Considering that my peers over at the virtual reading group are a bit behind (I’m blaming Mcginnis mostly), I’ll just post some of the interpretive material I’m working on here instead. As a warning to those that have already read the text (Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and The New Technoculture) though, I’m a bit behind myself. In fact, I’ll admit that I’ve only read the first fifty pages:

Enough of the hoop-la though, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Reading Zeros and ones as a kind of multi-faceted feminist biography is perhaps more entertaining than theoretically engaging. I understand the main points (the back cover calls them “polemical”) that Sadie Plant is trying to make: A) Women were and still remain oppressed by the misogynistic regime of male enterprise. B) Although this has and will remain a problem for at least a very short time period (she sites work statistics that indicate women will soon hold more significant positions of economic power), women still continue to make important contributions at what initially might appear to be the fringe of development, but later must be understood and read as the point of invention.

It seems that Plant’s main point, following on the second issue addressed above, is that the very marginalization that denied women many positions (employment, social, and otherwise) actually put them in an important place; the fringe. Here, Plant is trying to reinvent or at least reclassify what the fringe means. In order to rewrite the narrative of feminine participation – to demonstrate that women actually gave impetus to the digital culture that we still see evolving – Plant has to turn to the fringe as it is classically interpreted (outside, detached, etc.) into what one might call the point of invention.  For such prominent figures as Ada Lovelace, it was the act of being pushed aside, that potentially contributed to her development of technological precursors to automated computing. As Plant puts it, quoting others, ”[Women] have functioned as, ‘an infrastructure unrecognized as such by our society and our culture.’” Though man appears to have been at the center of certain developments, women were the actual “infrastructure”:

Man once made himself the point of everything. He organized, she operated. He ruled, she served. He made the great discoveries, she busied herself in the footnotes. He wrote the books, she copied them. She was his helpmate and assistant, working in support of him, according to his plans. She did the jobs he considered mundane, often fiddling, detailed, repetitive operations with which he couldn’t be bothered; the dirty, mindless, semiautomatic tasks to which he thought himself superior.”

Though I think it is pretty clear where Plant is headed with this analysis, I’ll quote a little further:

“women have not merely had a minor part to play in the emergence of the digital machines. When computers were vast systems of transistors and valves needed to be coaxed into action, it was women who turned them on…Hardware, software, wetware–before their beginnings and beyond their ends, women have been the simulators, assemblers, and programmers of the digital machines” (Plant 37)

The dramatic shift that one encounters in Plant’s text is a rather simplistic and temporary inversion of hierarchy. Plant’s polemical point is simply that though women have been fucked around for as long as the human species has been in existence, it seems that this might have given impetus to the development of contemporary computing (digital and otherwise) that we encounter today. Plant even makes mention of the increasing marginalization of men in certain economic and cultural circles. This doesn’t mean, though, that we should read digital/techno-culture as being wholly advantageous to women. In fact, I’m pretty sure that this will be the point that Plant addresses in the next section entitled “culture.

If something can be grasped from this point though, it might be the part about rereading the point of disadvantage (the fringe) as one of invention.  More appropriately, one would have to understand this as both the point of disadvantage and the point of invention.  Here, I’d be interested in discussing the networks of operators that have been set up to play games like Second Life.  Though now a quite a familiar story, I’d like to try and trace something similar to that which Plant is trying to accomplish though outside the lines of femininity. This is not to counteract her work, but rather, to comprehend the group at the fringe (something like the employees of Double Happiness) as being much larger and much more complex. I feel like understanding this group and its contributions might be important to a more complicated reading of digital and techno-culture.

Sometimes the Register is on – dead on. But then, sometimes their writers seem to miss the point entirely. Such is the case with a recent top ten best and worst review of, by now, infamous I-phone applications. Do I think that such a list is warranted? Sure. The problem is that the people over at the register, or at least the writer(s) of this particular column, seem to misunderstand what I-phone applications are really all about. Though I give them credit for doing a pretty decent job of showcasing some of the better and more useful features available to users, their analysis of the worst applications leaves much to be desired.

The first, and perhaps biggest, criticism that I have of the Register’s “worst list” is that it forgets the logic and nature of these “applications” all together. Though I agree that there is really little use for something like a “soft-serve poo dispenser” or a candle application, I’m pretty sure that such features are the mainstay of the application phenomena. This is to say, that most people don’t use I-phone apps for anything incredibly sophisticated. If the I-phone is a social tool, it is so, at least partially, because when people get drunk they show each other the Moustache and shotgun application or the nuddie pen function.  And, one must note, the marketers for such applications allude to this quite explicitly in nearly every advertisement that they put out there. The people at Apple realize that this is their core demographic:

 
Fact is, despite what some “educated” people want to believe, most users don’t give a shit about stocks, bonds, and indexes. Simply put, most users just aren’t interested in an application that provides this type of information. In the rhetoric of the advertisers,  ”there is an app. for everything.” If you want to find out how many calories a meal contains, there is an application for that. If you want to calculate the distance to the nearest sea-food restaurant there is an application for that. If you want to rehearse your comprehension of Christopher Walken’s absurd dialect, in the language of the marketers, “there’s an app. for that.” 

The relative cultural and economic success of the I-phone marketing campaign is based on the ubiquity of apps. There is, or at least will be, an application for everything. The point is that you can’t have one without the other: You can laud applications that give you stock indexes and allow you to read philosophical texts all you want, but these apps. couldn’t exist without applications devoted to the most absurd details of everyday existence (ie farting, chuck norris, feces, sex, and television).

Excuse me if this is just a blatant advertisement for another advertising source, but I’m kind of interested in what Social Vibe is doing in terms of bringing “charity” to the blogosphere. Yet another example of how online community/participation has real economic effects. Although the prerequisite to charity dollars is that a blogger must feature advertisements on his/her/it’s space, I like that Social Vibe allows you to chose which advertisments you feel comfortable with. Sprint? eh. KidRobot? maybe.

Finally, I regained some of the computing power I had previously. Now, whether to your dismay or fortune, I can post a few pictures of the current project that I’m working on. There isn’t a really steady theme motivating these pieces at the moment, just some glimpses of an idea:

Though I’ve talked about this pretty incessantly the last few weeks, I feel I need to reiterate, at least on the basis that it might provide me some comfort. This month will likely test my ability to handle pretty dramatic changes. Returning home from a short vacation in North Carolina I have much to address on both a personal and professional level. The girlfriend and I are moving to a new apartment on the otherside of town; a nifty little one bedroom abode located directly above the party store at which I currently work. I’m pretty excited about the move, but wish it wasn’t taking them so damn long to finish painting the place. In any event, we should begin transferring some of the many boxes inhabiting our basement very soon.

On a more professional note, I’m working on a collaborative project with my cousin. Partially, the motivation for such work was inspired by weeks of utter boredom. Mostly, I’ve just grown increasingly interested in the type of work that can be done between people online. Although many of us operate blogs, communicate with faculty and friends, and contribute importantly to networks and social groups, I feel that there is room (at least on a personal level) for more intense online relationships. With this in mind, I recently participated (as blogged previously) to the formation of an online reading collective and will soon be designing a site with my cousin that will likely showcase some of my collage work/illustrations and his minimalist dj sets.  In any event, this is all a breath of very fresh air.

Finally. I’m heading to North Carolina for a few days. I’m sure I’ll have some updates from the road/hotel.

I’m pretty excited for the revitalization project that the people at Motor City Brewing Works are launching very soon. The plan, if I’m understanding it correctly is to renovate the rather dilapidated alleyway immediately behind the building by using innovative “green” techniques. It seems that there is general neighborhood support for a project that would essentially be the first of its kind. If anything, this is exactly the way that we have to begin thinking of city neighborhoods. With an old school city like Detroit the bulldoze and rebuild philosophy of recent will likely have a detrimental impact. In a poltico-economic climate where re fabrication is king, I’m glad that prominent members of the community are stepping up their game. Not to mention, I’ll have a little easier time parking now that they are addressing that situation.

I’m not sure what is more interesting – the mostly visual web-diary of a homeless person or the language a recent contributor to Metafilter used to describe this individual’s postings:

A homeless man in DC has a wordpress blog which he posts images to using a remote camera. I saw this man in the DC metro yesterday, hauling a shopping cart around that not only contained his clothes, but was also festooned with cardboard signs advertising different web addresses. Wandoojin.wordpress.com was the only one I could make out, and though the fellow is clearly disturbed (though the site is not disturbing), to me it’s a fascinating look at how accessible technology is to everyone, especially the folks who have too many words, images of Gremlins sitting on the US, and conspiracy theories involving Teddy Kennedy and the Clintons to keep to himself. Also, he’s apparently made good use of the Apple store near my office. (I wonder if he knows the Arlington rap?

Though I’m interested in discussing social identity I’m also considering the specifics of cultural identity in the twenty-first century. It becomes more complicated than a basic access issue if one considers the contributor’s mention of the “Arlington rap,” at this moment a rather exclusive pop cultural artifact. One must also consider that twenty-first century inclusiveness is determined by one’s knowledge of cultural iconography.

I started a virtual reading group called The Criminal Rabbit Collective that one can and will find here. Although the four founding members of this reading group already created a tenative reading list (the list includes Baudrillard, Philip K. Dick, etc.), there is still room and time for suggestions. Though I’m sure my readers lead pretty hectic lives, I encourage you all to participate.

My music purchases have been incredibly infrequent as of late. The big move is coming up in less than a month and this means that there is little money left over for the type of expenditures that I enjoy. As a result of said inability to spend and the fact that I currently have limited access to the Internet (an equally devastating point of contention),  I’ve found myself in the unenviable position of trying to make due with the material that I have already collected. Though I assure you that I have a pretty substantial archive – one that would likely satisfy even the most savvy of aficionados – I’m not sure that I can make this work much longer. I feel like a welfare dad trying to stretch the lemonade with water. I’m at the breaking point. Like the rest of you culture-heads, I need a new fix – come on, just give it to me already!

In any event, this has given me some time to reflect on some earlier reviews. All in all, I have to say that my first reading of M. Ward’s Hold Time was pretty misguided. Though I was right to point to the aspects of gospel that we see emerging with this latest installment, I’m not sure that I devoted enough attention to the way that certain imagistically religious overtones are given voice in this album. This is to say, that although nearly every song is thematically concerned with the powers that be or the singular monolithic power that is/was, I’m not sure that one could call it devoutly religious. Here, I don’t even mean to make the distinction that the songs are distinctly critical of religion. The album is neither for or against. Rather, it offers a more distinctly imagistic version of the “great divide.” It is more of a mysticism than a devout revelling. And, perhaps this is where I was on the right path with my first reading. Though the figure can be interpreted as God capital “G” it can also be interpreted as god lower-case “g.” The difference here is between the almost overpowering figure of Christianity and the figure of the everyday hero. Though the term “hero” has a rather cliche meaning, I’d like to think that it allows me to gesture to something more ubiquitous than a single God. This is to say that M. Ward’s work is more about the grand in everyday people and action than the grand in the monolithic Christian sense.

And, we can read that this is where one might find the thread flowing through Ward’s work. In earlier texts Ward gave an almost mythic life to the inanimate – helicopters and giant wooden ships. With his latest installment, he centers more on the mythical person. I don’t know that this is even a very profound assessment of his progression. I just happen to like the way that Ward is able to make something out of almost nothing. And, it must be noted, this is why most critics can’t stand Ward. It is not that he isn’t horribly talented – because I think that he is – it’s just that his voice and style really make the record(s) work. In a sense, it’s an argument against content. With Ward it is all aesthetic – it is all affective response. Musicians can’t stand Ward because all he really does is that he sings average material in this incredibly bassy and floating voice while referencing a pretty accessible tradition – Beck mixed with Johnny Cash.

I’m sure I’ll have more on this later, as I think this is a fruitful distinction to make at this point.