Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
” […] Then something happened. Nixon played to it of course but it really came into play in the 1990’s and even more this past decade. Republicans turned their backs on smart people. Just like that, being smart was less important than being ‘real’. Being qualified was about being ordinary.
[…]
He stopped for a moment and took another sip from his mug. “The Republican party is the party of the bowling alley. It’s the party of the poker game. It’s the party of pseudo patriotism and talking points masquerading as a platform. It’s the party of shrillness and fear and I couldn’t in good conscience be a part of that smoke and mirrors any longer.”
GIN, TELEVISION, AND COGNITIVE SURPLUS:
A Talk By Clay Shirky
[…] People asking, “Where do they find the time?” when they’re looking at things like Wikipedia don’t understand how tiny that entire project is, as a carve-out of the cognitive surplus that’s finally being dragged into what Tim O’Reilly calls an architecture of participation.
Now, the interesting thing about a surplus like that is that society doesn’t know what to do with it at first—hence the gin, hence the sitcoms. Because if people knew what to do with a surplus with reference to the existing social institutions, it wouldn’t be a surplus, would it? It’s precisely when no one has any idea how to deploy something that people have to start experimenting with it, in order for the surplus to get integrated, and the course of that integration can transform society.
Outstanding essay and video presentation. The movement of society from passive consumption to active participation that Shirky describes gives me hope for the future.
Jenny, are you there? (867-5309)
519: [Girl’s voice] Hello, you reached Jenny at 867-5309. I’d love to talk to you, leave me a message, but there has been a change in me. [Guy’s voice] I’m not Jenny, not Jenny so if you still wanna leave me a message, leave it at the end of the beep. Bye!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Bookninja » Subvirtualism: The Surrealists’ love child, immaculately conceived
As you may note, these techniques no longer affront common conceptions of reality. In fact, they’ve become reality – the currency of our culture, the shared vocabulary of our consumer society:
* Odd juxtapositions and subconscious drives? Advertisers have long mastered such techniques and moods, employing them to sell a whole array of consumer products – everything from bottled water to toilet water to toilet paper.
* Automatic, unedited writing? The embrace of democratic possibilities in art, regardless of expertise? Try a blog. Try ten-thousand, if you like.
* The spread of associations across a wide field of play? That essentially describes the dynamics of the web.
* Collaborative creations? Well, the Wiki has become the new Exquisite Corpse. Unfortunately, most Wikis feel more like diddling with the dead than daring to risk through language.
[…]
Despite the violence done to the form of Surrealism, the deeper thrust remains within a new group of contemporary writers. Like the Surrealists, these writers are driven by the need to crack open the fissures in accepted reality, thereby making us see the dynamics of self and society; the need – not to shout or rail or talk incessantly – but to growl from the landscape of the true, as they perceive it. These contemporary writers are responding to the political, scientific, and cultural tone of their time. Now, however, that tone resounds within and from the virtual nature of our society.
