Evaluation

Firstly on a personal note I feel we had some really good discussions together as a elective group that were built on developing each other’s ideas rather than arguing against them. As an evaluation I have just tried to gather up the ideas that struck me the most.

I think I came to this subject with a slightly outsider viewpoint. Unlike perhaps, the majority of my generation, I don’t see digital in terms of a ‘lifestyle’. I certainly don’t use Web 2.0 as much as the average (I don’t have home access to the internet, I don’t download, if I use facebook or blog I feel I use it on my own terms). I am certainly sceptical of whether the Internet is fulfilling its potential or whether it has just become another tool of capitalism. What I found interesting about Lev Manovich’s essay The Practice of Everyday Media Life is although I broadly agreed with his theory that strategies and tactics are merging, I think this is potentially problematic. Yes, strategies will ultimately become redundant in a pre-institutional globalised world but we are not at that stage yet. In allowing the online mapping of personal tactics, which in essence turns them into strategies, we weaken individual choice and expression.

What excited me the most was thinking of the digital as a philosophical space that although perhaps beyond definition, challenges us to ask questions about our future. This is particularly relevant for me as a student of fine art as I believe part the role of the artist is to try to provoke questioning and communicate visually that which is not easily defined. What I think is interesting is the interplay between randomness and control in a digital environment and the inherent interactivity this causes. This paradigm of controlled randomness and the tension between the two concepts seems to lie at the heart of what digital is. There is a tension between the possibility of knowledge (our access to knowledge has become almost infinite) and the recipient’s choice of what to access. It is important that the wonder of the former does not blind us from the importance of the latter and the factors that may inform that choice. In other words we have moved into a world where it is more important to be knowledge-ABLE rather than knowledgeable.

Living in a digital world suggests we should be continually questioning what is real and what is not, but this can easy become futile because the dividing line is a flexible one. The internet builds and organises itself through our interactions with it and the growth of haptic experience will further blur distinctions. Increasingly the internet is becoming ‘dull’ (as according to one of the 5 views of the internet as outlined by Charles Leadbeater) and we will cease to ask these questions. They will become nonsensical as the internet becomes totally ingrained into life. I do not believe we are far away from this point in terms of technology, but we are in terms of mindset. It is the mindset as opposed to the technology that I believe should be to the forefront in our understanding of a digital world. Often in order to solve a problem we must first define it, but through that definition restrictions are imposed which in turn breed more problems as shown when we debated Claude Shannon’s model for digital communication. This is particularity true in regards to the digital where any definition that does exist is usually contradictory. Take the globalising potential which is both a great strength in terms of increasing powers of communication and also a great weakness in that it opens us up to systemic risks.

What struck me about our final debate as an elective group was the positivity we collectively felt about the opportunities of a digital age. I felt that most of the statements we came up with could be argued either way to such an extent that to me they were morally neutral. Technology may be a sign of development but this in itself does not make it good or bad. Moral potentially is something inherent to humankind rather than something that may be applied to technology. Perhaps this is even useful in helping to determine where humanity and the 'real' world diverge from the digital and the virtual world. The moral responsibility lies with us rather than with 'the internet'. We certainly shouldn't blame technology for our moral failings but nor should we blindly walk forward believing all progress to be inherently good. The more we progress, the more we should be on the moral lookout.

Ian Goldin: Navigating our Global Future

This short talk summarises well what we need to be thinking about when approaching the future. There is positivity here but it is not an optimism that clouds judgement. The key point is that inherent in the glory of globalisation is its weaknesses, in bringing people closer together the potential for both good and bad operates on a larger scales. The risk becomes systemic. Also the role of the individual changes manifold - also well as the increased potential for marginalisation (as seen in growing equality) we will reach a point where a single 'globalised' person will weld enough power to destroy the whole world (eg through the creation of a biopathegen.

Digital Environments Create The Possibility For...

What struck me about our final debate as an elective group was the positivity we collectively felt about the opportunities of a digital age. I felt that most of the statements we came up with could be argues either way to such an extent that to me they were morally neutral. Technology may be a sign of development but this in itself does not make it good or bad. Moral potentially is something inherent to humankind rather than something that may be applied to technology. Perhaps this is even useful in helping to determine where humanity and the 'real' world diverge from digitality and the virtual world. The moral responsibility lies with us rather than with 'the internet'. We certainly shouldn't blame technology for our moral failings but nor should we blindly walk forward believing all progress to be inherently good. In a way perhaps the more we progress, the more we should be on the moral lookout. And why did we look at everything with such positivism? It would be nice to think because we have not lost our youthful optimism. Perhaps it is because of the fact that we all chose this subject as an elective so one would surmise that we see it in a positive light. There is also the fact that we are the generation that grew up alongside the internet's decidedly utopian birth. The next generation, growing up with a very different context, might see things in a different way. Finally, if one labels everything as neutral, then things seem to become more boring - an impassable ambiguous boredom of confusion (a boredom reflected in one of Charles Leadbetter's 5 views of the internet). 

Notes on Clay Shirky - institutions vs. collaboration

Building on discussions based on Lev Manovich's practice of everyday media life we can see that the digital world, in a perpetual state of revolution is naturally anti-strategic and lends itself in contrast to tactical thinking. The internet, therefore is pre-institutional on a scale never seen before. it is as though the potential for institutions to develop civilisation has reached its limit and now they have begun to hold back progress. Non-institutioned power and potential is now more easily accessed and harnessed (although it is worth noting that this pressure of competition from amateurs is causing professionals to develop faster). What is also important is social capital as opposed to technological. We now live in a world that is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap, as exemplified by services like facebook and twitter. This places different areas of the world on a more equal footing (eg Africa was first to harness the power of text message exit polls and then was copied by the infinitely more technologically developed US. It is the idea that is important rather than the technological capacity). Now we are on an equal enough technological footing for the importance of the nation state to start reducing.