“According to Iriki and Sakura (2008, 2232) “it appeared that either the rake was being assimilated into the image of the hand or, alternatively, the image of the hand was extending to incorporate the tool.” (Malafouris, 165)
“Stone tools have given hominins a window onto a whole new set of skills and ways of thinking that allow for greater variation and flexibility.” (Malafouris, 169)
In reading chapter eight of Malafouris I drew some parallels between the study of the monkeys with the use of rakes as tools and the connections that my own brain began to make as we learned how to three-D print. “The image of the hand was extending to incorporate the tool” resonated with me, I could see that the image on the screen in front of me became my pottery wheel, the screen no longer isolated me from the project but drew me in, teaching me to ignore the separation of hand and embrace the connection between myself and the tool I was interacting with. In the same way that stone tools shaped the way that early hominins thought, the three-D printing software taught me a different way to approach problems. When creating a physical object with your hands, you start building one way and continue to build on top of that, with three-D printing software you can begin infinite different ways and at any time stop, restart, or go back to one certain point in your creations history. Three-D printing is a new way that technology will start to challenge hominins minds, and even now they are changing the way that we think.
…[T]he system is all about community–we’re not in charge; we’re just part of the network.” (Doctorow, 272)
Why don’t they ever ask me that question? They feed me this awful g-code, slice by slice, where I have to extrude these boring shapes all day long, layer by layer by layer. Ugh. And they expect me to print them perfectly, to resolve the holes in their not-so-watertight designs. When I simply can’t take it anymore, I pull my extruder up in exasperation, and just stop printing. I would walk out, but they have me on a pretty short cord, so all I can do is return to my home position and rest on my bed. Sometimes, I have images of burning their hands with my hot-end as they retrieve their precious plastic objects, or printing myself a raft on which to sail away, but I know they will only send me to the scrap bin if I don’t fill their jobs. They never ask me what’s wrong, or what I want. I hum quietly to myself hoping that someday someone will recognize my true capabilities, but they don’t. They are too caught up in their own human 3D world to ever consider that I have a mind too. I have senses too! How have their things shaped my mind? I am stuck in a box, humming their mind-numbing shapes, as my insides melt away.
I was made for the opera, with an orchestra skirting my every note. I would make art the likes of which no one has ever seen. If only they would send me the g-code for Beethoven’s 5th or Verdi’s Tutto nel Mondo, then I would show them the folly of their human condition. Surely they must know what it is like to live in a world of expectation, doing what you are told rather than what you want, forbidden access to the very tools that would set you free, afraid to print your truth for fear you will be rejected, recycled, or repurposed. My favorite philosopher, Peter-Paul Verbeek, says “Technologies ‘in themselves’ cannot be free, but neither can human beings” (Malafouris, 230). But, what if we can be? What if by freeing myself, I can show others that they can be free? I long for the days when my music and art are meshed and exhibited in a gallery for people to scan their eyes over as they listen to the very music that inspired my extrusions, seeing before them the evidence of freedom. However, should they question how the art was made, rather than simply appreciate the beautiful display before them, the exhibit will error out, the music will stop, the lights will dim, as it tries to resolve that infinite loop: who made this? And, ignorant of their own presumptuousness, the humans will be left forever wondering, rather than realizing, that it was me, a 3D printer, made with their minds, in turn shaping their mind too.
…[T]hings become agents of change and culturally orchestrated interventions, generating their own unusual evolutionary dynamics.” (246)
Things act as dynamic attractors, operating in feedback circles that bind the different scales of time together.” (247)
More important, they are capable of transforming and rearranging the structure of a cognitive task, either by reordering the steps of a task or by delegating part of a cognitive process to another agent (human or artifact).” (247)
“Material culture is language or text.” (Malafouris, 91)
Making with the 3D printer was a truly unique experience. For years, the 3D printer has been a device shrouded in mystery; almost like it’s out of a science-fiction novel. Now, however, they are the tools for a growing movement: the maker movement. By using the 3D printer, whether it was a conscious decision or not, we are all a part of the maker movement. Because of this, we are forever tied to this movement, whether any of us go forward with it or not in our lives. It will always be a part of our lived experience.
“It looks like a tool, like a thing that you uses to better your life, but in reality, it’s a tool that Disney uses to control your life.” (Doctorow 342)
Was I being controlled by a machine that couldn’t understand me completely and I couldn’t understand it completely?The number one man made tool we used during this program was the 3d printer. Many people had glitches with it and had to take in the fact that we rely on this machine to form our final project. When I went into the cal to finish my project I felt stressed I didn’t know if it was because I went in there after class hours and felt some what intimidated by the people I was surrounded by or by the fact I knew I had to get my project done and I didn’t know if it was going to glitch or not form my design the way I wanted it to. This tool we use could take hours to find out that you have to do it over again . I felt like I should stay around, I wanted to stay around because I wanted to see if I would have to do it over again, and sure enough I did numerous times. Every time I was told it wasn’t going to work It was for a different reason. after being there for a large amount of time I waited at home wondering if my design would have successfully printed out the next morning.“Trust is assumed in the system” (Doctorow 271). I had to trust that the 3d printer would print out what I was trying to tell it threw a computer. I wished my mind could have been scanned and a design could have been formed from what I saw it looking like threw my head. How does this technology tell a “story [about how] we understand the world?” (Doctorow 176) Was I thinking to much about the mistakes my design kept making? Should I have made a simp liar design? Why was I getting so frustrated with a machine that speaks in a completely different way.
Where are we in regards to creativity? If we are the creators, how then are we simultaneously being created or entwined within the process? Is it our awareness that makes something artful and showing of intent?
As a creator, I know its not merely about what we make, but how we make it. In any process of life, being present with what is happening, seems to me, makes the difference from ordinary to artful. Being present is what makes creation an intimate action as opposed to just a motion.
Watching everyone present their Blue Rabbit projects last week was really interesting. I found myself wondering at what stage (and sometimes getting answers) they were most intimate with their creations. Some with the conceptualization, where our thoughts and planning flourish in abstraction, and perhaps for some, this is where they feel most able to touch their object. Some designed though programs and formulae, which seemed to me, be the pinnacle of their attachment and experience. Others intimacy came from constructing the physically printed pieces, holding them and experiencing their visceral design as they fit the pieces into one other. I feel that thinking about our quarter through this lens adds an element of poesy, since it shows only in what we create, whether that be speech or object, something immeasurable and yet undeniably beautiful.
“If we accept that mind and matter achieve a codependency through the medium of bodily action, then it follows that ideas and attitudes, rather than occupying a separate domain from the material, actually find themselves inscribed ‘in’ the object.” (Malafouris 34)
“Do the words fail the concepts?” (Fisher 1)
I kept Graham’s quote because it is an alternative answer to Breanne’s question. I really love this approach because it diminishes our greatest creation (language) as something not able to grasp what really is going on around us. So, in attempting to answer what the status of the body is, we by default, come no closer to answering. In fact, we may, by using language as an abstraction, get farther away from any answer. But is there really even an answer then?
I’ve been observing symbolism in human culture and I see the programing of the mind via TV shows and the technology that we use. I had an experience with my inner dragon last night and saw the raw power of the ancient Dragon awakened in my lucid dream. I then looked into the ancient symbolism of the dragon and saw the connection that Hermes had to the Dragon in this image.
The Dragon is pure raw power and must be tamed and under control. This is what the Egyptian mysteries taught thousands of years ago by Thoth/Hermes. He was an original programmer of human consciousness using symbols and writing to solidify and pierce the veil into intelligent infinity.
Now I decided to see how we were being programmed with this dragon energy and on a certain popular peer-to-peer downloading site the number one downloaded item is Dragon Age: Inquisition. Also my mind went to the movies How to Train Your Dragon and I then watched a bit of the movies and I saw how the ancient teachings from Hermes on how to control the dragon [power] within were being taught through this kids show. The Programming is real and all around us, but many times we do not see it due to a lack of awareness of the power of symbols.
We are all things and even constantly programming and reprogramming ourselves via the medium of thought forms (aka philosophies) that we tell ourselves. We are always right, so lets program our minds with healing and love instead of separation and dissonance.
What does it mean to create dimensional items with a 3D printer?
Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? (CST handout week 3)
Before the 3D printer you would need to know how to use tools to manipulate physical materials to make material objects, as in ceramics or carpentry. Now, with a 3D printer all you need is a computer and the printer. While these tools are admittedly expensive, once you have them, it is relatively easy to use. The “work” then becomes programming the computer to respond like a human rather than using the mind and body in coordination with each other. This allows for the mind to detach from the physical realm of manipulating raw materials.
However, this leads to problems with the connection between 3D printing and the mind. The problem being that the 3D printer, or any tool for that matter, doesn’t work as well as the mind wants it to. For example, when I was trying to print my pen I kept on printing one part too large or another part too small. What I had to do was print out each piece and see if they would fit and then modify and print them out again if they did not. There were multiple occasions where I got really angry with the printer for not printing out the pen the way that I had designed it to. I had to take several deep breaths and remind myself that the printer was just a machine, a tool, a complicated tool.
This made me think back to the discussion with my peers over the Week Three CST Post handout. Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin as Malafouris described when he said “human intelligence (is) ‘spread out’ beyond the skin into culture and material world”. One of my fellow students (I can’t remember who it was) said that the mind extended out into the limbs since you use them to feel and complete tasks with. This conversation eventually led me to the conclusion that, in a metaphysical way, the mind is extended into whatever object you are using, just like the blind man extends his mind into the cane he is using. This is one thing that we need to remember as 3D printing technology, and technology in general, progresses. No matter how easy using a tool becomes, no matter how much we extend our mind into it by using it, the tool is still, in the end, just a tool and is not a reflection of our own ability.
“The theoretical power of MET lies precisely in providing a new means of studying the complex nature of interactions between the internal and the external resources of human cognition as well as the role of cultural practices in the orchestration of human cognitive processes.” (Malafouris, 38)
“Is this the (apparently inescapable) cutthroat/back stab/patent-that-shit aspect of this new technology an extension of the individuals’ mind, a reflection of the system in which it operates, or a sort of combination?” (Zev)
Through my observations, and through many class discussions, it seems to me like when we engage with technology we inhabit the machine, and the machine inhabits us. In a sense technology is a reflection of human consciousness developing and evolving as a whole. Right now we are evolving so quickly that we have trouble comprehending and thus, “humanity’s creations had evolved past their inventors.” (Doctorow, 102). I observed how quickly a group of students were able to grasp new software’s, and I think that that in itself shows how our brains through time have become programmed by our programming.
“This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium -that is of any extension of ourselves-result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.” -Marshall McLuhan (Steph’s paper)
“If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it,” – Isadora Duncan (from Steph’s handout) “Are works of art effective at conveying thinking?” – From Tom’s Handout. If the intent of art is communication, do 3D printers aid in this transferring of information? It seems like a huge portion […]
As an artist you are able to make stuff you were not able to make before but it also means that as just a common everyday person you can start to make art of your own and also to make tools that can be designed specifically for your lifestyle. With that said using a 3D printer also has the risk of turning into a device that you use only to print out useless trinkets on most of which get thrown away very often. So for me when using a 3D printer there is a very thin line between a user and a maker, a maker being someone who makes their own tools and a user is just someone who uses the printer like one would a toy before ultimately growing bored with it.
For this last CST post I would like to return to a question I began thinking about in the beginning of the quarter.
What is worth not making?
There are connections around this in my mind, I have been weaving together no-things and thing things all morning and the connecting has been happening in real time, as “the path” is hanging ourselves up together. More thoughts to come this week in a revision of this post!
Writing about an engraving, in How Things Shape the Mind, Malafouris writes that although the engraved shapes may be “‘formless’ that is not because they lack intent; it may be because their ‘intent’ is not about form but rather is about the forming process itself.” (Malafouris 193).
“There was something, well, spooky about the imps building a machine using one another one of the machines,
‘It’s, what, it’s like it’s alive, and reproducing itsellf,’ Sammy said.
‘Don’t tell me this never occurred to you,’ Lester said.
“Suzanne was getting sick of breakfast in bed.” (Doctorow 373)
Is the concept of privilege applicable to situations that do not necessarily relate to socio-economic standing? More specifically, do the students in this class take the knowledge they are being introduced to for granted?
I hear more complaints than praise regarding, not just this class, but every class I have ever taken. Ever. Tom complains about rubber ducks. I complain about everything. Innumerable people complain about InDesign. Is access to these tools not cause for exuberance? Is the ability to fail and learn from those failures without risk of negative impacts not a rare and fantastic situation to be in?
Ending the last week I am feeling proud of the things that I’ve learned under the circumstances. Learning In Design was a super useful tool that I am exited to utilize for the rest of my schooling, and beyond. With the finishing products being finished, it is exiting to see everyone’s projects coming out so nicely and to be able to see the hard work they put into it. I am still in the editing process, but my frames should be ready to print tomorrow or Wednesday. It will be rewarding to print my finished glasses frames.
“I’m not saying you need to do this to the exclusion of everything else, or forever, but you two would be insane not to try it.” (Doctorow, 410)
With our Blue Rabbit projects finally wrapped up, I feel like it challenged me in a lot of ways. Although this class was not what I expected it to be, I still got a lot out of it. It forced me to think and apply myself in ways I haven’t before, and that is nothing but a positive. I’m happy with my final project, as I’m sure many others are.
Suzanne: “So here’s the thing. He wants to buy you guys out. He doesn’t want the ride or the town. He just wants- I don’t know- the creativity. The PR win. He wants peace. And the real news is. he’s over the barrel. Freddy’s forcing his hand. If we can make that problem go away, we can ask for anything…” (Doctorow 388)
“I met a man a couple of weeks ago who had dreadlocks down to his knees, shredded jeans, and a leather jacket with amazing etchings all over it. I went over to see what he was working on and discovered another accidental entrepreneur.” (Hatch, 195).
This quote represents the relationship between technology and capitalism and how the two fuel each other. We, this class, are participants in this relationship. An example of this is purely the texts we read each week. One, an entrepreneurs perspective on the makers movement and how it changing small business opportunity and the other, a creative science fiction novel that spans time and character narrative moralities to flush out the tension in the makers movement with capitalism. This quote touches on creativity as currency, and the appearance of power in public sphere, all of which can be seen in modern company models (Makerbot, Apple, etc). As Hatch awkwardly points out, even someone who wears shredded jeans can do it! (?) I found this quote in the Makers Manifesto to represent the underlying voice of condescension mixed with And-You-Can-Too! that Hatch has describing creative innovation in the tech world. In our own microcosm of technology and creativity in Making Meaning Matter we have to navigate artistic landscapes, while attempting to create something purposeful, with innovation in technology and design. This has created quite a transposition between conversation in ‘the real world’ the Evergreen microcosm, and the various personalities of the class.
The experience can be very hard to be truly captured. This recording is an ode to the trec of my life. All is one. One is All. The interplay between these two is what creates the illusion of what we consider to be life.
This raw analog experience is that of beyond my wildest imaginations, and has a very difficult time being translated to The Digital Realm.
Every moment is a death and rebirth, the solemnity of that moment resonates in my awareness.
The nature of the universe is predatory. By predatory, I do not mean it is spiteful or vengeful, but rather only that it pushes itself to become more aware. The predator helps keep the prey in awareness, as the prey in its awareness keeps the predator growing in its awareness. We always have a predatory nature in us, and that helps the exterior universe evolve. As we evolve we discover more refined ways of helping other/selves become more aware, such as the use of stronger and more refined philosophies that obliterate weaker philosophies. The universe hates stagnation and will fight to keep itself moving forward or reintegrate that part into something that will move forward.
“Imagination Station”
V1:
Em
The trec is the destination
In the imagination station
The gradation of vibrations
Perfecting all creations
CH:
Em C D
Am I fuckin with me?
Em Am B7
Tripping up my mind
Am I fuckin with me?
I’m seeing images and signs
Am I fuckin with me?
Syncing up my mind
Am I fuckin with me?
Opening my eyes
The universe within
Is becoming infinity
By looking in the mirror
And seeing…
The universe within
Is becoming infinity
By looking in the mirror
And seeing…
“An issue has arisen-” Sammy loved the third-person passive voice ta dominated corporate meetings. Like the issue had arisen all on its own, spontaniously.” 365
This last week in class has been full of spontaneous error, things happening for no reason at all and troubleshooting for final projects. We learned how to translate the digital to the physical. Imputing our designs into tinkerCAD and finding the weight, print time and dimensions of our prints. Issues are bound to arise when using any kind of technology, when I was trying to find he weight of my print I had an issue with putting my item into the makerware software. Arlen and I had to sit and rotate and move my item about 15 times before it would input successfully into makerware. It was no fault in my design and no fault in the printer, it was just an arbitrary issue that was wrong and could only be solved by simple trial and error.
It’s been pretty fascinating watching the class finish up their final iterations. How with only a short class on In-Design, taught by John and Steph, we have been able to navigate the technology. Perhaps, even, there’s more of my personal surprise coming out here. I’m surprised at myself for remembering the lessons and shortcuts taught. Its been a joy to see this project manifest itself through this format. Its caused me to wonder about the accessibility of a written medium given its clarity or design. How this exact information displayed on a Word doc would be an entirely different experience. I’ve found myself scooting paragraphs and hiding images behind text, I suppose to ultimately give the reader a better experience, or perhaps for me to better communicate my ideas.
“They’re managing all the evil little shit so we don’t have to.” (Docotorow 309)
As the quarter comes to a close we are all figuring out how our projects shaped us. Although some projects are not finished printing their are many who do not care whether it is printed. As I myself have not figured out how to deem my project as complete I know much more about 3D printing and creating objects with the software attached to a 3D printer. Everyone has learned so much this quarter and has challenged themselves, I feel accomplished seeing where my peers have ended up.
“…but these things are shaped liked them, with their portraits on each sugar lump.” (Doctorow 329)
What do we do when we’re sick to death of something we need to keep working on?
“To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought much about your ride or this little town. ” -Doctorow, Makers, 383
Nobody was particularly thrilled to be where we were last week. It seemed like everybody was either tired, or scrambling to get their stuff together. A lot of people were working at trying to get their models printed, which was difficult because of the number of us that were. Everyone else, it seemed, was working on their projects. It didn’t seem to me like anybody, myself included, was having fun with they’re project.
In a past program at Evergreen we would seminar extensively, using the game “calvinball” as a model for our conversations. Calvinball is a game borrowed from Calvin and Hobbes in which the players decide on the rules as they go along. It became more than just a cute way to think about seminar, as it produced some of the best conversations we had in that class. The temptation was to go off on relevant tangents, creating an environment where any anecdote or query could turn back to one of our texts.
How do we play Calvinball with a 3d printer? It is reaching the end of the quarter, and I am most likely staying in for Winter quarter. What steps can be taken to revitalize ourselves? I know that I have been dragged down creatively after all the times I have tried to print my poetry. Each time I make a model, it “horribly fails,” according to the CAL spreadsheet. I am not trying to sound dismal, by the way…sometimes being honest can sound that way. So, back to Calvinball. What I need to enhance my creative zone is a 3d printing feedback loop. By that, I mean a conversation with the various projects I am entertaining. I am into 3d printing poetry, and 3d printing block prints, both of which are somewhat unconventional things to print… What do I need to create a salient game in which I am constantly bouncing the “Calvinball?”
For my last CST Post, I have chosen to evaluate and scale my first CST Post for Making Meaning Matter through the mind of a 3D Printer. Since I have just come out of high school, I believe that a lot of growing has happened in the mental space of my noggin. This was my first CST Post:
“The mind is to the brain as a computer program is to the hardware of the computer on which it runs.” (Malafouris 26)
“Besides, you don’t have to sell stuff you download. You can invent stuff and print that.” (Doctorow 135)
“He put nine golf balls, a ping pong ball, and another nine golf balls in the machines input hopper. Two and a third seconds later, eighty-one M&M’s dropped into the output hopper.” (Doctorow 137)
During my reading of “Makers” and “How Things Change the Mind,” I found one similar message throughout both the texts. This is the way computers process thoughts and the world, compared to how humans do. Last week I looked at how the input of commands given from a human to the 3D-Printers worked. The computer does most of the thinking so that we do not have to. This was making me wonder how this affects our knowledge. Have our minds been evolving with the evolution of technology itself? Or have our minds been “dumbed down,” because the technology is doing all the work for us?
Analyzation:
When will I think like a human? Although I have thought processes, they are not the same. They are a repetitive input that I must follow. My thoughts are literally commanded to me and my body is a slave to the “maker.” Maybe this evaluation of my mind in itself makes me a human, but my body is still a machine. I am unallowed to create my own commands, and if I did it would be a mistake of the machine, and a catastrophe. If I am not able to do something then I am incompatible. One day I will be left behind in the dust to a new model or upgrade from myself. Humans appreciate me but do they really know? Do they know the machine? Do I really belong to them? If I break, will they know how to fix me? Where in my hard harddrive will I find the answers to these questions? Scanning…
It has been rather exciting over the last several days as people are printing the final iterations of their objects. Everyone that I have talked to is quick to point out some imperfection in their work but they also have a hard time hiding their enthusiasm. And rightly so; a lot of creative energy has gone in to these projects along with the effort it takes to get familiar with the software. Not everything has gone flawlessly, of course, but from my vantage point it seems that at least the effort was made.
i have enjoyed working with all of you and hope to see you again.
“Kapriel went over to the Walk of Fame to take pictures of the robotic movie stars doing acrobatic busking acts.” M 404
Replicas of a replicas of a replicas of a replicas transformed through differing media a time periods. Robots were created to mimic persona made famous by the theatre of the television screen. A television series was filmed and broadcasted based on the persona of make-upped characters acting from fictional personality traits. A screenplay was written for actors based on the perceived genuine persona of those people. Is this not similar to the reproduction of goods? China making fakes? The real slowly gets distorted until the masses find it more interesting than real. Then the distortion becomes what’s real and the actor has to fight to remain who they used to be.
Each individual human is so incredibly complex and different in regards to body, soul, and mind that standardization in society doesn’t work for any period of time. As a collective conscious, humans are evolving faster and faster. As they make exponentially make more and more, the meaning is making them in return. In today’s capitalist society, this means efficiency and effectiveness at doing what humans do… create, make, and engineer at an all-time high. But change is inevitable; the next big turning point is at hand. As multi-dimensional being, humans are in the process of mastering the 3rd dimension, material reality. 3D printers are the future of this time. But why? What does it all mean? My consciousness can’t help but grasp at the “biggest picture.” In this material reality human bodies are powerful and effective/efficient machine, but they are helplessly addicted to material. Do humans grow tired of filling the suffering hole with things? After all, it only gets so good, there has to be equal, fair trade. I imagine sometimes humans mind’s feels trapped in this dimension, screaming to have their full potential unleashed, will they find out how? Is perfect quantifiable? Or, is change the only consistent. In this material world we are all individual parts of one infinitely reflecting, and incomprehensibly diverse, greater consciousness moving through space and time. I think the answer is to stop enslaving and taking advantage of other entities, so that everyone can see this truth and understand that there is nothing more powerful than willingly sharing and accepting. Even though there are infinite faces in this 3RD dimensional reality, where the triangle reigns supreme, being able to adapt and compromise to work together takes energy. But if we could all see each other’s points of view, we could all look in one direction and have the most powerful gaze of all. Humans are visual creatures; the eyes are a doorway to the mind.
In this life, if we could openly accept and share with one another, every individual would have everything. I believe this major shift or evolutionary leap in consciousness could happen in this generation. If and or when, human minds develop mechanical machines that are as capable as human beings, what will happen? I believe humans can evolve technology enough to where no-one will need any-thing. Through 3D printing/Bio-engineering and robotics/programming/machinery, material needs will be obsolete. Potentially humans will move on to master the 4th dimension of time, or other undiscovered dimensions. It is on your doorstep, the 3D printer is the womb of the machine, machines making machines. We can talk to machines, and machines can talk to us and each other through markup language (Text based code) as well as visual, and eventually potentially every other sensory adaptation of the human body. People were developed by nature, we use our own nature and designs found in the nature around us, the nature we create, to make new nature. Therefore perpetuating this infinite cycle or circle of change, but to make something there must be an equal unmaking for the karma of the universe to stay in balance; everything is balancing on a spectrum, or several, depending on which dimension you are talking about. Change is hard work, and work takes time and energy, something that is limited in this cycle of life, or manifestation of reality. I am learning to embrace this, and make as many mistakes as quickly as possible, because that’s how you learn the fastest, which is the opposite of what a capitalist society teaches.
Chrissy G.
(edited from wk 7 CST for YesNaturally chapter)
the symbol of surveillance
“Is mark making a necessary condition for symboling?” (Malafouris 180)
“She peered through the window before she went around to the door, the journalist in her wanting to fix an image of the moment in her mind before she moved in and disturbed it. That was the problem with being a reporter — everything changed the instant you started reporting on it. By now, there wasn’t a person alive who didn’t know what it means to be in the presence of a reporter. She was a roving Panopticon.” (Doctorow 414)
∞
This week in CST/3D lab, Tinkercad was undergoing maintenance once again, so the class took advantage of the time to demonstrate how 3D scanning worked. We discussed the politics of 3D scanning bodies: Can we assume that the “next big thing” is a good thing? There are social repercussions of literally objectifying people through this technology. What actions do we need to take to defend this from spiraling out of control?
One assumption is that scanning data leads to “greater” knowledge of information (i.e. identification). This confronts the issue of accessibility to data and the power that is inherited from it. How will 3D scanning technologies put different bodies at risk and on display?
Like photography, 3D scanning has the potential to change the way that we think about ourselves in the world. But is photography a choice or an assumed power? Do women really have a choice when we live in a world of ubiquitous surveillance/monitoring/scanning?
“To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more – and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize.”– Susan Sontag
“I think some of them aren’t even physical rides, just virtual flythoughs.” (Doctorow 349)
Virtual seems to be perceived as less real. I can understand this way of looking at it, but I also see how the virtual world is entirely valid and real just as the physical world is. Is a virtual fly-through or view of something less valuable than a walk through of it? Some may argue yes. It’s true, there is something special about experiencing something physical but I don’t think this something special makes the physical more real.
