President Obama declared June to be LGBT Pride Month and so, I though it would be appropriate for us here at Cyborgology, to take a moment and recognize how LGBT peoples were foundational to the construction of cyborg studies and other inter/trans/multidisciplinary fields. I should note upfront that this incredibly brief summary, from a macro perspective, does some violence to the critical nuance of all the fields mentioned. I hope this post encourages further research, not angry comments about my (acknowledged) hurried treatment of the subject matter. Consider this more of a conversation-starter, than a stand-alone digest. I would also like to thank my good friend Naomi Ardjomandkermani for inspiring me to do this post. She does fantastic work with intersex communities on the web at http://intersexresources.moonfruit.com.

more...

Cyborgology editors Nathan Jurgenson and PJ Rey were recently interviewed by Maryland Morning’s Sheilah Kast about how social media is being used in 2012 presidential campaigns and which candidates are likely to benefit most

Click here to listen to the whole interview.

Here, in this prelude panel discussion to the Internet as Playground and Factory conference, Tiziana Terranova presents a brief and excellent summery of how contemporary Marxist theory—particularly, Italian Marxist theories of socially-produced value—is useful in understanding the social and economic conditions of the Web.  It’s a bit dense, but, in brief, she argues that much of the value produced in modern capitalist societies now comes from outside the workplace.  Markets have learned to capture value from our everyday social activities.  The ideology of neo-liberalism has moved society even further away from the traditional wage-for-labor relationships that used to characterize the workplace by convincing people to view their individual labor-power as a (sometimes risky) investment that may or may not result in satisfying returns.

Terranova was an early advocate of viewing cyberspace and the material world as co-determining (what we describe, on this blog, as “augmented reality”).  Consider her (2000) statement:

I am concerned with how the “outernet” – the network of social, cultural, and economic relationships that criss-crosses and exceeds the Internet – surrounds and connects the latter to larger flows of labor, culture, and power. It is fundamental to move beyond the notion that cyberspace is about escaping reality in order to understand how the reality of the Internet is deeply connected to the development of late postindustrial societies as a whole.

The intrinsic materialism of Marxism proves quite productive in this case insofar as it draws Internet theorists toward viewing the material implications of digital politics. more...

As the 2012 presidential race ever so slowly gains momentum it remains clear that social media will be influencing elections for a long time to come. In the long run, does the shift towards social media campaigning change who is perceived to be a legitimate candidate? If so, social media might change who wins elections and therefore changes how we are governed. Avoiding [for now] the issue of whether social media has inherent tendencies towards the left or right, what I want to ask is: opposed to old media, does new media benefit political underdogs and outsiders?

As Republicans announce presidential bids on Twitter and Obama gets friendly with Zuckerberg and Facebook, it seems that the presidential campaign has found itself augmented by and reliant upon social media tools; some of the very same tools many of us use, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on. Part of their popularity is that one can view and be viewed by people from all over the world in an instant and for no cost. It does not cost money to publish this post or to tweet about it later on. Social media campaigning is also relatively cheap; indeed, often times free. Alternatively, print advertising is expensive because space is scarce and the scarcity of broadcast time makes television and radio too costly for underdogs and outsiders to fairly compete. However, when we exchange atoms for bits we enter into a world of abundance, a world where broadcasting a message quickly and globally becomes cheap and easy.

This cheaper social-media campaign style may remove or at least lesson more...

Already, we are being inundated with stories about the how social media will shape the 2012 campaigns (and how Facebook may, or may not, transform the Presidency itself).  Two facts, however, limit the potential role social media will, ultimately, play in the 2012 election:

1.) Young people are heavy users of social media, but are unlikely to vote.

2.) Older folks are likely to vote, but are much less involved in social media.

Thus, the reality is that social media is best at reaching those least likely votes. In its 2008 post-election analysis, Pew found that while 72% of Americans 18-29 year of age were using the Internet for political activities or information gathering (and 49% used social-networking sites for these purposes), only 22% of Americans 65+ years of age engaged in such activities on the Internet (and a mere 2% did so on social media).

At the same time, young adults are roughly 33% less likely to vote than their grandparents. more...

Costas K is a graphic designer who used Cyborgology Editor Nathan Jurgenson‘s post on digital dualism as part of a design project. The physical book explores the intersection of atoms and bits. The creator was invited to write a short essay about the project.

As kids, we were told to stop ‘wasting’ our time with electronic devices and that we should be outside, engaging with the ‘real’ world. Early on, the idea was planted into us that what we do using a computer is an alternative false state that bears no value. To still believe this is naive. Personally, I have met some of my best friends online. I make transactions, articulate opinions, receive feedback and get commissioned professional projects. How is this not real?

Still, when approaching the topic the first expressions that came to mind were ‘physical world’ and ‘digital world’ – the cornerstones of digital dualism. Nathan Jurgenson’s text ‘Digital dualism versus augmented reality’ helped me put things into perspective, before exploring them visually.

It is my belief that online activity is a continuation of what we do physically, more...

A company called Quiring Monuments has recently begun marketing augmented tombstones that are designed to assist smartphone-carrying visitors in accessing digital information about the deceased.  On these tombstones, qr codes are given the kind of prominence once exclusively reserved for a person’s name, dates, and epitaph.  The qr codes link users to individualized sites that contain information about the person being memorialized.  This means that part of the memorializing process now includes constructing an enduring Web presence for the deceased.

This raises a few questions.  How important to the memorializing process is being in the physical presence of a the body?  Will crystallized bits of memory in cyberspace deepen, or even eclipse, the memorial experience found in physical graveyards?  Facebook has already adopted a policy for memorializing accounts (also discussed in the official blog).  Are graveyards becoming redundant?

For more, see Bellamy Pailthorp’s NPR story, “Technology Brings Digital Memories To Grave Sites.”

Washington D.C.-based musicians Bluebrain created an album that is actually a location-aware iPhone app called The National Mall (out today via Lujo records). Open the app while on the National Mall in Washington, DC and the music reacts to how you move about your surroundings. As reported on Wired UK,

approach a lake and a piano piece changes into a harp. Or, as you get close to the children’s merry-go-round, the wooden horses come to life and you hear sounds of real horses getting steadily louder based on your proximity.

We have previously looked at augmented reality art on this blog, such as Jon Rafman’s compelling Street View images,  Google’s Street Art View and Clement Valla’s “Postcards from Google Earth, Bridges” project. The National Mall is an augmented album, imploding digital media with your specific movements within physical space. The listener-turned-cyborg’s experience of the album comes in the form of the codetermining interaction of media and physical space.

The artists will release their next location-aware augmented albums for Brooklyn’s Prospect Park followed by another set to the length of Rt1 in California.

The Cyborgology Editors Nathan Jurgenson and PJ Rey are the guests on the latest Office Hours podcast. We chat about the Theorizing the Web 2011 conference we put on, as well as the Cyborgology blog. Listen here.