Tuesday 30 October 2007

D/visual building blocks

C/emergent structures

B/categoris will mutate as vision(s) emerge _and_merge

A/the 7th continent_information invasion



















A possible Folded-in war craft plane

absolutely test


















absolutely test

Monday 29 October 2007

A.F 1

…Media and propaganda refer to a variety of different ambiguous roles and in most of the cases this is related with the contradicted interests of national or global capitalistic corporations. As there is often, as I said before, a direct relation between corporation war videogames and TV productions and broadcasts, like for example the American series ‘’24 hours chrono’’ (which was used as a basis by the philosopher Slavos Zizek to describe his formula of the urgent ethics) the same relationships regarding nationalistic or liberal propaganda can also be seen between TV , press, and user’s contribution in spaces as Youtube or Myspace. The Greek journalist Takis Michas in an article writes that: It is a fact that most of the mass media today, of a governmental status or not, do not perceive their role as those that would provide objective information but rather as those that cultivate nationalistic fanaticism. A classic example is the phrase “Turkish aircrafts violated the Greek FIR. This headline does not really exist. The precise wording would be “The Ministry of National Defence claims that the Turkish aircrafts… The reality is the claim, not the flight, which is of course something completely different..

A.F 2

…The mainstream media support, maintain and render the national patriotic values, which are necessary for the forming of the nation/state perception that is addressed to the citizens or they can also do the opposite. That would be demolishing and transforming the national stereotypes when this is a demand of local or global corporations or when the present case asks for the spreading around of the liberal ideology. Very often unpredictable parameters lead that to over excesses that in their turn create ultra nationalistic and racist reactions. A constant fight for the control and the re-appropriation of these ‘’cutting edges’’ phenomena, creates tragic and as well as comic events, that feed the popular imagination and the recreation of current myths. At the end of the story through a populist form of inclusion and exclusion, the people in both sides regenerate and perpetuate violence…

A.F 3

…The consequences of these tactics can be observed in a Youtube search. A number of videos made by users that are producers / reproducers, consumers (prosumers) reproduce the national stereotypes and the war tactics composing a net video-war. The content of these videos is not limited only within the nationalistic war dithyrambs by the opposing sides, but goes further by tackling issues of immigration, identity, sexism, religion, and history including every kind of myth or historicity that has been produced not only in countries as for example Greece and Turkey but also in western European countries or in China and Taiwan and so on. By this, one can observe the paradox of reproduction of the stereotypes within web 2.0, by a social group that theoretically at least, as a knower of the possibilities of contemporary technology (and information respectively), should form a totally different opinion…

A.F 3

…The consequences of these tactics can be observed in a Youtube search. A number of videos made by users that are producers / reproducers, consumers (prosumers) reproduce the national stereotypes and the war tactics composing a net video-war. The content of these videos is not limited only within the nationalistic war dithyrambs by the opposing sides, but goes further by tackling issues of immigration, identity, sexism, religion, and history including every kind of myth or historicity that has been produced not only in countries as for example Greece and Turkey but also in western European countries or in China and Taiwan and so on. By this, one can observe the paradox of reproduction of the stereotypes within web 2.0, by a social group that theoretically at least, as a knower of the possibilities of contemporary technology (and information respectively), should form a totally different opinion…

A.F 4

…Although Youtube is a meta-TV as a procedure, the framing of documentation and the handling of an issue is still as on TV. The emerging of critical thinking towards any way of myth-making and the propaganda is still the question. Maybe one could scarcely foresee the unfortunate perspective that as the reproduction possibilities and the opinion hosting in mega platforms are increased by technology, at the same time the reproduction of superstition is increased and the critical thinking is minimized. In other words, the Greek – Turkish war (that at the end is an aspect of the Euro Asian war) at the Youtube is directly connected with the medium itself and the very questioning surrounding web2.0. The lack of alternative proposals and the weakness to react towards to the platforms – crucibles of Youtube, Myspace or the metaverses like Second Life, aren’t they the Deleuzian tragedy of our times?

A.F 5

…Thus the concept of becoming minor for the project Folded in is based on an aim to take these videos out of the context of the Greek- Turkish war (or any similar war or conflict situation in every part of the world) and of the Youtube framing and to re-register them, assigning to them a new role, that of a composing active element in a gameplay. In other words, the aim is their deterritorialization from the broadcast space of Youtube literally, but also metaphorically as signs, transforming the videos from mere screens, to game elements of a further play. The concept of becoming minor for the case of Folded- in project, is an effort to interrupt the dominant process of propaganda re-production to be an ‘’affinity to infinity’’ an affinity for an always needed redefinition of its products...

A.F 6

Immaterial labor and web 2

A snake’s coils are even more intricate than a mole’s burrow. (Deleuze, 1995)

What the citation to G. Deleuze’s snake coils stand for, is that a situation like this one that the project deals with, couldn’t be clear if all possible layers -of the same matter- do not find their place to appear.

It should be clear that an online project should consider the parameters and the tools that reflect and form the ways in use at this moment in the info sphere, to re-enact and prolong the profit based on such adversities.

Nowadays, what the web2 addresses is the ‘free’ labour’’ that subjects engage in, on a

cultural and bio political level when they participate on sites as YouTube, Myspace or the metaverses like Second Life. In addition to the corporate mining and selling of user generated content, this would include the tastes, preferences, and general cultural content constructed therein. However, the orientation that such spaces offer to the users neglect the possibility of creation of the critical mind so essential in order to be engaged and deal with such matters as border perception and definitions, intercultural activities and interrelations and above all the construction of this cognitive map that could help all those involved, to understand the nature of the problem that consists to have the ‘’other’’ as neighbour. Regarding the development of the project the phenomenon of immaterial labour into the frame context of web 2, explicitly situates this subjective turn within the active and ongoing construction of virtual subjectivities across social networks. And that by focusing on the matters and simultaneously offering the necessary tools that give the possibility not just of

participation but of comparison and exploration of the alternative possible forms of coexistence inside a game space.

A.F 7.

Since the beginning of history, empires were always fighting for the establishment of a paradoxical monism and the disappearance of dualism. Geometry Vs Geography. Liberalism or chaos. A space where geometry stands as the final synthesis, as the end of all oppositions, in other words of the illusions of the otherness that are embedded into the context of geography. The Leviathianism idea of the war of everyone against everyone in an endless process, with the universal head standing above all and offering prosperity, peace and order at will with a metaphysical gesture to the selected ones. But people were always fighting and continue to fight against specific enemies that have faces, identities and bodies. Even if at Youtube representational structure it does not appear that way…

A.F 8

The reason for such an undertaking is that we live in a moments of rupture that regulates the transformations of “demographic politics” and politicisation of life. The main idea behind this involves a concern for affairs that are brought to the attention to a bio-politics. We’re not talking only focusing here on the culturally specific conditions within shifting modalities, but towards far broader issues to emerge. To that extent, the emergence of this intersection reaches its debates around cross border dialogue, cultural intersections, crossings and/or networks which are profoundly rooted in a “disappearance” of subtle, ‘concrete’ boundaries.

By problematising the “transitory character” where different visions are converging and moving in defining and redefining the borders within new forms of articulation, the question we wish to raise is: what is this really referring to? What would happen when we encounter with a discursive space that produces a reality in which “there is no state in Europe”1 beyond its borders.

This exposes the imaginary geography and imaginary history which establishes a visual representation of the political and its subsequent intensification leads to the construction of a landscape by bringing together different modes of representation that are usually kept apart.

And this coming to presence is by no means a certain matter as the definition of ‘folded-in’ refers a condition of existence.

A.F 9

This is why FOLDED-IN, an online multi-user platform that combines videogame basic elements with the possibility of a constant data flow, addresses the creation of an online community that will not only be part of the game but will create the networking that conveys the world in our absence in its multiplicity. This generates a specific impulse towards the border line that moves towards the conceptual space of perception, like a substantial part of the conditions that form the recognition of reality where this manifests a progressive approach to a critical engagement within a creative practice.

The key to understanding this question in this orientation is related to the Deleuzian concept: “yet-to-come” (virtuality) belongs to ‘being-in-the-world’.

1 Hegel’s widely known articulation “there is no state in Europe” (Es gibt keinen Staat in Europa)


Summary

Folded in

Crossing the borders of a WEB 2.0 reality

Borders exist to demarcate and control properties. They signal the limits of stability, sovereignty and security for a state. Their representation especially in the case of air and sea border is symbolic, with lines and numbers noted on a map, marking what history has imposed. While ultramodern war systems guard these limitations, their marking is still fluid and their crossing is relevant, allowing them to become occasions of concern, conflict and war. The delimitation of the borders however is not happening only on a map; borders are also installed inside our bodies and minds. In the era of web 2.0 people are supposed to be given the possibility to cross borders, to supersede them and see beyond. User-generated systems like the Youtube are based on the information and perspectives provided by the users. But what does this call for subjectivity brings upon? A tour in the Youtube will allow one to see that people reproduce the prejudices and superstitions imposed to them by the mainstream media and nationalistic beliefs. A video war is taking place by users opposing to one another through such material. The call for critical thinking seems to be the necessity of our times. Can we liberate ourselves from prejudices and beliefs? Personal Cinema questions the emergence of both representation and distribution systems which are responsive to a dialogue, networking and collaboration across physical, cultural and imaginative borders. Focusing to a framework of independent production and to the platforms that allow such practices, Personal Cinema will seek to reverse the situation given, and will aim to provoke discussions and give birth to a new network of thoughtful gamers and users. FOLDED IN is such an attempt. It is a detournement. What happens to videos when they are taking out this context? When they are assigned a new role, that of acting as key components in a gameplay? Users will be asked to cross borders, conquer and map territories evaluating the data they watch. Opposing sides and territories are fluid and subjective. Folded in is a manifestation for a progressive approach to a critical engagement within creative practice, a form of resistance questioning if technologies could allow us to minimise the superstitions of our times.