already existing w o m e n ' s c u l -
t h e interests o f w o m e n , " w e e x p l o r e t h i s issue i n a g l o b a l context-
t u r a l forms. O u r research examines h o w O x y g e n adapts and transforms " w o m e n ' s m e d i a " t h r o u g h b o t h derivative and n o v e l uses of television and c o m p u t e r technologies. T h e second cluster o f o u r research involves ethnographic m e t h o d ologies. M o r e specifically, we p l a n to c o n d u c t on-site participant observation of executive board meetings, workplace conditions and practices, and p r o g r a m p r o d u c t i o n . We believe Oxygen's executives, producers
w h o has actually been w a t c h i n g and s u r f i n g O x y g e n , and do they feel t h e i r interests have been " s u p e r s e d e d " ? T h i s p a r t o f o u r research w h i c h c l e a r l y entails the m o s t p r a c t i c a l d i f f i c u l t i e s , i n v o l v e s i n t e r views w i t h executives a b o u t t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n o f t h e O x y g e n a u d i ence,
studies
of
Oxygen's
ratings,
exchanges
with
Oxygen
viewers/users/fans, analysis o f f a n p r o d u c t i o n s , a n d d i s c u s s i o n o f Oxygen's place i n everyday life.
and staff have m u c h to teach us about their organization. We hope that
T h e fifth area o f o u r research is an analysis of Oxygen's coverage i n
7
participant observation w i l l n o t o n l y p r o v i d e us w i t h insights about
the trade and p o p u l a r press. Since Oxygen's emergence (as a convergent
w o m e n ' s w o r k w i t h i n this n e w m e d i a i n s t i t u t i o n b u t also reveal the
w o m e n ' s television n e t w o r k - c o m p u t e r interface) was largely unprece-
specific ways i n w h i c h w o m e n are shaping n e w f o r m s o f p r o g r a m m i n g
dented, critics i n the press r e s p o n d e d i n different ways. W h i l e s o m e
packaged for television and digital distribution.
noted the ambitious and noble goals of the network, others have been
T h i r d , o u r research employs textual and ideological analysis of O x y -
dismissive, skeptical, and even d i s c r i m i n a t o r y i n their remarks about
gen's websites, television programs, network promotions, advertising, and
Oxygen's viability and future. This part of o u r research w i l l enable us to
m u l t i m e d i a products. G i v e n recent technological transformations, we
better understand the role that press discourse plays i n shaping p u b l i c
have had to rethink h o w television and c o m p u t e r convergence refigures
sentiment about and c o n s u m e r interest i n n e w media institutions and
what we understand to be the "text." A n d i n the context of global media
technologies.
conglomeration, where media synergies have become c o m m o n practice, we need to also consider h o w textual formations often function i n rela-
watching oxygen on cable, online, and in print
t i o n to the b r a n d i n g o f p r o d u c t s , the m a r k e t i n g o f lifestyles, and the
W h e n O x y g e n M e d i a ran its attention-grabbing "I A m Baby" ad d u r i n g
formation of c u l t u r a l tastes. Some companies n o w use the t e r m " o m n i -
o n e o f television's m o s t c o v e t e d v i e w i n g slots, S u p e r B o w l 2000, it
8
m e d i a " to refer to a set of intersecting media formats all l i n k e d to and
a n n o u n c e d to a g l o b a l television audience t h e b i r t h o f an audacious
supported by the same brand n a m e . Since O x y g e n fits this o m n i m e d i a
w o m e n ' s new m e d i a start-up c o m p a n y keeping pace w i t h the r e v o l u -
9
m o d e l , it is an i m p o r t a n t site for r e t h i n k i n g practices of textual analysis,
t i o n a r y changes o c c u r r i n g i n the m e d i a industries as a r e s u l t o f n e w
w h i c h i n some television studies have historically been tagged to one tele-
digital technologies, especially the Internet. T h e m e m o r a b l e ad was
vision series and/or flow segment. We believe that the m a n y texts of O x y -
c o m p e l l i n g for its rendering o f a n o r m a l - l o o k i n g delivery r o o m f u l l of
gen w i l l likely have to be studied i n a way similar to T/ie Many Lives of Batman
n e w b o r n babies, s u d d e n l y d i s r u p t e d w h e n c r y i n g baby girls b e g i n
or the p h e n o m e n a of intertextuality that Tony Bennett and Jane Woolla-
t h r o w i n g o f f t h e i r p i n k k n i t caps as the sounds o f the p o p u l a r 1970s
cott explore i n Bond and Beyond. Oxygen has as m a n y textual incarnations
song "I a m W o m a n " crescendoed i n the background. Providing i m p a c t
(and fights as m a n y battles) as some popular superheroes.
and
10
o r d e r to t h e ad's s e e m i n g n a r r a t i v e chaos was t h e d i g i t a l l y
enhanced close-up o f one lone, n e w b o r n baby girl's defiantly raised fist
the films o r c o r p o r a t e s t r u c t u r e o f H o l l y w o o d , w h i c h is still a l m o s t
(see fig. 15.2). A c c o m p a n i e d by intertitles t h a t s i m p l y state. " A n e w
entirely closed o f f to the issues and constituencies that w o m e n care
voice. For W o m e n , by w o m e n . O x y g e n , it's i n y o u . " the ad also displays
about (despite the "decade o f the w o m a n " and " g i r l p o w e r " rhetorics of
Oxygen's n o w famous ubiquitous black "stripe" at the b o t t o m o f the
the 1980s and ^Os respectively). We note, however, that w o m e n have
televisual image f e a t u r i n g the ever-present O x y g e n l o g o and its web
made a great deal o f headway i n b o t h the creation o f television shows
address, o x y g e n . c o m . T h i s p o w e r f u l image a n d s o u n d m e s h renders
and entry i n t o the corporate structure o f the television industry, and
p e r f e c t l y O x y g e n ' s l i t e r a l a n d figurative message t h a t i n d e e d a n e w
we wanted to see i f O x y g e n was a n e w beginning. M o r e o v e r , we were as
voice for w o m e n ' s media had been b o r n o n February 2,2000. T h e ad. as
struck by Oxygen's willingness to utter the F word, feminism, as we were
m e t a p h o r , articulates u n a m b i g u o u s l y Oxygen's a i m to refashion the
by its ambitious p r o g r a m m i n g agenda and the vision of its founders to
S
Net's so-called ' " p i n k content' market." and cable T V ' s male-centered
lead the field i n convergence media.
5
p r o g r a m m i n g l a n d s c a p e , " for a n e w breed o f w o m e n w h o refuse to
A t this w r i t i n g it is n o w t w o years since O x y g e n began its b o l d exper-
1
accept traditional gender roles and w h o are impatient w i t h n o r m a t i v e
i m e n t . For us this presents an o p p o r t u n i t y for reflection o n and diges-
I
m e d i a i n d u s t r y practices targeted at w o m e n . A s L a y b o u r n e p u t it i n
t i o n o f Oxygen's p r o g r a m m i n g (both actual a n d reported, o n l i n e and
„ ,
1998. " T h e t r a d i t i o n a l m e d i a have missed t h e boat w i t h m o d e r n
o n T V ) . O x y g e n launched the first phase of its convergence i n 1998 w i t h
|
w o m e n . . . . There is n o t h i n g that serves w o m e n the way ESPN serves
its purchases o f C o n c r e t e Media's G i r l s O n N e t franchise, and T h r i v e ,
-
m e n or N i c k e l o d e o n serves kids. We w a n t to create a brand o n televi-
M o m s O n l i n e , and Electra, three preexisting websites o w n e d by A m e r i c a
%
sion and the Internet that brings h u m o r and playfulness and a voice
O n l i n e ( A O L ) , w h i c h were t h e n joined by the O p r a h . c o m website that
that makes a w o m a n say, ' y o u really understand m e . ' "
same year. T h e second phase occurred i n 2000 w h e n Oxygen's television
S
-
•3
12
6
W h e n we began o u r study i n 1999 we w a n t e d to u n d e r s t a n d O x y -
8
gen's p r o g r a m m i n g philosophy, and explore w h a t distinguished O x y -
|
gen f r o m other media entities targeted at w o m e n . A t the time we, like
S
the mainstream media, were intrigued by the very idea of O x y g e n , especially w i t h its unprecedented p l a n to l a u n c h fifty-five hours of anginal cable T V p r o g r a m m i n g w e e k l y , a n d t h i r t e e n o n l i n e sites.
13
Our
a p p r o a c h came f r o m the r e a l i z a t i o n that m o r e t h a n t w o decades of feminist film scholarship and pedagogy have so far had little i m p a c t o n
content began airing o n cable to an estimated ten m i l l i o n households. Despite its often unfair c o m p a r i s o n to Lifetime's audience numbers of over seventy-five m i l l i o n households after m o r e t h a n twenty years o f o p e r a t i o n , m e d i a i n d u s t r y insiders f o u n d O x y g e n ' s m a r k e t share p r o m i s i n g as a n indication o f its f u t u r e success. For example. Jefferson G r a h a m of U S A Today.com writes. "Oxygen's l a u n c h numbers top m o s t recent cable launches. T V Land, i n 45 m i l l i o n homes today, prem i e r e d i n 1996 w i t h 5.4 m i l l i o n subscribers. E! E n t e r t a i n m e n t T e l e v i sion's Style, at 6 m i l l i o n today, began i n late 1998 i n 3 m i l l i o n h o m e s . " " These figures are i m p o r t a n t because they temper debates about O x y gen's viability i n a crowded cable market. F r o m the start, we c l o s e l y f o l l o w e d news o f O x y g e n , i n c l u d i n g its late-1999 " O x y g e n rocks the t a n k " p u b l i c i t y campaign and national bus tour. We caught the Los Angeles stop o f this t o u r to p r o m o t e O x y gen's February 2, 2000 cable T V l a u n c h , and i m m e d i a t e l y became very interested i n c o n d u c t i n g textual analyses o f the content and aesthetics o f Oxygen's brand o f w o m e n ' s media. We were p a r t i c u l a r l y interested i n the intersection o f these f o r m a l aspects and Oxygen's stated goal o f " s u p e r s e r v i n g " w o m e n o f diverse ages, races, nationalities, a n d even political persuasions. A t the same time, we realized that Oxygen's b o l d m o v e to integrate its n e w cable t e l e v i s i o n p r o g r a m m i n g w i t h its w o m e n ' s and girls' online properties was i m p o r t a n t to study because it
ty^saeom
AOL
fcr/JWd
Qpfg*
Figure 15.2. Television frame-grab of Oxygen's "I A m Baby" ad. Courtesy of — w.J:. u r
was h a p p e n i n g at a c r u c i a l m o m e n t i n the d e v e l o p m e n t o f television and Internet convergence. T h u s we recognized the significance i n this instance of p o w e r f u l w o m e n i n media (Laybourne. Winfrey, Carsey, and M a n d a b a c h ) u s i n g t h e i r e c o n o m i c a n d c u l t u r a l c l o u t to e n s u r e
women's participation i n these converging and increasingly globalized
agency and a u t o n o m y w i t h representations of women's survival invari-
m e d i a t e c h n o l o g i e s . T h e significance i n h e r e d n o t o n l y i n O x y g e n s
ably requiring rescue by benevolent patriarchal s t r u c t u r e s - e s p e c i a l l y
p o t e n t i a l t o better d e m o c r a t i z e t h e I n t e r n e t , a n d p u s h f o r gender
the c o u r t s - a n d handsome, goodhearted, strong m e n . Lifetime's movie
equity i n the cable industry, but also for what it augured for the emerg-
offerings for the m o n t h of October 2000 are indicative w i t h such titles as-
i n g aesthetics and stylistic practices of digital m e d i a p r o d u c t i o n i n gen-
To Love, Honor and Obey: The Last Mafia Marriage (1993), The Killing Secret (1996)'
eral. O n e m e d i a analyst reported that "Oxygen's p l a n is tc.beat rivals w i t h content and reach beyond t h e mainstream. W i n f r e y has said t h e c o m p a n y ' w i l l focus o n w o m e n and treat us like the busy, smart, a n d c o m p l e x p e o p l e w e are.' B u t [ O x y g e n p a r t n e r T o m ] W e r n e r p u t s i t m o r e b l u n t l y , ' N o t everybody has to be 28 years o l d . white, and pretty he said 'You're g o i n g to see all sorts of colors and ages o n o u r shows. ^
rtoST
' ° ° -
fr Tu(1995) T am 'ng° therS' These "^ movies ^
-i
forever „ \ i u " others o f their i l k (which, we admit, some o f us love to watch) accompanied such o n g i n a L i f e t i m e shows as Intimate Portrait (biographies o f p r o m i n e n t w o m e n ) , Strong Medicine and Any Day Now (fictional dramas), and Beyond Chance (a reality-based show about the paranormal) 3
(
F
m
1
9
9
5
)
m
W
m
m
5
C0
e
Finally, we were interested i n the question of w h e t h e r o r not O x y g e n s
By c o m p a r i s o n . O x y g e n T V was l a u n c h e d i n 2000 w i t h s u c h news
p r o g r a m m i n g m i g h t be t h o u g h t to represent w h a t we are c a l l i n g cor-
and ^ f o r m a t i o n shows as Exhale, Pure Oxygen, She Commerce, Trackers. Oprah
porate f e m i n i s m , " a l i b e r a l f e m i n i s t m o d e o f m e d i a p r o d u c t i o n a n d
Goes Online. As She Sees It. and Daily R ix.
design capable o f d i s r u p t i n g the m a l e - d o m i n a t e d media's representa-
an a n i m a t i o n s h o w X-Chromosome, a sports s h o w We Sweat, and a game
tional hegemony and ideological imperatives i n ways that twenty years
s h o w 7 ve Got a Secret. I n contrast to Lifetime's d o c u d r a m a and
of second wave feminist activism c o u l d not. This latter question became even m o r e intriguing w h e n we noticed a
em
O t h e r O x y g e n shows i n c l u d e d fictional
narratives about w o m e n . Oxygen's original p r o g r a m m i n g emphasized n o n - f i c t i o n and d o c u m e n t a r y narratives about adventurous and deter-
disconcerting component of the popular press's often dismissive specula-
m i n e d w o m e n and girls, successful i n their o w n right. M o r e o v e r , these
tions about Oxygen's viability as a media player simultaneously compet-
O x y g e n shows a t t e m p t e d to a v o i d t h e trap o f exacerbating t h e s u p -
i n g w i t h a n d sometimes c o l l a b o r a t i n g w i t h s u c h cable T V giants as
p o s e d conflicts between b o t h its s t a y - a t - h o m e a n d c a r e e r - o r i e n t e d
Time-Warner's C N N , N B C ' s cable networks, H B O , Disney's Lifetime, and others M o s t o f the negative i n k devoted to p i l l o r y i n g O x y g e n , we discovered, appeared w e l l i n advance o f the network's availability m most markets o r f o l l o w i n g t h e first i n s t a l l m e n t s o f its shows. T o c o u n t e r balance this myopia, we set out as a research team to watch Oxygen s television p r o g r a m m i n g and visit its websites so that we c o u l d devise more i n f o r m e d critiques of the network's actual intermedia content, organizational goals, and initial achievements. Oxygen's founders understood the risky nature of experimentation i n the f o r m u l a - d r i v e n environment o television, and apparently early o n they trusted the audience. I t h i n k if
w o m e n audiences by refusing to structure its content along lines that p r i v i l e g e d one g r o u p over t h e o t h e r . W i t h t h e g r o w i n g n u m b e r s o f w o m e n o n l i n e , a n d the fact t h a t w o m e n c o m p r i s e 50 percent o f the cable T V audience, Oxygen's inclusive, audience-driven p r o g r a m m i n g strategy was n o t o n l y p o l i t i c a l l y astute and t i m e l y but. at that t i m e a p p a r e n t l y , t was a n e c o n o m i c a l l y s o u n d business strategy n G i v e n these notable shifts i n c u l t u r a l and m a r k e t forces, i t is n o t s u r p r i s i n g that m e d i a analysts w e r e interested i n O x y g e n ' s expression o f t h e emerging synergy between the web and T V . especially since i t was positioned i n direct c o m p e t i t i o n for Lifetime's audience share. B u t p o p u l a r press analysts were n o t the o n l y ones speaking out
we're clear about o u r intentions and make mistakes the first year T o m Werner said, "the audience w i l l forgive us—as l o n g as we respect t h e m ,
watching oxygen for an aesthetics of corporate feminism O u r w a t c h i n g of Oxygen's cable n e t w o r k p r o g r a m m i n g flow yielded some interesting findings w h e n compared to that of its; d u e c o m p e t tor, the Lifetime network. Despite its slogan, "Television for W o m e n , Lifetime's p r i m e - t i m e movies and miniseries are remarkable for their narra-
At its cable T V l a u n c h i n 2000, the press reported Laybourne ( w h o oversaw Lifetime w h e n she w o r k e d at Disney) as saying that Lifetime appeals to a w o m a n w h o is exhausted and wants to sit there and be entertained i n a passive v o i c e . " - * I n contrast, she "calls Oxygen's p r o g r a m m i n g very c o n t e m p o r a r y , v e r y in-your-face, as opposed to pasive.
Leaving aside the debatable issue of passive television v i e w i n g
the fact that O x y g e n w o u l d " r e l y m o r e heavily o n its Web sites t h a n
tive r e c u p e r a t i o n s o f p a t r i a r c h a l i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d t h e status q u o .
anyone has ever before."
Lifetime's h i g h l y successful f o r m u l a o f endangered a n d dangerous
bone does distinguish Oxygen f r o m Lifetime. M S N B C , C N N , and other
20
and use the web as its p r o g r a m m i n g back-
w o m e n narratives, often " i n s p i r e d by actual events." features pluckv.
cable television (and broadcast T V ) networks. In addition, Oxygen T V ' s
d e t e r m i n e d w o m e n s u r v i v i n g a h o s t o f societal a n d p e r s o n a l crises.
overall l o o k was different f r o m Lifetime and others. F r o m the begin-
H o w e v e r , t h e m o v i e s t e n d t o u n d e r m i n e t h e i r messages o f female
ning, Oxygen's televisual flow consisted of s t r i k i n g , ^,„i
*
i n c l u d i n g , for example, its s h o w - l e n g t h animation programs about the joys and pain of w o m e n ' s lives (X-Chromosome and Pond Life); its interstitial a n i m a t i o n shorts: M o m s O n l i n e (featuring h e l p f u l parenting hints); its short p r o m o t i o n a l spots featuring paintings and celebrity endorsements; and even its p r o w o m e n and p r o t e c h n o l o g y c o m m e r c i a l advertisements. A r g u a b l y , there has not been this level o f experimentation w i t h the l o o k , tone, pace, and s t r u c t u r e o f television since The Ernie Kovacks Show and Your Show of Shows i n the early 1950s, and later, Pee-wee's Playhouse and the stylistic innovations of early M T V . A l l this combines w i t h its anchor p r o g r a m m i n g of m o r e familiar T V fare c o m b i n e d w i t h web content to bear o u t Laybourne's assertion that O x y g e n was " d o i n g e v e r y t h i n g we can to m a k e this l o o k l i k e a different experience. T h e (on-air stripe) says to people that this is m o r e t h a n just T V . "
2 1
W i t h these factors i n m i n d , it became apparent to us that i n d e e d Oxygen's television p r o g r a m m i n g was m a r k e d by decidedly feministfriendly content and a sort of neoformalist and postmodernist experim e n t a l s t r u c t u r e r a r e l y f o u n d o n t e l e v i s i o n designed f o r a f e m a l e viewership. W i t h this focus i n m i n d , some aspects of film studies' o b v i ous a n d n o t so obvious c r i t i c a l approaches were u s e f u l for t h i n k i n g about a n d m a k i n g evaluations o f O x y g e n ' s p r o g r a m m i n g b e y o n d a simplistic r e d u c t i o n o f its m y r i a d complexities to a mere c o m m o d i t y c u l t u r e fetish tainted because of its founders' w i l l i n g p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n America's ever-expanding c u l t u r e industries. (This is especially true for studying Oxygen's p r o g r a m m i n g d u r i n g its formative and m o r e experi m e n t a l stages, w h i c h is the focus o f the present discussion.) Elements of classical film theory, t h e n , enable us to contextualize Oxygen's innovative visual styles and feminist-friendly themes w i t h i n a historical tradition o f subversive m e d i a practices and political agendas developed by some o f the cinema's early, r e v o l u t i o n a r y
filmmakers.
T h e recent w o r k of theorists s u c h as Lev M a n o v i c h , Peter L u n e n f e l d . and others also considers n e w m e d i a practices' indebtedness to classical m e d i a influences.
22
In Oxygen's case, w h a t classical theory reminds us
o f is the fact that i n n o v a t i v e codes o f m e d i a signification can inspire spectators to accept n e w ideas, imagine n e w realities, and thereby effect transformations o f repressive social structures and ideologies. T h i n k i n g about Oxygen's p r o g r a m m i n g i n this way allows us to recognize h o w Oxygen's disruptions of d o m i n a n t media's codifications of. say, gender roles m i g h t f u n c t i o n to interpellate and hail female viewers i n t o O x y gen's r o u t i n e portrayals o f w o m e n and girls as technology masters i n regular shows and i n commercials (see figs. 15.3—15.5). A l s o . Oxygen's barrage o f images p r e s e n t i n g w o m e n s u c c e e d i n g i n n o n - t r a d i t i o n a l as w e l l as traditional careers and activities, m a n y p r o d u c e d by w o m e n documentary ^«minanrp.
filmmakers,
certainly helps to disrupt television's male
if o n l v t e m p o r a r i l y . S i m i l a r l y , c o n t e m p o r a r y theorists of
m e d i a e q u i p u s w i t h i m p o r t a n t conceptual frameworks for interrogat-
T h e stripe n o t o n l y served as a p l a c e h o l d e r for its viewers and as
i n g Oxygen's p r o g r a m m i n g ( b o t h o n l i n e and o n T V ) i n terms of fan
means o f p r o v i d i n g v a l u e - a d d e d i n f o r m a t i o n about s h o w s a n d ads-
c u l t u r e , resistant a n d subversive spectatorship. n e w - m e d i a literacy,
a n o t h e r c e n t r a l e l e m e n t o f O x y g e n ' s stripe f u n c t i o n was its l i t e r a l
cyberfeminism. c o m p u t e r image m a n i p u l a t i o n , and n e w - m e d i a i n f o r -
e n a c t i n g o f television and Internet convergence. T h r o u g h its stripe
m a t i o n flows, or w h a t N a n c y Fraser m i g h t call '"counter publics.
Oxygen r o u t i n e l y directed television viewers to go to its f a m i l y o f websites f o r interactive participation i n b o t h its T V shows and online c o n -
much ado about the stripe
t e n t d e v e l o p m e n t and t r a n s m e d i a p r o g r a m m i n g strategies.
In addition to its spirited w o m e n ' s e m p o w e r m e n t discourse across dif-
strategic practice represented Oxygen's stated goal o f m a k i n g its female
This
ferent m e d i a platforms (cable T V , the Internet, p r i n t newsletters) and
viewers p r o g r a m m i n g partners i n the organization's b o l d experiment
genres and its imaginative f o r m a l uses o f a n i m a t i o n . O x y g e n makes
w i t h n e w m e d i a convergence. A l t h o u g h it is too early to tell i f recent
a n o t h e r key c o n t r i b u t i o n to n e w m e d i a practice. O x y g e n has r e p u r -
m a i n s t r e a m m e d i a reports that " T h e O x y g e n T V C h a n n e l Is B o w i n g
posed the cinema's familiar letter-box feature, and its T V counterpart
to Tastes" reflect Oxygen's capitulation to market forces or to its audi
(the ticker), r e n a m i n g it the "stripe." that ubiquitious. i n f o r m a t i o n - r i c h
ence s d e m a n d for less-adventurous p r o g r a m m i n g , it is n o t too early to
H a c k space appearing at the b o t t o m of all its television p r o g r a m m i n g .
note Oxygen's i m p a c t o n its rival m e d i a organizations.
In addition to t r a n s m i t t i n g a S A P f u n c t i o n (second audio p r o g r a m for
Far f r o m accepting the v i e w that Oxygen's i n f o r m a t i o n a l stripe rep-
the hearing impaired), foreign language dialogue translations, or pre-
resented an untenable m a t c h f o r advertising's t r a d i t i o n a l practice o f
serving i m p o r t a n t visual i n f o r m a t i o n usually lost w h e n film texts are
p r o d u c t p r o m o t i o n , i n the t w o years since O x y g e n began that c o n t r o -
exhibited o n television. O x y g e n uses its stripe to t r a n s m i t a d d i t i o n a l
versial practice we have observed its appropriation by m a n y television
textual i n f o r m a t i o n about its programs and the products advertised o n
shows and c o m m e r c i a l T V advertisers o n n e t w o r k and cable broadcasts
the n e t w o r k . Interestingly, this is one of Oxygen's specific p r o g r a m -
alike. A m o n g those entities presently featuring the stripe are: Progres-
m i n g features that was singled o u t for negative criticism i n the p o p u l a r
sive.com. A B C ' s daytime programs (i.e. General Hospital), ESPN's Women
press's coverage. T h e c o m p l a i n t was that the stripe was an unnecessary
and Sports, and M S N B C ' s s h o w p r o m o s . Tellingly, A m e r i c a n M o v i e Clas-
distraction that especially detracted f r o m advertisers' messages. O n e
sics ( A M C ) has begun w h a t it calls " M u c h M o r e M o v i e + " ( M M M + )
advertiser p u t the case thus: "1 w a n t to k n o w that viewers are g o i n g to
u s i n g the strip for w h a t it terms "Instant i n t e r a c t i v e i n f o r m a t i o n
stay w i t h the n e t w o r k l o n g e n o u g h to see m y c o m m e r c i a l r u n . . . I sell
i n c l u d e d that doesn't p o p - u p and r u i n the video." Here A M C is using
for T V , not for the Internet." So too the w o r d s o n the stripe often interact ironically and p a r o d i -
the stripe exactly the w a y O x y g e n does for its Girl in the Picture movies
cally w i t h the image o n the screen i n the m a n n e r of V H l ' s Pop-Up Video
native strategy o f p r o g r a m m i n g shows a n d c o m p l e m e n t a r y websites
23
or Mystery Science Theater 3000, encouraging and f o l l o w i n g the viewer i n her o w n activity of " t a l k i n g back" to television, to b o r r o w bell hooks s p o p u l a r i z a t i o n of the phrase. As we note above. O x y g e n d i d not invent
Even m o r e i m p o r t a n t , it has become quite evident that Oxygen's alterdesigned to address the special needs o f w o m e n has engendered a n e w bout of television's famous copycat syndrome. Despite the p o p u l a r press's incessant predictions o f Oxygen's i m m i -
the televisual practice of using the space at the b o t t o m of the T V image
nent demise, the struggling n e t w o r k is still a r o u n d , at least at the time
to convey supplemental i n f o r m a t i o n , as television news organizations
o f this w r i t i n g . A n d d u r i n g its first t w o years o f operation it has inspired
t r a n s m i t i m p o r t a n t news flashes i n this m a n n e r , and business shows
t w o o f its chief rivals to refashion their o w n w o m e n ' s television net-
such as those o n C N B C and B l o o m b e r g use it to convey streaming, u p -
works or l a u n c h n e w n e t w o r k franchises targeted at w o m e n .
t o - t h e - m i n u t e stock i n f o r m a t i o n to its viewers. B u t O x y g e n was the
i n the O x y g e n e m u l a t i o n c l u b are the A m e r i c a n M o v i e Classics w h o
2 4
Included
first to design this feature as a value-added i n f o r m a t i o n a l enhancement
have o v e r h a u l e d their R o m a n c e C h a n n e l as the n e w W E n e t w o r k and
for the entirety of its p r o g r a m m i n g flow, i n c l u d i n g its advertisements.
Lifetime's o w n cable T V and website redesigns, and its n e w spin-off net-
M o r e o v e r , O x y g e n used its stripe f u n c t i o n to brand all of its p r o g r a m -
w o r k entitled Real W o m e n .
m i n g v i s u a l l y w i t h the ever-present O x y g e n l o g o . In effect. O x y g e n used its televisual stripe to transfer a p o p u l a r Internet practice of place-
watching oxygen in 2002—and beyond
h o l d i n g ( " b o o k m a r k i n g " a site f o r easy website n a v i g a t i o n ) to the
A s Oxygen embarked u p o n its t h i r d year of operation, Alessandra Stan-
m e d i u m of T V , whereby television surfers c o u l d easily k n o w w h e n they
ley w r o t e w h a t a m o u n t s s i m u l t a n e o u s l y to its e p i t a p h a n d r e b i r t h
the O x y g e n n e t w o r k .
announcement. A m i d widely reported news o f Oxygen's staff reductions
and its cancellation of u n p o p u l a r shows such as Pajama Party and Trackers, a m o n g others, and the disquieting realization that its "biggest draw is
See o u r website for f u l l e r biographies of the O x y g e n M e d i a Research Project team.
Xena Warrior Princess, a c a m p y syndicated fantasy p r o g r a m it shows m reruns three times a day, and w h i c h has a huge c u l t f o l l o w i n g a m o n g w o m e n , teenagers and gays." i t is clear that O x y g e n is r e s t r u c t u r i n g . ( M o s t recently, the website's n a m e and U R L have changed to reflect Oxygen's next stage—the current n a m e is " N e w O x y g e n M e d i a , " and its n e w web address is: . )
Stanley
reports that K a r e n Ramspacher, w h o oversees Oxygen's f o c u s - g r o u p research, a d m i t t e d t h e i r m i s c a l c u l a t i o n o f w h a t s m a r t w o m e n w a n t f r o m media, at least at this m o m e n t . C o n c e d i n g the disconnect between Oxygen's vision of smart media and smart w o m e n ' s apparent preference for d u m b T V . Ramspacher conveys Oxygen's determination to not give u p the vision entirely, "We still have a strong advocacy s t a n c e . . . . W h a t we learned after the l a u n c h was to balance it w i t h m o r e f u n . "
2 5
W h a t we.
the members o f the O x y g e n M e d i a Research Project, have learned i n all this is that our collection of the massive mainstream press reports about Oxygen, and o u r videotape archives of its first t w o years of television and website p r o g r a m m i n g , constitute an i m p o r t a n t historical record o f the changing role of w o m e n i n p o w e r f u l media industries. If h i s t o r y is any i n d i c a t i o n — a n d g i v e n o t h e r t e l e v i s i o n media's appropriation of Oxygen's key p r o g r a m m i n g strategies, and the o r g a n i zation's apparent forced m o v e t o w a r d m o r e standard media p r a c t i c e s — the early years of Oxygen's innovations and promise to help democratize the n e w m e d i a e n v i r o n m e n t m a y w e l l be eclipsed and h i d d e n f r o m public view. However, as w e continue to f o l l o w Oxygen's progress, we are pleased to have amassed an extensive archive of d o c u m e n t a t i o n to set the historical record straight, and to provide a reservoir of data for o u r o n g o i n g research and analyses. Like the N e w O x y g e n M e d i a enterprise itself, o u r research project is o n l y beginning.
the oxygen media research team A t the University of California, Santa Barbara, i n the U n i t e d States: P r i m a r y Research Investigators: Constance Penley, Professor of F i l m S t u d ies- A n n a E v e r e t t . Associate Professor o f F i l m Studies; Lisa Parks. Associate Professor o f F i l m ; Graduate Student Researchers: K a r l Bryant i n Sociology, Sara M a s o n i n Sociology, and M o l l y M a l o n e y i n Sociology; Undergraduate Student Intern: A m y Pocha i n F i l m Studies. A t the University of U t r e c h t , i n the Netherlands: P r i m a r y Research Investigators: R o s i B r a i d o t t i , Professor o f P h i l o s o p h y a n d W o m e n ' s Studies; Berteke Waaldijk. Assistant Professor o f H i s t o r y and Women's Studies- M i s c h a Peters, P h D Candidate i n H i s t o r y and Women's Studies. A t the University of N i j m e g a n , i n the Netherlands: P r i m a r y Research Investigator: A n n e k e Smelik. Lecturer i n F i l m and Digital M e d i a .
notes 1. Geraldine Laybourne. quoted i n Alessandra Stanley, "The Oxygen Media Channel Is Bowing to Tastes," New York Times, February 25, 2002. C I . 2. Karen Ramspacher. quoted i n Stanley, "The Oxygen Media Channel Is Bowing to Tastes." 3. Berteke Waaldijk, "When the Woman Citizen Meets the Woman C o n sumer." paper for panel on New Feminist Practices: The Oxygen Media Research Project and Digital Media Texts, at the Console-ing PassionsTelevision, Video, Feminism conference. Bristol, England, July 2001. 4. Anneke Smelik, "Considering State Feminism: The Missing Links and State Reform Measures of Dutch T V in Comparison to Oxygen Media " paper for panel on New Feminist Practices: The Oxygen Media Research Project and Digital Media Texts, at the Console-ing Passions: Television Video. Feminism conference, Bristol, England, July 2001. 5. Laybourne. quoted in Stanley, "The Oxygen Media Channel Is Bowing to Tastes. 6
6. This part of our research is indebted to projects such as Janice Radway's Reading the Romance: Women. Patriarchy and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill- U n i versity of North Carolina Press, 1984); Annette Kuhn. "Women's Genres " Screen 25:1 (1984), 18-28; len A n g , Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination (London and New York: Methuen. 1985); Jane Shattuc Die Talking Cure: TV Talk Shows and Women (New York: Routledge 1996)- LifetimeA Cable Network Tor Women, (Special Issue), Camera Obscura 33-34 (1994-95)Charlotte Brunsdon, Julie D'acci, Lynn Spigel, eds. Feminist Television Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 7. For more information about the importance of interviewing those who work i n the television industry see Kathleen Rowe's essay in Feminist Cultural Theory: Process and Production, ed. Beverley Skeggs (Manchester: Manchester University Press. 1995). 8. For further discussion of these practices see Lisa Parks, "Flexible Microcastmg: Gender, Generation and Television and Internet Convergence " in Tlie Persistence of Television: From Console to Computer, ed. Lvnn Spigel (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press, forthcoming 2003). 9. Martha Stewart was the first to coin this term, but such practices are also used by Oprah Winfrey and others. 10. Roberta Pearson and William Uricchio, eds. Tlie Many Lives of Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and his Media. (London: Routledge, 1991)- and Tony Bennett and Jane Woollacott, Bond and Bevond: The Political Career of a Popular Hero (London: Macmillan, 1987). 11. See Courtney Macavinta's 1999 C N E T News essay, "Oxygen: Women at center of convergence," for useful information about the expectations for Oxygen from both its promoters and detractors just prior to the launching of Oxygen's cable television efforts, at . The article is particularly important as a measure of the early thinking about P C - T V convergence by individuals helping to shape its commercial foundations.
12
For a revealing look at Oxygen's special relationship with AOL, see Saul ' Hansell's September 16, 1998 article "The Media Business: Advertising for The New York Times on the Web, . 13 Shortly after Oxygen initiated its cable T V programming, Hoovers Online ' posted the story "RealNetworks to Deliver Oxygen Media's Programming to Internet Audiences . . . " credited to PR Newswire. February 23. 2000. at . This material was available online at the time of this writing; unfortunately, however, this U R L is now defunct. It is this reality of disappearing websites that prompts those of us conducting research on the Web to download online content tor future reference and preservation. 14 This quote is taken from Jefferson Graham's article "Today's the day that ' much-hyped Oxygen hits the air," posted online on February 2. 2000 at . 15 C o u r t n e y Macavinta, "Oxygen: Women at center of convergence, . 16 Tom Werner, quoted i n Tom Post's. "The Convergence Gamble," i n Forbes. February 22, 1999, .
from barbie to mortal kombat
s i x t e e n
further
reflections
17. Graham, "Today's the day." 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.
Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. . . . See for example Lev M a n o v i c h , The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001). 23. Chris Geraci, quoted in Paula Bernstein, "Waiting to 1Exhale,' lor Yahoo News, February 2,2000, . 24. See Bernstein, "Waiting to Exhale." 25. Stanley, "The Oxygen T V Channel Is Bowing to Tastes."
h e n r y
j e n k i n s
It is early summer. 2001.1 a m w a l k i n g t h r o u g h the great exhibition hall at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the most important trade show m the games industry. It is hard to imagine m a n y activities that w o u l d pack i n so m a n y m e n per square foot o f e x h i b i t i o n space and so few w o m e n . M a n y of the w o m e n we see here are dressed i n scant c l o t h i n g — leather-bound Valkyries, b i k i n i - c l a d space bunnies, o r w o m e n i n tight jumpsuits prepared for motion-capture demonstrations. In what is the loudest, most visually oversaturated place I have ever b e e n — w i t h the possible exception of the streets of H o n g K o n g - w o m e n are used as bait to lure dazed buyers into the booths. O n e understands instantly w h y most of the games o n the market look and sound the wav thev do. It has little to do w i t h consumer tastes and everything to do w i t h the competition for attenfton at the floor show. In this environment, subtle games—nuanced games—disappear w i t h o u t a trace. T h e Sims o r Black & White, for example, commanded far less space at the Electronic Arts booth than the more
action-packed games, and Majestic debuted off the m a i n floor altogether
that reflected her sociological and e t h n o g r a p h i c research i n t o y o u n g
i n a corporate suite.
girls' play patterns. A n d a n u m b e r of other c o m p a n i e s — G i r l Games,
O n e b o o t h captures m y attention. A female gamer is t a k i n g o n all
H e r I n t e r a c t i v e — w e r e p r o d u c i n g g i r l - t a r g e t e d titles: i n d e p e n d e n t
challengers. There is a l o n g l i n e o f m a l e gamers, game designers, a n d
artists, s u c h as Theresa D u n c a n ( C h o p Suey), were designing p l a y f u l
game executives, each p u m p i n g each other u p . i n the expectation o f
interactive w o r k s w i t h a distinctly feminine sensibility; the major games
" w h i p p i n g her sweet little butt." as I overhear one m a n to say. A n d one by one they r e t u r n f r o m the encounter w i t h their tails between their legs, t h e i r m a s c u l i n i t y i n tatters. She is that good! She is one w i t h t h e m a c h i n e — t h e closest t h i n g to a c y b o r g I've ever e n c o u n t e r e d — w i t h absolute e c o n o m y and precision of m o v e m e n t . She k n o w s the game so w e l l that she anticipates every m o v e and compensates for it. A n d she slaughters all of the best gamers. Later that same s u m m e r . I a m w a l k i n g d o w n the streets of d o w n t o w n M e l b o u r n e and stumble past t h e w i n d o w to a game arcade. In the w i n d o w of the arcade, there are t w o teenage M o s l e m w o m e n — d r e s s e d i n f l o w i n g robes, headdresses, and v e i l s — a n d they are d a n c i n g barefoot i n front of Dance Dance R e v o l u t i o n . T h e y seem absolutely free of a l l inhibitions, totally i n touch w i t h the r h y t h m s of the machine. A n d people a l o n g the streets, l i k e myself, are s t o p p i n g a n d g a p i n g at t h e spectacular dance performance u n f o l d i n g before us. I c o u l d be optimistic a n d suggest that these t w o chance encounters suggest the increased visibility of female gamers. After a l l . the Interactive D i g i t a l Software Association is r e p o r t i n g dramatic increases i n the n u m b e r of w o m e n playing games i n the U n i t e d States ( 43 percent overall, w i t h w o m e n c o n s t i t u t i n g the majority of online gamers). T h e same research shows that, w h i l e the female Quake clans get lots of publicity for b r e a k i n g across the gender barriers i n g a m i n g , m o r e w o m e n play t r a d i t i o n a l c a r d games s u c h as bridge, b o a r d games s u c h as chess, o r trivia games such as Jeopardy, and o n l y a small n u m b e r play the kinds of games most often p r o d u c e d by the IDSA's m e m b e r companies. I fear t h a t w h a t these stories r e a l l y suggest is t h a t t h e sight o f a female gamer remains a remarkable spectacle w i t h i n a c o m m e r c i a l a n d c u l t u r a l space still d o m i n a t e d by male designers a n d male consumers. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games was conceived and coedited w i t h Justine Cassell i n the midst of a n era o f l i m i t e d but very real o p t i m i s m about the ability o f f e m a l e - r u n s t a r t u p c o m p a n i e s to t r a n s f o r m the game market, creating n e w kinds o f games that m i g h t appeal to a broader range o f f e m a l e c o n s u m e r s .
1
Barbie F a s h i o n
Designer h a d been a top seller for the C h r i s t m a s season. 1996. and h a d c o n t i n u e d t h r o u g h o u t the year to outsell i n d u s t r y standards, s u c h as Q u a k e or M y s t . establishing that there was p o t e n t i a l l y a rather large market for female-centered software titles. Brenda Laurel, w h o was one o f the m o s t respected w o m e n i n t h e c o m p u t e r i n d u s t r y , h a d established Purple M o o n games w i t h the explicit goal of designing products
companies were being forced to reconsider their m a r k e t i n g a n d design decisions to factor i n female consumers m o r e fully; and the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f T o m b Raider's Lara C r o f t character represented a significant new era for the female action hero i n games. T h e girl's game m o v e m e n t t o o k shape a r o u n d a series o f c o m p e t i n g goals and expectations: 1. Economic. T h e p l a t f o r m g a m e m a r k e t h a d entered i n t o a n age o f h e i g h t e n e d c o m p e t i t i o n at a t i m e w h e n , i n fact. 90 p e r c e n t o f A m e r i c a n boys were already p l a y i n g c o m p u t e r games. To survive, these game companies understood that they w o u l d need to expand their m a r k e t a n d thus, t h e n as n o w . there were three m a j o r targets—casual gamers, older gamers, and w o m e n . A n y p r o d u c t that c o u l d succeed i n a t t r a c t i n g one o r m o r e o f those p r i z e d d e m o graphics m i g h t h o l d the key for the company's l o n g - t e r m viability. 2. Political. T h e p l i g h t o f preteen girls h a d become a central focus of feminist concern, f o l l o w i n g the publication o f a series o f books that suggested serious self-esteem issues that were i m p a c t i n g their ability to learn and g r o w w i t h i n the classroom. F u r t h e r research suggested t h a t t h e g e n d e r gap i n t e c h n o l o g i c a l fields was g r o w i n g rather t h a n s h r i n k i n g despite decades o f feminist intervention, and the c o m p u t e r was m o r e a n d m o r e being c o d e d as a " m a s c u l i n e " t e c h n o l o g y w i t h i n the c u l t u r e . S o m e felt t h a t c o m p u t e r games m i g h t h o l d a key to getting girls engaged w i t h computers at an earlier age, a head-start p r o g r a m for technological literacy. B y the t i m e t h e y e n c o u n t e r e d c o m p u t e r s i n t h e c l a s s r o o m , boys h a d spent m a n y m o r e hours p l a y i n g games t h a n girls a n d often shoved t h e m off the hardware to s h o w t h e m h o w it s h o u l d be used. 3. Technological. T h e i n t r o d u c t i o n o f the C D - R O M as a staple o f the h o m e c o m p u t e r opened u p a n e w o p p o r t u n i t y for female-centered games to find t h e i r m a r k e t . A s l o n g as p l a t f o r m games r u l e d the roust, there was little chance o f b u i l d i n g up a girls m a r k e t because consumers w o u l d have to buy the hardware before they c o u l d play games at a t i m e w h e n there was n o t g o i n g to be a critical mass of relevant p r o d u c t available. Once the h o m e c o m p u t e r became the locus o f game p l a y — e i t h e r t h r o u g h C D - R O M games or web-based g a m e s — t h e n people w h o h a d bought the c o m p u t e r for other p u r poses c o u l d take a chance o n b u y i n g software for girls o r p l a y i n g an o n l i n e game. M o r e o v e r , w h i l e three m a j o r conmanies
detprmir^
what products w o u l d be available for their platforms, the C D - R O M
had never had to c o n f r o n t b e f o r e — h o w to w r i t e about c u l t u r a l p r o -
and web game markets were o p e n to c o m p e t i t i o n . T e c h n o l o g i c a l
duction i n a context where w o m e n n o w exercised a considerable degree
changes had l o w e r e d the barriers o f entry into the market place.
of power. If w o m e n were heading u p the games company, their efforts
4. Entrepreneurial. A g r o w i n g n u m b e r o f w o m e n h a d t r i e d w o r k i n g
c o u l d no longer be called marginal, but at the same time they were n o w
w i t h i n the m a i n s t r e a m industry, enjoyed some degree of success,
forced to respond to the same economic realities w h i c h shaped c o r p o -
b u t h a d w a n t e d to d e v e l o p i n d e p e n d e n c e so t h e y c o u l d create
rate decision m a k i n g i n what remained a largely patriarchal society Ear-
p r o d u c t s that m o r e f u l l y reflected t h e i r perspectives a n d e x p e r i -
lier generations o f feminists h a d celebrated
ences. T h e girl's game m o v e m e n t caught the rising tide of female
A-rzner w h o p r o d u c e d films f r o m the margins of the studio system as
filmmakers
like Dorothy
e n t r e p r e n e u r s h i p i n A m e r i c a n c u l t u r e at a t i m e w h e n w o m e n
engaged m a k i n d of "countercinema." Yet, a game c o m p a n y executive
were starting n e w businesses at a rate significantly higher t h a n m e n
like Laurel had control over (and thus was forced to take responsibility
and i n d o i n g so were i n t r o d u c i n g n e w kinds of products, o p e n i n g
for) the products she shipped under the Purple M o o n logo.
n e w kinds of markets, and developing new forms of business m a n agement and n e w kinds of customer relationships. 5. Aesthetic. T h e girl's game m o v e m e n t promised n e w kinds of content,
In hindsight, it is t r o u b l i n g h o w q u i c k l y Laurel f o u n d herself caught i n a feminist backlash against the reproduction of feminine stereotypes i n her w o r k w h e n so little attention was being given to her explicit goal of
n e w models of play and interactivity, n e w visual aesthetics, and new
using p o p u l a r c u l t u r e to e m p o w e r y o u n g girls. We m i g h t compare the
approaches to the soundtrack. T h e m o v e m e n t set a goal of m a k i n g
feminist backlash against P u r p l e M o o n to. say, the m u c h m o r e friendly
games radically different f r o m those o n the m a r k e t , so that they
reception given to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess, or The Power
c o u l d attract n e w kinds of consumers. This made the m o v e m e n t a
Puff Girls. As Laurel writes i n her n e w book, Utopian Entrepreneur. " B y trying
h o t b e d for i n n o v a t i o n a n d e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n , w i t h a s t r o n g p u s h
to do a n y t h i n g socially positive at a l l , the Utopian entrepreneur opens
t o w a r d m o r e p s y c h o l o g i c a l l y n u a n c e d characters, softer c o l o r
herself u p to the endless critique that she is i n fact not d o i n g enough
palettes, m o r e r i c h l y - l a y e r e d soundtracks, n e w interface designs
1 a m reminded o f the o l d saw: the one w h o attacks y o u is likely to be the
( i n c l u d i n g those, s u c h as Barbie F a s h i o n D e s i g n e r , t h a t h e l p e d
one closest to y o u o n the road. . . . I wondered, d i d anyone notice that
bridge between the c o m p u t e r and real-world play), and m o r e c o m -
this wasn't B a r b i e - t h a t R o c k e t struggled m i g h t i l y to be ethical and
plex stories.
s e l f - d e f i n e d ? . . . O u r characters e x h i b i t e d l o y a l t y , h o n o r , l o v e a n d courage. T h e y also struggled w i t h gossip, jealousy, cheating, lipstick
O u r book tried to d o c u m e n t the c o m p l e x interweaving of ideologi-
s m o k i n g , exclusion, racism, poverty, materialism, and b r o k e n homes
cal idealism and m a r k e t calculations that shaped the d e v e l o p m e n t of
W h e n we had to choose, we sacrificed political correctness i n order to
the girl's game m o v e m e n t . We were interested i n the ways that the girls
meet the girls where they were, i n the realities o f their o w n lives."^
game m o v e m e n t b r o u g h t t o g e t h e r f e m i n i s t academics a n d f e m a l e
W h a t bothers m e even m o r e , however, is the degree to w h i c h P u r -
C E O s i n a collective effort to t r a n s f o r m the c u r r e n t state and the f u t u r e
ple M o o n has been treated n o t o n l y w i t h i n the i n d u s t r y but also w i t h i n
direction of a sector o f the entertainment i n d u s t r y w h i c h is d r a w i n g i n
academia as a "failed experiment," as if the importance o f a political and
an a n n u a l i n c o m e r o u g h l y equivalent to the gross domestic box office
c u l t u r a l intervention c o u l d be o r s h o u l d be measured o n l y by market
returns for H o l l y w o o d movies.
standards. A s Utopian Enterepreneur makes clear, however, even by market
I n that context, t h e book's focus shifted f r o m w h e t h e r t h e r e was
standards, the c o m p a n y c o u l d scarcely be v i e w e d as a failure s i m p l y
going to be software for girls ( w h i c h seemed almost a given) to what kinds
because it c o u l d n ' t compete effectively for the girl's market against Bar-
of software for what kinds of girls. We asked, for example, whether games
bie, the m o s t successful girls franchise o f a l l t i m e , o r A m e r i c a n G i r l
s h o u l d be designed to reflect girl's existing tastes and interests o r to
another successful franchise w i t h brand loyalties arranged w e l l before'
transform t h e m , and whether this question represented a contradiction
it sought to i n t r o d u c e its software l i n e . P u r p l e M o o n sought to use a
w i t h i n feminist entrepreurship. F e m i n i s m has always sought to critique
n e w set o f characters and a n e w set o f stories i n order to i n t r o d u c e a
and reinvent gender roles, whereas entrepreneurship has h a d to start
n e w k i n d o f p r o d u c t to a n e w k i n d o f m a r k e t . In d o i n g so, it h a d
where the market was. We pointed, for example, to a controversial state-
notable success o n the web. where it became the t h i r d m o s t p o p u l a r site
ment that Brenda Laurel had made, "I agreed that whatever solution the
for c h i l d r e n , t h o u g h its success came at a time w h e n the business m o d -
research suggested. I'd go along w i t h . Even if it meant shipping products
els f o r t u r n i n g a r e v e n u e s t r e a m f r o m t h e w e b s t i l l h a d n o t j e l l e d
i n n i n k boxes." In m a n y ways, this was a challenge that feminist critics
( a n d — g u e s s w h a t , f o l k s — t h e y still haven't, several v « . r e
2
A„
Laurel explains, "Here's one of the perversities of dot-capitalism: if P u r -
playing games—those w h o were already comfortable searching for and
ple M o o n h a d n o t actually p r o d u c e d any real products. I'd probably be
finding c o m m o n g r o u n d w i t h boys—whereas those girls most apt to be
'post-economic' today. Just as the d o t - e c o n o m y started s p i n n i n g straw
left behind were those whose tastes were the most traditionally feminine.
into g o l d . Purple M o o n was spending real m o n e y to make real products
Suppose we take at face value the c l a i m that game designers aren't
to go i n t o real shelves i n real stores. In investment terms, this was a big
designing for boys, that they are simply designing games thev w o u l d like
m i s t a k e . E v e n t h o u g h w e h a d a n e x t r e m e l y p o p u l a r Website, t h e
to play. T h e existing e m p l o y e e p o o l for t h e games i n d u s t r y is o v e r -
embarrassing detail of real goods prevented us f r o m passing for a d o t -
w h e l m i n g l y male, so the games designed appeal overwhelmingiv to m e n .
c o m p a n y i n the venture c o m m u n i t y . A n d so, instead o f the w i l d v a l u -
O n e i m p o r t a n t step w o u l d be to significantly e x p a n d the n u m b e r o f
ations that made s o m e of o u r y o u n g e r friends m u l t i m i l l i o n a i r e s , the
w o m e n w o r k i n g i n the industry and give t h e m e n o u g h r o o m to develop
valuation of P u r p l e M o o n c o u l d never exceed some s m a l l m u l t i p l e of
products that w o u l d reflect their tastes and sensibilities. A n o t h e r w o u l d
our revenues—because w e actually h a d revenues."
4
What k i l l e d P u r p l e M o o n wasn't the lack of a girl's market for games
be to make a conscious effort to broaden the range o f game c o n t e n t based o n research, i f not firsthand e x p e r i e n c e — i n order to expand the
or the invalidity of her core m o d e l about w h a t a girl's game m i g h t l o o k
n u m b e r of w o m e n w h o get excited about the m e d i u m and thus help to
like, but rather the impatience o f t h e company's core investors to m a k e
develop the next generation of game designers. What this situation doesn't
the kinds o f t u r n a r o u n d that they were seeing elsewhere i n the digital
justify is complacency o n the part of the games industry.
e c o n o m y . In the e n d , P u r p l e M o o n suffered the fate that befalls m o s t
T h e d e c l i n e o f the girl's g a m e c o m p a n i e s has t a k e n s o m e o f t h e
s t a r t u p s — i t was acquired by a larger a n d m o r e firmly established c o m -
pressure off the m a j o r games companies to respond to this gender gap,
pany, a n o l d - e c o n o m y c o m p a n y — i n this case, M a t t e l . In t r y i n g to
b u y i n g t h e m t i m e to take a m o r e conservative approach. We are n o t
break i n t o a market, startups are often forced to try riskier n e w m e t h -
seeing w h a t w e m i g h t have a n t i c i p a t e d five years a g o — a g r o w i n g
ods or to test alternative approaches or to innovate n e w kinds o f p r o d -
" p i n k " aisle at t h e software stores. Instead, we are seeing the m a j o r
ucts, whereas established c o m p a n i e s t e n d to be m o r e conservative,
companies absorb those lessons that they can f r o m girl games c o m p a -
taking a wait-and-see attitude t o w a r d i n n o v a t i o n since they can afford
nies' experimentation and apply t h e m to existing franchises that have
to m a k e adjustments d o w n the line. Larger companies absorb startups
already p r o v e n successful w i t h their p r e d o m i n a n t l y male consumers.
for t w o r e a s o n s — t o k i l l c o m p e t i t i o n , a n d to absorb the i n n o v a t i o n
So, for example. Barbie Fashion Designer enables girls to design Barbie's
back i n t o the m a i n s t r e a m of the industry. M a t t e l apparently absorbed
clothes, style her hair, select her theme music, choreograph her m o v e -
P u r p l e M o o n w i t h a n eye t o w a r d k i l l i n g off c o m p e t i t i o n to Barbie w i t h
ments, and have her w a l k d o w n the fashion r u n w a y . T h e n e w W o r l d
the result that it made o n l y a halfhearted attempt to extend the R o c k e t
W r e s t l i n g F e d e r a t i o n games w o u l d t h e n enable boys to d e s i g n t h e
franchise beyond those products that Laurel's c o m p a n y h a d p r o d u c e d .
wrestlers' clothes, style their hair, select their t h e m e m u s i c , c h o r e o -
M a t t e l never u n d e r s t o o d w h a t it h a d acquired. Rocket's u l t i m a t e dis-
graph their movements, and t h e n have t h e m w a l k d o w n the aisle into
appearance f r o m the marketplace, t h e n , m a y have less to do w i t h the
the ring, where they beat the crap o u t of each other. Is this n e w focus
viability of its m o d e l and m o r e to do w i t h the serious corporate forces
o n designing y o u r o w n characters at least partially a p r o d u c t of the suc-
that Purple M o o n was challenging. O n e o f the m o s t f r e q u e n t l y asked questions w h e n o u r b o o k first appeared was whether it made sense to gender segregate—that is. to cre-
cess o f the Barbie franchise? H a r d to tell, given t h e fact that hardcore gamers have l o n g traded i n "skins." but the parallels between the t w o interface designs are striking.
ate a girls' m a r k e t rather t h a n e x p a n d i n g the existing boys' m a r k e t to
Ironically, this m o r e conservative strategy o f i n t e g r a t i n g selected
include m o r e gender-neutral material. We were t o l d , for example, that
traits f r o m girl's game models into existing boy's game genres and f r a n -
no one designed games specifically for boys. I w o u l d suggest that the
chises m a y be leading us t o w a r d s o m e t h i n g approaching the "gender-
release of a m a j o r piece of hardware k n o w n as the G a m e b o y suggests
n e u t r a l " play spaces some o f us were advocating. (Let's bracket for the
that the industry did identify its products along gender lines. M a n y felt
m o m e n t the nagging question o f w h e t h e r any o f us really k n o w s what
that it was time to consciously signal to girls that there m i g h t be some
it w o u l d l o o k l i k e to live i n a gender-neutral society a n d t h u s w h e t h e r
forms of digital entertainment that reflected their tastes and interests.
gender-neutral doesn't still m e a n second-class citizenship for girls.)
W i t h o u t s u c h a gesture, a g e n d e r - n e u t r a l p l a y space w o u l d r e m a i n
It is interesting to look at T h e Sims, one of the m o s t successful games
simply a de facto masculine space. T h e argument for m o r e " f e m i n i n e "
i n recent years, i n light of the distinctions that Brenda Laurel m a p p e d
content lay i n the r e c o g n i t i o n that a significant n u m b e r of girls were
between the classic boy game and her vision f o r the ideal girl game:
G I R L S — L e a d i n g characters are evervdav people that
and repeated routines, rather t h a n rapid-fire challenges and conflicts.
girls can easilv relate to. and are as real to girls as their
The Sims almost i m m e d i a t e l y developed a fan c u l t u r e s u r r o u n d i n g the
best friends.
p r o d u c t i o n o f scrapbooks d o c u m e n t i n g the experiences o f the Sims
B O Y S — L e a d i n g characters are fantasv-based action heroes with '"superpower" abilities.
5
In the case of The Sims, the default set o f characters are. indeed, "everyday people." the setting is domestic, and the challenges confronted are familiar ones. Because T h e Sims supports the development and sharing of " s k i n s . " artifacts, a n d a r c h i t e c t u r e , s o m e players have d e v e l o p e d larger-than-life protagonists a n d spaces that can be retrofit i n t o the game u n i v e r s e — i n c l u d i n g the kinds o f superhero or wrestler characters f o u n d i n m o r e traditional games. W h a t is s t r i k i n g , however, is the degree to w h i c h boys are forced to adjust the game to a c c o m m o d a t e their interests, whereas so often i n o u r culture, w o m e n are expected to read their interests f r o m the margins o f p o p u l a r c u l t u r e texts that c e n ter o n male interests. G I R L S — G o a l is to explore and have new experiences, w i t h degrees of success and varying outcomes. B O Y S — G o a l is to w i n , and the play is linear. Outcome is black and white; die and start over; one "right" solution.
characters and over t i m e , these scrapbooks became m o r e and m o r e narrativized. To read those scrapbooks is to learn m o r e and m o r e about the e m o t i o n a l lives and motives of these characters. Indeed, w h i l e the scrapbooks were intended to record game actions, m a n y players report that they play the game to get the images they need to complete n a r r a tives t h e y w a n t to t e l l . T h e Sims has thus f o u n d a w a y to encourage players to create m o r e n a r r a t i v e l y c o m p e l l i n g experiences. W h i l e Purple M o o n authored stories w i t h i n its games (while p r o v i d i n g a web space i n w h i c h girls c o u l d expand u p o n their u n d e r s t a n d i n g of those characters), T h e Sims was designed as a " s a n d b o x " o r " d o l l h o u s e " where players c o u l d play o u t their o w n narratives. GIRLS—Feature everyday "real life" settings as w e l l as new places to explore. BOYS—Features non-realistic, larger-than-life settings. In From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, I contrasted S i m C i t y w i t h the "play t o w n " that Harriet constructed for her imaginary life i n the classic children's book, Harriet the Spy: " S i m C i t y embraces stock themes f r o m boys' play, s u c h as b u i l d i n g forts, s h a p i n g e a r t h w i t h t o y t r u c k s , o r d a m m i n g
T h e Sims lends itself to a b r o a d array o f different goals a n d o u t -
creeks, p l a y i n g t h e m o u t o n a m u c h larger scale. For Harriet, the m a p -
comes. O f t e n , players use the game to do psychological experiments.
p i n g o f the space was o n l y the first step i n preparing the g r o u n d for a
Friends have t o l d m e that they have used the game to see if they are
r i c h saga o f life and death, joy and sorrow, and those are the elements
c o m p a t i b l e w i t h a p r o p o s e d set o f r o o m m a t e s or l e a r n w h a t adjust-
that are totally l a c k i n g i n m o s t s i m u l a t i o n games." T h e Sims, however,
ments they w o u l d need to m a k e i n order to m o v e i n w i t h their g i r l -
is Harriet's " p l a y t o w n . " T h e shift i n the scale o f the game f r o m S i m
friends. A single m o t h e r described the different ways that she and her
City's objectifying t o p - d o w n v i e w of u r b a n renewal to T h e Sims' sub-
son used the game to w o r k t h r o u g h the issues s u r r o u n d i n g the recent
jective, eye-level perspective o n individual characters, reflects this o p e n -
d i v o r c e — t h e s o n to create a perfect n u c l e a r f a m i l y , the d i v o r c e d
ness to n e w k i n d s of narratives, w h i c h center a r o u n d characters and
m o t h e r to imagine w h a t it w o u l d be like to reenter the dating w o r l d .
their e m o t i o n a l lives. The interface is designed to foreground emotional
T h e features of the game are familiar and evocative, encouraging us to
responses—rendered a l l the m o r e p o w e r f u l l y w h e n abstracted f r o m
use t h e m to simulate o u r o w n experiences and thus test different social
the specific verbal content o f their speech. T h e characters weep w h e n
strategies, m u c h as the design of the P u r p l e M o o n games was designed
o t h e r characters die; t h e y m a k e passionate l o v e ; t h e y flirt; t h e y get
to a l l o w pre-adolescent girls to rehearse social strategies for responding
depressed and m o p e ; t h e y get t i r e d a n d c r a n k y . A s T h e Sims moves
to the challenges o f h i g h school life.
f r o m a stand-alone game to a m u l t i p l a y e r o n l i n e game, the universe of
GIRLS—Play focuses on multi-sensory immersion, discovery, and strong story lines. BOYS—Speed and action are key. T h e e x p l o r a t o r y n a t u r e of T h e Sims differs d r a m a t i c a l l y f r o m the
spaces and characters expands enormously, creating m a n y m o r e opportunities for b o t h spatial and social exploration. GIRLS—Success comes through development of friendships.
fixed goals and rapid fire action associated w i t h traditional boy's games.
BOYS—Success comes t h r o u g h the e l i m i n a t i o n of
T h e pace of this game is slower, dealing m o r e w i t h gradual processes
competitors.
Consider Laurel's descriptions of the different ways that girls and boys
o w n complications and challenges as creating a 'girls
compete: "Girls and boys are equally competitive—-they are just differ-
only space or encouraging girls to venture into tradi-
ent kinds of competition. Girls assert social influence and structure rela-
tional male turf. We are n o t yet sure what a gender-
tionships w h i l e boys seek to d o m i n a t e and defeat." Girl's c o m p e t i t i o n ,
neutral space w i l l look like. Creating such a space w o u l d
she asserts, reflects a "desire to establish relationships/friendships." to
m e a n redesigning n o t o n l y the nature of c o m p u t e r
extend their "social status" t h r o u g h processes of affiliation and e x c l u -
games but also the nature of society. The danger may be
sion, and to "figure o u t " opponents. The Sims can be seen as a game that
that i n such a space, gender differences are going to be
rewards precisely these kinds of social and c u l t u r a l competition, i n c l u d -
more acutely felt, as boys and girls will be repelled from
ing the development of a rewards system based o n the player's ability to
each other rather than drawn together.
establish s t r o n g social bonds w i t h a broad array of o t h e r players and
There are reasons why this is a place where neither the feminist entrepreneurs n o r the makers of boys' games are ready to go, yet as the girls' market is secured the challenge must be to find a way to move beyond our existing categories and to once again invent new kinds of virtual play spaces.
characters. M u c h o f the game play consists of social interactions w i t h i n the family or w i t h friends, and the expansion packs offer m o r e options for hosting parties and thus expanding the circle of one's social contacts. The game excludes almost altogether those forms of c o m p e t i t i o n that are traditionally associated w i t h boy's games, where "social status tends to be by achievement and physical d o m i n a t i o n " and where the goal is to
The S i het
" o u t w i t " opponents. Indeed, i n the absence of p r e - s t r u c t u r e d goals or
m s
„
a
n
i
r
n
p
o
r
t
a
m
^
s t e p
^
^
p r e - d e t e r m i n e d c o m p e t i t i o n , the element of direct physical combat is excluded f r o m T h e Sims almost altogether.
an W
, "I"
'^
e
m
b
E
d
S
t
h
6
m
W i t h i n
a
— f r l
p
£
I have spoken to W i l l W r i g h t and others at Maxis and I a m reasonably c o n v i n c e d that t h e y w e r e n o t d i r e c t l y m o d e l i n g T h e Sims o n girl's g a m e - m o v e m e n t products. Rather, the decisions they made came out of a context where there were m o r e female designers and m o r e h i g h l y
w o u l d seem to me to represent the logical c u l m i n a t i o n of
ranked female designers than I have seen at any other mainstream game studio. In such a context, even if there is n o conscious goal of expanding the female market, the unconscious decisions made by m e n and w o m e n w o r k i n g together is likely to p r o d u c e a p r o d u c t that is very different f r o m one where the intuitive decisions were made by an all or p r e d o m i n a n t l y m a l e t e a m of designers. N o t surprisingly, t h e n , T h e Sims has proven to be h i g h l y successful i n attracting female players w h i l e at the
t h e 1 W
movement and the beginning of the process of developing a mot "
o
f
e
C
^
a^scanandcannotplaytog^ really means to provide a c o m m o n g r o u n d for both genders.
notes
same time expanding the range of play experiences available to boys. I concluded m y essay i n From Barbie to Mortal Kombat w i t h these words of
work' is more likely to occur w h e n children are forced
presented at Playing the Rules- The r , 1 ,»T Video Games Conference, h o s l d b y i ^ ^ ^ ^ sity of Chicago, October 26-27.2001 2. Brenda Laurel, as quoted i n G Beam "rwur Girls Is N o L o n g e r ^ 0 ^ , ^ ^
together by adults t h a n w h e n they find themselves
3- ^ e n d a L a u r e l , Utopian Enterpreneur (Cambridge: M I T Press, 2001).
caution:
Y
b y
7
[Sociologist Barrie] Thorne finds that aggressive 'border-
interacting more spontaneously, more likely to occur i n prestructured institutional settings like the school yard than i n the i n f o r m a l settings of the subdivisions and apartment complexes. A l l of this suggests that our fantasy of designing games that will provide c o m m o n play 1
1
1
— „ . ; • , « ,
onrl
5
t
full of
its
' ^5Ss^5_íS^ r ?
5
W«q>¿^ta1í3 T^fimTZ i
Moo/in Glos and S
^
^
^
, b
,was
™™? ^ .
WM
^
C e n t e r
'
U n i v e r
^
- ™ -
° ^
ee gir,sandgam mulated byBrendaLaurei h " ^
^ ^
f
^
™ » Purple
f
endnotes for a theory of s e v e n t e e n
joe
convergence
a m a t o
1. For a brilliant analysis of the "restorative disabling," or what he terms "indigence," inherent to encyclopedic narrative/discourse, see Jed Rasula, "Textual Indigence i n the Archive," Postmodern Culture 9, no. 3 (1999), <muse.jhu.edu/journals/pmc/v009/9.3rasula.html>. Through trenchant readings of Thomas Pynchon, D o n DeLillo, Thomas M a n n , Herman Melville, and James Joyce, Rasula conjectures that the (narrative") impulse to thematize the A l l (formerly the universal) brings with it a "thickenjing]" agent (paragraph 37) that complicates reductive notions of knowledge, of our capacity to know (there may be a trace here of what anthropologist Clifford Geertz, after Gilbert Ryle, called "thick description"). Despite the rosier epistemological proclamations associated with our digital era, "the issue is not strictly technological," for more "organic visions" are equally culpable on the count of presuming "faith i n the beneficence of a higher power" (paragraph 38; Rasula cites, among others, James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, C. G . Jung's collective unconscious, and "utopian affirmations of our multi-media 'infosphere'" as a sort of "global nervous system"). It is precisely against such cosmic convictions that indigence, as theorized analogically by Rasula, may augur an "apparently aimless circularity" that serves to offset "the new dromocracy [sic]—the world of entitlements to
speed," thus instructing us as to "the scope and limits of 'learning' as such" (paragraph 39). As for "thick description," see Clifford Geertz. The Interpretation of Cultures (NewYork: Basic Books, 1973). In The Poetics of the Common Knowledge (Albany: State University of New York Press. 1994), D o n Byrd mounts a poetic revaluation of "the postmodern assumption... that all of the possibilities—all of the infinite possibilities— are accounted for" (348). Hardly opposed to postmodernism as a field of artistic endeavor. Byrd queries the Lyotardian condition of postmodernity to mount a damning (and often exhilarating) polemic directed against a "statistical world" in which the A l l that "is already accounted for" (348) militates against public apprehension of the finite and singular nature of our planet (not to say our cosmos). The burgeoning digital information complex may be precisely (a version of) that whole which passes today for M l — a n d as Byrd has it, building on the work of Alfread North Whitehead and Charles Olson, the "philosophic" truth of such a "non-statistical" A l l "does not satisfy the creative eros" (348-49). Indeed, it cannot—at least philosophically (!), to the extent that the creative prevails as that "investigatory" moment imagined by Olson à la Byrd (357) wherein the (North American) poet-creator (-historian) articulates the requisite interworkings of information, knowledge, and uncertainty ( this is a prime feature of what Byrd intuits and limns as "the common knowledge"). One may debate the type and merits of poetic inquiry so conceived, but Byrd's exhortation has the effect of placing the creative act squarely in the midst of all-toosingularly-human, aspiringly communal, technologically informed, and unremittingly social embarkations of desire. See also Ed Sanders, Investigative Poetry (San Francisco: City Lights, 1976). This is Charles Bernstein's point i n his provocative essay "Provisional Institutions: Alternative Presses and Poetic Innovation." "One of the clichés of the intellectual- and artist-bashing so fashionable i n our leading journals," Bernstein writes, "is that there are no more 'public intellectuals'" (146). "The truth of the matter," he continues, "is that writing of great breadth and depth, and of enormous significance for the public, flourishes, but that the dominant media institutions—commercial television and radio, the trade presses, and the nationally circulated magazines (including the culturally upscale periodicals)—have blacklisted this material." For Bernstein, the "crime" of the artists and intellectuals to which he refers "is not a lack of accessibility but a refusal to submit to marketplace agendas" (146). In My Way: Speeches and Poems (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1999), 145-54. F r e on the publishing marketplace and its once-and-future conglomerations, see André Schiffrin, The Business of Books ( New York: Verso. 2000), and Jason E. Epstein, Book Business (New York: Norton, 2001). Genealogy evidently ranks second only to pornography i n generating web traffic, as reported by Peter T. Kilborn, "In Libraries and Cemeteries, Vacationing w i t h Ancestors," New York Times, August 19, 2001. late national éd., sec. 1, 1 + . "The Internet's message boards, family news groups and genealogical services," writes Kilborn, "are its second-busiest destinations after the sexually-oriented sites" (24).' (The hunt for descendants and the hunt for sexual gratification [that might, on the offchance, beget descendants] thus take place side-by-side.) The development of sophisticated online databases and search engines, most notably of late at <www.ellisislandrecords.com>, helps to explain public o r
m 0
access to. if not public fascination with, family immigration records and the like. Good middle-class citizens may now conceivably clear up longstanding confusion resulting from faulty, or competing, memories; family secrets may be outed; family myths may be put to rest. (I speak here from personal experience, having recently perused "original" [digitized] ship manifests using the Ellis Island archives to learn the actual dates of immigration of my Sicilian grandparents; the names and destinations of several heretofore obscure relatives: and the timing of those to-and-fro ocean journeys that brought my kin to the states. And this online glimpse of what C . L. R. James, while imprisoned on Ellis Island, wrote of as a "miniature" of the world's nations and societies is brought to me i n the terra firma comfort of my loft office.) If one considers this form of electronic recuperation alongside the more biologically anchored, if correspondingly computational, realities of D N A forensics (I have i n mind here the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings affair), we may be witnessing a collective, participatory reconstruction of the thus abstracted, singularized, and pixeled past (person or polis). History may begin to resemble those dinosaurs in Jurassic Park—reanimated, alive, with teeth. See C. L. R. James. Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: Tlie Story of Herman Melville and the World We Li In (London: Allison and Busby/Schocken, 1985; originally published 1953). 5. "The web is now a place of quantity i n ]Charles] Olson's sense," observes Michael Joyce, "and its quantity here too is increasingly termed an environment or a society." Proposing that we treat the web as a "ritual space." Joyce asserts that this space "encourages us to seek some sense of [Cara] Armstrong and [Karen] Nelson's 'revised history and broader framework'" (412). Joyce is wary, however, of the ease with which we take such "ritual action" as a guarantor of a more profound spiritual cartography. See Michael Joyce, "Beyond Next Before You Once Again: Repossessing and Renewing Electronic Culture," i n Passions, Pedagogies and Twenty-First-Century Technologies, ed. Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe, (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1999), 399-417. As many have commented, one casualty of "multiclick" search and save missions is likely to be a certain trivializing of our public infosphere (think of D V D "Easter egg" hunts), for Eurorootedness or not, we frequent flyers are hence ultimately bound to our presumed origins via a retrospective accumulation of raw data capital—no doubt to be merchandised along the lines of the Ellis Island endeavor (see note 4. above), "to give a truly meaningful gift [hard copies of ship manifests etc.] to your loved ones" (promotional e-mail received August 9.2001 from ). A n d such armchair memory processing may constitute a false grasp, again, of what it means to know, given the ineluctably pixilated erotics of assemblage and communication. 6. Similarly, the Electronic Literature Directory, launched i n September of 2000 (<www.eliterature.org>), served to authorize and focus the international multimedia field as such by providing a user-friendly database of that field's productions and authors. A m o n g the many benefits of listing oneself in the database, according to the Electronic Literature Organization: "Having your biographical information and work listed in the Directory w i l l increase your readership and visibility. The Directory w i l l be unequalled as a reference source for electronic literature and is bound to become a significant portal for readers. It will serve as a valuable tool for event organizers looking for readers and lecturers. It will help teachers find
works to assign for class study and will aid scholars and journalists who write about the field" (e-mail received August 25, 2000 from ). I certainly do not wish to derogate or dispute any of these solicitations (especially as some have already proved accurate, and especially as I am myself a participant i n the ELO enterprise!), but I do wish to highlight the more direct (if subtly stated) appeal of such a listing: that it imagines a community of readers, event organizers, lecturers, teachers (and by imphcation, students), scholars, and journalists; i n short, that it imagines an entire public intellectual sphere, however geopolitically reconceived or redistributed, that pretty much parallels existing print networks and functions (and with regard to publishing, see note 3. above). Such functions are i n fact no doubt undergoing rapid deformation—to judge by all but the most stodgily recalcitrant rear guard—yet I would surmise that more thought needs to be given to the nature of our marketplace transactions: specifically, urgencies surrounding royalties, copyrights, and so on. (Marketing and advertising concerns are not necessarily paramount here, as print-on-demand distribution mechanics, for instance, have been rapidly absorbed into the Bertelsmann et al. entertainment complex.) A n apt place to begin retheorizing might be with that vexed term, editor, for the editorial function invokes at once the practical necessity for limiting (via simple selection) seemingly unlimited web capacities, and the desire for some more conscious form of aesthetic-ideological discrimination. (Preferably of the "Ask not what your cultural practice can do for y o u " variety. A n d let's be clear: It's not that popular culture is so banal—and m u c h of it is. sure—it's just that it's getting tougher and tougher to find a small press distributor.) We mustn't let such discriminatory apparatuses get i n the way of real change, either. Even a quick survey of multimedia work w i l l reveal that animated graphics often obscure moribund ideas, that clumsy imaging often foregrounds verbal eloquence. M u c h the same situation characterized twentieth-century developments in cinema. As Wheeler Winston Dixon makes the case for the "B" film: "In a very real sense, 'B' films were forced to be trailblazers, simply because they inherently could not compete i n the area of spectacle; they had too little money for anything beyond the bare physical necessities of production" (76); Dixon, The Second Century of Cinema: The Past and Future of the Moving Image (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000). As for "imagined communities," see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. and extended ed. (London: New York, Verso, 1991). John Perry Barlow's "The Economy of Ideas," published during the initial clamor over Internet incursions, remains an eminently useful document. See Wired 2.03 (March 1994), 84-90, 126-29. or <www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas.html>. Finally (and if I may): English Studies (or whatever we eventually call it) could profit i n general from a renewed discussion of aesthetic convergence (per se). Marjorie Perloff's (characteristically controversial) investigation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's diverse philosophical (-aesthetic-ethical) platform in the context of various twentieth-century arts strikes this reader as an appropriate place to start; see Perloff, Wittgensteins Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). See also Brian K i m Stefans's lively poetry and poetics site, <www.geocities.com/ arras_online/>.
7. Privacy issues are another matter. That privacy is gradually coming to be seen—by the corporate sector—as a commodity should give us pause. See Toby Lester, "The Reinvention of Privacy," Atlantic Monthly 287 no 3 (2001), 27-39; see also Philip E. Agre and Marc Rotenberg, eds., Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape (Cambridge, Mass.: M I T Press, 1997.) For an important early government document detailing First A m e n d m e n t issues, see U.S. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment, Science, Technology, and the First Amendment, OTA-CIT-369 (Washington D C • US Government Printing Office, 1988). K. Eric Drexler's discussion of hypertext i n the context of nanotechnology is pertinent here: his speculative remarks circa mid-1980s, drawing from the work of Vannevar Bush and Theodor H o l m (and, it would seem. Marshall McLuhan), distinguished him as being among the first to associate, directly, advancements i n information access (hypertext i n particular) w i t h the entire spectrum of emerging (nano)technologies; and Drexler was careful to consider the dangers posed by these new information technologies i n terms of government surveillance and the like. See Drexler. Engines of Creation: The Comm^ra of Nanotechnology (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1987), esp. 8. I agree fully with Michelle Kendrick's assessment when she writes, "In this respect, any subjectivity or identity—any sense of a pretechnologi'cal reality or a reality distinct from or prior to technological intervention—can only be imaginary. The technological real, therefore, describes the inextncabihty of embodied identity and technology i n the construction of working fictions of subjectivity" (144-15). See Kendrick, "Cyberspace and the Technological Real," in Virtual Realities and Their Discontents, ed. Robert Markley (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 143-60. OK then. But if you assume, as almost every media scholar these days does that writing is itself a technology—well, Kendrick's articulation (like the one you're reading) must be at least vulnerable to the (writerly) charge that it too works to create a fiction of subjectivity. Rather than debate here the merits of scholarly vs. discourse, I would simply point to the liability of operating without due consideration of related effects. It's rather like Lâszlö Moholy-Nagy's belief that "[g]roup activity of the future must be more consciously aware of the mechanics of its own operation as well as of its results" (358). See Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (Chicago: Paul Theobald. 1965 [originally published 1947]; I can't get behind the sociobiological drift of Moholy-Nagy's speculative postwar [and Bauhaus-derived] remarks, but his book is nonetheless one helluva read from a media perspective). 9. H . Kassia Fleisher has made this case a bit more forcibly: "To inhabit passively another novel that tugs you along (machinery silenced) with seductive readability . . . this also is to sell your agency. To write, to compose, to order, to organize a world passively i n lined story form- to fail to expose, to yourself if not to your reader, the mechanisms by which you tug, seduce; to fail to value your reader's intentions and resistance this also is to sell your agency—as well as the agency of your readers. It is to contribute to the building of more little [publishing] Celebrations all over the land." See Fleisher, "Fucked by the Master's Plot: Miss Collins and Mr. Sawyer Celebrate the American Dream." Electronic Book Review 9 (1998) <www.altx.com/ebr/ebr9/index.html>.
10. A t the very least, our tools themselves are at stake as we surf the web, plumb the archives, navigate the constructed world. "The activity of navigation," argues M . A . Syverson i n a more cognitive vein, "is a process of thinking through the tools, charts, records, and social structures, not a simple question of applying t h e m " (174). See Syverson, " T h i n k i n g through Worlds Fair: Evolutionary Rhetoric." Computers and Composition 18, no. 2 (2001): 163-76. For Syverson, the "major challenge" of "incorporating] visual rhetoric into . . . composition courses" is a matter of "thinking with," rather than "representing... in." such media (174). And on this note, I w o u l d argue that literary and composition practitioners alike could benefit from greater exposure to more artistic (including visual) products and processes. Jim Andrews has compiled a stellar archive of "webartery" at . A n d Steve Tomasula's VAS: An Opera in Flatland (Barrytown, N Y : Station Hill Press, 2002; graphic design by Stephen Farrell) is likely to become one of the seminal print works to explore conjunctions of (fictional and nonfictional) narrative and image. Tomasula's dance through the minefields of intelligence testing, genetic research, and bleeding-edge body technologies (while chewing gum and walking his dog) amounts to a collision between scientific discourse and fictive meditation; the frissons that result signify a new twist on what is i n reality an ancient word/image poetic, a poetic sublimated i n the past century by inexpensive paperback production. In fact, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's recent work on remediation is apt to provide a more bracing account of Tomasula's achievement than might be had using current literary-theoretical models. As reviewer Nancy Allen has it, remediation posits a "reciprocal relationship" between "the logic of immediacy"—that "which produces the sense of a lived experience" and "the logic of hypermediacy," or that "which makes us aware of the technology used to create such an experience" (192). Hence Tomasula's VAS may be understood as remediating the print book i n response to the onslaught of web-based imagery (courtesy of a recombination of digital graphic arts with word processing). Whether i n fact the primary aim of (Tomasula's) hypermediacy is to effect immediacy w i l l perhaps be the occasion for future disquisition. See Bolter and Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999); and Allen, "Telling Our Stories i n New Ways," book review, Computers and Composition 18, no. 2 (2001): 187-94. For book as artifact, see Johanna Drucker, The Century of Artists' Books (New York: Granary Books, 1995). 11. Whatever you make of it, A l a n Sondheim's remarkably expansive (and expanding) oeuvre gives the lie to the notion that alphabetic technologies can be understood as independent of, not simply the materialities, but more specifically the protocols and devices of contemporary communication networks and practices; see <www.anu.edu.au/english /internet_txt/>. Moreover, i n reading/browsing Sondheim's works and days, one gets the distinct impression that the digital world circulates a (healthy?) measure of despair (indigence redux?.), upsetting, or offsetting, all dreams of a common lingo even as "Englishes" becomes a commonplace. For a helpful overview of Sondheim and others' reprogramming of textuality, see McKenzie Wark, "Codework," American Book Review 22, no. 6 (2001): 1,5.
12. To clarify: those monthly posts from Subcommandante Marcos hardly allayed my desire for a good spicy bean burrito. (Here i n Lafayette. C o l orado, La Familia turns out to be the place.) The problem is not one of conspicuous consumption, exactly (I am, after all, talking burritos), or the way commodity culture infiltrates and undermines the better angels of our nature. The problem has more to do with whether the vast relatively wellto-do of the online world are willing to channel their appetites i n constructive, ecologically sound, politically responsible (and responsive) directions; and once willing to do so, whether they're aware of their participation in an oppressive global arrangement that—though apparently thriving on smaller, dispersed collectives, everything from terrorist cell to chat room—is as harsh as ever on have-nots. I want my burrito; 1 want to eat my burrito, too, and I'm probably doing more for local Latino populations (not to mention my nutritional well-being) if I stay the hell out of Taco Bell. But spending one's money here, not there, is like learning Spanish on the campaign trail: you talk, money talks, and customers listen. Awareness comes at a price, finally—more awareness, burrito or not. 13. Neologisms abound today [my current favorites: Netwar, coined by Rand consultant David Ronfeldt. with biometeorology running a close second], not necessarily because things are so new that they require new words, but possibly because we of the information age value novelty. (Or at least, we who are hacker-minded.) The New Hacker's Dictionary (now a decade old) defines neophilia as "[t]he trait of being excited and pleased by novelty" (256), and assigns this "trait" to all manner of technophile. See Eric Raymond, ed'., Vie New Hacker's Dictionary (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991). Neologisms have been greeted by the poet set with mixed reception. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics reports that "[njeologisms (new-coined words), tend now to be associated with novelty more than freshness, and sometimes with strained effects" (690); further, that "computer terms" would seem to be "expanding" the English language lexis, "though they have yet to be entered in general poetic" lexis (on this latter point, however, see note 11, above). See Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan, eds., The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (New York: MJF Books. 1993). Perhaps some poets resist the neologism simply because one can never be sure who was the first to coin a given word, throwing into doubt questions of originality and longevity (not to say authenticity). N o t surprisingly, e.g., digitext is also the name of a (Canadian) website design firm (see <www.digitext.on.ca/>). The poet and publisher Miekal And (alias, The Avant-Garde Museum of Temporary Art) compiles an unusual International Dictionary of Neologisms at . Happy click trails! A n d for more on Netwar, see Thomas A. Stewart, "America's Secret Weapon," Business 2.02/W (2001), 58-68. 14. There's probably a literacy issue, which is to say a political issue, embedded someplace here, as well. Richard A . Lanham's early foray into things digital kick-started subsequent (progressivist) educational theorizing. See Lanham, The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts (Chicago: U n i versity of Chicago Press, 1993). A n d Stuart M o u l t h r o p has offered sage commentary as well regarding those incipient (legalistic, and personally impassioned) battles over copyright and appropriation that are bound to punctuate the electronic era. "The fault line between expression and commodity cuts deeply across the technological landscape," he writes,
and this "may in fact be the channel that carries the muddy waters of literacy and electronic culture" (424). See Moulthrop, "Everybody's Elegies," in Hawisher and Selfe, eds., Passions, 418-24. Steven Spielberg's (Stanley Kubrick's) alternately praised and buried A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (written by Spielberg and Ian Watson, and based on Brian Aldiss's "Super-toys Last A l l Summer Long") seems at first viewing to slide by the (posthuman) figure of the cyborg by exploring the dialectic of "mecha"—mechanical, robotic (and note the homop h o n e ) — a n d "orga." or us organic types. Jonathan Rosenbaum's laudatory Chicago Reader review (July 13, 2001) does a nice job of exploring the film's various intertextual-metacinematic nods, and his searching explication of the film's strengths benefits f r o m his refusal to "succumb . . . to media typecasting of both filmmakers." See Rosen¬ baum, "The Best of B o t h Worlds," Chicago Reader Online, September 4, 2001, <www.chireader.com/movies/archive.html>. Rosenbaum deems it "logical that A.I. should t u r n out to be an allegory about cinema . . . because the prime issue for the modern world may be our willingness to treat nonliving matter as if it were alive and living people as if they were objects." A n d of course this is what cinema consistently portends, especially cinema of such complex (if in this case, racially narrow) ambitions; as Rosenbaum has it (echoing perhaps Jean Cocteau's "Registration of Death at Work"), film is "a form of bringing the appearance of life to nonliving matter." But Rosenbaum registers a near miss i n his efforts to tender filmic allegory as a preemptive variation on posthuman-biotech traumas (which may be said i n some sense of all Active work). O f those otherwordly "future beings" at the conclusion of A.I., he writes that they "resemble the aliens i n Close Encounters of the Third Kind (except that they appear either to combine the categories orga and mecha or make them both irrelevant)." Or make them both irrelevant: the dystopic residue of A.I. is owing not simply to David's (as played by Haley Joel Osment) programmed and irreversible desire for unconditional love, for the "artificial" i n "artificial intelligence," like the figure of the cyborg, marks (as so many have observed) the imminent collapse of the artificial-natural binary. The film's titular wordplay—implying, ironically, the possibility of "real" intelligence, like "real" love—also suggests that the real is only as "real" as we might imagine it, not least because the fictive is often the first stop on Homo faber's way to (re')making'the world i n his/her/its own image. (Social prophecy is, to be sure, one measure of science fiction's claim to legitimacy, and one sense i n which scifi, it could be argued, transcends the plain vanilla plots and syntactic complacencies of so m u c h pulp fiction.) Thus A.I. is less an "allegory about cinema" than a treatise on h u m a n nature, for if it "speaks otherwise" (as the etymology of "allegory" w o u l d suggest), it does so only to remind us that we are who, and what, we w o u l d aspire to be; those worldly others at film's end, however telepathic or televisual, constitute self-consciously poor projections of our long lost humanity (i.e., this is not a Spielbergian regress into sentimentality, as Rosenbaum w o u l d have us believe). David's final lapse into "that place where dreams are b o r n " suggests that the meaning of life (and death), whatever it is, turns on our capacity (and willingness) to desire, and to imagine desire—even at the risk of self-negation (there is at least an
intertextual hint here of Rutger Hauer's existential angst as "replicant" Roy Batty in Blade Runner). Hence David's evocative death-sleep is, paradoxically, a projection o f . . . the artist. With regard to which enigmatic grasp of creative consciousness, Bhanu Kapil Rider projects a correspondingly perplexed cyborg interiority grappling with the meaning of (everyday) posthuman circumstance: "When I walk amongst thy/When I tryst with/Eat with/These are not m y kind. (In marrying, 1 will make a cyborg offspring: ach. I fear for m y children's children. Not even when eating my breakfast of black coffee and fried okra am I steadfast. Listen. I tell my bridegroom, I want to have it i n a hospital. I do not want a natural birth.)" (8-9). Bhanu Kapil Rider, Autobiography of a Cyborg (San Francisco: Leroy chapbook series, 2000). 16, Leigh Shoemaker's crisp reading of Henry Rollins's writing, lyrics, and stage persona unveils a somewhat-less-than-appealing aspect of Rollins's "part animal part machine" boast. Using Kurt Theweleit's work on National Socialist male fantasies, Shoemaker demonstrates Rollins's equally problematic "literary fascism" (108). Under Shoemaker's scrutiny, Rollins's boast becomes less "a statement of cyborg allegiance" than "testimony to the fact that the fascist... is under construction and is incomplete as long as the animal is allowed to exist i n conjunction with the machine" (108-9). See Shoemaker, "Part Animal, Part Machine: Self-Definition, Rollins Style," i n Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism, ed. Leslie Hey wood and Jennifer Drake (Minneapolis: University of M i n nesota Press, 1997), 103-21. Most of us have heard too much already of the cyberpunk-tive desire to transcend the body (or "meat") via uploading consciousness, but what remains intriguing about this fraught vector of disembodiment is that it should persist as a form of liberatory wish fulfillment when it is precisely the "meat body" (to borrow f r o m Michael McClure) that served as the locus of liberation three or four decades ago (aided by numerous discourses whose purpose was to situate the body at the center of repressive forces). Either the digital world is perceived as the only place left to flee to, or the ostensibly "free," yet obediently industrialized body (a la Michel Foucault) must be strengthened to suffer its status as a center of repressive forces. M y hunch is that the cyborg serves i n effect as something of a transhistorical go-between, modulating (while figuring) the presumed raptures of the successively escaping former and the inescapable realities of the professional-managerial latter. As Shoemaker concludes (with regard to Rollins), the cyborg-inclined thereby hazard a fascism of the machine, neopostfuturists that they (we) are. See McClure. "Phi Upsilon Kappa" (1962), in Vie Poetics of the New American Poetry, ed. Donald Allen and Warren Tallman (New York: Grove, 1979), 416-29; and Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: Hie Birth of the Prison (1975), trans. Alan Sheridan, 2d ed. (New York: Vintage, 1995). For more o n the masculinist proportions of technological development, see Roger Horowitz, ed., Boys and Their Toys: Masculinity, Class and Technology in America (New York: Routledge, 2001). 17. For poetry per se, see Joe Amato, "Let me tell you all about myself," unpublished manuscript dated November 8,1997: "A necessary loss of presence/in our failure to swap epidermal layers/to see and feel who we really are/ought to/have been, be: /No I'm not really here/in this [millennial] romp (having to write/uninspired handling of "uninspired handling/of original
notes on contributors S c Z e r s 2001). Depending on your critical druthers, connectedness can
,trftI
stanal either sheer ecological bliss or Pynchonesque paranoia.
1M
Joe Amato is an assistant professor
o f English at the University o f C o l -
orado at Boulder, where he teaches creative w r i t i n g and literature. He's the a u t h o r of Symptoms of a Finer Age (1994), Bookend: Anatomies of a Virtual Self
writing, we'are so many things. It's i n the nature of the
(1997), and Under Virga ( f o r t h c o m i n g ) .
exchange.
Bertolt Brecht, perhaps
ending notes 1
T
h
e
eV
ents of September 11, 2001 reduced porno traffic substantially, but
only momentarily
best k n o w n internationally as a poet and a play-
wright, has also been recognized as a significant contributor t o Marxist^
y
§
Q
m
y
b
y
inflected literary and aesthetic theory. A m o n g his major dramatic works are Mother Courage, Tlie Caucasian Chalk Circle, and Galileo Galilei. F o l l o w i n g a wartime period of exile i n the U n i t e d States, Brecht returned to G e r m a n y where he f o u n d e d the B e r l i n Ensemble. O p p o s i n g h i m s e l f to Lucaks's
history.
influential theories of literary realism, Brecht outlined crucial critical categories of "epic" (or "dialectical") theater using distancing modes of stagi n g and composition evolved d u r i n g his years of w o r k toward creating a theater for "the scientific age." These techniques were designed to create a Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) that w o u l d foster a more critical detachm e n t o n the part of the audience. Brecht died i n Berlin i n 1956.
Karen S. F. Buzzard is a professor
and department head i n the Depart-
m e n t of M e d i a , Journalism, and F i l m at Southwest M i s s o u r i State U n i versity i n S p r i n g f i e l d . She writes i n the areas o f m e d i a audiences a n d interpersonal relationships and her books include Chains of Gold: Marketing the Ratings and Rating the Markets (1990), Electronic Media Ratings, Turning Audiences into Dollars and Sense (1992), a n d Holding Pattern: How Communication Prevents Intimacy in Adults (2001). H e r w o r k has been published i n the Journal of Radio Studies, the Journal of Popular Culture, and the Journal of Media Economics, as w e l l as i n encyclopedia entries and book chapters.
John T. Caldwell teaches
television and m e d i a studies i n the Depart-
m e n t of F i l m , Television, and Digital M e d i a at U C L A . His books include Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television (1995) and Electronic Media and Technoculture (2000). His essays have been published i n Cinema Journal; Media. Culture, and Society; a n d Television and New Media. H e is the p r o ducer/director of the award-winning documentary films Freak Street to Goa: Immigrants on the Rajpath (1989) a n d Ranch California (por favor) (2002). H e has h a d n u m e r o u s grants f r o m t h e N a t i o n a l E n d o w m e n t f o r t h e A r t s ,
regional fellowships, and state arts councils. His films have been featured
Center College of Design i n Pasadena. H e is the a u t h o r of Snap to Grid: A
i n festivals i n Berlin, Sundance, Paris, Amsterdam. Chicago, Toulouse, and
User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media and Cultures (2000) and editor o f the The
Hawaii, and broadcast o n television i n the U n i t e d States and Australia.
Digital Dialectic: New Essays in New Media (1999). R e c e n t p u b l i c a t i o n s
Anna Everett is
edited by D a n Harries (2002) and "Moiré Eels," a catalog essay about the
a n associate professor o f film a n d T V h i s t o r y a n d
t h e o r y a n d n e w m e d i a studies at t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a , Santa Barbara. She is the a u t h o r of several books and articles, i n c l u d i n g " T h e R e v o l u t i o n W i l l be D i g i t i z e d : A f r o c e n t r i c i t y a n d t h e D i g i t a l P u b l i c Sphere," and " R e t u r n i n g the Gaze: A G e n e a l o g y of Black F i l m C r i t i cism, 1909-1949." She is c o m p l e t i n g t w o other manuscripts: Digital Diasporas:A Race for Cyberspace, and Inside the Dark Museum: Black Film Criticism from
i n c l u d e " T h e M y t h s o f Interactive C i n e m a " f o r The New Media Book, digital artworks o f C h a n S h a t z . F r o m 1998 to 2002, he w r o t e the " U s e r " c o l u m n for the i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l artext. H e is editorial director o f t h e h i g h l y regarded M e d i a w o r k p a m p h l e t series f o r the M I T Press. These "theoretical fetish objects" cover the intersections o f art, design, technology, and m a r k e t c u l t u r e ; <mitpress.mit.edu/mediawork>.
1909 to 1959. H e r essays have been published i n Cinema Journal, The Denver
S t e p h e n M a m b e r is a professor i n the C r i t i c a l Studies P r o g r a m o f the
Law Review, Film Criticism, and encyclopedias and book chapters. She is also
U C L A D e p a r t m e n t o f F i l m , T e l e v i s i o n , a n d D i g i t a l M e d i a . H e is t h e
t h e f o u n d i n g editor of Screening Noir: A Newsletter of Film and Video Culture. Tarleton
Gillespie is an
a u t h o r o f Cinema Vérité in America (1974) and several web-based projects. H e is a f o r m e r v i s i t i n g research scientist at the I B M T . J. W a t s o n
assistant professor of science and technology at
C o r n e l l University. His current w o r k considers recent legal disputes about
Research C e n t e r and has done w o r k o n t h r e e - d i m e n s i o n a l m o d e l i n g and visual databases u n d e r a grant f r o m the Intel C o r p o r a t i o n .
digital copyright and the implications for the character of Internet technology and the social arrangements of culture. His interests, however, are
L e v M a n o v i c h ( w w w . m a n o v i c h . n e t ) is an associate professor i n the
nomadic; his most recent publication is "Recognizable A m b i g u i t y : C a r -
Visual A r t s D e p a r t m e n t . University of California, San Diego, where he
t o o n Imagery and A m e r i c a n C h i l d h o o d i n Animaniacs," coauthored w i t h
teaches n e w - m e d i a art and theory. H e is the a u t h o r o f The Language of
C h a n d r a M u k e r ji, i n Symbolic Childhood, edited by D a n C o o k (forthcoming).
Henry Jenkins is director
New Media (2001), Tekstura: Russian Essays on Visual Culture (1993) as w e l l as m a n y articles that have been p u b l i s h e d i n over t w e n t y countries. The
o f the M I T P r o g r a m i n C o m p a r a t i v e M e d i a
Language of New Media has recieved over t h i r t y reviews and is being trans-
Studies. His books include From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer
lated i n t o Italian, K o r e a n , and Chinese. His awards i n c l u d e a G u g g e n -
Games (1999), The Children's Cultural Reader (1998), What Made Pistachio Nuts:
h e i m F e l l o w s h i p , a M e l l o n F e l l o w s h i p f r o m C a l A r t s , a 2002 D i g i t a l
Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic (1993), Classical Hollywood Comedy
C u l t u r e s Fellowship f r o m University of California, Santa Barbara, and
(1994), Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (1992), and the f o r t h -
a 2002 fellowship f r o m the Z e n t r u m für L i t e r a t u r f o r s c h u n g i n B e r l i n .
c o m i n g The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture. Jenkins testified before the U . S . Senate d u r i n g hearings o n m e d i a v i o l e n c e t h a t f o l l o w e d t h e
L a u r a U . M a r k s is associate professor i n the S c h o o l for Studies i n A r t
C o l u m b i n e H i g h S c h o o l shootings.
and C u l t u r e at C a r l e t o n University, Ottawa. She is the a u t h o r of The Skin
George E. Lewis is professor
suous Theory, Multisensory Media ( f o r t h c o m i n g ) . A theorist a n d p r o g r a m -
of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses (2000) and Touch: Senof music i n the critical studies/experimental
practices area at the University of California-San Diego. A n improvisor
m e r o f artists' media, she is especially interested i n l o w and obsolete
and trombonist, composer, and computer/installation artist, Lewis's w o r k
technologies, i n t e r c u l t u r a l histories o f m e d i a technologies, and the rep-
i n electronic and computer-music, computer-based m u l t i m e d i a installa-
resentation of sensory experience.
tions, text-sound works, free improvisation, and notated forms has been documented o n m o r e t h a n 120 recordings. A member of the Association
Lisa P a r k s is associate professor o f film studies at the University o f C a l i -
for the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 1971, his scholarly w r i t -
fornia, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and Tele-
i n g o n music has appeared i n such journals as Contemporary Music Review.
vision (2003), and coeditor of Planet TV: A Global Television Reader (2002) and
Black Music Research Journal, Lenox Avenue, and Leonardo Music Journal. H e has
Red Noise: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Television Studies (2003). She has also p u b -
recently been awarded the M c A r t h u r Genius Grant.
lished articles i n Screen, Television and New Media, Convergence, and Social Identi-
Peter L u n e n f e l d is
director o f the Institute for T e c h n o l o g y and Aes-
and teaches courses i n g l o b a l m e d i a , television history, video art and
thetics and teaches i n the G r a d u a t e M e d i a Design P r o g r a m at the A r t
activism, advanced film analysis, w a r and media, and w o m e n and film.
ties. Parks is w o r k i n g o n a n e w book, Kinetic Screens: Movements at the Interface,
C o n s t a n c e P e n l e y is professor o f f i l m studies and director of the Center for F i l m , Television, and N e w M e d i a at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a f o u n d i n g editor of Camera Obscura. Penley has w r i t t e n and lectured widely o n feminist media and c u l t u r a l studies and science and technology studies. H e r most recent books include NASA/TREK: Papular Science and Sex in America and The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Science, and
index
Medicine (coedited w i t h Paula Treichler and Lisa C a r t w r i g h t ) . M i s c h a P e t e r s is a P h . D . c a n d i d a t e at U t r e c h t U n i v e r s i t y , i n t h e Research Institute f o r H i s t o r y a n d C u l t u r e a n d t h e D e p a r t m e n t o f Women's Studies. H e r dissertation is o n the representation of n e w tech-
A. C . Nielsen, NetRatings, 198-199,201-204 Aesthetics for aliens, 63-64,69-70 African/Afro-American music making, 95-96 Africobra art movement, 95, 100
nologies such as c l o n i n g , brain implants, and xeno-implants i n p o p u l a r
Agre, Phil, 115
science and c y b e r p u n k fiction.
A.l: Artificial l«tellijjer,ceifi\mi,
M o s t recently, she served as p r o d u c t i o n supervisor o f Disney/Pixar's Monsters, Inc. Her other feature-film credits include Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), and Toy Story 2 (1999); and she has p r o d u c e d or served as p r o -
Alberti, Leon Battista, 84
Black box, 84-85 B ö h m , David, 34
Althusser, Louis, 13,191
Bolter, Jay David, 7, 117
Amato, Joe, 255, 263n.l7
Bordwell, David, 188
AOL-TimeWarner, 13, 141-142
Borges, Jorge Luis, 83
Apparatus theory, 160-161,164,166-167,172,191
Born, Georgina, 94
Architecture; sa also Augmented space
Bourdieu, Pierre, 186
for such clients as Levi-Strauss and Hershey. C u r r e n t l y , she is the p r o film.
Sarafian f o r m e r l y c o o r d i n a t e d the m a r k e t i n g and p u b l i c i t y efforts o f Sanctuary Woods M u l t i m e d i a , an educational and entertainment C D R O M p r o d u c t i o n company, and has w o r k e d i n the development departm e n t at Castle R o c k Entertainment and i n video and television studios i n Los Angeles, Washington, D . C . , and the San Francisco Bay Area.
augmented architecture, 80-82
Braidotti, Rosi, 57n. 240
as communication, 86
Brain-computer interfaces, 48.52,57, 69; sr.
information surface nf, 87 Kooihaas's Prada store, 89-90
Television/Film at N o r t h w e s t e r n University. H e has w r i t t e n extensively o n television, electronic media, culture, and the politics of taste, and has published i n the International Journal of Cultural Studies and i n The Revolution Wasn't Televised. H e is the author of the influential book Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television (2000), w h i c h examines "electronic presence" and A m e r i c a n culture's persistent linkage of n e w electronic
Branding, 137-139, 141
Venturi vision of. 86-88
Brandscaping, 89
A m h e i m , Rudolf, 21-22.24-15
Braxton, Anthony, 99
Art
Brecht, Bertold, 29
moving images in space, 83-84
Breer, Robert, 85
video art, 85
Browne, Nick, 133
white cube as cellspace, 82 Artifacts, politics of, 108-109 Artist
Buzzard, Karen S. F., 197 Byrd, Don, 256n.2
triangulation strategy, 72 Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians ( A A C M ) , 9 8 - Î 9 Atlas of the European Novel: IMW-lWtfiMoretti), 150-151 Audio walks, 81-83 Augmented architecture, 80-82 Augmented reality (AR1,78 Augmented space, 75 2-D/3-D space, 82-84 architecture and, 80-82
television and computers) w i t h p a r a n o r m a l or spiritual p h e n o m e n a .
computer culture and, 79 electronic displays, 84
courses o n film, television, and n e w - m e d i a history and theory. H e is the coeditor o f a n e w b o o k series at U n i v e s i t y Press o f N e w E n g l a n d titled Interfaces: Studies i n Visual C u l t u r e . His book o n early Los Angeles television history, Remote Possibilities, is f o r t h c o m i n g .
Bulletin boards, 12 Bush, Vannevar, 79
as entertainer, 71
audio walks example, 81-83
F i l m and Television Studies at D a r t m o u t h C o l l e g e , where h e teaches
Bryant, Karl, 240 Bug's life, A (film j, 216-220
as researcher. 70-72
media forms ( f r o m the invention of the telegraph to the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f
M a r k W i l l i a m s is associate professor and chair of the D e p a r t m e n t of
Fosthuman condition alternatives for, 48—19
retail industry designs, 8 9 - Î 0
animation/digital artists, 213-214, 222
J e f f r e y S c o n c e is an associate professor i n the D e p a r t m e n t o f Radio/
Ilijker, Wiehe, 108 Birds. Tlx (film151-152
Aliens mi Ammxia (Kraus), 70
d u c t i o n manager o n Pixar short projects, film trailers, and commercials d u c t i o n m a n a g e r for The Incredibles, a n u p c o m i n g Pixar feature
Bentham, Jeremy, 109 Bernstein, Charles, 256n.3 Bey, Hakim, 4,34,38, 42
160,164,168-171,262n. 15
Aitken, Doug, 85
K a t h e r i n e S a r a f i a n is an eight-year veteran of Pixar A n i m a t i o n Studios.
Hear, Greg, 51 Bebey, Francis, 101
realistic virtual space, 80 research of, 80-8] use of term, 78 video installations, 83-85 white cube vs. black box, 84-85 white cube as cellspace, 82 Augmented-space research, 80-81 Ayler, Albert, 100
Cable industry, 3; see also Oxygen Media gender equity in, 234 Cadigan, Pat, 51-52,56 Caldwell, John T., 5,8,127,184,187,190.192 Cameron, Bailey, 94 Cameron, Catherine M . , 94 Capitalism, 66,68 as computer-mediated, 36 Cardiff, Janet, 81-83, 90 Carsev, Marty, 225, 233 Carsey-Werner-Mandabach Productions, 225 Cassell, Justine, 244 Cellspace technologies, 76 Chomsky, Noam, 226 Cinema, 85; see also Computer animation Arnheim's complete file, 22,24 Barzin's myth of total cinema. 21-22 computer animation and, 209-211 Delluc's pholoaeme, 23-24 digital cinema, 22-24
Bagdikian, Ben, 226 Balsamo. Anne, 48,52 Bazin, André, 21-22,24-25
digitextuality and, 9-10 Click theory, 7,14-25 aesthetics of digital texts, 19 as "click fetish." 14-lfi
Click theory (cmtiniW) complete film/total cinema and, 23-24 digitextual "remediations" and, 21-25 hyperlinks and rhizoplane structures, 16 interactive/passive media, 17-19 new media limitations, 20 sensory plenitude functions, 21,24 Coffey. Steve, 199-200 Coltrane, John, 100 Communications as implicate/explicate, 34 invisible media and, 33-34 self-interpretation and, 112-113
De Gaulle, Charles, 67
Electronic suburb, 76
Delluc, Jean, 23
Electronic vernacular, 86-88
DeMuccio, Ralph, 199
Engelbardt, Douglas, 79
Descartes, René, 192
Epstein, Jean, 21,23-25
Design artifacts and politics, 108-111 author in authoring software, 117-129 interface metaphors, 115-117 politics of, 113-117
Everett, Anna. 3,225,240 Ewart, Douglas, 96,99 Experience, 36,38 Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness ofOoxds (Mackay), 179
self-interpretation and, 111-113 Desktop computing, 80
Kiirt Tale: A True Story (film;, 160,164-167,171
Diallo shooting, 154
Federal Communication Commission ( F C C l , 13
Digital, 5
First-mover advantage, 198
"Complete Film" ( Arnheim ), 22,24
Digital cinema, 22
Fleisher, H . Kassia, 259n.9
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture and Leamngfrm
Digital culture, 180,186-192,255
Fontana, Tom. 129
Las Vegas, 86 Computer, as dynamic nonconsciousness, 69 Computer animation, 209-211 aesthetic of. 218-219 animation artists, 213-214 challenges/possibilities of, 214-215 computer models, 215-216 filmmakers and, 219-220 process of, 212-213 storytelling, 210-212 technology/special effects. 216-218 tools of, 214 use of term, 213 video/DVD audience, 220-222 Computer games industry, 80,243-244 aesthetics of, 246 entrepreneurial challenges of, 246 feminist stereotypes, 247 girl's game movement, 245-249 "pink" aisle decline, 249 The Sims, classic boy/girl version, 249-253 women's involvement in, 244-247 voung girls' play patterns, 245 Computer music, 94,96; see also Voyager musical environment aesthetics of multidominance, 95-96 interactive languages for, 97 trans-African formalism and, 96-100
Harawav's vision of. 213 study of, 190
Foucault, Michel. 83.110,114,190 Freenet, 4
Digital divide, 191-192
Freshwater Pavilion, 88
Digital image
Friedberg. Anne, 162
for filmmakers, 219-220 for video/DVD audience, 220-222 Digital media, 183 academe impact of. 185-186
Prom Barhie to Mortal Komhat: Gender and Compote, Gnus tCassell and Jenkins}, 244,251-252 Fukuvama, Francis, 65 Fundamentalism. 67
artist as researcher, 70-72 author in, 118
Gambrell, Jamev, 65
as avant-garde, 70
Garcia, Jerry, 99
culture of theory, 186-192
Gates, Bill, 13
narrative mapping, 145
Generation X television, 12
second-shift aesthetics of, 132-135
Geographic mapping, 148-149
serialitv vs. simultaneity, 142
Gibson, William, 51-52,56,181
time vs. space, 142
Gilder, George, 69
Digital media production, 70-72,117
Gillespie, Tarleton, 107
Digital Millennium Copyright Act ( D M C A ) , 13
Gingrich, Newt, 192
Digital moviemakers. Mi Computer animation
Glance theory, 8
Digital revolution. 5
Global capital. 13.37
media culture and, 3
Global positioning systems (GPSsl, 76, 83
new technologies of, 3—1
Global village, 142
Digitextualitv, 5; see also Click theory
Godard, Jean-Luc. 3,21,37
aesthetics, ethics, and rhetorics of, 7
Google, 205-206
defined, 5-7
Gordon, Andrew, 215
digital media's remediation. 7
Gorky. Maxim, 64
experience of, 12-14
Graham, Jefferson, 233
film and. 9-10
Gray, Herman, 134
Hydrogen website, 228-229 Hyperattentive theory, 8 Ideological corporate apparatus (ICA i, 13 Ideological state apparatus I ISA 1,13 image, 36-39 Infomiationlcapital, 36,39-42 Information capitalism, 42 Information retailers, 19 Information space, 147-148 Infotainment, 71 Mumm. The (Lyotard;. 14-15 Intelligent buildings/architecture, 78 Intelligent spaces, 78 Interactive Digital Software Association, 244 Interactivity, 13 Interface metaphors, 115 Internet, 3-4,12 business model for, 205 consumer behavior and, 200-201 home page, 206-207 as information retailers, 19 interactivity on, 13 pink content market, 232 portal business, 206-207 portals, 198 portalopoly, 198 ratings marketplace. 198-199 sampling process, 202-203 search engine vs. portal, 205-206 tracking services historv, 199-202 traffic measurements on, 198 web metrics, 202 weh tracking methods, 199-203 Internet relay chat (IRC), 12 laterttamlitf (Kritteva), 5-7 Invisible media, 33-34.42 enfolding/unfolding, 34-35 experience: information/capital: image, 36-38 Gulf War and, 34-35 temporary autonomous zone (TAZI media 34 36-38 It Looks at You: The Returned Gaze of Cinema [Dixon i, 9
hyperattentive theory, 8
Grazing, 141
Conceptual mapping, 149
ontologies of, 8-9
Greenberg, Clement, 71
Conjectural mapping, 149
television and, 10-12
Grevson, John, 35 Grosz. Elisabeth, 54
(arman, Joseph, 99
Contemporary urban architecture, 86
Uber-real/grand construction of. 9
Grusin, Richard, 7,117
Jenkins, Henry, 243-244
Computer/video displays (public i, 76-77
Content-aware computing. 78
Discipline and Punish (Focault l, 83
Guzman, Onel de, 42
Corporate feminism, 226,228,234-238
Dispositif analysis, 162,164
Critical visualization, 145
Dixon, Wheeler Winston, 9
Cruz, Jon, 95
Donaldson, Jeff, 95.100
Halberstam, Judith, 50
Dot-com economy, 179-180, 248
Haraway, Donna, 48,50,213
Cultural institutions, augmented space and, 90 Cultural Revolution, 67 Cultural theories events of 1968,67
Douglas, Robert L , 95-96,100
Hardware manufacturers, SO
Dreamworks SKG, 227
Hayles. Katherine, 48,50-51,54,56
Druckrey, Timothy, 189
Heidegger, Martin, 21 Hickey, Dave, 71
DVD, 3
High-definition television ( H D T V 1, 10 Hill, Gary, 85
Cyherbody, 53
e-commerce, 201)
Hitchcock, Alfred. 151-152
Cybernetic tools, 21-22
e-ink, 78
Hoberman, Perry, 85
Cybernetics, 57
e-marketing, 200
Hockenberry, John, 47,49,52,54-56
Cyberpunk literature, 51-57
e-paper, 78
Cyborgs, 50,54
Eisenstt-in, Sergei, 21
post-1989,66-69,71 Culture of theory, 186-192
Electronic displays, 84, 86 Data piracy, 4 Database art/artists, 40 Davis, Erik, 189
Electronic Entertainment Expo (El), 243 Electronic Literature Directory, 258n.6 Btcmmc Media and Technxultuct (Caldwell 1,190
Jewish Museum of Berlin. 81-83 Johnson, Mark, 116
Dulac, Germaine, 21, 23-25
post-1968.66-69
Jam Packed andJelly Tight I Donaldson l, 100
Hollinger, Veronica, 51 Holzer, Jenny, 89 Home page, 206 "Homicide.com," 128-129,131 How We Became Postlunmn' (Hayles), 48 Hutchins, Edwin, 110
Johnson, Todd, 199,201-202 Joshi virus, 42 Joyce. Michael, 257n.5 Jupiter Media Metrix (IMM), 198-205 Kant, Immanuel, 16 Kay, Alan, 85 Keane, Patrick, 206 Kendrick, Michelle, 259n.8 Kennedy, Robert F., 67 Kilborn, Peter T., 256n.4 Kilting, Tlie, 147,153 Kinder, Bill, 222 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 67 Kitsch, 71 Klein, Norman, 76 Koolhaas, Rem, 86, 89 Kraus, Chris, 70
Kristeva, Julia, 5-7 Kubrick, Stanley, 147, »53,168 Lacan, Jacques, 69,1911-191 Lakoff, George, 116 Lamotte, Emmanuel, 40 LiMjiiuge of New Media, The. (Manovich), 5 Lasseter, John, 209, 212-213,217-8 Lttteef.Yusef, 100 Latour, Bruno, 109-111 Laurel, Brenda, 244,247-249, 252 Law of Enclosures (film), 36 Laybourne, Géraldine, 225,227, 232-233,235-236 Lessig, Lawrence, 110 Lester, Toby, 259n.7 Levin, Gerald, 142 Levinson, Barry, 129 Levy, Pierre, 69,135 Lewis, George E., 93 Liberskind,Daniel,81,83,90. Licklider.J. C . R.,79 Life on the Screen (Turkle), 13,190 Lifetime network, 227,234-235 Lindstrom, Martin, 141 Lissitzky, El, 82 Lister, Ardele, 41 Listservs, 12 Litman, Barry, 197 Livingston, Ira, 50 Loos, Adolf. 88 Lotman, Jeffrey, 10 Lovink, Geert, 68 Lozano-Hemmer, Raffael, 87 Lunenfeld, Peter, 5,21-22,63,236 Lvotard. Jean-François, 14-20 McBeath. Dale, 217 McChesney, Robert, 226 McCormick,Matt,37 McFarland, Doug, 198 Mackay, Charles, 179-180 McLuhan, Marshall, 33,135,142 Macromedia Director. 116,118 Macromedia Dreamweaver, 112-113,118,120 Maghostut, Malachi Favors, 101 Making Meaning (Bordwelll, 188 Malone, Molly, 240 Mamber. Stephen. 145 Man with a Movie Camera, Tie (Vertovi, 211 Mandabach, Caryn, 225,233 Manovich, Lev, 5,9.75,117,219-220,236 Marey, Etienne-Jules, 152 Markle Foundation, 226 Markley, Robert, 180 Marks, Laura LI., 33 Mason, Sara, 240 Mass audience, 4,137-141 aggregating, tiering and branding, 137-141 Mass media, virtual reality (VR) and, 79 Mattel, 248 Media; see also Invisible media apparatus theory and, 160-161,164,166-167,177, 191 convergence theory and, 255-264 electronic culture dispositif, 162,164 grazing, herding, navigation, 141-143 mass audience, 137-1141
new vs. traditional media. 130,182-186
cable, on line, in print, 231-234.238
news reconstructions, 153-155
corporate feminism and, 226,234-238
passive/interactive consumption of, 17
feminist public sphere. 227
real time, 163,171
media convergence and, 229-231, 233
second-shift aesthetics of, 132-135
organization culture of, 230
TV/dot-com sites, 127-131
programming strategies 2002 and bevond, 239-240
Media corporations, 3—4, 13, 137,234 convergence of, 229-231 Media culture
"stripe"/SAP function, 238-239 textual/ideological analysis of, 230 Oxygen Media Research Project, 225,227-228, 240
digital revolution and, 3 mass audience fragmentation and, 4
Paik, Nam June, 85
new-media colonization, 4
Panopticon, 3,109-110,114
new technologies and, 4
Parker, Charlie, 100
posttelevision age, 3
Parker, Evan, 96
Media Metrix, 198
Parks, Lisa, 225,240
Meehan, Eileen, 199
Parran, J. D., 96
Melhode Grapluque. La, 152
Penley, Constance, 225,240
Michelson, Annette, 211
Peters, Mischa, 47,240
Microsoft, 13.129-130
Photageme, 23
Mitchell, Roscoe, 96, 99
"Pink" aisle, 249
Mivake, Haruna, 96
Pink content market, 232
Mobile computing, 80
Pixar Animation Studios, 210,213,215-219, 221
Moore, Charles, 97
Pocha. Amy, 240
MOOs (multiuser object-oriented environments!, 12
Pogue, David, 14
Moretti, Franco, 150-151
Political economv
Morse, Margaret. 5,10
digital media production and, 70-72
Moser, Mary A n n , 189
post-1989, 64-66
Moses, Robert, 109 MP3.4
VDNX/Sears Pico Store contrasts, 64-66 Pop art, 71
M S N T V Service, 4
Portal, 198, 205-206
MLIDst multiuser domains], 12,191
Portal business, 206
Multi-instrumentalism, 98
Posthuman Bodies (Halberstam and Livingston 1,50
Multimedia applications, 118
Posthuman condition, 48,50,170
'Mvth of Total Cinema, The" (Bazin i, 21
cyber body, 56-57
Nagv, Peter, 71
enhanced body, 54-56
Napster case, 3
modified body, 53-54
Narrative mapping, 145
natural body vs., 52
in cyberpunk novels, 51-57
analysis, 147 conceptual mapping, 149
technological body mapping, 51-52 Prada store, 89-90
conjectural mapping, 149
Prague Spring, 67
examples oi, 150-156
Privacy issues, 259n.7
geographic, 148-149
Purple Moon. 244,247-248,251
information space, 147-148 interface. 148
Radio, as communication apparatus, 29-31
popular types of, 148-150
Ramspacher, Karen. 240
purposes of, 148
Rasula.Jed,255n.l
representation, 146-147
Relevant Knowledge, 198,200
temporal units, 149
Replay, 4
thematic or structural mapping. 149 NASDAQjdot.com market, 179-180.248
Retail environments/industrv. 86,89 Revolution in Poetic Language t Kristeva), 6
National Endowment for the Arts (NEAV 71
Riewoldt, Otto, 89-89
Negroponte, Nicholas, 135
Rodchenko, Alexander, 82
Nelson, Ted, 85
Rodowick, David, 172
Self-interpretation, 111-113 Sensor networks, 78 Shiner, Lewis, 51 Shoemaker, Leigh, 263n.l6 Sissako, Abderrahmane, 39 Smart objects, 78 Smelik, Anneke, 240 Smith, V&dada, 99 Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Am. Media, and Cultures (Lunenfeld), 5 Sobchack, Vivian, 21,57 Software design, 115 author in authoring software, 117-129 interface metaphors, 115-117 Sondheim, Alan, 260n. 11 Spielberg. Steven, 168 Spigel, Lynn, 183 Spuybroek, Lars, 88 Stanley, Alessandra, 239 Stentz.Zach, 10 Stephenson, Neal, 51 Sterling, Bruce, 51 Stone, Allucquere Rosanne, 189 Sturridge, Charles, 164 Susilo. Hardja, 101 Synners (Cadigan |, 52,56 Svverson. M . A.. 260n.l0 Tangible interfaces, 78 Tatlin, Vladimir. 82 Taylor. Paul, 100 Technologies of the Gendered Body (Balsamo), 52 Technology; see also Posthuman condition augmented reality, 78 Brecht on radio, 29-31 causality and. 111 cellspace technologies. 76 content-aware computing, 78 e-paper, 78 human applications/interfaces of, 47-49,52,55,69 as incorporated/lived, 21 intelligent buildings/architecture/spaces, 78 political properties and, 108-109 public computer/video displays, 76 sensor networks, 78 smart objects, 78 social matrix/relations and, 108-110 social problems and, 107 tangible interfaces, 78 ubiquitous computing, 77 video surveillance, 76 visual media and, 33 wearable computers, 78 wireless location services, 78
Neologisms, 261n.l3
Rollins, T i m , 71
NetRatings (Neilseni, 198-199,201-204
Rose, Jon, 96
Neuman, W. Russell, 4
Ross. Andrew, 185
Neuiomancer (Gibson J, 52-53,56,181
Teletopia, 189
Rowe, Robert, 97
Television
News reconstructions, 153-155 "Next Brianiacs, The" (Hockenberry l, 52,54.56
Sarafian, Katherine, 209
Nickelodeon, 225
Satellite TV, 3
NPD Group, 199-200
Scherer, F. M . , 199 Schwartz, Ineke, 88
Olson, Charles, 256n,2
Sconce, Jeffrey, 179
Oxygen Media
Search engine, 19,205-206
advertising women's media, 231-232
Sears Pico Store, 65-66
audiences/fans of, 231
Sela, Ayelet, 129
Telecommunications Act (1996), 10, 13 Telephohia, 189
aggregating, tiering, branding, 137-141 content convergence, 139 digitextuality and. 10-12 glance theory, 8 grazing, herding and navigation, 141-142 Internet convergence and, 239 hveness of, 163, 171 programming strategies of, 133-134 ratings measurements, 198
Television (continued)
Visual media, 33
second-shift aesthetics of, 132—136
Volti. Rudi, 120
TV/dot-com sites, 127-131
Voyager musical environment, 93—97
Televisualtty: Style, Crisis, and Authority m American Television ÍCaldwelR 5,8 Temporarv autonomous zone ( TAZ), 34,36-38,41—42
aesthetic of variation/difference, 99 African/Afro-American music making, 95-9b. 100
Textualixm, 132
composed vs. improvised, 103
Thater, Diana, 83
construction of, 101
Thematic/structural mapping, 149
improvising orchestra, 101-102
Thomas, Peter, 52,56
multi-instrumentalism of, 98
Thompson, Robert Harris, 93,96
setphrasebehavior subroutine, 97-98
"Thought Control" (Thomas i, 52
structure and freedom of, 102-103
Threadgill, Henry, 99 3-D interactive virtual spaces, 80
Waaldijk, Berteke,240
TiVo, 4,181
Walczak, Marek,40
Toy Story (film i,212,218-19
Warner, Marina, 166
Trans-African culture. 95
Wattenberg, Martin, 40
Triangulation strategy of artists, 72
Wearable computers, 78
Tribalism, 67
Web metrics. 202
Tufte, Edward, 152
Web property, 203
Tulipomama, 179-180,189
Web ratings
Turkic. Sherry, 13,190-191
business model and, 205 NetRatings. 198-199
Dsenets, 12
Web-tracking services, 203
Utopian Entrepreneur ( Laurel ), 247
Web traffic. 256n.4
VanDijck. José, 48
Werner, T o m , 234
Weinberg, Alvin, 107
VanderBeck, Stan, 85
"What Is Digital Cinema* (Manovich 1,22
V D N X exhibit, 64-66
White cube vs. black box. 84-85
Vectorial Elevation, Relational Architecture #41 Lozano-
White, Mimi, 163
Hemmer ], 87
1
Whitehead, Alfread North, 256n.2
Venturi, Robert, 86-88
Williams, Mark, 159
Vertov, Dziga.21,24,211
Williams, Raymond, 133.187
Video art/artists, 85
Wilson, Oily, 96,100
Video displays, 86
Winfrey, Oprah, 225.233-234
Video installations, 83-85
Winner, Langdon, 108-109
Video recorders, 3
Winter, Tex, 102
Video surveillance, 76-77
Wireless communication, 3
Virilio, Paul, 34,135
Wireless location services, 78
Virtual communities, 12
Wolf, Mark, 164
Virtual reality (VR). 3, 48,75,78-79
Woolgar, Steve, 111,113
Virtual realitv modeling language ( M R M L l , 76
Wright. Will, 252
Virtual spaces, 75-76 Virtualities: Television, Media Arts, and Cyhercultiire
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC 1,77.79
(Morse j, 5 Viruses and worms, 41-42
Yahoo, 205-206
Visual artists; see also Computer animation electronic vernacular, 86—88
Z K M building (Karlsruhe 1,86
