i ain't cynical!

mutation, presence & absence

nobody@vox.com(leon a. james) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:58:33 -0700

How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics

Reading: Hayles, N. K. (1999) How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp 248 - 282.

Post human can not only heal the alienations that mark human subjectivity but preserve autonomy and individuality in the bargain. (p255)

i have read katherine hayles before and found her vaguely interesting. the notion of post-humanism sounded very star trek (think the borg or the Q collectives). in my first stab at graduate school i would often use star trek as a way of highlighting pop cultural applications of the age of enlightenment, the humanist project. the idea of a human race (and lets face it the vast majority of the federation was organized around humanist ideals and post humanist cultures were looked on with fear, or would be asked to become backwards compatible - think commander data) was foregrounded as an ideal for not only humanity to ascribe to, but all other forms of organic and inorganic life forms. the aforementioned omnipotent Q would earnestly study humanity, and revel at our evolutionary and righteous struggle to not only espouse humanist ideology but to exemplify it through action governed by the federation's prime directives. after two semester of writing about sociological theories such as the enlightenment, structuralism, and post structuralist and relating them to star trek and other popular culture programs i was engrossed in, the excercise proved to have a dual purpose: exemplifying how far humanity had progressed in star trek as well as how limited humanism ideology was. i would often be vexed at the replication of structural racism (the ferengie resembled and were often played by men of arab decent, klingons were african-esque in physiology and traded on stereotypes of an aggressive and savage diaspora), sexism, heterosexism, etc. as a result much of my work pointed to how humanism, as i understood it and highlighted by star trek, simply replicated these social chasms.

Picture 1

what intrigues me about post-humanism is that it has offered a number of ways out of what many in society insist isthe natural order of things. post-humanism calls into question the corporeal body, its necessity, the tension between the physiological limitations breed into the species and the "soul"'s potential for intellectual, metaphysical and spiritual evolution/mutation (unsupported or incompatible with naked flesh) . katherine speaks to the anxiety of this line of questions, for without the living flesh and its materiality, what then constitutes the "person", how will the person relate to/connect with the other, now disembodied, post-human "beings". as she teases these ideas out in the chapter we read she uses two dialectics to highlight the tension between the humanist project and the post humanist subject. these dialectics are presence/absence and randomness/pattern (see picture 1).

Picture 2

presence/absence - i am intimately acquainted with this dialectic. it makes me think of george hagel's lordship and bondage dialectic. the tension between one's self perception, how they are perceived by others and how they would like to be perceived. in the hagelian dialectic to fully possess an other or be fully possessed by an other is what is at stack, a form of recognition, replication & death. from what i can deduce from the chapter we read, presence/absence speaks to an experience of embodiment (hayles uses the world materiality see picture 2). humanism at one pole speaks to a certainty about the role of the corporeal body, and its ability to determine what it is to be human. at the other pole is post humanism and the potential to evacuate the body, become something "other" than what the breed corporal body dictates.
randomness/pattern - this dialectic (as hayles uses it) is less clear for me. upon encountering it (and her second semiotic square) brought to mind one of the tensions i experience with religion. my parents insist that the bible, wrote thousands of years ago, can still order modern life. beyond the moral implications. materially i have always struggled with this assertion. the idea that the randomness (inventions, which freed humanity to respond to their environment and each other differently, begot inventions which freed humanity to respond to their environment and each other differently, begot. . . ) of ever flowing and unfolding life can be explained and held in place with patterns from 100 a.d. what i am not able to connect with is how this dialectic is related to information. i understand that she talks about the codes by which we understand/perceive/relate (i am thinking specifically to language) and the idea that these codes once executed/assembled create something (pattern). i am just not sure what point she is trying to advance on that pole.

What is truly exciting for me about this chapter of hayle's book is her ideas of how replication, disruption, mutation, and hyperreality are related. of particular interest is mutation, unintended consequence of random events encountering a human/humanity (who must be present for the event) and creating a new form (materiality). much of my research interest, writings, and ways of living in life focuses on the materiality, post-mutation. and how new, albeit somewhat familiar forms (in the cases i look at) are experienced by others. this hybridity or remix to me exemplifies the idea of presence and absence. the mutant must relate to the world both as something that others longs for them to be, the familiar, as well as a new unrecognizable form.

for those who have watched the x-men cartoon or read the comic book this seems to be a no brainer. even as mutants offered new and exciting ways for "humanity" to relate to their environment there was a tacit call within society for them to revert, to signify a past (recognizable pattern) that no longer exist (absence). hayles believes that this (the tension between absence and pattern) creates a hyperreality. where the original item (humanity) which is "spoken of" (signified) is no longer present (or even necessary) but is related to as if it did indeed still exist, in a fixed time, space and form (simulacra).

as i close this entry i am lead to wonder about the anxiety "humanity" has about the post-human (or the implied end of the human) and simulacra. for perhaps the past 5 years the word and the ideal of authenticity has been part of the way i understand the world. i search it out, zealously. i long for it with quite a deal of passion. without knowing it, i have eschewed simulacra. but more and more as i grapple with my relationality to people, and the matrix of connections that shoot off from them, i begin to wonder if "humanity" has not moved (mutated) into something we are failing/resisting to recognize. while many people probably approach star trek, x-men, and katherine hayles as mere science fiction and theory, i am obsessed with their prescient qualities. their ability to perceive a distant horizon(s) even as we careen madly towards it(them).

ps. one day ask me about my evolving thought that our planet is colluding in the emerging post-human project and may very well be in its own process of mutating to support whatever form emerges.

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second life on flickr

nobody@vox.com(leon a. james) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:44:29 -0700

Flickr: Second Life

http://www.flickr.com/groups/secondlife/

For players/residents of Second Life, the 3D virtual world from Linden Lab. This group is not endorsed or run in any way by Linden Lab. Please follow Flickr guidelines concerning nudity and mature content when posting. This is a [PG] group.

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my avatar looks better than your avatar

nobody@vox.com(leon a. james) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:48:36 -0700

the first time that i was in second life i obsessed for 3 hours trying to be extremely hot and attractive.

big beefy sl dude

there was this desire to personally identify with the character (with a bit of embellishment). i eventually gave up. decided to take on an avatar who i have very little in common with in RL. today as i was looking through the links posted by my class mates, and a SL group on vox.com i came across a flickr photo group dedicated to SL pictures. i came acorss this guy and i instantly had avatar envy.

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even stranger than mothra

nobody@vox.com(leon a. james) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 09:00:00 -0700

i wake up early, even on weekends. blessing. curse. however, this should never imply that i am particularly "productive". yesterday, i was up by 6.30, my class was meeting at 1pm est in second life. for what? at that moment i was unclear on. but since i have not touched second life since my first attempt on 6.september i figured i needed to pick a new avatar (i gave up trying to make my avatar over in my idealized imagined self) and learn how to get around second life with enough time to meet my classmates. the second time, was easier than the first, i picked my avatar, clothed her and was ready to go in about 45 mins. after completing the tutorial for second life i moved over to orientation island. this place was characterized by a collection of metamorphosing avatars as their rl ego's changed some thing about them. as i was standing there people would sudden become nude or sprout wings or. . .i experienced my first case of avatar envy when a big beefy (thing staten island gym rat) walked past me. now normally this would not move me in any way; however, the fact that the avatar had an incredibly well defined body, flashy clothing, a gun and some bling (big diamond stud earrings, complete with strobe light glowing effect) lead me to believe that they had spent as much time as i had in my previous attempt to craft an impressive avatar, only they were successful. as i contemplated asking the avatar if they could share the secret to their hotness, anuses started flying. no. literally. from the second life horizon pictures of a man, bent over with butt checks spread fingers clutching an obviously stretched anus for inspection of a very intimate kind (think as wide as a coke can, and as deep as the back of your throat). there were hundreds of them, and they would replenish themselves. i thought it was me! i took it personally. as if some malevolent soul had decided to attack the newbies, the vulnerable, those who could not figure out how to find the objects name (i assure you they did not call it ass hole) in some mysterious dialog box, and then put it and its owner on an ignore list. second life was at a stand still. the experienced tried to get the in experienced to perform code magic to get themselves going. people could not walk. the could not fly. we could barely type (the spam opened a gaziliion dialog boxes that interfered with typing, or other commands). people went to rouse papa linden (i assume he was asleep somewhere on the west coast, in my mind the pervasive fantasy of secondlife could only be a californian invention). i was annoyed at first, would log on and off trying to clear up the situation, teleport to another location; nothing was successful. then i started to see how other people responded and i just observed. i was amazed at the calm that existed in sl, as if this was a common enough occurrence people that people knew just to wait it out (did i mention that this was at 8.30 on a saturday; who wakes up that mischievous and mean?). this was my first "social" interaction with sl, before i even had a chance to go and find free clothing (cause my outfit was a wreck). i have pictures of the attack (and the accompanying verbal rhetoric), click them to enlarge.

the rest of the day was uneventful. even meeting up with my class and seeing what other avatars my classmates had chosen was ultimately eclipsed by the excitement of flying anuses. but if you insist upon knowing, we spent almost 2 hours gathering, trying to figure out how to speak with each other ( sl is not only text based, it offers my über baritone voice an opportunity to animate my über feminine japanese girl aesthetic avatar. . .not the illusion i was going for). for another hour we teleported to places of interest. in the real world i am not a fan of group outings, and had my fill of them this summer in brazil, in a virtual point of connection this did not change. the highlight of the day was visiting an art gallery (again something i do not do in groups in rl) which was fascinating not because of the art itself, but more so for the idea that the proprietor seemed to have a genuine desire to be a second life activist, i will repeat: a. second. life. activist. with a real world in such dire need of people of conviction and action, it was peculiar for me to see a virtual world, where people wanted to "make a difference." and i will concede that some of what they were interested in addressing were rl dynamics in sl, which would beg the question of where, in their minds, does sl cross over to the rl, and what is the potential impact on the rl. overall i had a hard time grasping the concept of a sl activist.

please note: my entries for this blog are still quite personal. i am hoping to move beyond my own biases (not get rid of them per se) and begin to have interactions with other sl'rs and have that "data" be the premises for future entries. but that would mean i had to remember to log on and engage sl.

ps. for those those who do not know: mothra (don't be shamed, a date told me about it, thought it was so cute: grown folk and their eccentricities)

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"that thong is bold"

nobody@vox.com(leon a. james) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 21:03:14 -0700

may i introduce to you geisha mayako!

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how i entered the room: old school internet lyming

nobody@vox.com(leon a. james) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:05:46 -0700

the following are stream of consciousness thoughts as, i attempt to enter second life for the second life (i will document my previous encounter later, as it feed whatever insight follows).

back in the day i use to spend a large portion of my free time online. i would date online, meet most of my college male friends online, entertain myself online. i am not going to say that i spent my whole life online, that would be misleading, it was closer to me using online to access people who in my day to day, lived, and embodied experience i did not generally come in contact with, people who i more closely identified with then those i found in baltimore, or my small community. i was not recreating myself, quite the contrary, it was a far more accurate performance of self then was allowed at home. being online slowly became a way for me to express and embrace whatever quirky traqits occurred to me on that particular day, in that particular moment. i like to believe that at the time when i got online (about 1994) this virtual universe lent itself to this. on irc (internet relay chat) the most distinguishable traits about me were my screen name, and the a/s/l (age, sex, location) tag line that back then was a profile, that is until you spoke to me. back then to speak to someone online meant that you had to create yourself through words, through conversation, metaphors, and a dance of lyrics. of course we eventually all obtained scanned photographs, learned how to ftp them to our unix accounts, and attached them to e-mail sent in pine. however, your initial introduction was the text. it was not until 1997 that wbs emerged, which allowed you to be in a chat room and have a picture of yourself for immediate scrutiny. slowly but surely this became your first introduction, what is this person suppose to look like in the "real world", and am i attracted to that. eventually wbs became go.com, when go.com killed their internet chat rooms the people i hung out with migrated to either (or both) blackvoices.com or blackplanet.com. of course there was always aol.com and yahoo.com personals, but i never really took to either of those. over time my social needs changed, my self awareness changed, my physical looks changed and my geographic location changed. around 1999-2001 i realized i was not particularly interested in meeting people in these places. it wasn't satisfying. eventually blackplanet gave way to sites like adam4adam.com and men4now.com. these sites did away with any pretense, or rather they became the pretense (i firmly believe that men in these sites use sex as currency as they attempt to get to something that transcends the pyshcial, even as these spaces work to trap interaction in the realm of the physical). perhaps the type of people i identified with also outgrew these sites, it became harder and harder to make friends or share conversation with people who listened to interesting music, thought interesting thoughts, used peculiar syntax, or whatever i decided would turn me on that day. i eventually gave up.

and here i am in 2007, participating in a course that, as part of the requirements, dictate that i spend more time online, socializing, then i have done in many years. i will be the first to admit (as i have a thing for self confession) that i am not pleased with the prospect. as i hear others speak about secondlife and how it has piqued their interest all i can do is wonder, "are they for real?" i come to this filled with my experience of 6 active years online, where i feel in love a handful of times, made life long friendships, and experienced more than my fair share of disillusionment, as well as a desire to be more firmly embedded in a real world. it has taken me two weeks of resistance to orient myself to this as school work and a research project, as opposed to a reactivation (or potential reactivation) of things i believed had been left behind me.

that said, as i write this i am aware of a few (additional) things.

i have never consciously misrepresented myself in any of my past online encounters, and only been lied to about "who someone was" once (to my knowledge); however, second life is different in that my avatar becomes "me" in this "reality". it has never occurred to me, until now, to be anyone aside from myself. at present my avatar is a cool ass japaneses woman. i do not know on what grounds i will construct reality. on all the sites i mentioned before the object for most people was to try and uncover, meet, become intimate with the "real" person on the other end of the encounter. those who engaged a "fictional" performance of self did so with the threat of recrimination and ostracism if they were discovered.
secondlife is familiar to me only in that i will be sitting in front of a computer, interacting with others who are somehow interfacing with a computer. none of the social norms i became use to in the other "virtual realities" may be useful here (will my blackness matter, as a japanese avatar? will my maleness matter, as a female avatar? will my primary sexual attractions matter, at all? my socio-economic background? spirituality?, etc.) i do not anticipate evacuating myself, after all i will be performing an interpretation of a japanese woman (primarily based on my love for anime, and my 4th generation japanese-american male(!) roommate). i raise this observation because i would like to make some effort to be aware and document what tropes i will be using as i create an identity for my avatar, and be mindful of how those in secondlife respond to these tropes.
i am intensely interested in how does one's secondlife "life" relate to one's lived daily material reality? similar to observation #2, what will be imported from this reality and find itself embedded in one's performance of their secondlife self (or other as the case may be), as well as what is exported from secondlife into one's material reality? what are the consequences of this bi-directional interaction? how is schisms negotiated? how are priorities established?

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