Presentation for COMP 3309 (Computers and Society), a third-year course in our CIS degree. This presentation unpacks the different meanings of technology and examines some of the different evaluative approaches to take to the study of technology. Also has a section on mythological understandings of technology.
Objects tell human stories — real things connect people to ideasARTOMATIC
The explosion of digital technology is creating an interesting human problem — more media overwhelms us with messages we have no time to think about. Our natural human response is to rely on our intuition.
We are becoming more intuitive in a logic-driven age.
Unlike digital media made of code and numbers, physical objects are just like us — their very nature as separate entities is familiar to us and we innately understand them.
Maybe it’s time to rediscover the language of physical objects and use their considerable power to make intuitive connections and tell stories we don’t need to think about.
There is no difference between the 'real' and the 'virtual': a brief phenomen...Stéphane Vial
My speech at Theorizing the Web 2013 conference, in New York City, March 2nd, 2013, The Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY) : http://www.theorizingtheweb.org/2013/. This is the first time I introduced the concept of 'Digital Monism' in order to develop the critics to the 'Digital Dualism' started by Nathan Jurgenson and PJ Rey.
Physicality is a language — a brief introductionARTOMATIC
Technology gives us too much to think about; here is a language that speaks to us anyway.
Up until digital technology created a world made of virtuality, existence was taken for granted. Yet, we still pay little attention to the physical language that feeds us a wealth of understanding. This is a language hidden in plain sight because it's almost entirely unconscious — we simply don't think about it. However, an subconscious language is valuable and powerful in an age of information overload.
Cloud computing has been on the rise, and it is going to be increasingly explosive in the next few years. If you are considering adopting cloud computing as one of your business strategies, don't forget to analyze its pros and cons to make the right decision.
Objects tell human stories — real things connect people to ideasARTOMATIC
The explosion of digital technology is creating an interesting human problem — more media overwhelms us with messages we have no time to think about. Our natural human response is to rely on our intuition.
We are becoming more intuitive in a logic-driven age.
Unlike digital media made of code and numbers, physical objects are just like us — their very nature as separate entities is familiar to us and we innately understand them.
Maybe it’s time to rediscover the language of physical objects and use their considerable power to make intuitive connections and tell stories we don’t need to think about.
There is no difference between the 'real' and the 'virtual': a brief phenomen...Stéphane Vial
My speech at Theorizing the Web 2013 conference, in New York City, March 2nd, 2013, The Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY) : http://www.theorizingtheweb.org/2013/. This is the first time I introduced the concept of 'Digital Monism' in order to develop the critics to the 'Digital Dualism' started by Nathan Jurgenson and PJ Rey.
Physicality is a language — a brief introductionARTOMATIC
Technology gives us too much to think about; here is a language that speaks to us anyway.
Up until digital technology created a world made of virtuality, existence was taken for granted. Yet, we still pay little attention to the physical language that feeds us a wealth of understanding. This is a language hidden in plain sight because it's almost entirely unconscious — we simply don't think about it. However, an subconscious language is valuable and powerful in an age of information overload.
Cloud computing has been on the rise, and it is going to be increasingly explosive in the next few years. If you are considering adopting cloud computing as one of your business strategies, don't forget to analyze its pros and cons to make the right decision.
Due date Saturday March 21, 2015.Answers for each question sho.docxjacksnathalie
Due date Saturday March 21, 2015.
Answers for each question should be at least 100 words.
1. Exam Questions:
Topic #3 – Economic Actors
1. Explain Myrdal’s concept of cumulative and circular causation and compare and contrast it to Veblen’s concept of cumulative causation.
2. Explain Robert Montgomery’s theory of how institutional practices come about and come to be thought of and practiced over time.
3. What is Montgomery’s theorized relationship between technological change and cultural change and give (articulate) an example outside of the Montgomery reading.
Reading:
1. Montgomery: Historical Fact
2. Myrdal: Institutional Economics
4. Exam Questions:
Topic #9 – Money
1. How does the standard story of the invention of money differ from the Institutionalist/Post Keynesian theory?
2. What does the Institutionalist/Post Keynesian theory of money says about the financial constraints on an economy to provisioning for the elderly?
Reading:
Wray: An irreverent overview of the history of money from the beginning of the beginning through to the present.
Question 1
a) The law that will be applied. . . .
b) The court will decide the effect of the the purported acceptance in the following way: . . .
c) The additional terms . . .
Question 2
a) She was only joking:
The offeror would argue that . . .
b) She didn't know that an offer was being made:
The offeror would argue that . . .
c) She knew she was signing an offer but he didn't read all of the terms:
The offeror would argue that . . .
d) She did not understand some of the terms and conditions:
The offeror would argue that . . .
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
An irreverent overview of the history of money from the beginning of the begi...
L Randall Wray
Journal of Post Keynesian Economics; Summer 1999; 21, 4; ABI/INFORM Global
pg. 679
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with p ...
Analysis of techno-utopianist ideas and thinking in Silicon Valley. How it developed, what's the status quo, and its implications and benefits for entrepreneurialism.
In an age of high tech, our experience of technology has changed tremendously, yet the definition of technology has remained largely unquestioned. High Technē redresses this gap in thinking about technology, examining the shifting relations of technology, art, and culture from the beginnings of modernity to contemporary technocultures.
Drawing on the Greek root of technology, (techne, generally translated as “art, skill, or craft”), R. L. Rutsky challenges both the modernist notion of technology as an instrument or tool and the conventional idea of a noninstrumental aesthetics. Today, technology and aesthetics have again begun to come together: even basketball shoes are said to exhibit a “high-tech style” and the most advanced technology is called “state of the art.” Rutsky charts the history and vicissitudes of this new high-tech techne up to our day—from Fritz Lang to Octavia Butler, Thomas Edison to Japanese Anime, constructivism to cyberspace.
Progressing from the major art movements of modernism to contemporary science fiction and cultural theory, Rutsky provides clear and compelling evidence of a shift in the cultural conceptions of technology and art and demonstrates the centrality of technology to modernism and postmodernism.
Cyborgs in the music? Computer, digital culture and music practicesMiguel De Aguilera
Western popular culture includes many stories (with different formats and media, including musical works) concerning the man-machine relationships. Most of them with strong mythic resonances (from Greek and other mythologies nourishing Western culture) and more oriented towards the dystopian than utopian.
The influence of these visions of mythical background has provoked an interesting debate in recent decades on the man-machine relationship, mainly affecting the “agency” (who controls the actions of the machine?)
That debate moves (with much of its resonances) to the field of music, where the recent development of IAMUS intensifies the controversy. In that field, this debate is connected with other elements that have nurtured the "myth of music" (established within industrial society): especially, the author (genius) and the “authenticity".
Understanding the man-machine relationships in the field of music, and ponder their future considering inventions like Iamus, requires the consideration of a number of ideas and items.
Among others, the "authorship" as an idea established within industrial society (and its system of cultural industries). Also, that all musical composer has always used in his/her creative activity any technology (mechanical, electrical, digital). This digital technology, by the way, is one of the factors that influence the profound changes affecting the various phases of musical activity, that show many examples like these: remix, music selection lists, Shazam, failure of fixed contexts for music listening, breaking the IP model ... But the use of such technology is not yet affecting several major foundations that established the cultural industries to guaranty the success to their products -and to boost consumption. For example, that the relationship between listener and music product relies on the existence of recognizable musical patterns and in the right combination between repetition and innovation.
This intervention observes the Iamus and its creations from the cultural analysis, which provides some of the key ideas with which to better understand the present and future of music.
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Celebrating the Release of Computing Careers and DisciplinesRandy Connolly
Talk given at CANNEXUS 2020 on the release of our Computing Careers and Disciplines booklet, which has gone on to be downloaded over 200000 times since its release.
Public Computing Intellectuals in the Age of AI CrisisRandy Connolly
This talk advocates for a conceptual archetype (the Public Computer Intellectual) as a way of practically imagining the expanded possibilities of academic practice in the computing disciplines, one that provides both self-critique and an outward-facing orientation towards the public good.
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Due date Saturday March 21, 2015.Answers for each question sho.docxjacksnathalie
Due date Saturday March 21, 2015.
Answers for each question should be at least 100 words.
1. Exam Questions:
Topic #3 – Economic Actors
1. Explain Myrdal’s concept of cumulative and circular causation and compare and contrast it to Veblen’s concept of cumulative causation.
2. Explain Robert Montgomery’s theory of how institutional practices come about and come to be thought of and practiced over time.
3. What is Montgomery’s theorized relationship between technological change and cultural change and give (articulate) an example outside of the Montgomery reading.
Reading:
1. Montgomery: Historical Fact
2. Myrdal: Institutional Economics
4. Exam Questions:
Topic #9 – Money
1. How does the standard story of the invention of money differ from the Institutionalist/Post Keynesian theory?
2. What does the Institutionalist/Post Keynesian theory of money says about the financial constraints on an economy to provisioning for the elderly?
Reading:
Wray: An irreverent overview of the history of money from the beginning of the beginning through to the present.
Question 1
a) The law that will be applied. . . .
b) The court will decide the effect of the the purported acceptance in the following way: . . .
c) The additional terms . . .
Question 2
a) She was only joking:
The offeror would argue that . . .
b) She didn't know that an offer was being made:
The offeror would argue that . . .
c) She knew she was signing an offer but he didn't read all of the terms:
The offeror would argue that . . .
d) She did not understand some of the terms and conditions:
The offeror would argue that . . .
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
An irreverent overview of the history of money from the beginning of the begi...
L Randall Wray
Journal of Post Keynesian Economics; Summer 1999; 21, 4; ABI/INFORM Global
pg. 679
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with p ...
Analysis of techno-utopianist ideas and thinking in Silicon Valley. How it developed, what's the status quo, and its implications and benefits for entrepreneurialism.
In an age of high tech, our experience of technology has changed tremendously, yet the definition of technology has remained largely unquestioned. High Technē redresses this gap in thinking about technology, examining the shifting relations of technology, art, and culture from the beginnings of modernity to contemporary technocultures.
Drawing on the Greek root of technology, (techne, generally translated as “art, skill, or craft”), R. L. Rutsky challenges both the modernist notion of technology as an instrument or tool and the conventional idea of a noninstrumental aesthetics. Today, technology and aesthetics have again begun to come together: even basketball shoes are said to exhibit a “high-tech style” and the most advanced technology is called “state of the art.” Rutsky charts the history and vicissitudes of this new high-tech techne up to our day—from Fritz Lang to Octavia Butler, Thomas Edison to Japanese Anime, constructivism to cyberspace.
Progressing from the major art movements of modernism to contemporary science fiction and cultural theory, Rutsky provides clear and compelling evidence of a shift in the cultural conceptions of technology and art and demonstrates the centrality of technology to modernism and postmodernism.
Cyborgs in the music? Computer, digital culture and music practicesMiguel De Aguilera
Western popular culture includes many stories (with different formats and media, including musical works) concerning the man-machine relationships. Most of them with strong mythic resonances (from Greek and other mythologies nourishing Western culture) and more oriented towards the dystopian than utopian.
The influence of these visions of mythical background has provoked an interesting debate in recent decades on the man-machine relationship, mainly affecting the “agency” (who controls the actions of the machine?)
That debate moves (with much of its resonances) to the field of music, where the recent development of IAMUS intensifies the controversy. In that field, this debate is connected with other elements that have nurtured the "myth of music" (established within industrial society): especially, the author (genius) and the “authenticity".
Understanding the man-machine relationships in the field of music, and ponder their future considering inventions like Iamus, requires the consideration of a number of ideas and items.
Among others, the "authorship" as an idea established within industrial society (and its system of cultural industries). Also, that all musical composer has always used in his/her creative activity any technology (mechanical, electrical, digital). This digital technology, by the way, is one of the factors that influence the profound changes affecting the various phases of musical activity, that show many examples like these: remix, music selection lists, Shazam, failure of fixed contexts for music listening, breaking the IP model ... But the use of such technology is not yet affecting several major foundations that established the cultural industries to guaranty the success to their products -and to boost consumption. For example, that the relationship between listener and music product relies on the existence of recognizable musical patterns and in the right combination between repetition and innovation.
This intervention observes the Iamus and its creations from the cultural analysis, which provides some of the key ideas with which to better understand the present and future of music.
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Public Computing Intellectuals in the Age of AI CrisisRandy Connolly
This talk advocates for a conceptual archetype (the Public Computer Intellectual) as a way of practically imagining the expanded possibilities of academic practice in the computing disciplines, one that provides both self-critique and an outward-facing orientation towards the public good.
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2. Only a few species make use of
tools. There i evidence of stone
t l Th is id f t
axes used by Homo Erectus 1.6
million years ago. From their
emergence, Homo Sapiens have
been using tools.
g
3. Tools were used mainly for
existence (food and shelter)
shelter),
but also for social evolution
as well. And once a tool is
discovered, new uses are
di d
discovered for its use.
4. Tools are much older than
writing and even older than
language, and are known by
the body as much as by the
mind.
i d
5. The Earliest Known Forms of Human Adornment - Circa
132,000 BCE – 98,000 BCE
The Earliest Use of Pigments - Circa 400,000 BCE –
350,000 BCE
The Earliest Musical Instruments - Circa 33,000 BCE
The Earliest Examples of Figurative Art (Venus of
Schelklingen) - Circa 38,000 BCE – 33,000 BCE
6. Between 8000 and 4000 BCE
(that is, about 10,000 years ago)
a form of accounting developed
that used little clay tokens to
record the sale or purchase of
goods.
7. Payment for:
Work/labour
p
Envelope
Signature/Seal
1 large measure of barley
+ 2 small measures of
something else
Contents
of 4 days
envelope
4 measures of metal
8.
9. The first clay tokens were symbolic
representations of real things.
p g
Eventually, the tokens were
y,
replaced by symbols representing
the tokens.
10. 1. Tokens pressed into envelope to indicate contents
3. Token impressions replaced with pictograms for
things represented b t k
thi t d by tokens.
2. Tokens pressed onto flat “sheet”, thereby
eliminating need for tokens in an envelope.
11. Pictograms Glyph Cuneiform
3000 BC
2800 BC
2600 BC 2600 BC
(stone) (clay)
2000 BC
1800 BC
14. Some claim that the first appearance
of the word technology in its modern
gy
meaning was in Dr. Jacob Bigelow’s
1829 book The Elements of
Technology.
16. Technology was originally much more of a
craft or art than an applied science
science.
Newcomen’s steam engine or Edison’s inventions were
not really dependent upon a knowledge of math or
physics.
17.
18.
19. Prior to the 19th century, what we
think of as technology more often
than not had female connotations,
since technology was associated
with the useful arts, such as
pottery, beer, and textile making.
20. Between 1820 1910 th word
B t 1820-1910, the d
“technology” gradually acquired
mainly male connotations.
Do you think that is still true?
21. Today, the word technology
y, gy
means more than just:
1. Things/Tools
1 Thi /T l
23. 3. Technology as a System
Technological systems are a complex web of
hardware, knowledge, inventors, operators,
consumers, corporations, laws, and others
involved in a technology
technology.
Thinking critically about
technology thus requires
knowledge of the system as
a whole, how it was created
(history), and how the
parts interact.
24. 4. Technology as a Way of Thinking and Seeing
the World
Technology can also refer to a way of
thinking, or a way of interpreting the
world.
world
To understand technology, we have to
understand the technological engagement
with the world.
25. 5.
5 Technology as a Form of Life
Technology is no more a tool than language is a tool.
That is, technology becomes an essential part of life; it
becomes part of the essence of life and thus becomes
hidden or taken for granted.
To understand technology, we have to
de-routinize it, understand its role and
its embeddedness in our lives.
26.
27. "Myth is a dramatic vision of life, and we never
cease making myths, accepting myths, believing
myths" (Dorothy Van Gh )
h (D h Ghent)
This is true with tec ology as well. Part o t e
s s t ue w t technology a t of the
purpose of this course is to expose many of our
common beliefs about technology as myths.
But as well, some ancient myths can still speak to
us in regards to technology. People thousands of
years ago also had to worry about new
technologies and society as well, and their myths
well
speak to this concern.
28. Oedipus
and the
Sphinx
Thebes is
Th b i suffering from a
ff i f
menace of nature: the
Sphinx
what walks on four feet, and two
feet, and three feet and has only
one voice; when it walks on most
one voice; when it walks on most
feet, it is weakest?
29. Humans
The third foot is
techne,
techne our ability to
craft and use
technology.
In the myth it is this
myth,
third foot, humanity’s
technological know-
how, that is at the
root of Oedipus’s
success and failure.
30. This third foot can also be a sword
Just prior to Oedipus's
Oedipus s
confrontation with the Sphinx,
Oedipus slays a stranger—his
father at
father—at a crossroad with his
sword.
Oedipus thus personifies the
ambiguity of the human creature,
an ambiguity that lies in his third
foot, his ability to use his craft-
knowledge for both good and evil
at the same time.
31. This is a tragic vision:
g
Technology is both a blessing and a
curse, and these two natures are
indivisible.
If we want the blessings, then we
have to live with the drawbacks.
But this wasn’t the only way that
wasn t
the ancient Greeks viewed
technology.
33. Yet at the heart of this technological
marvel is a true menace: the minotaur.
One can journey into the labyrinth, but
j y y ,
slaying the monster concealed in the
technology is more difficult …
… as is escaping from the technology
34. Theseus escaped via the forethought
and reason of Ariadne’s thread.
A way out of the confusing labyrinth
that is technological change is possible
via rational appraisal and by
maintaining a link to the past.
This course is an attempt at
maintaining a thread of Ariadne …
35. Prometheus
Gift of Fire to
Humanity
His
punishment:
Having his liver
eaten every
t
day
Humanity’s
punishment:
?
37. Plato in his dialogue
Protagoras:
Prometheus steals fire as
well as “wisdom in the
crafts”
“Although man, acquired in
this way wisdom of daily
life, civic wisdom he had
not, since this was still in
the possession of Zeus”
38. Thus according to Plato, Prometheus
(and humanity at large) suffer because
Prometheus stole only part of what we
need to live good lives:
Prometheus stole f
h l fire (technology), b
( h l ) but
did not acquire civic wisdom.
That is, having technological mastery
without grounding it properly in a just
political order is a recipe for suffering.
39. Plato argued that the tragedy of
g g y
technology can be almost totally
avoided by first and foremost thinking
about technology in the context of its
surrounding society and its political
order.
This course is all about this practice …
41. Technologies are extensions or expansions of ourselves
“Now the point of this myth is the fact that men at once
become fascinated by any extension of themselves in
y y
any material other than themselves.”
“To behold, use or perceive any extension of ourselves in
technological form is necessarily to embrace it.”
“It is this continuous embrace of our own
technology … that puts us in the Narcissus role of …
numbness in relation to these images [extensions]
of ourselves.”
42. Within the Narcissus trance, we are
too numb to recognize that “Man in
the
th normal use of technology … is
l ft h l i
perpetually modified by it.”
As such, we tend to be completely
unconscious of the real effects of
technology on the individual and on
society and simply embrace each
new technology uncritically.
43. For McLuhan, the best way to avoid this Narcissus trance
in the face of technological change “is simply in knowing
that the
th t th spell can occur immediately upon contact.”
ll i di t l t t”
That is also part of what we will try to be doing in this
course: understand both the obvious and also the
sometimes subliminal and subtle consequences of our
ometime blimin l nd btle on eq en e o
technological infrastructure.