A Spark in You

So, I just returned from the 70th annual New York State Communication Association conference, and one of the sessions I attended featured undergraduate research, and in the discussion that followed the topic of parents using electronic devices as babysitters or pacifiers came up.  And of course, there was much disapproval expressed for that sort of thing, understandably so, but also some comments from one of the professors who is also a parent about the difference between the abstract, ideal notion of how you handle kids and the reality that you face in everyday situations, not to mention that they sometimes can be genuinely educational.

And to that comment, I added the fact that iPods and even more so iPads have proven to be of great benefit for autistic children, not just in keeping them from engaging in disruptive behavior (the pacifier effect), but also as teaching and learning tools.

So, in thinking about autism, I remembered that I wanted to do a blog post that featured the following music video, which will be shown on the Comedy Central special, Night of Too Many Stars, airing tonight.  Jon Stewart and his colleagues have been doing this for a number of years now, and the funds they raise for autism have made a difference in the lives of a great many children, and adults.

So anyway, this video, Katy Perry, Jodi DiPiazza Sing at Night of Too Many Stars, features a young student at Alpine Learning Center, which is the school that my daughter's school, EPIC, is modeled after.  I found it pretty moving.  But first, here's the write-up for the video:

To help give people with autism the chance they deserve to reach their potential go to http://cc.com/donate or text STARS to 50555 to donate $10. Night of Too Many Stars airs this Sunday at 8/7c on Comedy Central. 

Katy Perry and Jodi DiPiazza sing "Firework" at the Beacon Theater in New York. "Night of Too Many Stars: America Comes Together for Autism Programs" is hosted by Jon Stewart and raises money for autism programs, schools, and services all over the country. 

Performers include Tina Fey, Seth Rogen, Amy Poehler, Stephen Colbert, Louis CK, Bill Burr, Katy Perry, Carly Rae Jepsen, Tom Morello, Sting and many more.
Sunday night's live celebrity phone bank includes Tom Hanks, Jerry Seinfeld, Julianne Moore, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, and Al Pacino. For more highlight previews go to http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD7nPL1U-R5oQRBMDHXwFM1srbI-Smmqm

The way they sing the song together is very touching, as is the song itself. Admittedly, it's not the kind of music I'd typically opt for, but the lyrics to "Firework," while perhaps speaking more broadly to teenage angst, have special meaning in the world of autism.  Here they are:

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag,
Drifting through the wind
Wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards,
One blow from caving in? 

Do you ever feel already buried deep?
6 feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there's still a chance for you
'Cause there's a spark in you 

You just gotta ignite the light, and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July 

'Cause baby you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y 

Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colours burst
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh"
You're gonna leave 'em all in "awe, awe, awe" 

You don't have to feel like a wasted space
You're original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow 

Maybe your reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will glow
And when it's time, you'll know 

You just gotta ignite the light, and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July 

'Cause baby you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y 

Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colours burst
Make 'em go "Oh, Oh, Oh"
You're gonna leave 'em all in "awe, awe, awe" 

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
It's always been inside of you, you, you
And now it's time to let it through-ough-ough 

'Cause baby you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go "Oh, Oh, Oh"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y 

Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colours burst
Make 'em go "Oh, Oh, Oh"
You're gonna leave 'em all in "awe, awe, awe" 

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon

I took the phrase "a spark in you" from the lyrics and made it the title of this post, because it speaks to the hope that we all feel, for a spark to be ignited. And speaking in a spiritual vein, there is the implication that it is a spark of divine light, the same spark that is in all of us. And maybe a tiny, tiny bit of that little light is reflected in some of those electronic devices we use, when we use them towards the right ends? As extensions of man, to use McLuhan's phrase, extensions of the electric impulses sent throughout the nervous system and brain, and extensions of the eye, might they also be extensions of that inner spark and light, at least in potential? Maybe not, but then again, maybe so...

Building a Bridge to an Uncertain Future

So, Neil Postman's last book was entitled, Building a Bride to the 18th Century, the title being a play on then-president Bill Clinton's call to build a bridge to the 21st century.  Postman was not arguing that we should turn back the clock, it is important to emphasize, but rather that as we move into the new century (the book was published in 1999) the best thing we can do is reach back to the Enlightenment and bring the ideals and values that characterized that turning point in human history (which included the founding of the American republic) along with us.

So, a video that was posted earlier this year as a promotional piece by the technology company Intel (as you may recall, Intel Inside is their motto, a reference to their role as manufacturer of computer chips) put me in mind of Postman's final volume. The title of the video is Bridging Our Future, envisioned by Intel, and it presents a vision of grade school education that would be consistent with the emphasis that Clinton and Gore placed on information technology.  Here, take a look:





And here's the write-up from Intel:

By connecting education with smarter technology, Intel offers a look into the future of K-12 education. Watch as students use technology to collaborate with peers and industry experts to build a bridge model, from the initial design phase through the final structure testing. Intel's education solutions help teachers provide innovative, personalized and secure learning environments to prepare students for successful futures in the 21st century.

This is very much in keeping with the call for experiential learning that was part of the educational reform movement of the sixties and seventies, although back then it was all about doing things for real, not in a virtual environment.  But did you notice anything missing from this presentation?

I know Postman would have noted it right away.  There's virtually no reading or writing, or 'rithmetic for that matter.  It's all so very, very visual.  And yes, of course, that goes hand in hand with an architectural type of task.  But that's why Intel chose it to illustrate their vision for the future of education.  The emphasis on imagery is absolutely necessary for constructing an effective and evocative YouTube video.

But there was no looking up of facts, reading of published materials, even the idea of research here was transformed into talking to an engineer, secondary orality as Ong would call it, in the place of reading reference materials, books, articles, etc.  And there's almost no writing being done by the students, a brief exception being an online quiz, and no calculation.  Building a bridge without doing the math. Really?

Okay, they're just elementary school kids, and sure, this looks to be a lot more fun and even more educational then building those stupid dioramas that kids (and parents) have to do, and that enormous screen that takes the place of the classroom blackboard sure looks real cool, as does the teacher with all those hand gestures out of the movie Minority Report.  Granted all that, but still and all, what's the point of all this sight and furor?  What are the objectives of this sort of education? What have these students really learned? And is this our best hope for moving into an uncertain future?

Is Intel inside the classroom the best way to encourage intelligence inside our students? I think we're entitled to ask, where is this bridge that you're building taking us? Is it somewhere we really, really want to go?

Dancing the Book

So, it's well known in media ecology circles that The Medium is the Massage was McLuhan's bestseller, an innovative and experimental little book published in 1967 that combines McLuhan's words with images, photographs, cartoons, etc., with artistic design by Quentin Fiore who's listed as co-author, and produced by Jerome Agel (and the unusual idea of a book having a producer was itself unheard of). Not long ago, a new edition of the book was put out, featuring a new cover:

The success of this book led to several similar efforts to produce cheap paperbacks featuring the thought of contemporary intellectuals such as Buckminster Fuller, Carl Sagan, and Herman Kahn, combined with innovative graphic design, and this also included a sequel by the McLuhan/Fiore/Agel team entitled War and Peace in the Global Village:

So, earlier this year, a book entitled The Electric Information Age by Jeffrey Schnapp, co-authored by designer Adam Michaels, provides a historical review and analysis of this series of books.  Here's the official write-up:

The Electric Information Age Book explores the nine-year window of mass-market publishing in the sixties and seventies when formerly backstage players-designers, graphic artists, editors-stepped into the spotlight to produce a series of exceptional books. Aimed squarely at the young media-savvy consumers of the "Electronic Information Age," these small, inexpensive paperbacks aimed to bring the ideas of contemporary thinkers like Marshall McLuhan, R. Buckminster Fuller, Herman Kahn, and Carl Sagan to the masses. Graphic designers such as Quentin Fiore (The Medium Is the Massage, 1967) employed a variety of radical techniques-verbal visual collages and other typographic pyrotechnics-that were as important to the content as the text. The Electric Information Age Book is the first book-length history of this brief yet highly influential publishing phenomenon.

Now, back in 1967, McLuhan, Fiore, Agel, and some others including John Culkin, at that time a Jesuit priest and communication professor at Fordham University, went into a recording studio and made a record album also entitled The Medium is the Massage, loosely based on the book, but most certainly not an audiobook, as there would be no way to create an audio version of that highly visual work, even if audiobooks were common in those days, which they weren't. It's a bit of 60s-ish fun with audio, but also has some of McLuhan's best quips and quotes:

So, finally, this recently came to my attention via the Media Ecology Association discussion list, a new audio "album" of sorts (actually, a vinyl version is available), based on The Electric Information Age, with samplings from The Medium is the Massage recording, in a contemporary rendering that combines a bit of a rock sound with hip hop-related aesthetics. I'm sure someone more up on recent music trends could give a more precise rendering of the genres, and please feel free to do so in the comments section.  But in the meantime, apart from purchasing the LP or buying the MP3s, you can listen to the music online, and here is the player that they kindly allowed me to embed here on Blog Time Passing:

The Electric Information Age Album is attributed to a group called The Masses, and Jeffrey Schnapp provides the equivalent of liner notes, first giving some background on The Medium is the Massage recording, and then going on to say that it was

a free-standing remix: an acoustical roller-coaster ride through whispers and shouts, ethereal theorizing and Laugh-In humor, studio wizardry and lollipop clips, conversational chitchat and prophetic pronouncements. It prefigures the present LP just as The Medium is the Massage figures as the centerpiece of The Electric Information Age Book (TEIAB), the print exploration produced by Adam Michaels and myself on a window in the history of industrial paperbacks when they became sites for multimedia experimentation. The window remained open for less than a decade and the ludic pairing of print and sound was mostly ignored. Few heard in the McLuhan/Agel/Fiore soundtrack what Alan B. Cameron described on the pages of the Village Voice: “for the first time, techniques developed in electronic music and its forerunner musique concrète, applied to spoken narrative, […] the first guided tour through the paradoxes, problems, and possibilities of the auditory media.”

Sixties critics (Cameron aside) may have proved deaf. But THE MASSES have heard the call from the distant shore of another cybernetic age. Our reply takes the form of a vinyl bridge to The Medium is the Massage; a performed reading and reading performance of a book; an acoustical interface to TEIAB that we are calling The Electric Information Age Album (TEIAA).

Like the B-side on which it is built, this after-the-fact A-side, produced with Daniel Perlin, takes you on an inner trip into the interior of a volume that has been vocalized, chopped up, re-scripted and remixed. The spoken architecture of TEIAA (and of the works it inventories) takes varied forms, from page cues, lists, quotations, slogans and paragraphs. At times, the sound of the record refigures the very act of paging, providing a recurring rhythm track alongside the sounds of cities, bodies (some lifted from “the first spoken arts record you can dance to”), and the patter of printing — all layered with real and synthetic drumbeats, guitars and basses. Alternately remixed and massaged, the voice of McLuhan professes alongside that of other clued-in or clueless professors in a conversation that spans four and one half decades of media history and theory. The Book of the Now is a perpetual work in progress, so THE MASSES serve up little more than time grains on this mid-century vinyl platter.

What’s the difference between this “second spoken arts record you can dance to” and its 1967 predecessor? For all its pop fizz, the latter dangles its propositions and prepo­sitions, but seems to leave the body stumbling, fumbling for itself on the dance floor. In its labors of reworking, The Electric Information Age Album honors its predecessor while seeking to further advance its claims.

If nothing else, if all this sound and fury help in getting individuals to explore and understand McLuhan's thought and our shared media ecology approach, then it can be judged a great success. And the fact that you can dance to it is without a doubt a bonus. In all these different ways, we have broken out of typographic space, and retrieved and reworked new versions of acoustic space.  Let's just hope that this is just an expansion of possibilities, and not an indication that typographic space is irreparably broken, or stretched to the point that it's being torn apart. Maybe it is, though, but anyway, what the hey, let's dance!

Cyborg Devolution

So, the term cyborg was coined in the 1950s, as a short form of cybernetic organism, with the very serious-minded goal of creating a better type of prostethetic device for those who need one, one more like the biological body part it is meant to take the place of, one that actually involves a feedback mechanism, and can be adjusted and controlled.  Of course, this also introduced the idea of enhancements to an already healthy and whole body.

Marshall McLuhan didn't use the term cyborg in his 1964 classic, Understanding Media, but the same basic idea was there when he wrote about how all media and technologies are extensions of the body, and as extensions are also amputations, numbing the part that they replace, and functioning as prostetic devices.  This comes over two decades before Donna Haraway made the idea a commonplace in cultural theory with her "Cyborg Manifesto," and precedes the famous Six Million Dollar Man series of 1973-1978, which used the synonymous term bionic, but which was based on a 1972 novel by Martin Caidin called Cyborg; The Bionic Woman, a spinoff of the Six Million Dollar Man, ran from 1976 to 1978, and was the subject of a shortlived remake in 2007.  But perhaps more than anything, it was Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator in 1984 that popularized the term, although it's questionable whether a robot with organic components actually fits the definition; certainly, 1987's Robocop is a better representative example of the cyborg in science fiction.

But the point is that the basic goal of cyborg technology is to restore functioning where it is lacking, improve functioning that is already present, or provide functioning that has never been available.  But a new form of cyborg technology does not do any of the above, it's neither a restoration of an ability nor an advancement into greater capability, but actually functions as a kind of devolution (see my previous post, Evolution Now?) back to a more animal-like functioning, one in which nonverbal displays of mental states and feelings are produced.  This comes to us from Japan, where cosplay, short for costume play, is especially popular.  Here's a write-up from MCM BUZZ:

So you’re all set to cosplay as Dejiko from Di Gi Charat, maybe Ritsuka Aoyagi from Loveless, or Felicia fromDarkstalkers, but you’re missing one vital part – the cat ears. Worry not, as Japanese company Neurowear are here to save the day with their 

Neurowear’s Necomimi ears and believe us these are no ordinary cat earsNeurowear have developed cat ears that move depending on your mood. Sensors built into the headband supposedly detect brainwaves given off by the wearer, which therefore causes movement of the ears. Their website even questions limits on the human body, suggesting that maybe it’s possible to control organs on our bodies that don’t exist.</

According to Neurowear, “Necomimi is the new communication tool that augments a human’s body and ability. This cat’s ear shaped machine utilizes brain waves and expresses your condition before you start talking. Just put on Necomimi and if you are concentrated on [something], this cat’s ear shaped machine will rise. When you are relaxed, your new ears lie down. [If concentrated and relaxed] at the same time, your new ears will rise and move actively.

And here's the video:

And that's not all.  As Devo says, "they tell us that we lost our tails evolving up from little snails..."  And do we really miss having a tail?  Appaently so.  Again, let's hear from  MCM BUZZ about it:

Following on from the success of Neurowear’s brainwave controlled cat ears the Necomimi, the company have now unveiled their latest fashionable prototype that utilises brainwaves. Named Shippo, it is a tail that moves depending on your mood.

Showcased at the Tokyo Game Show, a concept video has been released (see below) which demonstrates how it works. If you’re feeling relaxed then the tail will swish slowly. If you happen to be concentrated on something then the tail will start to sway more quickly. But the tail is not the only thing.

Neuro Tagging involves wearing a brain reading sensor that is connected to a smart phone. A neural app will read your mood, with cute cartoony faces visualising how you are feeling. It will then tag your mood and location on a map which can be shared. So if for example you were inside Mr. Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe and the neural app read your mood as ‘excited’ then this would be recorded on a map for other users to see.

 

And once more, let's go to the video:





This does point out the interesting relationship between social media and geolocation, and the basic animal behavior of marking one's territory.  And while this video is all very sweet and charming, it does come down to basic nonverbal displays relating to sexual availability, interest, and mating.  I mean, this goes way beyond those old mood rings that were popular back in the 70s, that never seemed to work right anyway.

Neil Postman would pose the question, to what problem is this new technology a solution?  And I think that is a question we really need to ponder, not just in the sense of an old person (like me) saying to a youngster, what for?  That always had a bit of a dismissive quality to it, that being young and playful and having fun wasn't answer enough.  Sometimes it isn't, but sometimes it is.  But in this instance, I think Neil would pass the question on to Sigmund Freud, and say, Dr. Freud, what deep-seated need or conflict is this an attempt to resolve?  I think this speaks to the id and basic human drives, and the underlying need to allow for the return of the repressed. That's what technology unleashes, and that's something that requires a great deal of careful analysis. And I'm not just wagging the dog on this one.