Clearing up on Luhmann, Wiener and Posthumanism

Thinking about last week’s class and readings, I have to admit that I still haven’t gotten my head 100% around the more important ideas. On their own I understand (I think!) the concepts of Luhmann’s social systems theory, Wiener’s cybernetics and posthumanism in general. But how social systems theory connects to Wiener’s cybernetics, and Wiener’s cybernetics to posthumanism, I’m not exactly sure, or at least blurry on the details. I understand that both social systems theory and cybernetics explore systems. Luhmann discussed how systems are operationally closed and, and I know that cybernetics involve systems with a closed signalling loop. The similarities are already very clear. But when Neal talked about the roots of the word cybernetics, with cyber being the Latin for a boat’s steersman I began (no pun intended) to get lost. What particularly confused me was when Neal said that the most important element of the arrangement of steersman, boat, and water, was the water. I definitely missed something.

We then didn’t get far enough, or have enough time in class to discuss how cybernetics is related to posthumanism. I have made my cursory scroll through the cybernetics Wikipedia page to see if there was some broad, overly simplified explanation, but obviously I feel like I’ve got some further enlightening to do. The self-organisation and closed signalling loops of cybernetics explains the systems or robots very well, but I think that’s only the surface of their connection. That or I’m over-complicating things. But considering that I want to write about posthuman representations in science fiction films as part of my research assignment, I feel I need to get a much better grasp on the concepts of the technology, and exactly how it relates to its broader, connected theories. 

Science Fiction as a Humanist Technology Pessimist

Since I am wanting to write about science fiction films for my research assignment, I tend to relate every class reading back to science fiction. And therefore when Hans Moeller discussed the two sides of the humanist approach to society and technology (particularly posthumanism) at the beginning of his explanation of social systems theory, I was struck by its parallels to certain discussions on science fiction. Moeller writes there are those pessimistic “in the face of waning humaneness” and those optimists who embrace technology’s “human prospects” (4). This brought to mind Daniel Dinello’s book that I am (probably) using for my book review assignment, Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology, where Dinello discusses how scientists working in the field tend to be blissful optimists, whereas science fiction is pessimistically attached to the techno-dystopia.

Other research I have come across also stresses the techno-pessimisim surrounding science fiction. Noga Applebaum accuses science fiction of endorsing a “technophobic agenda” to young adults, of essentially creating future technophobes! And then of course there is Susan Sontag’s famous essay “The Imagination of Disaster” which claimed that “science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster”.  This bold claim was very useful for studying science fiction in new ways, although I would argue that it’s about both, the disaster of science. So then scientists are Mueller’s technology optimists, and science fiction the pessimists, who are strangely completely enamoured with the subject of their pessimism.

Interestingly, the most explored technological issue in science fiction, and most common cause of technological dystopias, is posthumanism, which Neal says we will be arriving at in tomorrow’s class via social systems theory. So as a final aside, if we are sticking to the idea that science fiction is a “humanist” pessimism, what does it say about, and how would it relate to social systems theory?

Ubiquitous Media in Sci Fi

I've been thinking about how we all came to have an understanding of what ubiquitous media was before we started this course, and for those like me who haven't taken that many media-focused papers, it's usually through (among other things of course) film and T.V. Of course the genre which involves representations of new technologies and media the most is science fiction, which lead me to do some reading on the subject.

Often when academics write about the technologies, real or imagined, in science fiction films they discuss them as metaphors for something else, usually something to do with collective social anxieties. In the rather excellent Liquid Metal – the Science Fiction Film Reader, editor Sean Redmond writes “if you want to know what really aches a culture at any given time don’t go to its art cinema, or its gritty social realist texts, but go to its science fiction” (x). And the rest of this text focuses on the broader metaphorical/social meanings behind science fiction representations of technology and media. This approach is incredibly important, but I noticed very little focused on the technology itself and its environment, and what it says about how we view and understand new media and technologies.

More than ever, as the technological fantasies of these films become a reality, science fiction reflects our views and anxieties surrounding literal technology and media, and even more importantly, it shapes our views too. Admittedly whenever the subject of surveillance or dystopia is brought up in this course my mind flicks for a moment to 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL. To cheer myself up after this, I like to think about Iron Man's Tony Stark and his friendly anthropomorphic fire extinguisher. The ability of films to shape how individuals feel about new media and technology is powerful, and the hows and whys of it is something I would be interested exploring for my research essay.

The Humble Kindle

As I was reading Paul Dourish’s chapter ‘Getting in Touch’, my kindle kept coming to mind, and by the time I had finished I was convinced it is a wonderful example of an intermediate tool that straddles the worlds of the traditional box computer and that of invisible computing, of technology that moves out into the world.

Dourish writes that “the move back and forth between electronic paper forms is not only inconvenient but also impoverished” (34) which led Pierre Wellner to wonder “if there wasn’t a way to combine the two world more effectively by augmenting the physical world with computational properties” (34). In a reverse of this statement, I believe that the kindle augments the computer with physical properties. It appears like a tablet, its computer-ness undeniable (and so not falling into the “invisible computing” category), yet in crucial ways it is very much like a paperback. It is the same width and height as the average paperback (its depth more similar to a novella than a novel) and uses “electronic ink” rather than the computer monitor’s backlit display. It has the easy portability of a book and is not as delicate as other electronic tools. Importantly it also serves a single task, reading, and by associating it only with reading its physical book-like qualities are enhanced.

The seam between the physical and virtual is not as invisible here as it is in Durell Bishop‘s marble answering machine, but unlike the answering machine it is a piece of new technology which is widely used and has actually proven its place and need. It is easy to appreciate because its functions (fitting many books in one book-shaped tablet) are obviously beneficial. It does not appear to be trying to sell us something for the sake of cool technology. Because of this it is rather humble, and can be taken for granted, but it shouldn’t be and straddles the old and new.

I was going to write about my early essay research for this post, but instead the kindle’s gotten me distracted!

Media Studies 2.0 and Video Game Studies

William Merrin's piece, ‘Media Studies 2.0: upgrading and open-sourcing the discipline’ examines how media studies academics have to reacquaint themselves with what they are studying and how they teach it. The discussion on this struggle reminded me of a more specific element of media studies, video games. This discipline was remarkable in its early days for the general lack of video game skills that those writing about the medium had. It was a serious problem and one not overlooked by the academics themselves.  Like Merrin said, they knew something was going on but were not young enough to know exactly what it was. This is in large part remedied now due to continuing academic evolution within the field, and perhaps because those who grew up with video gaming as a relatively more mainstream activity are now old enough to be academics themselves, and those early trailblazers have had enough free time in the last 20 years to expand their GTA skills.

But unlike video games, one problem for media studies is that one can’t be born late enough to be native to all changes in media, as they are occurring so rapidly.  The leaps in gaming have been more straightforward, less major. Improvements in graphics don’t smash the fundamentals of the medium. But perhaps a more crucial problem, and what seems to be a major gripe of Merrin’s, is that media studies falls back on outdated concepts and categories, while continuing to ignore, to varying degrees, “the engineering or scientific principles of its media” and technology. Video games studies, on the other hand, do not have outdated concepts and categories to fall back on because none exist for the discipline, it has no history. And its academics have never ignored the technology that underlines games. In this way media studies could maybe learn something from the less constrained, conservative approach of video game studies.