Lifestream Reflections – Week 10

My lifestream this week is in spate – relatively speaking! However I see it is a focussed jet rather than an indiscriminate spray. Of particular interest are the connections I have been able to make with sources I had bookmarked prior to the course, in some cases years prior. A case in point was Michael Wesche’s film ‘The Machine is Us/ing Us’

I can now see that it fits well with the posthuman theme and in particular with the idea I mentioned in last week’s summary namely that we are teaching our non-human appliances about what it is to be human.

Sixth sense, Pranav Mistry’s user interface research at MIT is fascinating and illustrates how transparency of interface design means that we hardly notice the boundary between the machine and our human selves. Another boundary ambiguous view is portrayed by Makoto Yabuki’s artwork. However the machine is privileged here. The rather Matrix-esk image shows a human cocooned and connected but rather separated from the real world. It is a beautiful and delicate image so much so that we might imagine another, perhaps more beautiful being emerging from the cocoon at a later date.

However it was Andrew Feenberg’s Ten Paradoxes of Technology that really absorbed me this week! I blogged about it in order to capture the key ideas. Overall I was struck by the clarity that Feenberg brings to explaining our relationships with technology. that really absorbed me this week! I blogged about it in order to capture the key ideas. Overall I was struck by the clarity that Feenberg brings to explaining our relationships with technology.

Finally Amber Case adds her approach to researching these relationships by defining the new discipline of cyborg anthropology.