0f0003 | maschinenkunst on Thu, 1 Mar 2007 08:31:08 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Women metaphors |
olia lialina: >What's wrong with car metaphors and analogies in general? They were created by men and usually lead 2 women +! >Many of them are evil by themselves. When you do not have weighty >arguments, when you are too lazy to look for an explanation or are not >able at all to explain or grasp something, you can use an analogy. > >To compare computers with cars in particular is wrong because it's >a huge simplification, the role of of computers in society and >individual life is more complex than the role of cars. This is circular logic IN THE UTMOST, illustrating the very behaviour you condemn -- although, it does complement ur usual approach, and it is quite true that one best criticizes oneself. some new media \ nettime friendly splashing: To compare computers with cars in particular is wrong because cars are more like women, or at least were more like women before the arrival of mf computers in cars. =46or most of documented history man has attempted to synthesize 'woman', while through the computer man synthesizes 'man'. To compare computers with cars in particular is wrong because cars, as women, have an intuitive interface, while computers have a ... 'democratic' interface, best resembling the theories of the EU, etc synthetic sickly western computers. >One of Marshal McLuhan's most famous quotes is: I doubt Marshal McLuhan ever invented a car, owned a car, or even drove a ca= r as more than transportation\prostitution, which I suspect is the case with 99% of nettime croutons. > It takes as a given that people once knew how their cars, >televisions, or telephones worked and don't know this any more, And twice upon a time people knew the people around them. Secondly, it is indeed a fact that before a 'something' becomes 'democratized' \ ie. whored + prostituted \ ie. made affordable \ ie. made ubiquitous \ ie. made meaningless, it does enjoy a period of time when the relationship of those engaged with it is multifaceted and transcendental. =46or some this continues, but it is increasingly difficult in an 'advanced' society -- progress is attained through division + specialization of labor -- where each specialist protects his/her space more avidly than fervent nationalists, developing language and protocol specific to that fiel= d, accessible through standardized ports exclusively. While in nature + '3rd world' countries the connection between people and between components occurs in non-standardized, undemocratic. intricate and negotiated ways, in advanced '1st world' democracies, copulation is sanitized, standardized, compartmentalized, and prostituted. One has only to open the hood of a modern automobile to stare '1st world' democracies in the face --- Analogies are not for the lazy. Annalogies are the highest form of pattern recognition, and indicative of liberated life energy --- something a computer and desacralized modern\l citizens can only 'dream of'. Analogies, metaphors, folklore, a living being, are seeds. As such they are imperfect, in that the truth which they will bloom into is contingent upon the gardener, the soil and weather -- in other words they are brimming with potential. >but that in the case of mechanical technology, such losses are >acceptable. It insists however, that ignorance about the fundamentals >of computation comes at too high a price. 'New' (media) is an apt metaphor. >Subject: <nettime> Car Metaphors >From: "olia lialina" <olia@profolia.org> >Date: Wed, February 28, 2007 7:23 am >To: "nettime's on/off connector" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net> >http://www.contemporary-home-computing.org/car-metaphors/ > >I teach New Media at a design school. Its a great job. The only thing >that poisons my professional life are numerous analogies I read every >day in articles on digital culture and computer related topics. > >The most popular analogy contemporary authors use to explain the >computer's development and its role in our life is one to cars. In <...> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net