A discussion of Burning Man may, at first, seem out of place on a technology blog; however, as sociologist Fred Turner has previously observed, the ideology of Burner culture is profoundly co-implicated with the prevailing ideology of Web.  It is more than mere coincidence that this particular festival has exploded in proximity to Silicon Valley.  It is also more than coincidence that Google and other tech company virtually shut down during this event.  The week-long temporary city in a desert attracts people from around the world. The community is founded upon the (seemingly paradoxical) principals of “radical self-reliance” and “communal effort.” For a week, Burners collectively construct a festive atmosphere that separates themselves from the institutions and customs of their everyday lives. There is a vibrant gift economy with a focus on the decommodification of goods and services (though, of course, like the Internet, much money changes hands behind the scenes: for infrastructure, transport, illicit ticket sales, drugs, etc.). Everyone is encouraged to participate in all aspects of the community (to “prosume” their surroundings), and in doing so, to reach a better understanding of self. This is all embodied in the Ten Principles of Burning Man. more...

Although this short documentary  (full transcript here) feels more like a glorified advertisement for the video game “Deus Ex: Human Revolution,” it does raise some interesting issues we deal with regularly on this blog. more...

I spoke at the wonderful “Digital Ethnography Weekend” conference last month in Italy. There, I furthered my argument about what I call “digital dualism,” the fallacy that views the on and offline as separate spheres as opposed to my support of an “augmented reality” paradigm that views these spheres as always enmeshed and dialectically co-determining.

Because this was a “digital ethnography” conference, I applied the augmented reality framework to this methodology and argued that, instead, we should be doing “augmented ethnography”, an ethnography that takes as its unit of analysis a reality comprised of atoms as well as bits, always dialectically co-determining. Colleague Alessandro Caliandro and I debated these ideas in the question-and-answer portion of my talk (with much-appreciated thoughts from Adam Arvidsson, as well). Caliandro has posted his summary of my talk as well as his criticism here. I welcome this criticism and want to respond to it below.

First, Caliandro’s development of my argument is charitable. I also very much appreciate the thoughtfulness of the critique. However, I do need to make a correction to the way he summarized augmented reality, and this correction will be important for my response to the criticism. I do not think that the differences between the physical and digital are “irrelevant”; indeed, they are quite important and I’ve written about them before (e.g., here and here). Atoms and bits have very different properties (for instance, atoms tend to be scarce and bits more abundant). It is my contention that these very different spheres come together to form our augmented reality. In fact, as I argue here, it is only under the assumption of augmented reality that we can fully explicate the relevant differences between the physical and digital. With this correction in mind, let’s move forward. more...

There has been some terrific debate on my theorizing of what I call “augmented reality.” In brief, I reject “digital dualism”, the tendency to view the on and off line as separate spheres, and instead argue that we should view them as enmeshed, creating what I call “augmented reality.” [I talk more about this here.]

Today, I am posting some of the debate that occurred over Twitter and another post responding to a critique of a talk I gave on the topic.

One criticism has been that the augmented reality perspective somehow obscures the important ways in which the on and offline are different. I agree that the spheres indeed have different properties. I write here and here about, for example, how atoms tend to be more scarce than bits. Further, I write here about how these important differences are best viewed through the augmented lens.

It is this last point which I feel is most important in responding to the specific criticisms given by Zeynep Tufekci over Twitter. It is my hope that future conversations on this topic take into account the points made in that short essay. I’ll post the debate, still ongoing, below.

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Society today exists within a level of technology greater than the human race has ever experienced. If the idea that “we live in public” with digital media remains true, it is then equally true that we even die in the public sphere. This assertion thus substantially modifies the relationship between the living and the dead; specifically regarding the mechanisms of mourning. In other words, as danah boyd states, “we are all authors of our digital biographies”; we are supposed to be also authors of our own tombstones.

The digital space provides an advancement in the modern dichotomy theorized by Baudrillard regarding the separation of the city as a place of the living and the cemetery as a place of the dead. He argues that what is typical in the Western Hemisphere is that the city and the cemetery must necessarily remain separated and distant to legitimize a taboo of death. The cemetery is demonstrated to be a place of segregation; a ghetto. more...

So many conversations that inform the content on this blog happen elsewhere, especially on Twitter. We’re going to better integrate Twitter and the Cybogology blog which will involve posting some of our personal tweets as well as conversations and debates with others here on the blog.

This past week I found a Noam Chomsky interview on a local “scene” blog here in DC. It was posted about seven months ago. In the interview, Chomsky talks about digital communication technologies and goes the route that so many older intellectuals do: electronic communications, be it texting, the internet or social media, are inherently “shallow.”

Here is the conversation on Twitter followed by a little more analysis that didn’t quite fit into 140 characters. more...