Re: [-empyre-] locative city, annotated space

[hight@34n118w.net]

> An excellent point.  I was speaking of content, but yes, the machine is
a nest of signifiers and concerns.  The possibilites will include
increasingly less bulky and intrusive machines and functionality.  The
ideal would be something as small as smart lenses (eyewear with data
layering overlaid on field of vision and with micro computer and audio.
This will be expensive.  The point is moving toward what you discussed
(cheaper and less intrusive).  There are talks about spatial interfaces;
areas where different artists have works dealing with location and
accesible by anyone passing through picking up the signal.

We initially built it on a much older machine that was quite inexpensive.
Jeff is interested in how technology can advance and yet still be
affordable.

The issues of body politic and space are already each deeply imbued with
complex issues of sociocultural and economic layers.  The man machine
dichotomy can be traced back through all kinds of communications and
comparisons of body, machine and space (riding a bicycle for example in
classic man/machine films, the films of vertov, etc..) The issue of
technology is one more layer to this.  An amazing documentary entitled
"Machine Dreams" analyzes this and traces it back to the panopticon,
automatons, and even has interviews with drill seargents who compare a
troop to a computer in their interconnectivity, movement and interaction
with space. The less intrusive and more affordable is the way to go for
this type of work to reach a larger audience and larger functionality.
>
> You writee
>
> I really liked how in 34n there is no separation of cy lritical and
creative
> voice ...no sudden chunk of philosophy to frame .....it is integrated into
> an experientially driven mode that has both contents by the nature of
> juxtaposition and layering as one moves.
>
> - but isn't there an economy and a political economy at work here? The
> technology is really central to this work; one needs a laptop or at least
> a relatively expensive wireless pda for most of it, not to mention GPS for
> some pieces. So the audience is already to some extent predetermined,
> whereas if the pieces were physical, _there,_ they'd be opened up. I know
> this is antithetical, but when one speaks of locativity or the body, which
> are intensely related, then the techne of the body, instrumental reason,
> the machinic, all come into play - and with this the very gadgetry that
> one might want to ignore. At least with my laptop, to take an absurd/
> mundane example - I couldn't see walking too far with it, certainly not
> opened; my body would have to be configured protectively around it, etc.
>
> What I believe is necessary, and perhaps you have already worked with
> these, is the kind of tech that's used in museums with wireless now. But
> then there would have to be a central/distribution point.
>
> Is there a way to use Wap/sms?
>
> Finally, surely there are class/economic/political issues involved in this
> in terms of the technology?
>
> Forgive me if I've missed some of the posts dealing with this.
>
> - Alan
>
>
> recent http://www.asondheim.org/
> WVU 2004 projects http://www.as.wvu.edu/clcold/sondheim/files/
> recent related to WVU http://www.as.wvu.edu:8000/clc/Members/sondheim
> Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
> partial mirror at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
>
>
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