Here is a video of Arthur Kroker, a venerable cyber theorist who tends to come off as an advocate of cyberlife rather than an objective critic. Nonetheless, Kroker is a respected critic in the field and the website for his journal, ctheory.net has a great editorial board, good articles, and interviews with top post-evolutionary theorists such as N. Katherine Hayles and Stelarc. This vid is a snapshot of Kroker speaking in terms of God and cyberspace. See also Margaret Wertheim's work and David Noble's book on religion and technology for more on this theme. - MF
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Gunslinger
This is a long, beautifully edited remix of the film, kind of recasting the robot gunsllinger (Yul Brynner's character) as the lead in a video game or music video. While I don't love the music, I do love the mix and the proficiency through which the editor found all the scenes with the gunslilnger and assembled them to tell the story extremely well. It also points out that we are here fetishizing the post-evolutionary character, the robot gunslinger who was so very close to being one of us. For, in his monotone unyielding persistence to kill, he demonstates something perversely akin to human passion. That dimension comes through fairly well in this remix. - MF
Westworld
Here's some more 1970s era robot film--another systems analysis cyborg. These films present a fully synthetic android, and thus are one step removed from later cyborg visions such as the tissue-mechanical hybrid Terminator. In the sequel to Westfworld, the robots are running a theme park through which they capture and replicate world leaders and substitute back into public one of their own, a manufactured robot. Like Stepford, Futureworld portrays a doppelganger consiracy through which real people fall prey to identity theft and expermination. It is related to the Body Snatchers theme, but with a human-made technology twist.
Thirty Seconds of Stepford
More Stepford! Bryan Forbes added the element of Johanna (Katherine Ross) being a photographer. It was not in Ira Levin's novel. But, the photography, and use of photos in the film, create a whole new dimension of metacommentary on representation and technology.
Stepford Wives Trailer
One of my favorite movies of all time! This film rocks with socio-political critiques, conspiracy theory, and a systems theory fantasy of a perfectly closed system, or near perfect. Obvious plot holes matter very little (like, uhhm, might not the kiddies notice mommy is a little too even keeled too much of the time? And why doesn't mom ever age? Why doesn't mommy bleed when I stab her with a kitchen knife?). What matters is the great acting, the uncanny representation of New England archetypes, and the sinister arrogance of Diz Coba, the evil mastermind!
I will post further (later) on this film as an example of a systems analysis cyborg.
Metropolis - Molochmaschine (Moloch machine)
Here's the Moloch scene in its glorious entirety. This also gives a glimpse at Lang's vision of the compressed vertical city that so famously influenced the portrayal of futuristic Los Angeles in Blade Runner.
More importanly, can you dig Freder's crazy pantaloons! I think I see new fashion craze in pants like his. Next season, probably.
Metropolis (trailer)
Here's a trailer for the great film. Watch for a glimpse at the machinery turned into a monster--it is that scene when a worker cries out in horror "Moloch" and the machine eats workers and children. Also, note that the trailer includes clips of Maria the angelic heroine of the film, and Maria the robot, who uses her sexuality to rule over the workers and bring them to self-destruction. The original cut of hte film was over seven (!!!) hours long.
Even more Stepfordian paranoia!
Today I want to follow up on the Realdoll and electronic sex toy post from yesterday by elaborating on this high-tech fantasy, which is more often than not a male fantasy, of creating a submissive automaton for sexual gratification. I think it is a flawed persuit, personally. Perhaps I am too mired in my own Freudian cliches and so forth, but I am uncomfortable with the onset of synthetic romance, a coital union that is virtually free of emotional bond (except, perhaps, for the affection one can develop for an object) that complex human interaction between lovers can yield.
In Fritz Lang's 1927 film, Metropolis, a mad scientist creates a robotic doppelganger for Maria, the spiritual and political saviour of the proletariat in a futuristic society of mechanized slavery. It really was ahead of its time. Among the themes it introduces is the "machine" as Moloch, an ancient Jewish god to whom the people sacrificed children. Allen Ginsberg refers to it in his epic 1955 poem "Howl". If you have not seen Metropolis, you should, but I introduce the film here because of a web site called "Maria 2.0", which is a well-researched site with links to many places that collectively illustrate the state of the art in contemporary techno-industrial knowledge and products that would help fashion a human-like robot. If this whole endeavor makes you feel awkward and uncomfortable, or nervous, you should check out Masahiro Mori's 1970 theory of the uncanny valley," which is one of the links on the Maria 2.0 site. The uncanny valley is a theory of discomfort felt by people when technology becomes too humanlike.
The Maria 2.0 site includes a lot of expert information, from medical micro-data on human sexuality, to sites detailing state of the art technologies for synthetic speech and hearing, for artificial intelligence, and other scientific developments necessary for a humanoid robot.
A word to the feminists out there, or others who may be irked at the implicit sexism in this discussion. I am not promoting the development of artificial humanoid in the form of female sex slaves. While that should seem obvious, in these days of scandal and misunderstandings, I want to provide a clear position statement. Ever since Donna Haraway published her Cyborg Manifesto in 1982, cyborg studies has maintained a close affinity and heritage of radical socialist feminsim. As a marginalized group, feminists of all stripes see opportunity in the new cyborgian landscape to even the playing field some, to create new relations and distributions of power. Among the many feminist scholars joining Haraway in the theoretical investigation of cyborg and related topics are N. Katherine Hayles and Susan Squier. To be sure, the rich herritage of feminism in cyborg studies does not preclude visions of Maria 2.0 from being developed, but it does put many insightful perspectives into the mix.
I'll close this post by tying back to the context of post-evolution. The pursuit of a sex robot is not necessarily post-evolutionary--except to the degree that it destabilizes our embodied subjectivity and draws our attention to the connection and interface with the apparatus of pseudo humanity. In the case of sexual substitution, it seems the in-depth focus on the "connection points" does in fact deprivilege the human as a unified subject and instead focuses on sexuality as an isolated function that can be reproduced in a mechanical fashion, no matter how fancy or elaborate that mechanical substitute is. The attention nonetheless is drawn towards the interface. - MF
In Fritz Lang's 1927 film, Metropolis, a mad scientist creates a robotic doppelganger for Maria, the spiritual and political saviour of the proletariat in a futuristic society of mechanized slavery. It really was ahead of its time. Among the themes it introduces is the "machine" as Moloch, an ancient Jewish god to whom the people sacrificed children. Allen Ginsberg refers to it in his epic 1955 poem "Howl". If you have not seen Metropolis, you should, but I introduce the film here because of a web site called "Maria 2.0", which is a well-researched site with links to many places that collectively illustrate the state of the art in contemporary techno-industrial knowledge and products that would help fashion a human-like robot. If this whole endeavor makes you feel awkward and uncomfortable, or nervous, you should check out Masahiro Mori's 1970 theory of the uncanny valley," which is one of the links on the Maria 2.0 site. The uncanny valley is a theory of discomfort felt by people when technology becomes too humanlike.
The Maria 2.0 site includes a lot of expert information, from medical micro-data on human sexuality, to sites detailing state of the art technologies for synthetic speech and hearing, for artificial intelligence, and other scientific developments necessary for a humanoid robot.
A word to the feminists out there, or others who may be irked at the implicit sexism in this discussion. I am not promoting the development of artificial humanoid in the form of female sex slaves. While that should seem obvious, in these days of scandal and misunderstandings, I want to provide a clear position statement. Ever since Donna Haraway published her Cyborg Manifesto in 1982, cyborg studies has maintained a close affinity and heritage of radical socialist feminsim. As a marginalized group, feminists of all stripes see opportunity in the new cyborgian landscape to even the playing field some, to create new relations and distributions of power. Among the many feminist scholars joining Haraway in the theoretical investigation of cyborg and related topics are N. Katherine Hayles and Susan Squier. To be sure, the rich herritage of feminism in cyborg studies does not preclude visions of Maria 2.0 from being developed, but it does put many insightful perspectives into the mix.
I'll close this post by tying back to the context of post-evolution. The pursuit of a sex robot is not necessarily post-evolutionary--except to the degree that it destabilizes our embodied subjectivity and draws our attention to the connection and interface with the apparatus of pseudo humanity. In the case of sexual substitution, it seems the in-depth focus on the "connection points" does in fact deprivilege the human as a unified subject and instead focuses on sexuality as an isolated function that can be reproduced in a mechanical fashion, no matter how fancy or elaborate that mechanical substitute is. The attention nonetheless is drawn towards the interface. - MF
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Black Sabbath Iron Man(Live in Paris 1970)
Okay, if you tire of all the techno androgyny, then perhaps so old fashioned headbanging from 1970 will make up for it. This song comes up whenever I ask students to cull popular culture for cyborg related material, so here it is as a tonic to the techno for all you metalheads.
Tubeway Army - Gary Numan - Are Friends Electric
Okay, so any discussion of rock and pop music as it relates to post-evolution should include this brit and his band, the Tubeway Army, who had a great original techno sound in 1979, and his aesthetic approach and lyrics were quite thoughtful and engaged with issues of cloning, technology, and electronic developments, like the whole universe of computers. This predates the Internet and Depeche Mode and all that techno that would follow. With age, Numan has lost some of his youthful androgynous look which is quite often used in technobands to reflect the nature of technology's affect on the animalistic side of humanity, but his music still holds up.
DEVO jocko homo
Okay, here's a kitchy 1978 answer to evolution. If you knew Devo's punk roots, you'd find it ironic that they appear to be in agreement with the fundamentalist intelligent design folks in contesting Darwinism. Mark Mothersburough scores films and tv now, and Devo toured in 2007.
Are you ready for post-evolution miscellany?
Greetings blog travellers. In my attempts to use the various free Internet dimensions to support my teaching and research, I am starting this blog to post youtube videos and other cultural fare that is related to post-evolution, cyborg culture, robots, and other fun stuff. I may set up another blog down the line for punk stuff, and for my other cultural studies interests, but for the moment I expect my audience for this blog will be mostly myself and my students in English 297 Post-Evolution in fall 2007. I expect these entries will be random, irregular, and uneven in their usefulness, but I'm hoping the context of a blog will provide a comfortable space for me to fashion this loose catologue of post-evolution ephemera.
It all started with my desire to post this Kraftwerk song, "We Are the Robots," from 1977. Oh my do these guys kick ass. Germans love the discipline and aesthetics of technology and humanity blended together, and this band even extends their approach to into a daily work ethic that has them going to the studio and approaching their music making like engineers showing up at the office. I expect they are more likely to strip wire and customize a mixing board than get drunk and fuck, but one look at their haircuts and you know they understand the implicit meaning of technology: uniformity, discipline, and a groovy techno sound.
Okay, so it turns out I am still learning the protocols of Internet blogs and myspace and all that crap and so the video I wanted so badly to post, the one that inspired it all, doesn't even work. But it is worth te trip to youtube to see so I will leave it in place for now.
It all started with my desire to post this Kraftwerk song, "We Are the Robots," from 1977. Oh my do these guys kick ass. Germans love the discipline and aesthetics of technology and humanity blended together, and this band even extends their approach to into a daily work ethic that has them going to the studio and approaching their music making like engineers showing up at the office. I expect they are more likely to strip wire and customize a mixing board than get drunk and fuck, but one look at their haircuts and you know they understand the implicit meaning of technology: uniformity, discipline, and a groovy techno sound.
Okay, so it turns out I am still learning the protocols of Internet blogs and myspace and all that crap and so the video I wanted so badly to post, the one that inspired it all, doesn't even work. But it is worth te trip to youtube to see so I will leave it in place for now.
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