New Media Reader 585 - 647

Mythinformation

Winner’s essay, “Mythinformation”, seeks to articulate how computers can be used for positive social change. He takes the rhetoric of the computer language, and addresses what the social goals of the revolution will be. He addresses the idea that new technology and new ways of getting information does not necessarily create a more democratic society. It does have the potential to be democratic, but it must be worked towards, and does not come automatically.


From Plans and Situated Actions

Lucy Suchman wrote the essay in “Plans and Situated Actions” to make a critique on the practice within artificial intelligence. She presents a different concept on how people seek to accomplish goals. She points out that AI research is fundamentally misguided. She says that the basic principle that the research cannot be based on logical manipulations like the human brain would function, and that AI would never be able to address rapidly changing situations like on a battlefield. She presents two unsolved problems, which are the self-explanatory tool, and giving the computer a purpose.


Siren Shapes: Exploratory and Constructive Hypertexts

Michael Joyce makes a distinction between two types of hypertext environments; exploratory and constructive. Constructive hypertexts are flexible representation of thoughts, stories, arguments, and everything else for which we use media. Exploratory hypertexts are former constructive hypertexts that are not being used by original author of the work. With these two forms she argues that they hold promise for transforming education than simple electric reading with links. There have been a few programs on the Web that have used this type of hypertexts, but there are lots of legal issues that surround it. She says the web is barely-exploratory, and that it has a much bigger potential.


The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems

Bill Nichols writes an update to Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” He discusses the shift from a fetishization of the object to the fetishization of the process of interaction, of simulation. He relates simulation to video games and genetic engineering. I think it’s important to write this update to Benjamin’s essay, there have been dramatic shifts in art and mechanical reproduction, and he definitely never addresses simulation in that essay.


The Fantasy Beyond Control

Lynn Hershman’s “Lorna” is considered to be the first interactive video art installation. It allowed the viewer to make selections of the space Lorna was in. She spurred many new forms of interactive video art, with Hershman and Griffith, and the recent work of Chris Hales.