INTERMEDIAL SUBJECTIVITY
İmac dunlop 1994

Sometimes, too much talk and excitement arises out of the conceptualisation of a "post-human revolution", when such a concept can as easily be described as a "post human tyranny".
Spirituality may be too much of an ambiguous term. Whereas the human "spirit" -whatever that is - may hark back to the beginnings of how this thing called "consciousness" started to develop.

We cannot ignore the impact of social and political culture on technology and its development. Yet aligning these factors into some identifiable methodology is still something, which is developing.
If we hope to truly understand technology and its relationship with, or to human culture, we have to investigate things like:

A) previous technology, which is now part of our world -such as the automobile, and others - and what affect it, has on us now that it is relatively commonplace.

B) the differences in access, the relationships between new technology and resources, individually, locally, and globally (financial, personal, social, and more)

C) the impact new technology politics has/will continue to have on people's lives/privacy/personal economies, and more.

The body is being consigned a secondary status. Techno-sophistication such as that present in the "talking head"/physical inactivity of television, is transforming its status and its meaning through newer "broad-church" concepts such as "interactive" media.
Interactive through the senses, interpassive with the inactive body.

Information is also the exchange of sophistication. The future of technology is still largely tangible only through its translation into written text. Information, particularly in its binary form is represented as language symbol, general narrative, because of the limitations of virtual space. On one level it exists in the same metaphoric reality as a book of fiction, opening an imaginative eye onto a dream world implied by the written word. Yet even that "level" is primarily a function of consciousness.

In the realm of science for example, Schrodinger's cat is metaphorically used to refer to aspects of doubt which arise out of inspection of the visibly invisible - a reference to the necessity of perceptual abstractions in attempting to function as an "unprejudiced observer" to an event.

This functioning of abstract observation - and through it abstract conclusion - sits comfortably within philosophic definitions of reality based on Judeo-Christian, or "Western" classical logistic thought.

In our time, the "discovery of deconstruction" or the "creation of chaos" is simply one aspect of a continual disembodiment/disempowerment used to shore up familiar foundations. What escapes the eye through the veil of predictability is the unwelcome confinement of ideology to visual conscious.
The witness - though subverted - is in constant demand because of an idealised concept: the impartiality of the observer.

It is this "witness/observer" concept rather than of the author/creator which is being challenged, destructured, and made malleable, rather than fixed. The perpetrator of events to which the witness is spectator, is freed from the Empiricist role of theory proven as fact, because in the eyes of science law, or indeed any modern theoretic construction, the witness can be found fault with by virtue of the possible effects their very existences may have on any observed outcomes.

Where unpredictability lays claim to the boundaries of the known, or "logical", it is the search for determining its undeterminable facets to which the logic system strives. Thereby seeking to simultaneously justify both the results of investigation, and the method of investigation itself.

If both are in question, then the search for fallacy in the perspectives and experience of both the witness and the perpetrator, especially in light of non-isolated and infinite points of perspective can never come to a satisfactory conclusion. The present technical logic construct is the shape of science as much as it is culture, whether theorising on the level of untraceable particles existing beyond atoms, or determining what a system of investigation might achieve in the absence of any truly neutral investigator.

The idea that a computer or its program might fall into the latter area of absence and impartiality is forward thinking, but not entirely fair. Ultimately, the programming of a computer and it systemization is as much a by-product of the human systems of order and logic as any other human phenomena. It may simply be the case that we do not understand enough about ourselves to understand how we make and progress technology.

Even absence is contaminated in some manner by our presence in defining it. The puritanical view of a vacuous cyberspace to be filled up with our consummate knowledge and participation is a fantasy into which we pour copious amounts of philosophic grandeur, perhaps because western logic/analysis has been found wanting. Perhaps because the philosophic simply follows where other investments lead.

The morass of information and technology is largely described as "consumer led". Therefore, is it appropriate to consider the evolution of technologies as a necessary corollary to the maintenance of the status quo, and by extension, the forces which keep such in place, for example: capitalist economies, and their development?
At the same time, rationality attempts to conceptualise the benevolent "ubiquitous" future as some altruistic evolution, which will assist the progress of society toward greater potentials. It is difficult to refer to elements such as social justice and liberty, as "fundamental" to the progress of technology. Social issues often appear to lag behind the determining nature of development in the first place. There is always a distinction between the expectation on which investment in any new field are based. In fact markets and profit usually project into the future on the basis of investment, and therefore maintain great influence on what that future is, or turns out to be.

For example, the hybrid evolution of horseless carriages into 1990's automobiles is a historic quantum leap. At the same time, the disadvantages it puts the planet to outside of human convenience is still only estimable in science, while foreboding in nature. Rather than technology as an adjunct to humanity, a shift is taking place in the domination of "machine" as it progresses from invention to accessory, to absolute necessity in the modern world. And so -as with modern fossil fuel transport - we could find the world a difficult place to live were we to achieve a "techno-utopia" where everybody has one.

The philo/socio argument which I refer to is an attempt to rationalise developments in technology, as they can' t be separated from the overall socio/political historical facts out of which technology develops and is utilised.
A knife, for instance, is it a tool or weapon? Definition, and how any "thing" is perceived cannot be entirely isolated from its nature as an object, or from what action or use is undertaken with it.
There is also not only "one" knife, but a plethora of knives, which arise both out the use to which they are put, and the social/cultural contexts in which they develop.
Form=function is the utopian concept for "things" however; those "things" are formed by differing functions in different contexts.

So I imply that computers/new technology/new media/ whatever, for all their perceived "ubiquity" are only tools ("super-tools" or super-prostheses") and therefore their function -and any use of them is similarly defined by different contexts, cultural and finally, political environments.
Therefore, like the increases in cars, road traffic, and the attendant ecological impacts, which were not thought of 100 years ago (pollution, changes in social space, and behaviour, let alone job, career, and production strategies). It is unclear as to how increases in popularity and use of even something like the "virtual space" of the internet may lead to environmental or social costs, as yet unforeseen. Which we may presently ignore while trying to familiarise ourselves with the general newness and novelty of our contemporary technology experiences.

I'm just trying to fix in my mind some relevant factors in our thinking and relations with technology, which arise out of our existing social, political, and cultural habits.

The scientific or rational logic, which we partake in, is on the whole, a better model of understanding than any spiritual-based intellectualism. However, we may be reaching the limits of understanding through conventional methods, just as physics must give way to quantum definitions as our measuring and observing capabilities become more and more sensitive and accurate. Even then, we must confront the conscious or unconscious narcissisms, which may be present in our explorations of understanding.

m.d.