http://130.217.159.224/~seanc/102/102history1.html

this site caught my attention because of the headliner: all history is media history.
It is a tutorial on the beginning of media history, and how it connects back to symbols and drawings written on cave walls. It is a simple, easy to follow guide through media's history and history as we know it.

A british acquaintance, Andrew, is no more qualified than I to make these claims, but they seem legitimate to me:

"There are only five distribution models that can make money in an age of instant data duplication:

• "1) Don't let it out of the box until you've been paid for it, but once you’ve been paid, release it with as freeware. This has the disadvantage that unless people know who you are, you can’t get paid at all. Even then, there are problems where if the money isn’t raised you can either lower your demands (thus assuring that people won’t pay less time) or sit on a piece of work you’ve finished and never get paid for it.
  
  
• 2) Don't make money off of the data, make it off of selling physical items associated with the data. (where the physical items can range from hardcopy versions of the data to t-shirts which associate you with it). This is great if you’re Penny Arcade and people really want your T-shirts, but how many people want Norman Mailer posters?
  
  
• 3) Licensing the data to other people (so that they can use it to sell things, make their own products out of, make films out of, etc.). Great, unless nobody wants to make a movie out of your book, or to sell happy meals of it.
  
  
• 4) Charging for simplified, reliable access to the data. So that, yeah, you could go and track down the UA books on Kazaa and spend ages trying to find someone who has them, but if UA.com charged you $2 a book for a downloadable version, you'd fork it over just to save on the hassle. Not a bad one this. And this is quite common now, in some ways – I’ll pay to read things now even if I thought that I might be able to track them down in a couple of days, given the spare time. For people who don’t like internet searches, this becomes worth even more.
  
  
• 5) Begging. Where you just ask people to send you money because they think you deserve it. Which can work wonders, if you have that kind of devoted following. But if everyone does it, I’m not sure there’s enough money to go around.

"The current system is basically a cross between (2) and (4), where they try to make the copying as hard as possible so that it's easier for you to pay for access to the CD/book/computer program. This will only continue to work so long as data sized are too large to easily transfer (it's failed already for books and music) or usage requires a service that's held centrally (i.e. Steam, which requires a centralised authenticator before you can access your game)."

With the increasing ubiquity of computers, data or code is more often a product of a lot of effort. Selling such products seems to be the best way to recoup lost time on creating them. But, unlike in the past, payment was necessitated by distribution processes. Is it right to limit data availability by charging for it?

Under Web Technology and Community, I believe, fits Manovich's Generation Flash.

Interested in reading something more recent and less formal from Manovich (perhaps even an application of his theory surrounding "emergent conventions, recurrent design patters, and key forms of new media"), and in an unwitting manifestation of mild masochism, I located a recent work of Manovich regarding the creatives forces behind art on the web. Exercising his usual economy of coherence in Generation Flash and sometimes neglecting certain grammar and punctuation guidelines, Manovich clearly hasn't put quite as much time into this as he has into certain printed materials. Seeking to define the peculiar nature of "Remix Culture" on the web, he makes some major claims, but leaves much of the gathering of evidence to the footnotes (thus creating an essay that relies on an active reader to investigate the open-ended chains of links--a true piece of "new media"). Manovich says that cut-and-paste is easier on the web, but that new art usually remains limited to shortened loops instead of entirely self-contained works. He emphasizes the importance of the artist coding his or her art, generating animation from code execution and thus an entirely flexible set of rules that can exist separately from commercial media. Manovich speaks of flash not as a particular web animation protocol, but to cover all mathematically-generated or vector art, which generates an entire environment from code. He anticipates exploding diversity in what is remixed in new media based on the mobility and facility of code. Flash Generation contains many small insights, but never claims to form a coherent picture of where flash is headed.

Elements of Digital Storytelling: A taxonomy of terms
– and a lot of questions

http://www.inms.umn.edu/elements

• Nora Paul, Director, Institute for New Media Studies, School of Journalism and
Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, USA
• Christina L. Fiebich, Ph.D. candidate, School of Journalism and Mass
Communication, University of Minnesota, USA

(Their) Abstract
In the first decade of its existence the World Wide Web has been used primarily as a new content distribution channel. It has not yet come into its own as a new medium. In order for the Web to fully mature as a new storytelling medium, not simply as a new digital mechanism for delivering legacy content, content developers and users must develop new storytelling forms which take full advantage of its unique attributes and functionalities.This
paper proposes a lexicon of the elements of digital storytelling that can be used to analyze and test how the unique combinations of attributes are being used in online news storytelling. It reviews preliminary research into the audience effects of various combinations of elements.

New Media Rampant. (2000 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art) MICHAEL RUSH.
Art in America July 2000 v88 i7 p41 (1204 words)
Michael Rush reviews works by artists from the Whitney Mesuem and their intergration of media and art. Creating the ever popular trend of media art.

I read a New York Times Magazine article last month about teenagers and blogs that I thought was a little interesting. It documents some teens living in the northeast about how they use blogs, what kind of content they publish and how the segregate themselves IRL according to the blog service they are part of. Unforutnately, the link only provides the first paragraph of this long article, so unless you are a member of the New York times online paid service, you guys will have to find a hard copy to read the entire thing.

Nussbaum, Emily. My So-Called Blog, New York Times Magazine. Sunday, January 11, 2004. Page 33.

Media History is the closest I could come to a category for this. It would ideally go under a heading like 'New Media and AvantGarde Cinema: An Alternative to Manovich', but I doubt that would be a popular category. It related so well to the discussion about the Language of New Media that I figured it was appropriate. It adresses what is film, and also cyber-cinema and how the two relate.

Here is the article I found through the University e-journals site.
http://80-puck.ingentaselect.com.floyd.lib.umn.edu/vl=3813907/cl=59/nw=1/rpsv/cw/mal/10949313/v6n6/s9/p639

The description is as follows by the author:
This paper investigates if the new space created by cyberspace affects how we use old space - physical space - and how the range of physical space we have access to affects our urge to extend into cyberspace. To do this I polled young IT savvy people in land-scarce Singapore about the amount of physical space they had at their disposal - private space in terms of the size of their house and bedroom space, and public space in terms of how many public meeting areas they frequented. I attempted to see if there was a correlation between the amount of physical space they enjoyed and the amount of time they spent in cyberspace.

Landow, George. "Hypertext and De-Centering." Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
______________________________________________________________
Landow states that hypertext is more empowering to the reader than traditional books (and often more difficult to read) because it is centerless. Without a center, and with the links of hypertext, readers are allowed, even forced, to use their own personal experience to determine where their center is and how it shifts as the reading of hypertext progresses. Decentering occurs while reading traditional books as well, as they are also often intertextual, but hypertext is much less linear; it often acts, as Landow writes, as "a transient center" for related information.

I didn't really know what category to put these two items in. They both are concerned with new media (mostly Internet) effect on education, so maybe we need an education category:

1. http://www.emerablinsight.com/oth.htm. On the Horizon: An international quarterly publication providing analysis and comment on the future of post-secondary education. On the Horizon provides a ‘radar’ service to key decision makers concerned with post secondary education in its many and emerging forms, from traditional institutions to corporate universities, from private/for-profits to non-profits around the world. Our mission is to inform educators about the challenges that they will face in a changing world and the steps they can take to meet these challenges. On the Horizon draws on the expertise and insights of contributors from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines - educators, public and industry leaders, scholars and other professionals concerned with the future of education - to provide the broadest and most informed coverage of the critical developments that are reshaping the world in which we live and work.

Adam's own note: Not everything here deal with new media, but the pieces that do are quite interesting and raise important questions. Check out the Digital Natives debate in Volumes # 5 and 6 in 2001. To login, go through the U's library site and use your x500 ID and password

2. Pittinsky, Matthew Serbin, ed. The Wired Tower: Perspectives on the Impact of the Internet on Higher Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. A collection of essays regarding the issue in the subtitle, with discussions ranging from economics, access, globalization, and philosophical debates about e-learning.

For "hypertext issues", if a little glibly:

http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/6.1/reviews/loftin/
eds. Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe. Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technologies: A Review. [location to be resolved]: Utah State UP, 1999: A collection of treatises as to the digitalization of the textual form and its implications upon literacy, with various sociocultural focii.

For "human/technological interface", loosely:

N. Katherine Hayles, Katherine Hayles. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatic., Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999: On the conflation and intragration of human and computer. [Found; have not read, but looks interesting.]

On the subject of: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm

I find it interesting to examine gender roles in this piece, specificly the oft-repeated construsion of “men” as researchers and “girls” (not women, significantly) as, essentially, part of these machines; instruments, if you will. Despite my deep resentment of such sickeningly chauvenistic typecasting (as well as my awareness that most typists in 1945 and beyond were women), it is interesting to consider the bearings of gender constructions as applied to new technology. We can equate the machine with the girl: immature, requiring male development and validation through use. Fast-forwarding into the world of science border-fiction, is it essential that the machine (like women in a patriarchal soceity) remain immature, not develop its own intellect, so as to not escape (hu)man control?

This probably sounds conceited, but I feel like I'm enough of a geek that my background assists me greatly in understanding the basic principles that Manovich is talking about. If someone would find it worthwhile, I would throw together a basic explanation of what The Language of New Media is talking about. No analysis, just a bit of introduction to his introduction. The danger of this is that it might reveal the shocking procrastination I apply to our assigned reading...

Our talk of the screen got me thinking about a tv show from the 50s called "Winky Dink and You". The basic setup was that the character Winky would get into problems, and the kids at home would drawn on the tv screen and help him out. Could be seen as an early interactive tv. I also found an article Dibbell wrote on it (a nice coincidence!). Click

by the same john lye

Manovich talks about how postindustial logic ("production on demand", individuality over conformity) effects new media. He details how we can customize our lifestlyes (hyperlinks, variability) to not feel programmed, but as programmer. He goes on to exhibit the cyclic nature of new media. First, computer culture is created in the context of current postindustrial logic. Next, he displays how computer culture/logic goes on to significantly effect traditional cultural logic. On pg. 61 he explains how cinema and fashion ask us to identify with someone elses body, while interactive media asks us to identify with someone elses mental structure. Whose mental structure?

What I wonder is where is his political analysis? As much as this arguement is logical, it leaves out capitalism's effect on technology, computer culture, and cultural assumptions. Another project we looked at, Grasping @ Bits(Walker cite), demonstrates some analysis of how big business shapes the type of interatction we have with new media in important ways. Another example is the eToy story. The capitalist globalized culture that new media is being developed in shapes the mental structure we are to see through. However, progressive net art presents alternatives modes to see. Net_Condition states that all of this changes how we play, communicate, remember, gain knowledge. Net art becomes a new form to display, to be a representation of this new reality.

I personally enjoyed Vadim Fishkin and Tanja Vujinovic's art at the Slovenian link. Both used superimposed image on image to depict a another idea. His self -potrait and photosynthesis project rawked. Her fairy tale and projections did, too. Most of the net art I came across was political. Most of the stuff at the Walker cite was really political too (Airworld was super Marxist). Returning to my orginal example, Voyd's Grasping @ Bits, we see an experiment in information design. It clearly illustrates this point of thinking through someone elses mental structure. He creates five simultaneous modes to think through. Furthermore, its outside of postindustrial logic, thus political; breaking boundries in how we think/see.

(ps sorry i cant be in class: soopah ill: see ya'll next week)

Some Attributes of Modernist Literature

Copyright 1997 by Professor John Lye.

This text may be freely used, with attribution, for non-profit purposes.

If the first two class sessions focused mostly on hypertext, it is because the widespread aestheticization of digital forms of expression, distinguishing between hyper- and inter-media, separating fiction from interactive art, and so forth, in the end invariably fails to account for the fundamental question raised exemplarily by hypertext: namely, how to explain the anachronism of claiming precursors and forefathers while by the same token presenting a radical departure. It is a curious side-effect of positing such a paradigm shift that the logic of the break is applied to itself, and suddenly, with hindsight, it appears as if everyone knew it all along: old media as new media. Surely that's not good enough - but what allows us to draw the line?

Manovich, in discussing the idea of variablility of new media, suggests that the new media synch up with the social climate of late capital, which favors (targets) the uniqueness of the individual over the mass-produced approach of industrial capitalism. Although he never suggests it, Manovich's argument implies that there may be a cause and effect relationship between social climate and what technology takes over. What say you to this? Did the technology help create the social climate? Did the social climate propel certain technologies? Or isn't there any connection at all?

Also, to what extent do we like operating in this new media variable world. Apparently, the technology meets the demands of late capital, but just a few pages later, Manovich demonstrates the annoyance of having to make so many decisions that used to be the work of someone else (the web purchasing example). Does current technology fit our social demands?

It strikes me as, at the very least, unfortunate that we can read about something so simple (and, as pointed out, modern) as Vertov filming a cameraman driving down the street while spinning his camera about capturing everything it passes -- coupled with the lawsuits against filmmakers of Batman Forever, the Devil's Advocate, et cetera, who are the subjects of lawsuits because they happen to have filmed (intentionally or not) a trademarked park, sculpture or broken Coca-Cola bottle.

No wonder why the U keeps CLA and Carlson School of Management students so far apart.

In another English course, I'm dealing with post-structuralist theory, which espouses a belief that all discourse comes from other discourse. Or maybe this is more precise: "every text exists only in relation to other texts; meaning circulates in economies of discourse." I'm not completely sold on the idea that post-structuralism is the end-all philosophy. I just thought it was a relevant aside.

However, I am sold on the fact that Vertov's motives and films, although 90 years old, are pure art with benevolent motivations. Granted, the Soviet Union of 1929 wasn't exactly midtown Manhattan with all the billboards and neon and whatnot, but culture is culture. Vertov was not only filming culture, but trying to advance it. I am of the opinion that those who attempt to grasp ownership of labels, ideas, colors, parks, sodas or stocking caps need to make their money. But they also should realize that by inserting their "products" into culture -- free of charge on many occassions -- the products' standing in the culture could increase, and so too, eventually, may the profits. The business minds behind Coca-Cola, the Beatles, Levis and the Snuggle fabric softener bear all attempt to make their products or images part of our culture so we consume more. Well, we do consume more. But when we try to include those products in art as a reflection of our culutre, we get our hands slapped. Strikes me as sad. There needs to be compromise and legislation.

Arguably, the true forefather of the web is not the footnote of yore, but the vision of the Belgian bibliographer Paul Otlet, whose fantastic project of a Universal Book was to manifest the connections each document has with all others, and to open this referential structure to further annotation and restructuring by each user. Since 1895, Otlet had envisioned a master bibliography of the world’s libraries, but found one fatal flaw all systems shared: they stopped at book titles. Otlet wanted his system to penetrate that boundary, to link up the substance, sources and conclusions of all books. Long before Vannevar Bush or Ted Nelson laid claim to radicalizing knowledge management with memex or hypertext, Otlet developed a scholar’s workstation that was, in essence, a database using millions of index cards. He imagined the réseau would eventually be accessible by telephone lines, retrieving facsimiles projected onto a flat screen. Today as in Otlet’s vision, hypertext foregrounds one feature: it tends to present itself as the sum of its links. However, the defining trait of hyperlinks is not just a web of self-annotation – they set in motion the three-dimensionality of letters that script had in its original form as runes, as knot notation.

Okay, so maybe I spent a bit too much time playing with Unfolding Object. Regardless, in perusing the art sites, I realize that I have quite a liking not only for the art on the web, but for the project of art on the web. Although some of the sites have more of a radical push to them, e.g. detritus, most seem to be content to have a place to display their creative projects. It was interesting to see that not all of the art sites tie themselves exclusively to net art, and instead embrace the democratization of expression in general. Sure, all of these projects need money to keep running, which they will probably have a hard time getting, but these sites arent seeking profits, fame, or critical recognition. They seem to just want to have a space to showcase their art, and I like that. Hopefully, they will continue to have these places.

On a related note (and perhaps this is a topic for later readings), I would like to bring up the idea of education through some of these art sites and through computer technologies. I played around with the flag at the guggenheim, and just by clicking through some of the stuff, I learned a bit about the flags of other countries, what their colors symbolize. Even without really paying attention to the fact, I was learning. Other sites had similar features and results. One of the interesting topics of discussion in our course might be to what extent people used to learning hypertextually (what are sometimes referred to as Digital Natives) should be taught with computers. This is the first course I have had that has embraced the idea that learning can happen on computers, and so far, our class seems to be doing pretty well.

Do trademark laws know no limitations¹? I wonder whether Professor McLeod would sue a small, non-profit organization were it to make use of his trademark, and furthermore the efficacy of trademarks on such an unruly creature as the internet.
"He acknowledges the irony of trademarking the very phrase that sums up the American commitment to free speech. But²" even professors want their piece. Indeed, "how do we guarantee free thought when the push is to propertize every idea?³" It's only natural that we, from priviledged corporations to "the people", should want to maintain the operational status quo when faced with new, daunting circumstances. Lawrence Lessig, in his "The Future of Ideas" and "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace", worries that that fiber-optic tendoned unicorn will lay down in the lap of Orwellian Government. "Envisioning this impossible world was sport.⁴" This is old psychology; we enjoy being frightened.
Still: to what extent can we liken the internet to the virgin Americas, from the Wordsworthian utopia to the Boston Tea Party?
As to the bevy of net-art (without what will prove to be an endless aesthetic discussion), the relative freedom to reproduce reminds me of ancient artworks, wherein everything was copied ad nauseum (and, really, what's so horrid about that, since the reproduction pays such obvious homage to the original⁵)? Am I unfounded in saying that the issue of musical piracy, beneath its various law-suits and celebrity exclamations, is little more than a greed issue?

1. The "Creative Commons" thingy is a progressive, more tolerant copyright, appealing more to the moral sense than to a fear of punishment, which better befits this "world of the mind" (moreso than is the strictly physical world).
2. www.kembrew.com
3. http://www.code-is-law.org/preface_excerpt.html
4. http://www.code-is-law.org/preface_excerpt.html, I think.
5. I know; money.

Manovich assumes that a fundamental difference between cinema and "new" media is that the former is "sampled", but not "quantified", as the latter is. I totally disagree: in film, we have discrete images (sampled) that are necessarily quantified (a certain frame must be followed by another certain frame) for visual continuity. What's up with his (or my) supposition?

"The invisible hand of cyberspace is building an architecture that's quite the opposite of what it was at cyberspace's birth. The invisible hand, through commerce, is constructing an architecture that perfects control - an architecture that makes possible highly efficient regulation." (Laurence Lessig)

Cyberspace is under constant transformation by political, technical, and psychological pressures. If you wanted to follow nuclear tests in India, the fate of indigenous Mexicans in Chiapas, or the protests against the World Trade Organization, you were underserved by TV or print journalism; you probably turned to the Internet. And when energy activists, sympathizers of the Zapatistas, or anti-globalization protesters sought to attract your attention to their causes on that medium (by means of disrupting or defacing websites associated with Indian physics research, the Mexican government, or the World Trade Organization and its members), their electronic civil disobedience gave rise to the term “hacktivism”. Internet users alerted to the concept of Echelon, an electronic communications scanner filtering any and all satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic traffic, had to wonder why, and how, capitalism had morphed into a fully integrated surveillance apparatus that could treat the world like a company town. To pull the veil of secrecy and ignorance aside, hacktivists coined the notion of Jam Echelon Day, trying to disrupt the surveillance and alert the public to its presence in one stroke. Chinese computer hackers protested NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in Kosovo with attacks on US websites. Critics of sweat shop labor, techno-libertarians uncomfortable with certain politicians, and people harboring curiosity or vested interests in commercial, military, or even trivial secrets try every day to manipulate computers to their ends. A concerted denial of service attack on e-commerce websites in February 2000 coincided with an atmosphere of growing unease about the dot-com boom - both on the side of those who knew nothing about it and those who lived by it. The story made the cover of half a dozen weekly news magazines, and of numerous daily papers. The media were eager to characterize companies like Yahoo and eBay as victims "crippled" by the dastardly work of "vandals". It did not matter that no permanent damage was done to these sites. It was enough that so-called "cyberterrorists," even for a few hours, seemed to have threatened e-commerce, a giant shopping channel experiment on steroids, pumping up the American economy on anabolic expectations that people would be doped up by the rapturous possibility of spending entire paychecks, with a click of a mouse, on stuff they can only see in pixels. In each of these cases, the authorities in the end succeeded in making the net a safer place for business transactions, but by the same token, non-commercial use of the Internet appeared increasingly under threat by the sledgehammer of mercantile paranoia. The obvious comment, that this increased focus on protection and secrecy will bring about more tests of (and protests against) the restrictions imposed, seems unwelcome in most parts.

Now that the messianic promise of e-commerce has been debunked, the clipper chip fended off, and open source software gained the support of major corporations, one question galvanizing legal, historical, and political analysis is how to distinguish hacking from hacktivism. If hacking was understood initially as experimentation by mostly young, male, expert computer users, it is important to note that there were, at first, no connotations of such activity with disruptive or intrusive, let alone criminal, intent. But every time a new technology is introduced, something about it must be tamed and made secure so that consumers can adapt and develop their mass relationship with the new medium. Once innovation, as a function of modernity, has been fully commodified, every space, online and off, is increasingly under threat of full saturation with booming, busting business. Disregard for profit angles has become increasingly suspect – it is considered a virtue of the past, a philosophical category handed down from times when time was still a plentiful resource and not a fissured, fractured trace element of commerce. Even universities, once bastions of research as disinterested pursuit, are giving up on knowledge for its own sake in favor of whatever profits are to be had, for instance in distance education. Conversely, the distance many citizens keep from educational issues may explain why consumers were frightened when there was no online shopping for a few hours. The openness of the Internet had to be made safe for commerce, and guaranteeing its security became the prime occupation of both business and government.

I can understand the reasoning why the whole "toy war" started, and I can understand why so many people got upset. I can ALSO understand why the etoy corporation would be so apprehensive about having an "etoy" site that had what they believed as questionable content on it ruining their image. The people who were afraid of their image being tarnished were real flesh and blood people who were legitimately concerned about their companies wellbeing, so I can understand their concern. I have a hard time believing the Etoy corp. is an evil corporation that is hellbent on destroying the little guy all in the name of profit.

Just lost my post so, a quick sum up. I like that they've taken over the stock chart aesthetic, and overloaded its once clean lines with lots of images and pop-up text windows. Seems that they're setting themselves up against all commerce though, as their "price" (or value or whatever) goes up as eToys' goes down.

I am completely shocked about how everything seems to be centered around strange sex. Maybe it's my background, but I have been using the internet for years and never have I been exposed to such smut. A Rape in Cyberspace only made me angry.

I'm curious as to just how the "toy soldiers" were able to affect eToys stocks. I'm not entirely sure what they could do....maybe some further reading into the site and others discussing the war would clear up the issue for me. However it works, the idea of an online war is certainly intriguing.

I think it is really amazing that so many people have gotten involved in the etoy wars looking at all the people in the armies a lot of people have put some time into it. I'll need to edit this later.

really, all i can post is an announcement to all about my confusion. missed the first day. went to lind 217 today. and heard a bit on this toy story. yup. definately more content and coherence in future postings.

I had no idea such things existed. I am not quite sure I understand, but that it is an interactive web game.

The idea that the media must be constrained to 'protect' children is present in more than just internet related media. The ratings system on games that has been a major issue of contention is a good example. People want stricter restraints on the availablity of media that could be harmful to children. Part of the etoy battle focused on the 'pornography' and harmful effects it could have on children intending to head for the Toys webpage. The end result of this battle is apparent in the fact that more than 70% of the internet is devoted to pornography. Restricting access to anything on the internet on the basis of age is next to impossible, primarily because of the anonimity the internet offers users.

This is, of course, not just an issue that takes place online. Al Franken was sued by Fox News in 2003 because his book contained the phrase "fair and balanced" in the title, which Fox claimed led people to believe that Franken's book was sanctioned by Fox News. The Franken example and the Etoys example are ridiculous displays of corporate power and unreasonable worries. I don't really think anyone buys into his. Do these corporations really think that people who wind up at etoy.com will be discouraged from shopping at Etoys.com? Lawsuits such as these reek of corporate greed.

Though this "online pop band who have never played live and regularly perform on the Internet" maintains a somewhat unconventional site, it raises important property issues in a humorous manner. The US company eToys doesn't want something so out of the ordinary soiling their public image, they didn't register the domain name, and thus have no real recourse to pursue against eToy. However, both websites could be considered "neighbors" in cyberspace, and just as a Wal-Mart might not want a controversial sex shop opening next door, etoy's desire for a clean image is understandable. I think the site is funny.

I found it very funny that etoy was offering $5 in eToys stock with every purchase of one of their CDs.

I also was encouraged by the information (albeit little) about the virtual sit in against eToys that -- according to CNN, Yahoo and other mainstream media sources -- was successful in pushing the on-line company's sales off track. The personlization of the site, and more so of the etoy movement itself, was impressive; how interested individuals could become activists for the artists' causes and become noticed, even if it is behind a Lego face. It's humorous, but also extremely important work.

I read a short article by Felix Stalder about the Toy war.
my question is, what proof did eToys have of etoy.corporation having pornographic or terroristic subject matter. I am curious to know more about the wars that journalists and "soldiers" created to drop eToys shares so dramatically. One thing stated in the article was that the drop in stock may not have been all attributed to the toy war. JBK

Where's KMFDM? (It was the lego army, probably.) Anyway:
As wholly unsophisticated and hyperbolic as this is, etoy, Toy War, etc., inspires me with a pointed desire to have been old in whichever year that was and have a head for technological misbehaviour extended beyond the workings of Macintoshes. Nostelgia (which I'm sure is misspelled), that's what it is: I want to don the trappings again, reload all of the mysteriously lost information. Like the old media languages, it fades with neglect.
It's a whole different language, a "middle" language, perhaps, go-between between humans and computers as medieval Middle English was a transition between incomprehensible Old English and BBC crispness. Will we, in ultimate Zen, digress (evolve?) into the lowest level; speak and think in binary?

'Twas the night before Christmas,
and on every web site
Not a protest was stirring, no one
felt the right;
The Thing New York were forced not to share,
In fear that the FBI soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug
in their beds,
While visions of freedom danced in
their heads;
And mamma with the TV, caught wind
of the trap
Is Etoy settled down for a long winter's nap?
When out on the web there arose
such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what
was the matter.
Away to my windows I clicked
through all the flash,
Banners explained about "clicking for cash"
When, what to my wondering eyes
should appear,
But a corporate interest in what I held dear,
With a billion in earnings, so
lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it was making me sick.
More rapid than eagles its
investors they came,
And they whistled, and shouted, and
called them by name;
Now, Etoys! now, Amazon! now,
Barnes and Nobles!
On, AOL! on Yahoo! on, All ecommerce foibles!
As dry spirit meets net art and
ecommerce cries,
to old saint internic the lawyers do fly.
So up to the DNS the lawyers they flew,
With the sleigh full of etoys, they
knew what to do.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the pipe a court decision came
with a bound.
It was dressed all absurd, from its
head to its foot,
And its implications were all
tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of cash etoys had flung on its back,
And it looked like a peddler just
opening its pack.
Its eyes -- how they twinkled! Its
defense came with ease!
"Imagine if a child saw any of these?"!
Its droll little mouth was drawn up
like a bow,
And pictures of breasts and
bombings etoys did show;
The stump of controversy held tight
in his teeth,
Circular logic in shareholders
heads like a wreath;
"Who cares about art? its all about money!",
Such slippery responses, like a
bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right
wealthy old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in
spite of myself;
A denial of service, and only a
twist of its head,
Soon gave me to know I had
something to dread;
It spoke not a word, but went
straight to its work,
And started sucking up net.art with
such a jerk,
And now what has happened, everyone knows,
Free speech bumped off, annual
earnings they rose;
The net became buisiness, all
banners and credit,
court cases and lawsuits, of course
they all fed it.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he
drove out of sight,
Happy Christmas to all, and to a
free net, good-night.

After our discussion of the new-ness of new media, let's go beyond a forced decision whether or not cyberspace is a utopian (or dystopic) fiction, as it is for Barlow (and in other ways in Neuromancer), or a reality that colors everyday life, as in other texts addressing it as a social phenomenon. In short: is the net, are computers in general and connected computers in particular, allowing new artistic expression, or are we compelled to see in them no more and no less than an improved means to an old end, as Thoreau said of the telegraph?

Some would argue that with hindsight, we know that technologies not only change the institutions of learning, they also transform the juridical and political milieu of culture. That's where a look at Laurence Lessig's work is helpful. Others, however, would have us focus on net art, on the creative commons, and on ways in which the bureaucratic domination by omnipresent screens can be undermined. So let's take a look at net art on the one hand, and at cyberlaw on the other:

For Lessig, one of the pioneers of cyberlaw, go to
www.code-is-law.org/ and
cyberlaw.stanford.edu/future/

For more information on fast-breaking Intellectual Property issues, consider these sites:

Kembrew MacLeod (author of Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership and Intellectual Property Law. New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2001) trademarked the phrase "freedom of expression" as a prank:
www.kembrew.com

The Center for the Public Domain is a nonprofit foundation supporting the growth of a healthy and robust public domain:
www.centerforthepublicdomain.org

You'll find some helpful links at the Copyright's Commons:
cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/

And you must stop by Detritus.net, a great site devoted to recycled culture:
www.detritus.net

Also, it's been a while since they played in Minneapolis, but culture jammers Negativland have a very good resources section on their site:
www.negativland.com/intprop.html

________________________________________________

For net art, take your pick among the following links:

Until recently, the Walker (here in Minneapolis) actively pursued net art:
aen.walkerart.org

The German ZKM offers a virtual tour (but get an iPix plugin first):
on1.zkm.de/netCondition.root/netcondition/richmedia/ipx/default

And certainly you should look at the Ljubljana Digital Media Lab:
www.ljudmila.org

Since 1998, the first netart gallery has been run by Olia Lialina:
art.teleportacia.org

In 1999, "If You Want to Clean Your Screen" was sold, and it is now on display at:
www.entropy8zuper.org/possession/

Since 2000, artcart.de, a German net art gallery, sells the net art of Valery Grancher, Blank & Jeron, Heath Bunting, and others:
www.artcart.de

In 2001, Doron Golan started to buy and collect net art works; since 2003 the collection is permanently hosted by The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art:
www.computerfinearts.com

In 2002, the Guggenheim acquired Mark Napier's work net.flag and John Simon's Unfolding Object:
www.guggenheim.org/internetart/welcome.html

The Dibbell piece effectively demonstrates the changes in perception that happen over time when one confronts new territories in cyberspace. This pertains not only to MUDs, but to any conceivable realm of the Internet. Many people who are not comfortable with computers reference their inability to "grasp it," suggesting both an insecurity in their knowledge of computers/Internet and a lack of certainty in its merit.

However, how much of the ability to grasp or not grasp these realms is a matter of the technology? I would suggest that gaining knowledge and appreciation for a new realm is less a matter of overcoming technological barriers than it is about immersion. For instance, Sunday's event of the Super Bowl. What would a person (or maybe an alien) who had never watched football think of the game? Consider: Twenty-two men run around on a patch of grass. Penalties include losing fifteen feet. Time can be stopped. Players make the decision to play with broken bones. Fans in the stands go ape shit. A billion people at home get drunk and fat and watch the game on TV. Why do people care about the result of this game? What makes it significant? Why do we allow these rules to be "the rules?" Would we suggest that there is something inherent in football that causes us to shift into a separate reality? Are we present in another realm when we watch this?

Choose your example of an event, experience, or group you are intensely involved with. What about a shared experience in cyberspace is any different than one that exists in "RL?"

John Perry Barlow's piece decrying the Communications Decency Act is very intriguing. I attempted endlessly to refute his argument (not because I'm a fascist-minded conservative mind you), because even in cyberspace anarchy is just hard to swallow. In the real world, though, it is also hard to imagine too many problems with a generally anarchic society. People don't refuse to steal because of laws, a person will steal out of desperation, necessity, or even just because the person is a damn klepto; but i dont think laws really determine the choices people make regarding crime. Maybe I'm wrong but to me, most people are inherently good-natured and that keeps them from harming others. Most rational-minded people do things because they seem right or wrong in their hearts and minds. Cyberspace is a marketplace of ideas, etc. You cant kill a person in cyberspace (yet). Governmet feels justified in trying to regulate cyberspace because of countless years of precedent; when people create "problems" that certain others feel are dangerous, the reaction is to pass a law because that is what our societies know. But the government should back off; people will protect themselves from any "danger" they encounter in cyberspace. At last, I do apologize if ive been all over the place here, just wingin' it ya' know.

Dan Rasmussen

I've found much of the reading material we've been exposed to so far in ENG 3070 extremely interesting. As background, I'm rather interested in some forms of so-called "old media" and have made one of those forms -- radio -- my profession for the last six years. However, partly because of this, I've been somewhat sheltered from "new media" if only when it comes to first hand experience.

When reading Gibson, Dibbell, Barlow and the others, I've found myself being drawn into the other plane of existence of which they all speak, whether it be called cyberspace, the matrix or VR. I've found myself thinking about this concept with somewhat of a childlike wonderment, almost like reading tales of Smurfs and dragons at age four. My biggest challenge, I think, after, and because I saw the material with such innocence (and ignorance) is being able to now view the works with a critical eye.

My favorite work we, as a class, have come across so far is "My Boyfriend Came Back from the War." I was really stunned by how ambiguous the whole story was, in terms of dialogue, sexuality, motivation and emotion. Initially, I was skeptical about a work that put so much onus on the reader (or viewer) to determine what direction the story was taking. However, after I went through it many times, I began to see the (potential for) richness in that concept. Really, it's not extremely far removed from conventional literature in that it simply lays out the stars for the reader, and it is up to him or her to find the constellation, so to speak. Granted, Lialina's stars (continuing with the metaphor) are much more scarce than, say, James Joyce's, but that increases the impact of the interactive aspect of hyperfiction.

Neuromancer I'm still unsure about. I enjoyed bits and pieces, but to be frank, I think it was too busy. I have much respect for it as a groundbreaking novel of its genre (especially understanding that it was written 20 years ago), but as a piece of literature as a whole..... like I said, I'm unsure.

"A Rape in Cyberspace" I thoroughly enjoyed. Dibbell did a wonderful job of putting a literary spin on some of the ideas of, or rather debates involving, Barlow and Bennahum. That is, what are the lines between RL and VR? Who draws them? How democratic is cyberspace? How democratic should it be? And, most interesting to me was, what happens to one's psychological makeup as one dives deeper into cyberspace? Do our thoughts, ideas, ideals change because of our new surroundings? And which characteristics do we bring with us from RL to VR (revenge, justice, indiscretion, a predatory nature)? And which do we leave behind?