[-empyre-] Re DARPA URBAN CHALLENGE

[Timothy Murray <tcm1@cornell.edu>]

> Hi, Brian, Sally Jane, Kevin, and Catherine,

What a great week on -empyre-!  Thanks so much for your wide-ranging 
reflections on the kitch, marginality, and subsequent urgency of 
something called 'criticality'--particularly Catherine's promotion of 
"Distracted, but profound, gaming (in which real ethical 
calculability is
probed in a variety of ways)."    I believe I am guilty for floating 
the term earlier in the week, which I understand as the empowered 
thoughtfulness with which the actor inhabits, interacts with, and 
transforms architectonic/social space, always in consort with the 
techno-psycho skin enveloping and constituting us all.

Brian's post concerning the DARPA URBAN CHALLENGE and Kevin's most 
recent post concerning the rapid slippage from art to commercialism 
confronting us all in the new media community (not only in this 
community, moreover) bring home institutional challenges I've faced 
to maintain and sharpen the critical edge in a DARPA driven 
environment that's frequently driving the IS agendas in large 
universities (DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects 
Agency, the central research and development organization for the US 
Department of Defense).

It's  no coincidence that our institution, Cornell University, 
sponsors a racing team now in the semi-finals of the DARPA URBAN 
CHALLENGE.  I've long wondered whether this and similar DARPA 
research project are at the core of the continual resistance of my 
colleagues in IS to work together in development of a pedagogical 
program in Digital Art and Culture.   The emphasis on culture and the 
encourage of 'critical spatial practice' that I believe goes with it 
seems to have been a sticking point throughout.   Visiting the 
website for the Cornell Darpa Urban Challenge, I just learned  that 
this team was awarded up to $1 million for development of its 
"autonomous vehicle."  So in a university environment increasingly 
dependent on corporate alignment, and traditionally  dependent on 
DARPA funding, it's not shocking that efforts to enhance 
"criticality" would be underappreciated, if not considered 
threatening.  While calculability remains at the core of these 
militarized gaming projects, the ethical profundity of what Catherine 
appreciates as "distracted gaming" is cast aside.

I remember well visiting Kevin's facilities in Illinois and being 
excited by the artworks that he was streaming onto the flatscreens 
hanging on the walls of his new Information Science building.  I'm 
sorry to learn that his project of "distracted gaming" has given way 
to more identifiable projects of corporate/academic adhesion.   If 
there was ever a moment when both the academic and art worlds could 
benefit from "pervasive gaming," we seem to be there.

Thanks everyone for contributing to such a provocative week.  We're 
looking forward to continuing the discussion with Maurice Benayoun 
and Alice Meceli in the next week.

Best,

Tim
--
Timothy Murray
Professor of Comparative Literature and English
Director of Graduate Studies in Film and Video Studies
Curator, The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library
285 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853