[-empyre-] real vs. unreal

Sun May 1 02:32:19 EST 2011

   Hi there, 

I tried not to join this discussion for a while, but probably it the last moment to jump in. 

I do really love all those sophisticated arguments, ranging from technological remarks, your manifesto and epistemological threads mixed with some ontological questions. However, what make AR really creepy to me is sth what has nothing in common with technological, nor with philosophical issues. Last but not least artist - as most of you, play incredibly important role in exploration and spreading AR among users. I wouldn't perceive it problematic at all, if most of AR object/interventions hadn't deal with public space and my imagery space at the same time. Recently, just to keep the track of discussion, I red intro to this year conflux festival and its flag ship 'We AR in MoMA'. Being honest, I was puzzled down when I discovered that: "Developments in the field of psychogeography advance rapidly and radically. In former
 times the discipline required mental capabilities such as concentration and imagination, nowadays mobile phones provide us with easy-to-use viewing tools to perceive multitude of fictive realities, anywhere we are, instantly." (http://confluxfestival.org/projects/conflux-festival-2010/we-ar-in-moma/). 

I thought, its far more probably, that artist won't play 'Marco Polo' role, as stated few posts ago, but rather, as many times before, will be impersonating next generation of 'useful idiots', opening the space for all but not psychogeographic experiments within this field. 

Why? 
Maybe rather old-school notion of gentrification provide some deeper insight into this discussion. Until gentrification "happened" to dwellers of rather abandoned spaces, beloved by artist and 'creative community', I was quite cool with it. Worst case scenario: you just have to move along, there are always places where rents are lower. But
 AR involves not only my physical spaces, it deals with, as in Manovich notion on modes of perception of new media object, with my mental space in very radical way: 

"In short, we are asked to follow pre-programmed, objectively existing associations. Put
diffidently, in what can be read as a new updated version of French philosopher
Louis Althusser's concept of "interpellation," we are asked to mistake the structure of somebody's else mind for our own. 

This is a new kind of identification appropriate for the information age of
cognitive labor. The cultural technologies of an industrial society -- cinema and
fashion -- asked us to identify with somebody's bodily image. The interactive
media asks us to identify with somebody's else mental structure. If a cinema
viewer, both male and female was lasting after and trying to emulate the body of
movie star, a computer user is asked to follow the mental
 trajectory of a new
media designer." Manovich, L. Language of New Media, pp. 74, (http://andreknoerig.de/portfolio/03/bin/resources/manovich-langofnewmedia.pdf)

Sorry for undigested quote. Anyway, what makes me feel that things might go wrong faster than anybody could expect, arise from notion of AR occupying or subversive to my physical space but foremost 'gentrifying' my imagery space without ability to overcome its influence. Once perceived, AR objects become embedded not in my physical space but in my imagery space. It's exaggerated, but this dual presence of AR object, its epistemological or rather phenomenological status, might be incredibly close to Freud's remarks about origins of hallucinations: when cathexis doesn't connect memory trace and perceived object but the object is completely charged with it. And as far I'm hallucinating about Tamiko Thiel objects, I can cope with it, but when I start to hallucinate AT&T commercial
 or ARvertising, well...maybe at the beginning it would funny somehow. 

On top of that, I was quite surprised, that nobody has picked up the idea from Gibson's 'Virtual Light', where AR becomes a business sensitive technology with all its consequences. From my perspective, if AR brought Thomasons with, I would be totally in it. Otherwise probably I will focus on deviant use of AR. 

Best 

p. 

--- On Sat, 30/4/11, John Craig Freeman <John_Craig_Freeman at emerson.edu> wrote:

From: John Craig Freeman <John_Craig_Freeman at emerson.edu>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] real vs. unreal
To: "empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au" <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Date: Saturday, 30 April, 2011, 3:07

> From: Will Pappenheimer <willpap at gmail.com>
> 
> I think we are in need of a new definition of existence, one that includes the digital or networked object.

Call it a consensual, collective
 hallucination.

John Craig Freeman
Associate Professor of New Media

Emerson College
Department of Visual and Media Arts
120 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116-4624
(617) 824-8862
john_craig_freeman at emerson.edu
http://JohnCraigFreeman.net

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