October 21st, 2005 by Brychanus
Exercise 3 in DMST 4000 at DU was to represent an object through an Icon, an Index, a Symbol, and a Metaphor. I chose my beloved Bic Great Erase mechanical pencils, which have been out of production in the US for some time now. My official reasons for the choice were:
- It has been my favorite pencil since 1998
- It was discontinued several years ago
- I have a stockpile in my closet
- I’m mocked by other artists for using .7mm lead
I wanted to use the project to draw attention to the near-extinction of my beloved writing instrument.
The Icon image shows the pencil as the last of its kind: one pencil left where once there were four dozen.
The Index shows the leavings of the pencil. It has made its mark, but the mark has been removed by the selfsame maker.
This Symbol is a collection of rough, imprecise marks meant to indicate other pencils, while above and in the center of the mass of lines is another line, dark and perfect. The dark, perfect line is the Great Erase, alone but still awesome. This was the weakest of the four images.
The Metaphor was by far the strongest of the four images I created for this project. The dodo was erased from the world by human hands, as this pencil will soon be as well. I thought a partially-erased dodo would be a suitably clear metaphor. My classmates at the time still bring this one up in conversation.
October 19th, 2005 by Brychanus
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I hope humanity comes to realize the cyberpunk, dystopian vision of the future embraced by William Gibson and the folks who make Shadowrun. Technological innovations over the past few years make it clear that if we achieve Utopia, it’ll be because our entire existance is mediated by embeded computer systems. This frightens me.
It frightens me because I don’t think Utopia is worth the cost of human interaction. This may sound odd coming from a computer geek, but I like people. I like being around them. There are days when no video game, anime, computer problem or Battlestar Galactica marathon can cheer me up, and I sit alone craving human contact.
In the past week, I’ve watched a documentary called The Corporation (thecorporation.com) and participated in a long discussion of Ambient Intelligence (wikipedia.org). The Corporation advocates ideas of corporations destroying the world and making us all their consumer slaves in the post-apocalyptic shopping mall of the damned. Advocates of Ambient Intelligence are pushing for a world where computer systems replace direct human contact, even between parent and child in the same house.
Do these things seem bad to anyone else? American consumers are destined to be forced into solitary, mediated existences with nothing to keep them company but the microchip in their skull. If this is the “good” future, I want the bad one. Give me Megacorporate Arcologies full of worker drones and let me be free on the streets. I’ll take the fetid tenement and mechanical prosthetics if it means I can live like a real live person with other real live people.
So, while Corpotate Zombies talk to their children through a panel on the kitchen wall and their contact lenses let them show their spouse what they’re up to, I’ll be off in a cabin in the woods somewhere. I’m betting Celebration, FL (celebrationfl.com) will be the first to fall. Disney owns them, and we all know how Disney loves mediated experiences.
Oh well… maybe by the time it happens I’ll be old enough not to care. Here’s hoping.
October 9th, 2005 by Brychanus
Once upon a time I created a LiveJournal. I think I may have posted in it a grand total of three times. I really only did it because my friends were starting to make them, but they had posts marked “private” so they could complain about other people in pseudo-secrecy. To be able to read these, I needed an “LJ” of my own. Anyone who has ever mentioned reading blogs in my presence has traditionally been met with a shudder…
…and I think I had good reason. Before there was “The Blogsphere,” blogging was the realm of high school and college kids complaining about their lives, saying nasty things about their friends, and moaning to anyone who would listen about how much their privaleged, suburban lives sucked.
This still goes on. People still invite their friends to a party in a public blog posting and wonder why some of them don’t get the invitation. Hell, I’m starting mine off by complaining about complaining. As the national media will tell you, however, blogs as an outlet have expanded in their scope and possibility in recent months and years. Now I’m in a new place. Far from my family and my hometown, the contents of my life distilled to a 14′ U-Haul. Maybe it’s time I grew up with the technology.
This brings us to my shocking change of heart. Partially at the urging of one of my professors here at DU, and partially because I’ve played the petulant child on the subject long enough, I’m going to give this a try again. I’m hoping to come up with a post a week at this point. I’m not sure yet if I’ll have a topic, but since this counts as a post, I have a week to figure that out, don’t I?
