Blogging: A Case Study in Excellence

"Blogs bring on decay. Each new blog is supposed to add to the fall of the media system that once dominated the twentieth century.

Though I know my last blog post was on a similar topic, I have spent the last twenty-four hours immersed in studying the media industry (as it is the subject of my research paper), thus I feel naturally inclined to respond to this question.

I feel that blogs walk a fine line between erosion and progression of the transmission of news. Of course, I expanded upon this idea in a general way in my last blog post, thus I would like to take this opportunity to offer a case study.

Currently, I work for an organization called Bureaucrash in Washington D.C. Though we've been described alternatively in major publications as "a gang of libertarian college kids who prank leftists at major international events by taking the implications of their policies to absurd extremes, which the lefties tend not to even notice" and "where punk rock meets the gold standard," our stated mission is to increase personal freedoms while decreasing the scope of government. One major issue we stress is transparency in government, and though the United States claims to have free and open press, it is often the case that fear of lawsuits keeps journalists and other writers from publishing what they really know about events in the government.

While the press claims to be free, in actuality, it is still relatively restricted. Yet the blogosphere is truly a place in which the free market for ideas can flourish. Thus (until our current "crasher-in-chief" left), we had arguably the best freedom-oriented blog on the web. The aim of our bloggers was, and still is, to alert the public to things the government doesn't want us to know, thus enabling individuals to attempt to keep their personal freedoms.

Blogging: Phenomenon and Danger

“There is a presumption that blogs have a symbiotic relationship with the news industry. This thesis is not uncontested.“

“It is not easy to answer the question of whether blogs operate inside or outside the media industry.“

”Bloggers rarely add new facts to a news story. They find bugs in products and news reports but rarely "unmask" spin, let alone come up with well-researched reports.“

Considering my paper is on the decline of the print newspaper industry and technological responses to this decline, these readings on blogging struck several different chords with me. Quite honestly, up until now, I’ve only been examining the formal response of news agencies to attempt to re-capture readership in this highly technological age. Yet after reading about these bloggers, it occurs to me that I’ve left out a very important technological response to the decline of print media if I ignore the blogosphere.

Above, I have listed three quotations that I find particulary interesting from Lovink’s article “Blogging, the nihilist impulse.“ Though I currently lack any empirical data to back up my impressions of these claims, from the other research I’ve done concerning online news sources, I see the institution of blogging as both a valuable and a dangerous resource for the transmission of information.
Blogs serve a valuable purpose in the transportation of information by virtue that they help to reduce individual transaction costs of wading through the vast amounts of information on the web in order to find articles of personal interest. With the explosion of online news sources, many that are updated several times per day, finding information of relative importance can be a daunting task for a person. However, by subscribing to a blog that represents one’s interests, a person can effectively avoid personally wading through this sea of information and simply click on a blog and either find links to articles of interest, or read summaries of the day’s news. In this regard, blogs seem to be an indispensable resource for linking individuals to articles and websites that interest them, thus facilitating a more rapid flow of ideas.

However, this ease of information sharing doesn’t come without costs. According to Lovink’s article, the Blog Herald estimates that about 100 million blogs exist worldwide – and hundreds of new blogs are created every week. This ease of allowing individual voices to be heard naturally allows not only well -informed and well- intentioned individuals to have their voice heard, but also individuals of the opposite types. Now, more than ever, it’s exceedingly easy to spread mis-information at lightning speed – be it subconsciously and maliciously or by a subconscious or unintended slip-up.

Though formal journalism isn’t always completely informed and objective, at least there are some informal (as well as formal) rules which govern the behavior of professional journalists. On the web, however, there exists basically a writing free-for-all. In all honesty, I’ve seen some blogs that I feel are better than most newspapers – but on the flip side, I’ve seen blogs that make me want to e-mail their listservs and expose the bloggers as uninformed lunatics.

Don’t misunderstand me: I fully support a free market in the sharing of ideas. However, I also feel that it is important to the survival of a nation to have a well-educated public. True, these two are not mutually exclusive – but I feel that the former could potentially pose a threat to the latter. Thus, it seems that individuals should be taught from a very young age (in school would be an optimal setting) to be responsible researchers and to read everything – both internet and non-internet sources – with a skeptical eye.

The Pandemic Flu: Revolutionary Technotext

Get infected...with the Pandemic Flu!

Self described “artist/writer/coder” Jason Nelson has created a work of virtual text/poetry that is simultaneously intriguing and terrifying. Clicking on the first page, the user of this virtual text is invited to “get the flu,” and once infected, is guided through a process leading from affliction to cleansing. In each stage of the “flu,” the participant is encouraged to interact with the piece, allowing the viewer to really feel a connection with this work of art.

I call it a “work of art” because it is more than poetry, more than video, more than sound – it is an all-encompassing, interactive piece of, well…of technotext! Comparable to no other form of art, this technotext is a revolutionary culmination of technology leading from the literary all the way to complex code. Beautiful!

Get infected here...

Definitional Confusion

I would like to contest the use of the word “poems” in Ana Maria Uribe’s Anipoems, for this would imply that they are poetry. I would not rationally classify them as such.
It is true, a few weeks ago, I stood in front of the class and with all my might defended flarf as a legitimate form of poetry. However, while Uribe’s Anipoems are entertaining, I don’t think they fall under the same heading as poetry. Artistic and creative: sure. Poetry: no.
Throughout high school, it was drilled into our heads that we were not to begin our essays with dictionary definitions, nor was it advisable to include them in the body of the paper, as a definition tends to be viewed as generally argument-weakening. However, since I’m trying to de-classify an artist’s work from the poetry genre, I felt it was appropriate here to consult my friend the lexicon. He (who has now taken on human characteristics, you’ll notice) seemed to agree with me that Uribe’s Anipoems were not, in fact, poems at all. The main emphasis in several of the definitions was its characteristic opposition to prose, yet the Anipoems aren’t an alternative to prose – they actually seem to fall into a category of their own.
Were I to categorize the Anipoems, I believe I would use a phrase like “performance art” or “acting texts”, but to call them poems is simply a leap I’m not willing to make.
In My Mother is a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts, N. Katherine Hayles explores how code has evolved to exhibit extreme similarities to other texts (and languages). Even her title suggests the connection between code and other forms of literature. However, with the rapid technological expanse of the last 30 years or so, which has accelerated over the past ten, it seems more important than ever to work actively to maintain certain intellectual boundaries. I feel that the boundary between what does and does not constitute poetry is one such crucial example.
Perhaps I am mis-interpreting Uribe’s choice of wording. It is possible that her Anipoems contain some grand joke that I’m missing. However, if she is legitimately trying to classify them as poetry, I believe she should be called to task on this classification.

Amazon's Kindle and the Physicality of Text

Though admittedly much of this class has been devoted to a discussion of the physicality of text, Hayles’ Writing Machines really takes the concept to a whole new level. Each time we’ve been asked to read selections from this text (granted this is only the second time, but I’ve never yet sat down and read what’s assigned in one sitting), my mind has been overcome with an array of different subjects related to the physicality of text. Having just finished reading some Goethe on my Kindle (the new Amazon digital book device) before beginning my reading of Hayles, it was this device that I would like to discuss, for if it takes off, it will certainly be revolutionary for the world of physical text.
In her book, Hayles says “Literature was never only words, never merely immaterial verbal constructions. Literary texts, like us, have bodies, an actuality necessitating that their materialities and meanings are deeply interwoven with each other.” With the Kindle, however, since all of the text is the same, no matter what book you’re reading, much of the physical aspect of the text is taken away. With the Kindle, the size of the text may be changed (there are five different sizes from which to choose), but the type of text itself is programmed to always be this same simple sans-serif font – no matter whether you’re reading the Wall Street Journal or Augustine’s Confessions.
To an extent, I suppose this lack of variation amongst different texts is freeing in the sense that it allows the reader to focus (almost) entirely on the words themselves. Without any variation amongst fonts or line spacing, along with standardized margins and no gutter space, the Kindle allows a reader to soon forget about these physical aspects completely, since the reader already subconsciously knows what to expect to see on the page before even turning on the device. Furthermore, while a huge criticism of the Kindle has been that it seems too much like reading on a computer screen, these complainers have apparently never touched a Kindle; the device uses an electronic-ink display technology that simulates actual ink on a page, and the screen itself simulates real paper – thus is not shiny like a computer screen, but has the matte characteristics of actual pages.
That having been said, I feel the Kindle has a long way to go in the world of text in general. With real books, it’s often really exciting to open up the cover and see differences in the physical text from one book to the next. There’s a subconscious aesthetic element to most books which is not addressed by the Kindle. When I open up Atlas Shrugged and see tightly-packed size 10 Times New Roman font, my mind perceives the text differently from when I crack the cover of my sans-serif size 12 copy of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. When I dive into Hayles’ book, many of my preconceived notions about the physicality of text are completely abandoned.
Though these differences may seem insignificant to Amazon’s engineers, I think these aesthetic elements have more bearing on a reader’s literary brain than the Kindle proponents take into account. Perhaps in future versions of the Kindle, these details regarding the physicality of text will be addressed. However, the question of whether or not this device can even come close to taking the place of physical books is one that deserves some serious consideration.

On Boredom

"[Boredom] can always be used productively as a precious symptom of our own existential, ideological, and cultural limits.” -Fredric Jameson

Did you ever wonder why Buddhists meditate? Honestly, I didn't until I read a book on Buddhism in general and found the reason to be quite fascinating.

Buddhists have a unique spin on this phenomenon which we call "interspace." They detest the notion that time can be wasted, so if they end up with any downtime in their schedules, they won't just lounge around, but instead will find some way to use it productively. Meditating, therefore, is a practice they've developed in order to deal with this interspace time. This time can be used in a multiplicity of ways - to take a break from reality, to ponder questions, or to think deeply on subjects of interest to themselves. Absent of the influence of other people, they can reflect wholly on themselves and their interests, then jump back to reality when it is beneficial for them to do so.

Also, I've always subscribed to the notion that only boring people allow themselves to be bored.

Unoriginal Uncreativity

In his interview with 34th Street magazine, Kenny Goldsmith mentions that he switched over from the visual arts to literary arts because uncreativity, while it had been practiced in the visual for years, hadn’t quite infiltrated the literary arts yet. I wholly disagree with the assertion that he’s the founder of the “uncreative” movement in the literary genre. Uncreative literature has been practiced as far back as at least the Renaissance (perhaps earlier – this is as far back as I have some familiarity).
Emulato non imitato, meaning emulate, don’t imitate, is a mantra which was embodied by many artists of the Renaissance –including painters, sculptors, musicians, and yes, even writers. Yet it was a common practice for even the best writers to copy the manuscripts of other writers (normally either their colleagues or the masters) in order to physically connect with the writing process of another: complete imitation. In this same vein, I think it could be argued that scribes (who date back even before the Renaissance) were actually the originators of the uncreative writing genre.
The world of text was revolutionized in 1440 with the invention of the printing press, which was arguably also a revolutionary device in the field of uncreative writing. Now, no longer did scribes have to physically write out each letter, meaning that connection with the text was lost to a large extent. What the printing press did, essentially, was to impersonalize the act of textual reproduction – which not only put innumerable scribes out of work, but also caused them to lose the physical connection they had with text in general.
However, the printing press made uncreative writing a process which was quicker and more efficient than it had ever been. Now, rather than copies of text taking days or months to reproduce, the process took much less time, meaning non-original works could be transmitted much more rapidly (meaning: though text may have been somewhat original at the time of conception, only the manuscript itself could be considered original – the copies from the printing press were merely non-original reproductions). Thus, uncreative writing became ever more pervasive in a rapidly changing world.
Since the invention of the printing press almost six hundred years ago, writing and text-reproducing technologies have expanded at an unprecedented pace. Over the past two-hundred years especially, innovations in text-reproduction have been profound. The early 1800s saw the invention of the typewriter, which was subsequently revamped and updated for the next two centuries until it gave way to the word processor. This latter invention was rather short-lived, however, due to its quick obsolescence once the computer was introduced. With computers came such text tools as scanning, copy and pasting, and most recently, OCR (short for optical character recognition) which have allowed individuals more efficiently explore their uncreative sides.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding Goldsmith’s definition of “uncreative writing;” however, given what he said in his 34th Street interview, I cannot with good conscience categorize his version of uncreative writing as something new and revolutionary.

Jim Jarmusch on Originality

While thinking about next week's uncreative writing class, I was reminded of this Jim Jarmusch poem I found awhile back. He advocates the abolition of intellectual property rights on the grounds that they stifle creativity.
Just something to share with you...

That Phenomenon We Call Texting

The idea that technology would move towards a method that would allow the user to write more complete sentences sparked my interest because it's a text-alternative I'd never really thought of before. However, with the recent addition of qwerty keyboards on phones, as well as the ever more invasive use of combined devices such as the blackberry and the iPhone (combined meaning they combine the features of many existing technologies), it's not inconceivable that these technologies could cause texting to move towards a more structured format.
That having been said, I think much of the appeal of text messaging is its brevity. Rather than calling someone and having a long chat, or writing out a full e-mail, texting allows a person to communicate snippets of ideas quickly and efficiently. True, it lacks "complete" or "thought-provoking" sentences, but these types of sentences are not what texting was designed to communicate. If a person really has something profound to say, it's unlikely that they'll use a text message to say it. It's just not the right venue of communication.
I actually touched on this a little in my previous post. People, in general, understand that different situations require different methods of communication. One does not write a treatise via text message, nor does one use phrases like "what's up" in a formal letter.
Thus, I don't see texting evolving to a more complete form, not only because that's not it's purpose, but also because with the ever more up-to-date technology, we haven't seen any major shifts in texting style.

Quieting the Text Message Opposition Squad

As a product of the digital age, I have long been of the belief that technology is not, in fact, destroying everyone’s brains or souls (the two most popular arguments waged against technology). For me, the mere fact that technology continues to advance, and to advance at an ever-increasing rate, is proof that these new technologies are not eating away our brains – otherwise, who would be around to come up with new, better technologies? Yet it was enlightening to read Crystal’s academic/linguistic argument against those who see the technology of texting as an apocryphal entity.
His arguments really struck a chord with me because for the past few years, I’ve made it no secret that I openly judge everyone (to some extent) by the methods they use to text. For example, my little sister, who is currently a sophomore in high school, thinks it’s “cool” to intentionally misspell words (ex: “wut” instead of “what”, and “kewl” as opposed to “cool”), and also uses many asterisks and exclamation points in her messages. I’ve often told her that her misspellings and misuse of punctuation make her sound less classy in her texts, but she simply responds that she has no use for sounding classy in text messages – they’re not formal types of writing. (As a side note, consistent with Crystal’s observations, my sister is actually a very good writer.)
However, in the same vein that I think people who abuse the English language too much in their text messages sound less intelligent, I think being overly-formal makes a person sound pretentious. After all, as my little sister often tells me, “it’s just a text message”. There’s an important balance between formality and informality that is crucial to sending an acceptable text message – a balance that is lost on so many people. A text is not an e-mail, nor is it a letter, and thus does not need to be treated as such. Lowercase i’s are ok, as are un-capitalized proper nouns. I, for one, will often use two periods in place of a space..giving my texts a more flowing feel.
Yet I think the important distinction to make is that, while people use atrocious grammar and punctuation in text messages, most people understand that this impropriety should not flow over into their regular writing. My writing certainly doesn’t look like my text messages, and I think people who are concerned that texting could be detrimental to the overall state of writing have a pretty poor outlook on individual thought processes. Undoubtedly, even these worry-warts take on a different tone when they’re scribbling out a memo than when they’re writing a letter to a friend, and furthermore, change tone and style when writing a letter to a boss or other professional person. I don’t see how this process of subconscious textual change is any different than what goes through a person’s mind when he/she switches back and forth from text messaging to other sorts of writing. Thus, the text message opposition squad needs to stop worrying and embrace the opportunities that the digital world can bring.

Flarf Appreciation Day

After spending a couple hours last night, sifting through you-tube to try and find the perfect flarf video to show during my in-class presentation, I feel that I have a new appreciation for the genre. However, it seems that by simply writing flarf, one can’t get the full effect of the message. After watching numerous performances, it is clear that flarf authors have a very particular feeling in mind when writing their flarf poems - feelings that simply can’t be captured by mere text.
Take Gary Sullivan, for instance. I would describe his recitals as unprovoked explosions of electricity. (Of course, I only use that description because I can’t think of anything better). At the 2006 Flarf Festival, his presentation of “Poetry Phone” gave off a vibe that simply couldn’t be elicited by a mere individual reading of the work. He knows which statements he wants to emphasize, where he should take pauses, and all the other nuances of his work. These little distinctions make flarf poetry, it seems, more of a performance art than merely a textual one.
That having been said, there is something wonderful about stumbling across a piece of flarf and being able to interpret it your own way. While reading different sections of the flarf section of Jacket magazine, I experimented with reading a few aloud. Besides the fact that my roommates thought I’d gone a little batty, I had a lot of fun trying out different characterizations as I was reading through these poems.
When you’re just reading to yourself, it’s very easy to just scan over the words, not really allowing the finer points of the words to sink in. Yet flarf seems to be an art that pushes the English language to its limits – thus it deserves to be both written and spoken. If I had to characterize it into a genre, I would not hesitate to call it a performance art.
The work of Rodney Koeneke provides me with a case-in-point. Though Gary Sullivan has some real winners (he should, he’s the originator of the genre), Koeneke’s works really left an impression on me.
I first discovered him while sifting through videos from the 2006 Flarf Festival, where he presented his flarf poem “Pizza Kitty,” then recognized his name again while reading selections from the July 2006 edition of Jacket magazine. His were actually the first poems I experimented with reading aloud – yet having already heard his performances of “Pizza Kitty” and “On the Clamways,” I think I already had in the back of my mind an idea of how these should be presented.
I guess what I’m really getting at is the tension I’ve felt when reading these poems as to whether I can really appreciate them without hearing them from the mouth of the original author.

More on "Unocontaminated Meaning(s)"

"The materiality of language is that aspect which remains resistant to an absolute subsumption into the ideality of meaning. . . . To see the letter not as a phoneme but as ink, and to further insist on that materiality, inevitably contests the status of language as a bearer of uncontaminated meaning(s)"
- Steve McCaffery , in a 1978 essay on the poet Bill Bissett

McCafferey’s Carnival is a fascinating work (which is the understatement of the year). It handles physical text in a way that I have never before seen done, nor will likely ever see again. Taking the artist years to create using a physical typewriter, it is a project that would have likely been nearly impossible in today’s digital age. I say impossible because the computer would have been able to create text-art, but never mirror the writer-text connection which the Carnival so elegantly portrays.
It is the use of the phrase “uncontaminated meaning(s)” in the above quote that I find particularly insightful in attempting to decipher some semblance of meaning behind McCaffery’s creation. Pause a second to consider the implications of this seemingly innocuous phrase. By uncontaminated meaning(s), the author is implying that text exists independent of the language which it composes. Furthermore, it exists with a meaning all to itself – each letter has a personality, if you will, that often gets lost when it joins with other letters to make words, and with other words, to get lost in phrases, sentences, and books.
I see McCaffrey’s Carnival as a piece which attempts to redefine the individuality of each letter. Entire sections of his piece are made up of the repetition of only one letter – which I see as allowing the shape of the letter, and the repetition of the shape, to dictate that letter’s meaning. Still, the letter exists as part of a greater whole (as each letter does when composing part of a word), yet McCaffrey is challenging our generally held assumptions about the functions of letters by using them to create a whole that is diametrically opposed to what we are used to seeing.
McCaffrey takes the materiality of language to a level not achieved by other artists (here, artists includes writers, who use language as their medium). He uses words to portray a message, but not as writers portray a message through the construction of messages and the arrangement of language, but as a representation of the pure materiality which the letters possess.

Toward a New Nostalgia

In The Iron Whim, author Darren Wershler-Henry puts great emphasis on the interplay between writer and machine. For him, the writer’s product is unquestionably intertwined with the mechanism on which he is writing – implying that the same product could not be produced on a different machine. Were Kerouac’s On the Road written using a computer, for example, Wershler-Henry claims a very different product would have emerged.
I would certainly agree that, in writing, the media influences the message – as does the media of any artistic endeavor. However, whereas Wershler-Henry seems to view the demise of the typewriter as an unfortunate end of a nostalgic era, I would contend that the end of the typewriter era is, on net, more positive than negative. I don’t think he would disagree with me, but I would like to take this post to shatter his romantic view of the typewriter.
As a student of economics, I tend to look at everything in terms of opportunity costs. Though the computer replaced Hollywood notion of a penniless writer, hunched over his typewriter, pipe in mouth and scotch in hand, toiling late into the night to finish his manuscript, this image would not have disappeared were it economically viable to keep it in existence. However, with computer technology being so vastly superior to the typewriter, it was only economically feasible that one should replace the other. For those true romantics, use of the typewriter is still an option (just as use of the pencil was still the main option for Thoreau); yet for most writers, the enormous benefits of digitization trump their romantic attraction to their Selectrics.
These new technologies cause us to call into question the direction of causality between the creative process and technological advances. That is to say: have increases in technology created better writing, or has writing actually worsened as technology has become better? Critics abound on both sides of this argument, making this a very difficult question to answer. True, Shakespeare didn’t have even a typewriter to help him with his manuscripts, and he’s considered one of the greatest writers of all time – and Dante and Milton had the same handicap. Likewise, Scott Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams wrote all of their works without a computer. These days, very few writers even consider the option of not using a computer to aid them in their writing.
It seems, however, that it would be impossible to make an objective judgment of which writers are better – each generation (let alone, each writer) comes up with such diverse material, it would be difficult to judge one in terms of the other. So when judging whether the computer (thus, the decline of typewriter usage) has caused a decline in writing, it must be decided that this is not a fair value judgment. One must simply acknowledge that writing has evolved into something completely new due to changing technology, and accept the beauty of it for what it is.

Graffiti: Where to Draw the Line

Reading Gregory Snyder’s Grafitti Lives was an eye-opening experience for me. Though I am generally against the government being able to dictate what a person can and cannot do, I had always somehow held this notion that graffiti artists were no more than low-class criminals without respect for private property. Snyder’s book caused me to question this conception, and left me wondering where the line is concerning what does and does not constitute graffiti.
It was his discussion of pieces in his chapter “A Brief History of Graffiti Writing” that really led me to this question. In this chapter, Snyder talks at length about the three different types of graffiti: the piece, the throw up, and the tag. Though he generalizes what constitutes each type of graffiti, the chapter still left me unclear as to where the line is drawn between each. For example, when does a work of graffiti stop being a mere tag and constitute a piece.
Though this distinction might be easier to define, the question that really bothers me is this: what is the difference between a graffiti piece and a mural? Is it the legality of one as opposed to the vandalism of the other? Furthermore, just because something is not sanctioned, does this make it not art?
Of course, these are difficult questions to tackle. In New York City alone, there are some pieces on the streets that would rival some of the greater works of art found in museums – and it is indisputable that most of these works of graffiti can be classified as art. Yet as a matter of consistency, I’m still concerned where graffiti stops and legitimate art begins.
The best online definition I could find of graffiti (actually, graffito, which is the singular version of graffiti) was: “A drawing or inscription made on a wall or other surface, usually so as to be seen by the public” (thanks dictionary.com). Yet this is still insufficient to answer my question, for a mural or other legitimized work could fall into this category.
A second definition, also courtesy of dictionary.com, was this: “markings, as initials, slogans, or drawings, written, spray-painted, or sketched on a sidewalk, wall of a building or public restroom, or the like : These graffiti are evidence of the neighborhood's decline.” Though this definition is very similar to the first, and furthermore, does not differentiate graffiti from other art forms, I found it interesting by virtue of its sample sentence. Though the definition does not contain any of the negative implications often associated with graffiti, the sentence conforms to all graffiti stereotypes. Therefore, I would contend, that graffiti is not outwardly different from other art forms, but is differentiated merely by its connotations which link it back to the underground subculture from which it was born.

Yes, the Chinese Practice Graffiti Too!

I had the extreme pleasure of spending this past weekend at a conference in New York City – a timely trip considering the nature of this project. Having lived right outside of the city all summer, I knew right where to find the grafitti hot-spots. Yet while Manhattan and the East Village certainly offer some exciting grafitti options, it is Chinatown which ultimately contains the most interesting and unique samples of grafitti in the city.
Since Saturday afternoon of my conference afforded me a couple hours of free time, I naturally wanted to visit some of my favorite haunts discovered during the summer. Thus, my motives for visiting Chinatown weren’t entirely graffiti-based – admittedly, the main thrust of my visit was to grab some Sichuan chicken. However, during my journey through Chinatown, I discovered some graffiti gems.
One of the most interesting graffiti trends I discovered was the use of the sides of vans and other vehicles as a writing space. This naturally caused me to question whether these acts of vandalism were committed by the individuals owning the vehicles, or whether the owners were the unfortunate (or perhaps fortunate, depending on your perception) recipients of some impromptu artwork. Since Gregory Snyder in his book Graffiti Lives points out that some of the earliest graffiti manifested itself on the sides of railway cars, I take the stand that perhaps this “van vandalism” is a throwback to this early graffiti style. Furthermore, since New York City officially ended railroad graffiti in 1989 by refusing to run redecorated trains, this event likely gave rise to van graffiti also (Snyder 31).
I ran across three graffiti-covered vans during my trek through Chinatown, yet only the one emblazoned with the word “left” held any discernable message – the other two were likely just throw-ups or tags. Yet since they are not static spaces, these vans allow the writer of the graffiti to create a moving message – that is to say, one that will be seen my more people than if it were simply on a wall. Snyder highlights the moving graffiti message as an important means of unauthorized communication. Says Snyder: “the end of the train era also freed writers from underground tunnels and turned them into experts of urban exploration in cities all over the world” (31). Thus, while some of the original train-writers may feel they have lost the true essence of graffiti by losing the origin of train-writing, this inability to continue writing on trains opened up the stage for exploration on new media.
Thus, after trains lost their viability as a canvas, we began to see not only vans, but also walls, signs, stairwells, and even phone booths being employed in the service of the graffiti artists. As graffiti is an important method of both communication and of self-expression, the choice of place to showcase one’s graffiti skills is a choice that greatly can impact the message of the graffiti. My trip through Chinatown provided me with many diverse samples of writing spaces, all of which seem somehow fitting to the graffiti they contain.

Punctuation Confusion

It seems to me that Steven Johnson is confused as to what the definition of "punctuation" really is. In his book Interface Culture, he tells his readers that the hypertext link is the first truly new form of punctuation in centuries. I can see where he's going with that statement, however, I feel he is misdirected in his wording.
Words matter. Period. Truly, there exist no synonyms in the English language - every word has a distinct meaning, thus serves a distinct purpose. By using the term "punctuation" to describe the hypertext link, Johnson has committed an error of wording. The term punctuation has a specific meaning, and as the hypertext link is composed of both letters and punctuation (http, backslashes, and a colin), it cannot be classified as punctuation, just as you cannot use any term in its own definition.
That having been said, I feel that the hypertext link does constitute a revolution in today's technotext world. Hypertext links are everywhere - heck, my parents have their own website (http://www.andrewsatwestbrook.com - for anyone who's interested). It is a symbol that is deeply ingrained in today's culture, and is becoming ever more invasive throughout the world.
However, calling the hypertext link "punctuation" is a serious misnomer - it deserves its own category, since it occupies its own unique position in society.

The Baron/Ong Discussion

Not only writing, but all communicative devices seem, according to Denis Baron, to go through several stages of acceptance before finally being accepted as a common means of communication. As early as the pencil (and perhaps even before), there have been disputes over the way in which humans communicate. Plato spoke out against writing in general, saying that it would destroy our memories. Thoreau opposed any new forms of writing other than the pencil (although, ironically, his books have been published in print for nearly a century now - and were being published in print while he was alive). The telephone, too, was met with harsh opposition for it's lack of ability to provide any sort of written transcript of a conversation.
Thus, Baron seems to think that all new writing technologies must go through a necessary trial period, a period of harsh criticism, before being accepted into general usage. He concedes, of course, that since it takes time for technology to develop into an universally workable format, perhaps it is the inability for technology to initially conform to our needs that causes its lack of acceptance. Once the technology becomes more perfected, it is more easily accepted. Take the computer as an example. In the early days of digital, the computer was a very difficult machine to use, open only to a select group of professionals (namely, the military and some universities). Over the years, computer technology has evolved into a format that nearly everyone with a brain can understand and use. Monkeys even know how to use computers. Thus, the ease with which individuals can comprehend a technology seems to make it more readily acceptable.
This stage-movement from rejection to acceptance occurs with not only with direct-communication technologies, but I would argue, with every new technology. On some level, I think humans are designed to regard new technologies with a bit of skepticism. Take the camera, for instance. Though most would consider it an indispensable part of their lives today, in the early days of photography, the camera was met with much resistance. Native Americans, for instance, would not allow people to take their pictures, fearing the photograph of them would somehow take away part of their souls.
Walter Ong, in his book Literacy and Orality, seems to agree with Baron on several key points. It seems that when speaking about the evolution of modern language, it is nearly impossible to not agree with the rejection to acceptance thesis. Since both take somewhat of an historical approach to the interpretation of communication technologies, it would be difficult to disregard the controversies that have surrounded the introduction of different technologies.
And with today's ever changing world, we continue to see this tension between the old and new methods of communication. Web 2.0 and other digital methods are in the heat of controversy right now. Even the web itself is overrun with articles that say why the digitization of the world is a disastrous happening. How ironic.

Advertising in the Landscape

Whereas textual messages can be official or unofficial, so too can advertising. The advertising business in the US has evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry, with 30-second television ads for the 2008 Superbowl going for upwards of $2.7 million. Yet while some large companies spend inordinate amounts of time and money producing massive ad campaigns, others choose to inform the public thorough less formal methods – such as stickering.
Stickering is a verb meaning “to sticker” or “to place stickers around places” – no, it’s not a real word. However, since the main point of language is communication, and this word communicates my message, I will continue to use it.
Anyhow, stickering is a method used by many low-budget companies (the type that can’t afford to spend millions on advertising) to help get their message across. In my experience, I’ve noticed that a lot of bands, online companies, and non-profit organizations tend to communicate with the public via stickering. Thus, I set out around the GMU campus to find examples of advertising through stickers.
Not only are stickers an informal textual message, they are often also completely unsanctioned. Honestly, who do you ask before you put a sticker on a light post? There’s no one to ask. Though they do get ripped down sometimes, often they receive an informal approval by not getting ripped down by the man right away.
Still, they often look like a form of rebellion against authority. A band sticker placed on a street sign seems to be saying “I don’t care about your statist rules.” Even when an owner places a sticker on his own personal property, whether consciously or subconsciously, he’s still advertising. In this case, he’s not only advertising the company portrayed on the sticker, but also advertising himself through his decision to represent himself in relationship with his sticker of choice.

What We Can Learn from WALL-E

As early as the first chapter of her text, Wolf makes a clear distinction between what she calls the “reading brain” and the “digital brain.” From this analysis, she emerges as somewhat of a critic of the digital age, warning of the potential for computers and other digital tools to transform the way in which our brain functions.
Her concerns concerning the digitization of the mind follow logically from the progression of the book, and she asks some very profound questions concerning this process. Wolf inquires: “"Will unguided information lead to an illusion of knowledge, and thus curtail the more difficult, time-consuming, critical thought processes that lead to knowledge itself? Will the split-second immediacy of information gained from a search engine and the sheer volume of what is available derail the slower, more deliberative processes that deepen our understanding of complex concepts, of another's inner thought processes, and of our own consciousness?" Naturally, she sees the enormous benefits of the computer, but warns against too strong a dependence on it, thus encouraging parents to raise their children in a way that allows them to function efficiently both in the physical and digital worlds.
Though her book came out about a year before the movie WALL-E hit the big screen, her concerns about the over-digitization of humans seems to manifest itself in the portrayal of humans in this movie. Perhaps the writer of WALL-E read Proust and the Squid before penning the script.
Set in a distant future in which the world has become so overrun with trash that humans are forced to leave the planet, this movie seems to be an all-encompassing attack on human vices. The humans in this movie are lazy, obese, and of most importance to this discussion: they are totally dependent on technology. What’s the use of talking to one another, say the humans, when one can simply sit at his or her computer all day and communicate that way?
Over the course of several centuries, this complete dependence on the computer and other digital technologies has caused the human race to develop into fat, stupid individuals. They are not mean people – they are incredibly well intentioned, as a matter of fact. Yet due to their digital addiction, their thought processes have devolved into a state in which they can no longer understand complex reasoning patterns, but are merely simplistic and ignorant.
WALL-E is, of course, a satirical exaggeration of the potential problems of the digital age. However, satire is always based in truth; thus Wolf’s message is not unique to her alone – if it has reached Hollywood, it is obviously a legitimate social concern. I tend to think, however, that by alerting individuals to the problematic possibilities of rapid digitization, the first step has already been taken to help prevent devolution of the human mind in light of the digital age. Truthfully, every new technology has an effect on human thought processes, the important thing both the harmful and helpful capacities of the technology in order to curb the bad effects and play up the good.

Combines and Conciousness

Since the latter half of my last post already expounds upon Ong’s statement that “more than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness” (78), I will dive right into evaluating the impact of another invention upon human awareness. Having been raised in the boondocks of Illinois, I will use the combine as my example.
Named so because it “combines” the processes of harvesting, threshing, and cleaning crops, the combine was introduced to the world in 1838, though it was many years before it became a widely-used machine. Yet once the costs of production came down enough to make it an affordable investment, it completely revolutionized the farming industry.
According to most statistics, in the mid 1930s, over 40% of the American workforce was employed in farming. Today, that number is below two percent - and much of that progress can be attributed to the introduction of the combine. Thus far, however, I have only discussed it’s physical affects; yet it must be made clear that this invention (as all inventions are wont to do) forever changed human consciousness. But how, you might ask?
The influence of the combine on human consciousness might not be as visible as that of other inventions, but with every phenomenon, one must evaluate both the seen and the unseen consequences of everything. By allowing the process of farming to become exponentially faster, the creative energies of hundreds of thousands of farmers were freed up, thus giving them the opportunity to apply these energies to other uses. Though the transition might have been rough in the beginning, and obviously caused a lot of unemployment in the beginning, these temporary hardships have allowed not only the US, but the world to achieve a higher standard of living today.

Orality, Literacy, and Freedom

In today’s technological world, the distinction between the oral and the literal is one that is largely unrecognized. From my experience, it seems that most people tend to assume that the oral is simply the verbal manifestation of the written; yet Ong’s Orality and Literacy brings to light the sharp distinction between the two. However, the effects of literacy on orality (and vice versa) are difficult to evaluate, for neither exist in a vacuum.
As an attempt to isolate one in terms of the other, Ong cites the A.R. Luria study in which Luria questioned numerous illiterates in order to see how their perceptions of things differed from perceptions of other literates. While the study was certainly fascinating, it seems that in today’s increasingly interconnected world, it would be extremely difficult (I’d even venture to say impossible) to isolate literacy or illiteracy, for even largely illiterate societies are undoubtedly influenced by forces of literacy. That is to say, illiterates don’t exist in a vacuum – humans are social beings, therefore even members a fully illiterate tribe in deep Africa will likely experience the effects of literacy at some point in their lives, be it through trade, interactions with missionaries, or other unavoidable external forces. Conversely, a fully literate society is equally impossible to isolate, for no one exists in a world of only text. Thus, it seems that Ong’s focus on the literate versus the oral fails to fully explore the interconnectivity between the two.
One aspect of the phenomena of language I thought Ong covered very well, however, was the issue of physical writing restructuring consciousness (hence the title of his chapter “Writing Restructures Consciousness”). There is no better way to describe this phenomenon than with the author’s own words. Our exposure to the world of Helvetica and other typefaces clearly illuminates this distinction. For while writing undoubtedly is used to convey a message with its text, the physical letters themselves are more than simple representations of sounds – they are social constructs which trigger things within the minds of the reader.
This trend is even more observable in ancient writings than it is in our own. Egyptian Hieroglyphs, for instance, are so literal that they seem to be a picture and text intertwined. Early Sumerian text also seems to hold this characteristic, thus leading me to a particular interest of mine, the Sumerian cuneiform symbol of the Amagi.
The Amagi, literally translated as “return to the mother,” is believed to be the first known written expression of freedom or liberty. Taken from a clay tablet from the Sumerian city of Lagash, the Amagi is believed to have appeared in the Sumerian language around 2300 BC. Yet more relevant for our discussion today is how liberty is expressed both in different literal translations, as well as how it is interpreted inter- temporally, that is to say, how the concept itself differs from the literal expression.
In this post, I have included a picture of the Amagi. Though I am not familiar with any other Sumerian script (it’s a dead language, hence I have no reason for familiarity), it seems that the physical makeup of the Amagi is not insignificant, just as the physical makeup the letter A in our language is not insignificant. To me it seems that the two symbols seem to represent the distinction between captivity and freedom. While the first symbol seems to be a figure in a cage, the second could be seen as an arrow pointing towards freedom. This interpretation, of course, is based on no scholarly research; it is merely the feeling I get when I look at the symbol. However, besides its actual context and meaning, I think an equally important aspect of language is how the symbols can be interpreted by those who have no prior knowledge of the language. Hence, due to the nature of literacy, it seems that my interpretation is equally as significant as a scholarly interpretation, for all intents and purposes.
For more information on the Amagi (as well as other liberty-themed information), visit the Liberty Fund site. This organization is self-described as: “a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.” Hence, as an advocate of liberty and individual freedoms, I encourage you to take a peek into the world of Liberty Fund.

Helvetica Freewrite

I work for an organization in DC called Bureaucrash, which advocates increasing individual freedom by decreasing the scope of government. We’re basically an activist organization, and my main job (apart from participating in activist activities) is to design and print t-shirts. The fonts, naturally, are an important part of getting our messages across. For example, we have one shirt with the Tiananmen Square guy with a tank in front of him that simply says “Stop Statism.” The font for this shirt is a bold, all caps type, sending a strong message to people to actively resist the pulls of an invasive state.
Another of our shirts is a white on red “Enjoy Capitalism” design which, as you might have guessed, is a spin-off of the Coca-Cola logo. The font which Coca-Cola originally chose for their design has developed into sort of a trademark of their company, so that when people see that font, they automatically think “Hey, that’s Coca-Cola.” Thus, our “Enjoy Capitalism” shirt may, on first glance, simply look like a Coke shirt, but for those who slow down to read it, it conveys an undercover message.
A third shirt is branded with our “Fascism is for Commies” meme, and this one is a bold, all caps, stencil-like text. It has kind of a raw, unfinished look to it, which seems to jive with an activist mindset of using whatever you’ve got around to get the message across, be that a stencil, a pencil, or what have you.