Archive: Author: wade tillett

cloud

Posted on by wade tillett

 

scale is everything. when you’re on the ground, the clouds are readily identifiable. you can see the edges. you can spot them easily. when you are in the air, the cloud is no longer so identifiable. you see it in the distance, but, as you approach it, you start to doubt where exactly it begins. then, suddenly, you come to the realization that you are now in the cloud. you can’t remember exactly when you crossed the edge of the cloud but you know that you are in it now. but you were looking too hard – the line that you crossed was your realization. your mind jumped from outside the cloud to inside the cloud. you can not identify the physical limits of the definition but you know now that you are definitely in the cloud. the limit of the definition is this realization. and it differs for everyone when they suddenly realize they are in the cloud.

it is the same for all limits. you know the meaning of a word when you are in it, but when you try to find the actual limits of the word, when you zoom in to see how the word’s limits are defined, you lose all definition.

“The question that now begins to gnaw at your mind is more anguished: outside Penthesilea does an outside exist? Or, no matter how far you go from the city, will you only pass from one limbo to another, never managing to leave it?” (Calvino Invisible Cities “Continuous Cities” 158)

 

 

teeth

Posted on by wade tillett

we are carnivores.
those of you who affect to have never eaten meat…
you have killed with the rest of us.
the sacrifice is hidden behind blank walls.
(men in yellow suits spray down the sidewalks)
bring forth the blood to the public altar
(how else can we know what we are eating.)
i will wield the knife.
i have killed the animals with my bare hands.
i have removed the entrails and planted them.
look at your teeth,
they are weapons which tear through flesh.
look at your birth,
an enlarged physical being expands.
parasites.
you will wield the knife for your dinner tonight.
you will kill your own today.
no more mercenaries, executioners, butchers,
it is you!
out from behind the hidden walls, the rooms without windows.
you who have never looked the animal in the eye as it breathes it last.
you hypocrite.
you will never know life until you know the blood that flows through you.
the blood on your hands.

reverse mapping

Posted on by wade tillett

 

Now let us look at what we might imagine the opposite of mapping to look like. An inverse map; reverse data-imaging. That is, as we have created these powerful tools for mapping, for re-creating the physical world as information, we have also created a backwards path in which the information becomes the physical world. By manipulating the map, by altering the objectification, we alter that which was objectified. The map becomes the plan. And this is where design begins. After all, what is the point of a map if you aren’t going to follow it?

Once we have completely mapped a situation, from the weather to the physical senses indicating emotions to the thoughts produced, we attempt to re-create the situation. What we might have regarded as preservation, is actually design. It is in the forms of re-creation in which we design an attempt to re-live. From keeping a seashell for remembering a trip to the beach, to the physical re-creation of an entire town such as Madison, IN (a whole river town canned and preserved for the historic preservationists and tourists), to a complete virtual environment (can’t help but think of that Star Trek re-creation room- sometimes we attempt to live within the map as opposed to the physical world it supposedly represents). Mapping allows us to set up an economy where the representation is regarded as better than equal to what is represented. Virtual reality is a value-added map posing as reality. A map that we can inhabit. Preservation is a value-added reality posing as a map. A history we can re-live.

This is the feat attempted by design – the reverse engineering of time itself. The physical is created to imitate the map. Once we have mapped emotions, we can reverse engineer these emotions. We can alter the emotions by altering the map. We link all sorts of things to their cause and effect. We break them down so that we can create our own mix. It is not enough to map the emotions, we also must know how to induce the emotions so that the map may become the plan. So that we can attempt immortality by re-living. But this reverse engineering of time always includes a ‘value-added’ change. We extract from our maps what we would like to see. We can not resist the urge to improve the past, to overcome a discrepancy which existed in the original moment, the original life, which we would like to eliminate (to design) out of our immortal re-creation.

Now our multi-dimensional, multi-perspective map of our own emotions can not only become an environment which we inhabit, but it can also allow manipulations of our information environment which we can FEEL. By grabbing and adjusting emotional information objects, by swirling the arms we change the intensity, by moving the hands we adjust the colors, by thought and language and speech itself we immediately inhabit the map and the design as we create it. Lightspeed is our only limit. The manipulation of information is made to simultaneously manipulate the physical. The map and plan are inseparable. This is the goal of design.

This is what architecture has always been. A physical space made to conform to our thoughts about it. A physical creation of our idea. Reverse data-imaging: the landscape is altered to match the map: the plan.

But we have also created the antithesis of objectification. That which can not be objectified. And as we increasingly attempt to make our world look like our models of it, the discrepancies between the real world and our maps becomes increasingly evident and problematic. This is the eternal struggle of design, to overcome this discrepancy, to eliminate this difference.

We have employed numerous strategies: from trying to make the world not change through preservation in formaldehyde, to inhabiting the map instead of the world through virtual reality; from overcoming space through networks and repetitions, to overcoming time through lightspeed and delayed reality; from simply tweaking our view of the world though filters (an integration of representation and what is represented), to hiding the differences in places where we will not see it.

Politics is both a map and a plan. It is meant to represent people and extend this representation into the physical world. But if this is all that politics was, we wouldn’t need politics. Why do we need a representation of our self? Can we not represent our self as our self? Why would we need an entity which represents us and then puts this representation back upon us? Would not politics only serve to staticize us, to force us to conform to that which we have chose to represent our selves? Would it not only serve to make us stone images of our images?

But in democracy we get to choose which image we will make our self conform to, this is the whole seduction of it (as well as capitalism and consumerism). Politics is the plan passed off as the map. And of course, it is a value-added plan, one which does not merely represent, but improves the representation before implementation. This is how interests are served and how interest is made. Images are manipulated.

Politics is a vehicle through which we force our selfs and others to conform to a past image, a representative, of our self. Politics is a means of increasing stability by increasing our predictability, by holding us to an image of our self which we produced. The problem then is two-fold: 1) Politics holds us to an image of who we used to be, therefore staticizing us; and 2) politics never gives us the image we produced anyway – it is a conglomeration of images which can only result in normalization, and it serves interests through the purported ‘improvement’ of these images. Thus the true politicians are the image-makers, the manipulators, the conglomerators, those who have a hand in the creation of the image we tie our self to. The advertisers, the pollsters, the news agencies, the architects, the politicians, the heroes, the gods, who all produce customized and seductive images of our past as truth, while promising we can re-live it only better this time, who all promise that the environment can be made to look like the map – that the pretty picture can be made real, who all promise a ‘new’ strategy for overcoming difference and reverse-engineering time.

 

 

program of rights

Posted on by wade tillett

 

a sort of reverse engineering must take place. we must objectify the filters, make them visible and by doing so destroy them. we must understand the construction and tear it down.

we must build non-absolutes. this must take place outside of language, outside of computers, of mathematics, of 0’s and 1’s. computers only work with absolutes. they can not produce randomness. they can not understand infinity between 0 and 1 because this was the preconception they were based upon.

the closest a computer can get to infinity is a loop which repeats. a static vector. reality/infinity never repeats. computers generate pseudo-random numbers by making increasingly complex algorithms, by distancing their output far enough from our understanding that it appears to be something which we can not understand.

the limits of the language of a filtered environment, a constructed environment, describes the limits of the environment. to objectify the limits of a constructed environment, the limits of its construction must be made visible.

tactic. to make the constructs of power visible. to make your self invisible. to objectify without being objectified. to show limits while blurring yours.

these are the rights we must demand:

1 the right of autonomy. we can no longer be forced subjects, unwilling participants of a distribution chain in which we do not believe. we must have the right to choose our systems of beliefs. we have a right of defense, of our own filters, of our own reality. we demand a freedom from advertising bombardment. a freedom from your televisions full of lies. it is time for a voluntary politics. no more majorities controlling minorities. no more forced definition and declaration into a majority or minority. it is time for a voluntary economy. no more rich controlling the poor. no more forced distribution, taxation, consumption, reality modification. it is time to end force-fed desire and taxed self-consumption. it is time for a politics and economy of the individual. death to the majority. we must now inhabit a multi-dimensional battle field of non-polar positioning, a space which is only a space in between, where individuals do not amalgamate to an ugly and faceless mass, but remain as multi-powered individual being fields occupying a dynamic space within and between their selves.

2 the right of anonymity. we have the right to not be objectified, tracked, followed, watched, profiled, timed, recorded, graded, priced, valued, examined, tested, documented, case studied, observed, reviewed, defined, determined, limited, judged, bounded, confined, measured, appraised, qualified, completed, explained, rendered, illustrated, photographed, titled, characterized.

3 the right of consumer information. as consumers of a product or service we have the right to know all information requested of the provider. this includes all providers of products and services, from governments to corporations, from schools to banks. if this is to be a free economy, we must have the right to know what we are consuming, in whom we are trusting, whose power we increase. we must know the power structure and how our consumption will alter it. we must choose the structures we build based on how it will affect our environment, our reality and our autonomy.

this seems paradoxical. how can we objectify a bank without objectifying those who belong to, and therefore make up, the bank? you can not. the very service that a bank provides is objectification. a division and distribution which you claim as an extension, a reserve, of your self. it is a service which allows you to construct, extend, and further define your own limits. and it is the limits which you create of your self by which others will limit you. the more limits you have created of your self, the more it becomes necessary to hide and disguise these limits from others. as a corporation you hide money from the government and information from consumers. as a politician you hide contributions and contributors from constituents. why is all the hiding necessary? because the truth of distribution, the objectification of power, destroys it.

which is the very reason we are objectified. it is by our physicality that we are limited, by our self and by others. we are, after all, still physical beings. power derives through physical means. it is only after objectification that subjection is possible. we are invited to further the limits of our self in order that we may further see our self. but it is only a stone shadow of a self that we see, a spent and empty power which we once had. we trade our power for our image. we are objectified so that we can be subjectified. we foolishly believe that anonymity is sterility. but it is this useless narcissist statue of self to which we incessantly masturbate. it is an idol of our past self whose shadow we are forced to imitate, for this idol is the symbol of what has been determined to be valuable within our self. make no mistake, it is not the purported value that is truly valued, but the predictability, the static adherence of your self to that value. values then are a means of transference of an unpredictable set of possibilities into a predictable physical product which can be bought and sold. it is the limits of the self which are valued, not the possibilities.

we must learn to construct a value based on possibilities. we must learn to construct something physical which is not based on limits and absolutes. we must see the self as a dynamic continuity, not a static preservation and adherence to past limits and definitions. we must see our selves as fields and vectors, areas and movements, tangents, branches, fractals, continuations of unpredictable indeterminate formless physical possibilities which infinitely interact in an endless shifting dynamic flowing present.

 

 

privacy rights

Posted on by wade tillett

the right of privacy. a preliminary idea is that the right of privacy is inversely proportional to the degree that the information affects someone/something other than the person whose privacy is in question. this seems simple enough if we buy into the idea of large and small consequences, of goals and a right of private consumption. what toothpaste you used this morning is seemingly inconsequential information; so inconsequential that we might be tempted to say it is not even worth protecting the privacy of this information. but what toothpaste you used this morning is not inconsequential at all. to someone involved with toothpaste, this information is worth money. to look at it another way, can you really make an educated consumer choice without knowing who consumes and supports the product you are considering. campaign finance reforms require that we have access to who contributes to politicians. in a global economy, the same must be true for corporations. (or is there another way) the right of privacy stems from the failure of the right of anonymity. through some means, either by your device or someone elses, you have been objectified. does consumption automatically entail objectification. what if we were to be completely anonymous consumers? what is political contributions went through a clearing house so that politicians could not know who gave money to them – anonymous contributions. would anybody ‘give’ then? does this not lead to anonymous bank accounts, swiss bank accounts, non-taxable bank accounts, non-accountability. how could we punish, how could we control, how could we ‘reward’ without linking the actions and extensions to the objectification of an individual. as foucault suggests, our whole soul is built upon our objectification. to be truly modern, to continually re-invent a flow which does not leave traces or refer to its past self, endless possibility. yet even with an expanded definition of self, that of continuation, we are presented with a link to the past. the seed turning into the tree is assumed to be a single life-form by virtue of the objectification of its continuity. by approaching the definition of tree from a scientific viewpoint, by exclusion, by the belief in the platonic forms. by removing tree from its context. what is and is not included in the definition, by excluding dirt, oxygen, carbon dioxide, sunlight as external, but including the process of photosynthesis as internal. despite the fact that tree can not occur without these external variables. an expanded definition attempts to include what is essential to the definition of tree. by excluding other factors which could affect the tree and including factors deemed essential to its development. by excluding those factors which do not produce our platonic tree and including those factors which do include our platonic tree we think that we have ‘proved’ something truly objective and scientific when all we have proved is our ability to make our environment conform to our thoughts about it. to design. fuzzy, physical, existential, changing definition. death of definition. unified vision beyond words. but these are dreams. are you going to give up your bank account? even squirrels hide a stash for winter. there is a line between faith and stupidity i think. i also think we have very little faith though. a whole economy, an entire society, based on fear. you do not have the right to change your identity. you do not have the right to your identity. what are your rights with regards to the information mined from you? credit card billings, credit reports, phone bill logs, e-mail, surveys, tax information, social security numbers, drivers license, license plates, on and on… this information is about you yet you do not own it. identity is reciprocal. your identity depends on how others view you, and they own this right to view you. so what is your identity anyway? the only way to get rid of this idea of identity is to make the idea worthless. to not conform to your identity. a camouflage. a disguise. this is the war of the future, terrorism – an enemy without a face. we have the right to not witness against ourself in a criminal case (V – to not divulge information). the right to bear arms (II – this right could become more useful as information warfare increases and more things are deemed weapons – encryption is considered a weapon now). the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable search and seizures (the effects clause could be used against data-mining). the powers not delegated to the united states by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people (no mention of corporations). it is interesting how discussions of privacy include the right to know what information is being collected on you. we have certain rights with regard to government files (not many, but some). i’m not really the paranoid type who thinks the government is watching me every second since i live a pretty boring life (not that i’m complaining). but when the potential to make money is involved, you can be sure people are watching your every move. it’s not the government; its the telemarketers. the credit bureaus, insurance companies, credit card reports, phone bills, grocery discount cards. as we enter into a one world economy where corporations are more powerful than governments (http://www.wto.org), we need our governments to protect us against corporations. we need an expanded bill of rights. we need a bill of consumer rights. not a bunch of hodge podge laws and consumer ‘protection’ but a real bill of rights guarded and enforced as closely as the government’s bill of rights. we need to know what information is being collected on us. we need to know when it is being collected. we must be able to view, modify or delete this information – why should corporations be allowed to make money off of our identity, off of our false identity, our objectification, without our consent? conversely, why should we be left in the dark with regards to corporate practices and structures? we have the right to know how much companies pay their employees. we have a right to know their parent companies, their links to other corporations, etc. the right of privacy stems from objectification. do we have a right to control our objectification whether or net it is fabricated by us. do we have a right to prevent our objectification? how do we establish the line between consumer information and consumer privacy? is it not better to error on the side of anonymity, since all objectifications can be used as chains? shouldn’t i be getting the profits fromm the sale of my information? you use the internet, obviously, so check out this site: http://privacy.net/anonymizer/ it will give you some info on your self. want to do something about it: http://www.proxymate.com if you are behind a firewall: http://www.in. tum.de/~pircher/anonymicer/index.htm for more info: http://www.epic.org

a void

Posted on by wade tillett

The void is freedom without bounds. How can you limit within infinity? The original idea was to limit those which we did not desire to the finite, to ban them to a concentrated and articulated, confined space. To place them in a dungeon away from the freedoms of society. But the freedoms of society are not necessarily the freedom of the void. after all, the freedoms of an inifinite space are without limits. How can you limit something within an infinity? How can the doctrines and languages of modern society retain their power (the power which economizes profit) over people in the face of a vast emptiness? How can everyone be confined from the void when it is what we inhabit? “Let us hear once more what Servan has to say: the ideas of crime and punishment must be so strongly linked and ‘follow one another without interruption… When you have thus formed the chain of ideas in the heads of your citizens, you will then be able to pride yourselves on guiding them and being their masters. A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas; it is at the stable point of reason that he secures the end of the chain; this link is all the stronger in that we do not know of what it is made and we believe it to be our own work; despair and time eat away the bonds of iron and steel, but they are powerless against the habitual union of ideas, they can only tighten it still more; and on the soft fibres of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the soundest of Empires.'” (Servan quoted in Foucault, Prison, 102-3) “This real non-corporal soul is not a substance; it is the element in which are articulated the effects of a certain type of power and the reference of a certain type of knowledge, the machinery by which the power relations give rise to a possible corpus of knowledge, and knowledge extends and reinforces the effects of this power. On this reality-reference, various concepts have been constructed and domains of analysis carved out: psyche, subjectivity, personailty, consciousness, etc.; on it have been built scientific techniques and discourses and the moral claims of humainsm. But let there be no misunderstanding: it is not that a real man, the object of knowledge, philosophical reflection or technical intervention, has been substituted for the soul, the illusion of theologians. The man described for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a subjection much more profound than himself. A ‘soul’ inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.” (Foucault Prison 29-30) The human is subjugated by being turned into an “object of knowledge” (Foucault Prison 28). The mechanisms of objectification force us to objectify ourselves. How can we have thought without language, the strongest mechanism of objectification? How can we be ourselves without thought, without a soul, without limits. The very definition of our self, of our soul, is a limit, a confine, something separate and distinct from the rest of the world. And it is this limit, this confine, this image of ourself, that we consume. It is only within the limits of our selves that the knowledge of this world can seem large enough to dwell in. It is only from within language that we may see language as not only a higher ground, but the entire basis of a soul. It is only from within belief that thoughts may form. (Can we go outside belief, abandon beliefs?) Language objectifies. Language forms the self, the limits. How can everyone be confined from the void when it is the void which we inhabit? Language. Language sets up an entire economy of ideas, of limits. An idea is only a set of limits. And yet we propose that the right set of limits will free us. The only true freedom can be the abandonment of limits. This includes all of modern mechanisms of objectification which trap us within our selves. These mechanisms function by turning reality into something that can be consumed by language, and if something can be consumed then it can add to the power structure of economy, of capitalism in our case. Even the most abstract ideas are only limits, such as the soul, or time, or light, or atoms. And these ideas have the potential to produce objects for consumption out of themselves. (And yet at the base of the atom we have the uncertainity principle.) Our entire society is based on limits. Just by looking at the physical objects we produce we can see this. This is the tragic flaw of society, that society is based on limits. And these limits manifest themselves. As language and the doctrines of society become stronger we become further removed from the void. the possibility of freedom continues to vanish. As foucault implies, the space of the prison inverts. No longer do we limit some to dark thick walled dungeons. Now we are all in the panopticon, the prison without walls which derives all power from the power of objecitification, from the power of belief. Perhaps at the beginning the panopticon relied on the belief (a mechanism of self) that someone was watching, but now it relies on watching your self, on the consumption of self. And at the center, rather than a guard, has been placed a mirror. The panopticon is, as foucault suggests, the model for society. All elements of society, of language, of the soul, of ideas are part of the chain of ideas. This is evidenced by the continual division of the void. By a constant objectification which ‘destroys’ the void. By incredible mechanisms which eliminate chance. We do not inhabit the space in-between anymore. This was the death of modernism. That we moved beyond objects to objectifying entire neighborhoods. Disneyland was a primitive model for generations to come. Because disneyland eliminated the void. All chance was removed. All the poor people are removed by an admission cost and kept out by gates. In other words, a confine has been placed within the void. A confine which was traditionally held to the level of building (even within modernism). The confine, the prison is now what we inhabit. And the void is left to those people too dangerous to be allowed in. We now have an entire spatial relation built on the idea of exclusion. Exclusion did not die with modernism, it simply got bigger. Bigger than we dare to imagine. The suburbs exclude. Private cars exclude. Entire neighborhoods, even entire towns (see celebration) exclude. But it is larger than that. Schools exclude. Society excludes. Ideas exclude. Language excludes. The soul excludes. It is the fact that the basis of our society is objectification that forces us to exclude that which can not or refuses to be objectified (subjugated). And it is this fact that places us within our own prison we have constructed. This prison is not just the prison of ideas, it is also a very real concrete prison we have built. And this is just the beginning. The pictures of the bubble on the moon were only wrong in that they were on the moon. Is this a return to the fortress city? In which those who do not follow the rules are banished? Hardly. The fortress city was never abandoned, it simply turned inward, endocolonization. (Was there ever equality? Was the void ever inhabited? Only between the buildings.) This is simply the continuation of a complex network of subjection. And we have just begun to understand how to create a bubble in the void. The suburbs and disneyland and mega-malls are extremely primitive attempts at exclusion. We now have the ability with GPS to objectify every point in three-dimensional space. To objectify the entire void into information. There are no longer any limits to information, to exclusion, to society. The entire world is a panopticon, a prison built not with walls, but with satellites and radio waves. The privacy implications of the internet are being sounded because we are beginning to understand that this information which objectifies us imprisons us. But why will privacy be negated? Because we blindly believe that when we objectify our self it is ok. Because we like it when the computer knows what we want, when our needs are fulfilled within milliseconds of thinking them. Because comfort is the prison. Comfort is the bubble in the void. Because we believe that it is ok to live a life of self-objectification, to see ourselves, to see our caricature constantly reinforced by the props of society. To watch ourselves consume ourselves. This thesis is based on total self-objectification. That we WANT GPS, because we want to see ourselves within space, where we are, our position. It allows us to further define and limit our view of our self. We WANT a computer profiling system because it allows us to see ourselves as set of rules, as an organization of limits which can be understood, as a fixed position and soul within society as a whole, within and against our own desires. We want a dream machine, a self-animator because it allows us to consume our self. To see our caricature of our self in relation to other desires of our self. To further limit. And within belief, this furthering of limits seems like an expansion, because it is an expansion of the self, the limits which comprise self, of beliefs. Within the system of language the more limits, the more which is objectified, the larger the world seems to become. It is the expansion of the suburbs which kills the farm land. Larger to the suburbs. But when you step outside, and see the true infinite, the entire web of knowledge is nothing. Which is why it continually becomes harder to step outside. Because from within belief, self, limits the expansion of beliefs, self, limits seems like an expansion of freedom. The suburbs seem like a freedom to those who live within them. Even though in reality they are a prison. Thus the exclusion will continue to enlarge under the guise of inclusion. And we will have GPS so that we can know where we are all the time. And it is scary to think that someone else can know where we are all the time. But it is even scarier to think that you can know where you are all the time. Because we don’t need someone else to subjugate us by objectification anymore. We subjugate ourselves with our own objectification. Perhaps Mies freed us from the objectification of ourselves in ornament and building, or perhaps he took the first step towards self-objectification by allowing us to see ourselves. To place ourselves within a societal and buildable grid. ‘Self-realization’ is objectification. And from there we can rebuild a whole society which realizes itself. Post-modernism merely being the primitive attempt at the self-realization (objectification) of society as a whole. Society seeing itself through satellites. In the economy of consumption, we pay to watch ourselves consume. (Can there be a building without limits? Can there be a city without limits? Can there be a society without limits? Can there be a self without limits?)

anonymity is power

Posted on by wade tillett

anonymity is power.  or rather, anonymity is freedom.  objectification is power.  objectification allows us to digitize, quantify, limit a person.  we limit our self so that we can see our self better.  objectification is the means of power.  the ability to control another’s actions.  the power to limit.  by creating an image of a man and chaining the image to that man.  these are the shackles of power.  and the real trick is that you believe these shackles to be your self.  you see your self as a combination of limits.  you can not separate the image of your self from your self.  “the soul is the prison of the body.” (foucault)

is there a way to break the link between your body and your objectification, between your body and your soul.  this requires letting go of the self.  it requires giving up your soul.  it means living life in a flow of the present.  

beyond the internal links between your self and your objectification, these links allow others to tie you to your objectification.  and we carry these links around with us because we want to be objectified.  it is through this objectification, through the image of our self, that we are rationed the power we have ‘earned.’  through checking accounts and credit cards and license plates, driver’s licenses, social security numbers, passports, insurance cards, library accounts, phone numbers, ip addresses, pentium 3 identification numbers, addresses, signatures, copyrights, patents, inspections, examinations, test results, grades, sat scores, iq.  the entire economy is based on an objectification which we can not remove from the definition of our self.  which we do not want to remove from our bodies because we believe in this economy.  we carry our shackles in our pockets.  and power, the real power, is an invisible objectification.  the real power digitizes a person into information without revealing it’s self.  that is, power comes from an economy of objectifying others more than your self.  power comes from making others visible while remaining invisible your self.  and the more powerful an entity becomes, the more difficult it becomes to conceal its identity.  increasing power becomes less efficient because more energy must be dedicated to the retention of its invisibility.  how do we find the truly powerful?  the same way we find a black hole.  by its effect.  real power comes not only from understanding information (the offensive), but also from understanding anti-information (the defensive).  an entity shrouded in a network of anti-information can defend against attacks of information by not disclosing the link between its self and its power.  by leaving the gun at the scene of the crime.  and beyond that information becomes ‘conspiracy theories.’  just the mention of entities like the world bank and the nsa brings a vague impression of power which can not be pinned down.  an effect whose link to a power source remains undisclosed.  and when you see certain effects it is impossible to tell who or what power caused the effect.  how?  by suggesting that you objectified your self.  for example:  why did pentium really put the id ‘feature’ in their chip?  could it have been a conspiracy with the nsa to track terrorists?  could it have been a conspiracy with the merchants to track consumers?  could it have been a conspiracy with the software companies to track pirates?  or could it have been, as they suggested, a conspiracy with the consumer to increase their ‘personalized experience’, to increase the limits of their self?  or how about: e) all of the above?

genetic codes, national health id’s, unified credit/debit accounts, global positioning systems.  will it all be rolled into a whole?  it will not be forced on us.  we will request it.  we want to only have one card.  better yet, one chip.  we want to have our babies genetic code mapped at birth just in case they ever get stolen.  (how about just in case they turn into murderers?)  we beg for objectification because we are stupid.  we believe in economy.  we believe that everyone plays fair.

“Their fear is that the feature can be used to identify users who visit sites without making a purchase, even when they haven’t voluntarily given out their information. ”  http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/17478.html

“Satellites that track people are no longer reserved for enemies of the state. Global Positioning System technology is now being used to monitor convicted criminals on probation, parole, home detention, or work release. ”  http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/17296.html

“Francis Collins, chief of the U.S. Human Genome Project, said yesterday that the government-led gene mappers are now less than a year away from completing the first full “working draft” of the entire human DNA code. ”  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/06/11/MN77176.DTL&type=tech_article

Said ACLU Legislative Counsel Gregory T. Nojeim, “If mandated by Congress for one purpose, we know from experience that a national ID card would eventually be required for engaging in even the most routine transactions– from opening a bank account to boarding an airplane to entering a building.”  http://www.aclu.org/news/1999/n072299b.html

“Even at current levels of testing, the ACLU said that many individuals and families are experiencing discrimination.  A 1996 Georgetown University study, for example, found that of 332 families belonging to genetic disease support groups, 22 percent said they had been refused health insurance and 13 percent said they had been fired from their jobs because of the perceived risks attributed to their genetic status.

And the numbers are rising. A 1982 federal survey found at 1.6 percent of companies used genetic testing for employment purposes. Last year, according to a similar survey conducted by the American Management Association, the number had increased to approximately 10 percent of employers.”  http://www.aclu.org/news/n052198a.html

“According to a recent University of Illinois survey, 35 percent of Fortune 500 companies check medical records before they hire or promote.”

micro-politics of daily living

Posted on by wade tillett

(Why do you always have to be so political?)
Everything is political.  If we really want to change the city we have to change the way we live.  As I said before, the city is the direct result of our choices as consumers, not as designers.  We have to realize every choice we make throughout the day and who benefits from that choice.  And to do this is impossible.  Our lives are so interconnected.  Our thoughts can not be removed from the social context of language.  In capitalism, the more links of power you can control the more power you can gain… and the more power you gain the more links you can control.  The same is true with language.  And there is no way to separate language from society, or society from power, or power from products.  From the moment we are born we are taught to consume.  That consumption is good for everyone involved.  That by spending more we are helping the economy.  And this is reinforced by a constant bombardment of advertisement.  Advertisement’s sole purpose is to make you realize that you are not happy, not content with who you are, what you have, and what you are doing.  Advertisement reinforces and directs goals.  And advertisement can not be separated.  Just sitting here at my desk I see hundreds of physical advertisements, most of them in the form of brand names.  Why do we not want to give up authorship?  Because it is an essential directive of consumption.  Because it allows a link by which more power can be returned to the author.  The idea is not to allow objects to exist freely as a part of life within the physical world, but to link them through language to their author.  In other words, the object comes with strings attached.  As long as these strings remain atached the author (company) has the opportunity to gain power in addition to the power the author (company) gained from the original sale.  But then some companies get too big, or buy out another already successful company and so then we start to get scared that we aren’t really making choices so they use different brand names, but it all goes to the same place.

Things I have already consumed this morning (7:00am – 10:00am)
‘staple’ item brand name parent company
toothpaste colgate colgate-palmolive
toothbrush colgate colgate-palmolive
razor gillette gillette
shaving cream edge johnson & son
deoderant degree helene curtis
contacts acuvue johnson & johnson
saline solution walgreens walgreens
water – chicago
gas – people’s gas
electricity – comed
phone – ameritech
trash (pickup) – chicago
trash bags – ?
internet access uss uss
tea lipton lipton
cereal cranberry almond crunch post
banana – ?
milk bareman’s bareman’s
soap ivory procter & gamble
shampoo aussie redmond
tissue puffs puffs

I am sure I am missing a lot of them too.  Now these are just the things I consumed in the more traditional sense.  In addition I have a virtually unending list of computer parts manufacturers, as well as computer program companies, book publishing companies, clothes companies.  And these have all sorts of services associated with them, such as laundry, etc.  Then there are things like where I live, rent, taxes.  And even things that seem relatively free like air and sunlight have the cost of rent and the original cost of the windows and construction, etc.  You can expand it to an infinite loop.
Yeah, but why am I wasting my time writing down what deoderant I used this morning?
It is easy to talk about theories.  It is much more difficult to try to actually be a conscious consumer.  When you actually look at every tiny thing you consume.  This is how economy fools us, by keeping our heads on ideas while our hand reaches for products.
Maybe if you left civilization and lived on say… walden pond…
No, even then you are going to end up in prison.  It is very fitting that Thoreau attempted to abandon society and live the life of the individualist only to end up in jail for not paying taxes.  The greatest threat of Thoreau was that he stay in prison, that he be a willing victim of capitalism, choosing principles over comfort.  Which is why someone bailed him out.

Pay the Workers  – “Capitalism has shown itself to be a dynamic economic theory. But it is neither a coherent social policy nor political philosophy”

materialization as conceptualization

Posted on by wade tillett

a tactile creation.
tangible. palpable. material. corporeal. a material conception. actions and reactions. immediate. intuitive. production of sound and light. the realization of the limits of a physical self and its interactions with the environment. open perception. a clearing and filling of the mind. a tactile creation which is born and lives in the present. which allows a physical interaction with its environment (including other beings)
in order to create the space-time difference must be eliminated. for something to be created it must overcome the space-time gap. a physical reaction takes place. this includes the production and transmission of information through the physical storage of bits. this includes nanotechnology and nano-machines which build and produce at an atomic level. this includes all wave frequencies, which rely on a transmission of energy.

a defensive system.
a physical firewall, a bubble which rejects the input and output of information, allowing anonymity and autonomy. a scrambler which reduces language and images to their physical components. a jammer. a detector. an unbreakable code is one that is without information, whose sole purpose is the transmission of the physical wave – an atomic bomb. a physical interaction – which can only occur in the present.
an efficient defensive system is one which delays an offensive while gaining from its enemy. as with goals and dreams deferred while consuming and producing the anti-dream. as with the sales and production of weapons while delaying their use. the relegation of the enemy to a state of information, a production of ideas without consequence. in other words the relegation of the enemy to the past. (while controlling the physical present in which this past resides.)

an offensive.
a non-delayed action. a life without forethought or planning. that which does not anticipate itself. a physical life with physical interactions. a journey in the present which is unpredictable and uncontrollable. a flow. a chain reaction. the creation of non-dependent non-referent immediate constantly changing flowing physical life forms. the production of immediate life within your self and then exterior to your self. life must stem from life. a life where thought and action are simultaneous and undetachable. production as in a journey. thought and action are married to produce an immediate and changing environment of which you can not be separated from as creator or observer. a physical thought process. materialization as conceptualization.

objectification of self

Posted on by wade tillett

 

records

receipts

social security #

birth certificate

police record

school record

marriage license

fbi file

credit report

credit card history

bank account

insurance record

medical record

photographs

immunization record

census

passport

cookies

ip address

dna

body remnants:

hair

blood

skin cell

fingernail

semen

body descriptors:

fingerprint

eye-scan

size

weight

height

voice record

dental record

parents records

ancestors records

ethnicity

community records

grocery store scan tag

warranty registration

receipt

coupons

phone bills

interview with acquaintances

oral history – what you said, did in memory of others

organizations

memberships

beliefs

religion

church

political party

possessions

objects

consumptions

style

personality

self

book

music

tattoo

earring

haircut

shaving

clothes

vehicle

memory aids

raffle

free gift

rights

voting registration

licenses

entitlement

empowerment

power

productions

accomplishments

lists

diploma

prize

trophy

award

media recognition

contest

interests

hobbies

resume

writing

art

deterrents

fences

walls

energy

predictability

productivity

position

address

direction

speed

acceleration/deceleration

 

 

my design me

Posted on by wade tillett

http://www.surgery.com/topics/body.html

A computer generated golden metallic female body with unbelievable
proportions is shown over the faded background of a keyboard.  Clickable
cyan boxes are shown over specific areas of the body with the following
text:

*Pick the area you would like to improve

*       Head (face, neck, and hair)

*       Arms (sagging skin, excess fat flab, etc.)

*       Breast (sagging, too big, too small, uneven, etc.)

*       Abdomen (excess fat, excess skin hanging down, etc.)

*       Buttocks (too fat, saggy, etc.)

*       Thighs (excess fat, cellulite, etc.)

*       Calves (too small, too fat, etc.)

The examples in parentheses suggest what could be wrong with your body –
that is, what varies from the perfected computer generated model.  We
can no longer be compared to the ideal naturally occurring body, but
rather to a computer generated model – a utopic persona based on a
conglomeration of the best.  We can no longer be compared to the
naturally occurring body because we are no longer reliant on natural
means for obtaining (maintaining) this body.  Now this increased power
and ability to change our body makes the body we live in a design of our
own – choosing not to modify our body is just as much a design as
modifying our body.  Abstention is as much design as creation, if we
have the ability to design.  And we have always had the ability to
design.  We constantly design our selves – by eating (or not eating,
also what we eat), by walking (or not walking), by reproducing (or not
reproducing), by our actions (or non-actions).   “Where nothing is in
its place, lies disorder.  Where in the desired place there is nothing,
lies order.” (Brecht qtd. in Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 155)

* Thigh Liposculpture

*  What would you like to do?

*           See Before and After Pictures

*           Find out about usual Costs

*           Read about this operation

*           Find a doctor near you that would be glad to explain your
options

What has changed is the transferability of our actions.  We can now sit
at a computer instead of walking; the money we make while sitting at the
computer can be transferred into a liposuction (or ‘liposculpture’ as
this web site calls it).  The action attempts to correct its own
non-actions through a design transference.

* Pick the area you would like to improve

*     Hair (for baldness, thinning hair, etc.)

*     Upper Eyes (tired looking eyes, sad, small etc.)

*     Lower Eyes (tired looking eyes, bags, extra skin, etc.)

*     Ears (excess fat, excess skin hanging down, etc.)

*     Nose (too big, too small, too wide, too narrow, etc.)

*     Mouth (enhance the lips, improve wrinkles, etc.)

*     Neck (fix sagging skin, take away excess fat, etc.)

*   Face

*     Facelift

*     Skin Resurfacing (Laser)

*     Skin Resurfacing (Chemical Peel)

We have also increased the limits of our designs, the possibilities of
our design.  There are a lot more choices here than on the barbie my
design site.  This is beyond mass production.  There are a lot more
choices now than were previously possible through actions as design,
deterministic choice.  We didn’t used to be able to design noses.  Now
with surgery, prosthetics, eugenics, genetic engineering, we can modify
the design of life itself.  We have modified deterministic choice,
natural selection, evolution.  We are now our own gods – products of our
own design.

>”Are we adapting our bodies to the dress, or the other way around?”
(Thanks to Tjebbe van Tijen for the quote)

We still operate within the limits of our design, within the program,
although we are constantly expanding these limits.  What limits our
designs the most is our social program of utopia.  This is the
definition of utopia: the exclusion of possibilities.  (No possibilities
of adding a third arm.  The body is limited to our utopic idea of it.
Detachable prosthetics such as the internet or airplanes are used to
extend our bodies’ possibilities without modifying our utopic definition
of self.)

“But let there be no misunderstanding; it is not that a real man, the
object of knowledge, philosophical reflection or technical intervention,
has been substituted for the soul, the illusion of the theologians.  The
man described for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in
himself the effect of a subjection much more profound than himself.  A
‘soul’ inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a
factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body.  The soul is
the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison
of the body.” (Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 30)