kathy's blog

Century of the Self - video documentary

Submitted by kathy on Mon, 15/10/2007 - 07:58

For the MLA Rushkoff course Technologies of Persuasion last week we had to read a couple of articles and watch a BBC video called Century of the Self. I've watched part 1 so far. it goes into Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays and his prolific Public Relations career. from the 1920s, where he convinced women to smoke cigarettes by creating a media spectacle using female debutantes in a parade and the slogan "Torches of Freedom", which was previously only a man's habit. then later contributed towards the rise of commercialism both prior to and following the stock market crash in 1929. he worked on many campaigns over the duration of his career and advised & created PR campaigns for numerous corporations, business leaders and government officials, in order to control the masses. he didn't think in single person terms - he thought in thousands of people.

he wrote a few books, one called Propaganda, in 1928 - this is his most important book. Bernays argued that the manipulation of public opinion was a necessary part of democracy:

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Philip K Dick - further reading on the net

Submitted by kathy on Wed, 10/10/2007 - 06:05

I've been learning heaps at the Philip K Dick course taught by Erik Davis. I've done a few web searches and as well as a few of the links posted by Erik & other classmates, I've started making a list. many of them are on the Total Dick Head blog which has heaps of great info & links to follow up on. the discussions have been great. I've been learning about some different religions and belief systems (eg Gnosticism)

We've been reading The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch so far so a lot of the links below relate to that. this week we're watching Blade Runner (one of my favourite films). I'll try add some links as I come across them.

(not in any particular order & some aren't strictly PKD)

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Issa / Jane Siberry and her Music Self Determined Pricing Policy

Submitted by kathy on Sun, 07/10/2007 - 04:04

I remember reading about Jane Siberry in Mondo 2000 sometime in the mid 90s and bought her albums "When I was a Boy" and "Maria" as well as the soundtrack for "Until the End of the World" which has a track of hers on it. I used to play "When I Was a Boy" on Sunday mornings whilst having brunch when I lived in Auchenflower. when I moved from that apartment my neighbour asked what was the beautiful music that I used to play on sundays, so I put him onto her sounds. around that time also, I was listening to a lot of Brian Eno, David Sylvian, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Laurie Anderson and others.

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jerusalem wireless

Submitted by kathy on Thu, 04/10/2007 - 21:27

the internet connection in the flat where I'm staying is driving me crazy!! it works for about half an hour a couple of times a week. the landlords are looking into it. so I've been going to cafes. and now the cafes connection is not working also. and being a holiday (& shabbath/saturdays also) most of the stores are closed. so now I'm sitting on a bench in Hillel St - there's a few open wireless networks in this street. I'm using a cafe one at the moment - the cafe is closed for the holiday. I tried out kismac but couldn't login from home - it was taking forever to collect enough packets to even attempt to work. so maybe I'm doing something wrong - or perhaps I need a different wireless adaptor.

but I did notice a cool feature where it can make sounds for the different wireless networks. so here's a couple of screenshots and sounds.

Jerusalem wireless - Shamai01

Jerusalem wireless - Shamai02

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Why Johnny Can't Program audio lecture - week one

Submitted by kathy on Tue, 02/10/2007 - 09:04

mind map (so far) of week 1 of Technologies of Persuasion online course.

Why Johnny Can't Program audio lecture - mind map notes. most of these notes are what the speaker, Douglas Rushkoff mentioned in the lecture - I've paraphrased some of it whilst taking notes.

files attached. remove the .txt from .html.txt files (drupal upload seems to be adding the .txt)

one of the other class members, monster (Caroline Jack) has transcribed the audio lecture!, so this would be a more complete / accurate account of it.

bookmark @ 24:54

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why johnny can't program
- course website
- throughout time, there have always been small groups of well educated & well meaning people who help to promote cognition & agency.
  - agency
    - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy)
    - Agency considered in the philosophical sense is the capacity of an agent to act in a world. The agency is considered as belonging to that agent, even if that agent represents a fictitious character, or some other non-existent entity. The capacity to act does not at first imply a specific moral dimension to the ability to make the choice to act. Moral agency addresses issues of these type.
      Human agency is the capacity for human beings to make choices and to impose those choices on the world. It is normally contrasted to natural forces, which are causes involving only unthinking deterministic processes.
      In this it is subtly distinct from the concept of free will, the philosophical doctrine that our choices are not the product of causal chains, but are significantly free or undetermined. Human agency entails the uncontroversial, weaker claim that humans do in fact make decisions and enact them on the world. How humans come to make decisions, by free choice or other processes, is another issue.
      The capacity of a human to act as an agent is personal to that human, though considerations of the outcomes flowing from particular acts of human agency for us and others can then be thought to invest a moral component into a given situation wherein an agent has acted, and thus to involve moral agency. If a situation is the consequence of human decision making, persons may be under a duty to apply value judgements to the consequences of their decisions, and held to be responsible for those decisions. Human agency entitles the observer to ask should this have occurred? in a way that would be nonsensical in circumstances lacking human decisions-makers, for example, the impact of Shoemaker-Levy into Jupiter.
      In certain philosophical traditions (particularly those established by Hegel and Marx), human agency is a collective, historical dynamic, more than a function arising out of individual behavior. Hegel's Geist and Marx's universal class are idealist and materialist expressions of this idea of humans treated as social beings, organized to act in concert.
      A similar use of the term agency can be found in social psychology, referring to the self-efficacy of a person, the ability of a person to act on his own behalf. [1]
- everything stays pretty much the same
- donald trump
  - he doesn't think twice about anything
  - that's where his power really comes from
  - he's got an other type of brain
    - it's this other type of brain that dominates
- media literacy / teachers
  - trying to break 2000 years or more of cultural programming
  - this is the centre of something more radical than any revolution
  - DR: "I don't think we can quite frankly"
- whenever a new medium arises
  - we end up teaching the "literacy of the last one"
    - history : we get text
    - God says to Abraham, "you'll be a nation of priests"
      - which means, you'll be a nation of people who can read and write
      - priests - heiroglyphs - the only people who could read & write; and pharoahs
      - we actually got a small number of rabbis / priests who could read and write, mostly just read..
      - plus a nation of 'hearers'
    - printing press - renaissance period
      - a way to write books
      - did we get a civilisation of 'writers'?
        no - we got a civilisation of 'readers'
        
        deconstruct things
    - internet
      - now we get a civilisation of writers
        blogs
      - what we should have by now, is a civilisation of programmers
        either you're programming, or you're programmed
      - the technology that people are using on internet now, the interface / internet / conduit they are using is still circumscribed by the same corporate interests that controlled your parents
      - time warner / AOL
        now, instead of people paying to watch Warner Brothers content, people pay them to upload their own content. who cares? it's the same money - going to the same people
        
        now, instead of doing this thing we think of as consumption, we're doing this other thing, that we think of as production, which is actually consumption
        
        we work during the day, we come home and buy a video camera and pay the ISP and then upload the videos / productions that we made. and maybe they won't sue us for using their ideas & icons from popular culture
        crowdsourcing
        the money equation is the same
        we're not actually looking at money and it's biases and how it's created
        
        people's activity - renaissance / corporate way of creating people's media that we're building
- what is energizing the rhizome?
  - cash !
  - the real currency that is moving through all of this
- kids
  - they speak the language of this new media
  - they are developing the new languages
- adults
  - are we anthropologists?
    - studying the kids? looking for the next big thing
    - or are we looking at the kids from a corporations pov
      - eg how do we subvert this behaviour
      - how do we make what they're doing, about what we're doing?
  - how do we make this communications revolution into a content revolution
    - "content is king" - the message of the past decade
    - first there was devaluing of personal contact & communication between people
    - and instead, value what content the corporations were outputting
    - then people started using that content as a medium of exchange
    - and the corporations replied with 'oh you can't use that - we own that'
    - which shows how little the corporations know about interactivity
    - and how much the corporations know about marketing
  - communications revolution
- childrens tv programmes
  - they needed funding to produce the shows so the plush toys industry was started
  - idea came from Japan where this was already successful, eg Transformers toys
  - biases of media
    - if the bias of the media is to create the promotion & selling of the toys, then the stories themselves will change
      - eg fantasy universes that are unconciously designed to promote the sale of toys
      - that's why evolution became popular in Japan
        when you have evolution, you constantly have new models
    - basic media literacy
    - the bias of the media changes
- new media
  - this was the opportunity to change focus
    - when TV was introduced there was an initial small change in focus
      - people watched and produced educational programs
      - but these didn't turn out to be the most popular in the end
  - emails, laptops, computers everywhere
  - problem
    - on one hand, we have these tools that give us an inkling of our power as human beings to be the authors of our reality, of the very society that we're living in
    - on the other hand, we're in a society where we are so pressured to create applicable skills, that we lose sight of that
- education conferences these days
  - are often about creating the "marketable student"; the "marketable graduate"
  - there's a lot of people putting money into creating these marketable skills
  - they're saying "how're we going to compete with the Chinese, the people in Bangalore"
  - but they may have to let students in on the fact that there is a conflict - between trying to promote real lateral thinking and the ability to create, and construct an argument.
  - same things they're trying to do in academy
  - some of the students are asking, 'why do we have to read McLuhan - these old white Europeans'
- Walter J Ong
  - website url
    - http://libraries.slu.edu/sc/ong/
  - Walter Jackson Ong, S.J. (1912-2003) was a professor of English at Saint Louis University for over thirty years. Over the course of his career, Ong wrote a number of groundbreaking studies in the fields of orality and literacy studies. Some of these works include Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, The Presence of the Word, and Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue.
  - Orality and Literacy & Personality
    - http://libraries.slu.edu/sc/ong/digital/texts/lincoln/lincoln02_en.pdf
  - The End of the Age of Literacy
    - http://libraries.slu.edu/sc/ong/digital/audio/ong_audiolecture5.mp3
- ancient languages
  - don't exist any more
  - when you engaged with the computer in that way
    - you thought of the computer as a modelling environment
    - you thought of that as a place where anything could happen
    - that was a radically different way of understanding the tool, for those of us who had been raised on televison
    - because now we didn't think of the tv as a place to get programmed
    - we thought of a tv event, because that's what the monitor was, as a place to build a world
    - and then we started to look at other things in our world and wonder how they were programmed also
    - what else is a social construction
    - why are the roads in my town built this way?
      - it's not that God put them there
      - some people, at some point decided where they would be
      - and those people had certain agendas
      - either they wanted traffic to move quickly
      - they wanted people to stop at stores
    - why are the streetcars gone?
      - so this makes you think, why don't we use streetcars any more?
      - well, because this big company made a lot of money in a sort of corrupt way, and wanted streetcars out so we'd all have to buy cars
    - all of this happened
      - and it's not a matter of studying conspiracy theory
      - it's a matter of understanding, that the world we live in - a lot of it has been intentionally programmed with certain biases
      - and that most of the people who did that programming, are dead
      - and most people living in this world, don't even have access to the way it was programmed, or even to the IDEA that it WAS programmed. to the NOTION that it was programmed. that people had intent
    - so, playing with computers, most importantly, opened that
- the idea that the world we live in has been programmed with certain biases
  - breaking down media opens you to this idea
  - and once you realise how a tv commercial is put together, you can understand how a politicians speech is put together.
  - you understand how everything is put together
  - once you work out how this is done, it's the acid trip moment, that so frightens the people who's money is in mainstream media
  - and that's why they undo all the feedbacks
  - I (Rushkoff) always talk about the effects of the remote control & how it helps to deconstruct media
  - the joystick, which helps us to demistify the interface
  - and the computer keyboard and the mouse that turns it (the computer) from a receiver, into a portal, into a do it yourself medium
  - but fear and money concerns undid this, very skillfully, undid these effects
  - and kids who are using the remote, were considered to have a shortened attention span
  - and they start misusing the diagnosis of ADHD to be applied to anyone who is capable of being resistive to media programming
  - the transparent interfaces of the 1980s and 1990s get replaced with Windows, and what is Windows about?
  - the main communication of Windows is not about "we make the computer easier for you to use"
  - the main communication of Windows is about "stay back", "we will use the computer for you"
  - how do you install a program in Windows?
    - you invoke the Wizard
    - why did they pick the Wizard? it's not the "helper"
    - it's the Wizard. because they're saying this is mysterious
    - this is magical
    - only the Wizard can move the applications into the applications folder
    - do not touch it
    - no user serviceable parts inside
- a shift from contact (to content - on the internet)
  - people were online, and talking to each other
  - in 1994, they found that the average family that had internet connection was watching 9 hours less television a week
  - this was a problem
  - so then they said, "let's not make the internet about contact, let's make it about content"
  - and they start getting us sidetracked from one another, and engaged yet again with their corporate crap
  - and they're all happy with us using it, and sending it around, and being all viral until it gets into their Digital Rights
  - now try using Windows Vista
    - Vista is an operating system literally crippled by it's DRM, it's Digital Rights Management provisions
    - so much so, that I (Rushkoff) think this is the most positive thing to happen to linux since it's inception
    - it's so bad, that you can play something legal that you own, and Windows will come up and say "Windows doesn't think you have the rights to play this video - are you sure you want to proceed"
    - that's scary
- educators
  - in the case of educators, what happens is that the lack of applications

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Technologies of Persuasion online course with Douglas Rushkoff @ Maybe Logic Academy

Submitted by kathy on Tue, 02/10/2007 - 06:37

I'm doing the Technologies of Persuasion online course with Douglas Rushkoff @ Maybe Logic Academy. it started today. there's already a few discussions happening in the course forums - they're moving so fast!

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Clan of the Cave Bear

Submitted by kathy on Fri, 28/09/2007 - 21:06

Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel was one of my favourite books when I was growing up.

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automatic writing, aroma coffee and palmer eldritch

Submitted by kathy on Fri, 28/09/2007 - 02:07

today I read an article about automatic writing.

[quote]
" Sit at a table with pen and paper; put yourself in a 'receptive' frame of mind, and start writing. Continue writing without thinking of what is appearing beneath your pen. Write as fast as you can. If, for some reason, the flow stops, leave a space and immediately begin again by writing down the first letter of the next sentence. Choose this letter at random before you begin, for instance, a 't', and always begin this new sentence with a 't'. "
[/quote]

this is pretty much how I write all the time. occasionally I go back and re-read it and correct any obvious spelling / grammatical errors, but sometimes I don't even do that.

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The Crazy Wisdom of Philip K. Dick - online course

Submitted by kathy on Mon, 17/09/2007 - 04:56

I'm starting an online course tomorrow called " The Crazy Wisdom of Philip K. Dick". I'm not sure how I'm going to go, but I enjoy his books so it'll be interesting to find out more. the lecturer is Erk Davis who's well known for his studies on the author. I've just logged into the course page and read the intro and it sounds really interesting. I have a feeling I'm going to need to take it twice!

there's another one by Douglas Rushkoff which sounds interesting also - he sent the note about his course via his blog mail list, so that's how I came across the PKD one. there's others by R.U. Sirius of Mondo 2000 fame which I wouldn't mind checking out also. some of the others on the site seem a bit out there! but it's interesting to find out about things I don't know much about.

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bboys in jerusalem & youtube boty finds

Submitted by kathy on Wed, 12/09/2007 - 07:01

I've been watching the bboys in the Ben Yehuda mall in Jerusalem. some of them have some good moves. they break on the stone large chess board. these reminded me of the break circles in Hanover during the weekend of Battle of the Year 2000. I found some videos on youtube from then and other years.

the Battle of the Year website has details of past year's winners

Flying Steps - Battle of the Year 2000 (winners)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUhq96JayhQ

Battle Squad show - BOTY 1991
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZDHbSQrvKg

tuffkid & benny 1999
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzTd-_pMJGc

bboy Benny (from Flying Steps)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b69Dc6qjRQ

my breakdancing favourites list on youtube

boty 2000 photos on flickr

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a simple knitted Ada Deitz polynomial equation

Submitted by kathy on Sun, 09/09/2007 - 06:36

Dan sent me an invite to the Open Source Embroidery facebook group. their website is www.open-source-embroidery.org.uk. I haven't tried embroidery since I was a child, and I don't remember being that good at it, but it sounds like a good project. so I thought I'd post info / photos my knitted polynomial bag. (even though it's not as nice / perfect as some of the other online examples!!) when I was a child I used to do lots of crafts and was always making things. I had a resurgence of this about a year ago. it feels good to make things with your hands, especially little presents for people. so I've been (very slowly) working on hand made things. I find it's better than buying something, though it does tend to take me longer to finish things these days!

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sounds from dead sea at zohar & after the jazz festival

Submitted by kathy on Sat, 25/08/2007 - 08:49

I'm testing recording audio along with the photos - the files are smaller than recording video as well, and sometimes a picture and sound is all you need to trigger a memory. plus you can still use some of your imagination to fill in the missing pictures that movies provide. plus I want to sample some of the audio for general soundscapes from different places.

this is after the jazz performance at yemin moshe 11/08/2007 in jerusalem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R6_Z3ZWjy0

photos and audio recordings from my drive to the Dead Sea at Zohar today. this is a public beach, but it's so much quieter than the Tel Aviv beaches - both in numbers of people and sounds!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_fbTojBWcw

another drive to the Dead Sea today. this time I had a dip! or rather a float! it is a strange sensation. you float then try to push down but you're popped back up. it's like bobbing in the sea. I went to the public beach at Zohar which is where most of the photos are from

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Recognized - a documentary highlighting Bedouin displacement & unrecognized villages in Israel

Submitted by kathy on Wed, 01/08/2007 - 07:44

tonight I saw a documentary called "Recognized" at the Jerusalem Cinematheque by director Ori Kleiner which shows some bedouins who live in the Negev desert & have been displaced by the Israeli government and who have had their homes demolished and property confiscated. I'm afraid I still don't really know why. the film mentioned the people were not counted as Israeli citizens, despite them and their ancestors being born in Israel and having lived in the region for longer than the State of Israel has existed. and also that in some cases the land has been claimed by the military and national parks.

it's a good film to see though as I wasn't aware this was happening. to be honest, some of what was mentioned reminded me of India and it's relocation of villages (though some people I've spoken to say this doesn't exist, despite me seeing video footage, photos and reports via the Sarai i-fellows of it occurring)

the film mentions support from Regional Council of the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev - http://www.idealist.org/en/org/160469-22 has some information

dukium.org has some info - time to read up on this..

links page on dukium.org : http://dukium.org/modules.php?name=RefLinks

some other work by the director Ori Kleiner can be found @ :

http://www.holyfly.com/POA/
http://www.wac.ucla.edu/extensionsjournal/v2/kleiner.htm
http://www.oznik.com/art/040613.html

the film blurb :

Recognized
A documentary film by Ori Kleiner
Israel/USA 2007
61min
Hebrew and Arabic w/English subtitles
Additional Camera: Natasha Dudinski
Original Music and Sound Editing: Grundik Kasyansky

"Bedouin usually appear in the Israeli collective consciousness as
either "ethnographic" or "demographic"issues. Their representation by
means of various objects‚Äîcoffee, camels, tents, carpets‚Äîkeeps most
Israelis from grasping Bedouin as subjects with wishes and wills,
frustrations and fears; as possessing not only a past, but also a
future. The film Recognized is made up of documentary moments that
trace the uprooted experiences of Nuri al-Ukbi, Salman Abu Jlidan, Eid
Al-Athamin, Ibrahim Abu Afash, and Samaher Abu Jlidan whom history has
cast in the roles of protagonists antagonized by a State that
established itself up on their ancestral lands. Recognized is not a
film about Bedouin, but about people forced into the role of
Bedouin‚Äîthe only identity theState of Israel allows them, the very
identity it systematically denies them. Substandard citizenship,
coupled with daily existential obstacles posed by the State, are what
this film is about. Recognized was filmed entirely on
location in the Negev desert in the summer of 2006. "

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first glimpse of the Dead Sea, Israel (video clip)

Submitted by kathy on Sat, 28/07/2007 - 07:42

this is the view of the Dead Sea where highway 1 & 90 meet, East of Jerusalem. I stopped for a drink and to take a photo. then I drove down as far as Meseda - will have to go back another day to see more as I only stayed on the highway this trip. the desert is amazing - layers of beige. I was expecting lots of sand, but the countryside seems to be quite rocky. perhaps further inland there's sand.

28/07/2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a043xf9rPTk

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postering in Jerusalem & Tel Aviv

Submitted by kathy on Fri, 27/07/2007 - 19:07

in jerusalem, and even tel aviv there's not much postering going on - on the walls of the buildings. it seems much more controlled. they have these boards up at regular spots around the city. there's a number to call at the top of the board and I've seen the guys swapping the posters each week.

so it's a small business for the board holders. similar to the flyer bags in UK.

there's a mix of events listed on the boards too. I've seen flyers, with bits of english that I could read, for djs (eg Markey Funk who's cd I bought the other day - a down tempo hip hop / turntablist), plus larger concerts and jazz festivals and book readings / fairs and workshops / lectures. most of the things actually look like they'd be quite interesting if I could read / speak Hebrew!

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