{"id":21651,"date":"2016-09-26T20:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T00:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=21651"},"modified":"2016-09-28T16:30:19","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T20:30:19","slug":"getting-inside-the-apparatus-at-xoxo-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2016\/09\/26\/getting-inside-the-apparatus-at-xoxo-fest\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Inside the Apparatus at XOXO Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Vilem Flusser\u2019s work is still rather obscure in English language academic circles. Only a handful of major works from the media philosopher have been translated from his native German or adopted Portugese, and even that was only in the past two decades, well after his death in a car accident in 1991. While teaching MFA students, I found Flusser\u2019s The Shape of Things<\/i>, a collection of essays on design, to be extremely helpful when seeking to define some basic terms (for instance, the word \u201cdesign\u201d itself). But in my own work considering our technologically mediated world, I found 1983\u2019s Towards of Philosophy of Photography<\/i> a critical read.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the book (at 94 pages, it feels more like a long essay), Flusser uses his familiar footnote- and citation-less conversational prose to present \u201can attempt to sum up the essential quality of photography\u201d (76). Of most use to us here is the theorist\u2019s apparatus<\/i>, a conceptualization of the power programmed into a consumer device (e.g., a camera) by the individuals who design, build, sell, and distribute the technology. Of those who program the apparatus, Flusser writes that \u201ctheir intention is not to change the world but to change the meaning of the world\u201d (25). Photographers, under the impression that they are controlling the camera through its various settings and functions, are actually falling in line to the predetermined routines determined by the apparatus\u2019s programmers. As an artist and educator, I\u2019m always looking for ways to best elucidate Flusser\u2019s apparatus concept, especially through \u201creal world\u201d examples. Earlier this\u00a0month, I had the privilege of visiting a conference in which the apparatus and its programmers were an ever-present theme.<\/p>\n

Started in 2012 as a Kickstarter project<\/a>, XOXO Festival is billed<\/a> as \u201can experimental festival celebrating independent artists who work on the internet.\u201d Each year, festival co-founder and speaker-curator, Andy Baio, invites an eclectic group of\u00a0 <\/span>YouTubers, podcasters, game designers, comedians, and more to speak to a crowd that, this year, reached over 1,000 strong. The conference, which takes place in Portland, Oregon, can feel almost too<\/i> zeitgeisty at times (the food truck featuring pajama-laden servers dispensing cereal was, to its credit, quite popular), but the conspicuous lack of corporate logos and startup slinging pitch-men makes it harder to admit I was ever jealous of those who attended SXSW when I was stuck at home.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that those who spoke at the most recent festival are not busy thinking about money, intellectual property, contracts, freelance rates, and all of the other financially-focused stresses that \u201cinternet creators\u201d face. On the contrary, some of the most powerful presentations were from artists like Gaby Dunn, comedian and YouTuber, whose project, \u201cJust Between Us\u201d, may lose all ad revenue going forward due to a subject-matter which YouTube might deem \u201cnon-advertising-friendly content<\/a>\u201d\u2014this, after Dunn is already dealing with her previous employer, BuzzFeed, continuing to use her likeness<\/a> in promotional and site material after she left because her contract stated she could not do any non-BuzzFeed-related work. Later in the day, cartoonist David Rees showed slide after slide detailing his freelance revenue sources over the past decade. The next morning, we heard from Esra\u2019a Al Shafei, Bahraini civil rights advocate building platforms for voices of the underrepresented.<\/p>\n

In recent years, it has percolated into popular culture that the devices and services we depend on daily may not be nearly as mystical as the marketing and hype surrounding them would have us believe. See, for example, the \u201cthere is no cloud<\/a>, just someone else\u2019s computer\u201d trope, or the decidedly more somber tales of suicide<\/a> out of the factories in which human beings assemble our phones under inhumane conditions. These are, in effect, evidence of the apparatus at work, changing the meaning of our world through the programming of our tools.<\/p>\n

XOXO stood as a rare opportunity for those inside the apparatus to share their experiences. At this conference, you were constantly reminded that \u201cthe internet\u201d is not just a bunch of \u201csomeone else’s computers\u201d or even just rows of cabinets in a warehouse in North Carolina or Washington State. The internet apparatus, at the risk of sounding like a Stanley Greenberg screenplay<\/a>, is people. Even as someone who has developed plenty of work for the web, hearing from those who have engaged in meaningful relationship-building, power struggles, self-exploration, and even just a bunch of tomfoolery online felt like blinders were being removed and I could see the power relationships that had been present all along.<\/p>\n

Flusser\u2014as oversimplified as the apparatus may seem\u2014provides an accessible and apt introduction to power dynamics in our technologically mediated world. The apparatus speaks to a programming, but doesn\u2019t force us to consider a top or bottom, an above or below. This is extremely helpful when the entropic nature of forces of influence within the creative industries (and the rhetoric therein) confuse us to the point of believing we<\/i> are the ones in charge of our \u201cuser generated content\u201d, our \u201conline selves\u201d, our \u201cpersonal brands\u201d, etc.<\/p>\n

The founders and organizers of XOXO have already promised a hiatus in 2017 and are unsure if the event will ever return, so I feel fortunate to have attended even one of the conferences. For now, I hope \u201conline creators\u201d can use the community built around the festival and its inevitable off-shoots to keep reminding one another that the apparatus is a heavily programmed force. At the end of Towards A Philosophy<\/i>, Flusser argues that the apparatus might be counter-programmed\u2014that we might be able to figure out ways to use it that break the prescriptions of the programmer. I can\u2019t say I see that as a distinct possibility, at least not within our current landscape. But five years\u2019 worth of healthy audiences and insightful presenters, all working in spite of the apparatus, is perhaps a glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n

Gabi Schaffzin is a PhD student in Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego. He is rarely this optimistic, made\u00a0evident by his Twitter<\/a> timeline or website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vilem Flusser\u2019s work is still rather obscure in English language academic circles. Only a handful of major works from the media philosopher have been translated from his native German or adopted Portugese, and even that was only in the past two decades, well after his death in a car accident in 1991. While teaching MFA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[10409,36522,140,143,12731,331],"class_list":["post-21651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-conference","tag-flusser","tag-internet","tag-labor","tag-precarious-labor","tag-the-internet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2071"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21651"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21658,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21651\/revisions\/21658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}