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Response #3 --kkline, Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:52:27 -0500 reply
Response #3 1. What, if any, is the difference between psychogeography and roomology? 2. How is the taxonomy of one’s room also the taxonomy of oneself? 3. In reference to psychogeography and roomology, how does a room directly and psychologically affect its viewer? I agree with the articles that a room directly affects a person when entered into, the first sensation is usually the strongest because the scents, sounds, colors and movement hit the guest at once. Each object and each crevice of the room adds to the overall mood, as well as gives the guest a snapshot of the room-owner’s character. While the color scheme and tidiness of a room can evoke pathos in the viewer, it can also serve as a basis of assessment of the room-owner by the guest. In terms of psychogeography, a room gives the guest a sensation that is particular to the function and personal decorations, for example, a Church or a Temple have the functionality of prayer, meditation, spirituality and congregation, but each are decorated in different ways to suit the beliefs, funding and religious practices; however, although each is decorated differently and serves a different function, all of them evoke a feeling of respect, solemnity, tranquility and awe. So then psychologically speaking, a room must have more to it than just decorations or functioning or cleanliness. According to psychogeography and roomology, the way a room ‘feels’ depends on the associations that are attached to objects, colors, music, lighting, temperature and clutter. There are associations that span across the globe (like smiling and laughing), but most associations are created within a particular culture or society. For example, in America when a baby boy is born, he is given articles of light blue for congratulations; however, in Argentina, this color has another meaning, it may remind the people of the flag or revolution or patriotism. Specifically, if a nursery in America was painted light blue, then it would mean a baby boy lived there because of our societal norms shown through psychogeography; in Argentina, the nursery might show a blue room because the boy also has the colors of an Argentinean soccer team on his walls. Therefore, while some characteristics of roomology are standard and universal (like temperature and cleanliness), decorations not only display the personality of the owner, but as stated in the articles, it also psychologically influences the guests’ perceptions while inside the room. These perceptions also vary according to the culture and society, as well as other factors, like political affiliation or religious beliefs (for example, a Conservative might feel uncomfortable inside a Liberal college student’s apartment). All in all, the taxonomy of a room involves many different factors that influence the mood and observation of the viewer.

Response #3 --sbaldwin, Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:26:05 -0500 reply
Katie: On the one hand, there's the structure of the room and on the other hand there's the people - the inhabitants - and it's associations that tie it together. So, there's a tremendous power of memory and association in space. Part of the idea of a "species" of space is foregrounding these associations; showign the most significant ones; or even showing them emerging and at work.

response by sandy --sbaldwin, Tue, 07 Feb 2006 00:31:50 -0500 reply
Katie: (Hey, try posting your responses into the commnet box rather than via the edit tab. It's easier for you and easier for me to respond.) Where are your three questions? I'm not sure what question you're responding to... You've summarized part of Bush's article; there are similarities to contemporary web surfing and to aspects of statistics and scientific research (or rather these are similar to what he argues, as he was doing this 60 years ago).

response by sandy --kkline, Tue, 07 Mar 2006 21:45:06 -0500 reply
I've just noticed that the response I did on Vannevar Bush's article is missing...and it corresponds to this comment concerning putting responses in the comment box. I'm guessing this is why you asked me to do this. I am just letting you know because I am going to post it again in the box this time, but it will say I posted it late. Sorry for the confusion. Katie

Reposting Response #4 --kkline, Tue, 07 Mar 2006 21:46:39 -0500 reply
1. How does Bush incorporate scientific structure and the typical functions of the human mind into the design of the Memex? 2. What are some aspects of Bush’s Memex that reflect familiar characteristics of a PC? 3. Is their a possible correlation between Bush’s desk design and the future invention of the desktop?

The approach that Vannevar Bush takes in his essay is typical of a science enthusiast or student; the organization and explanations of the Memex also reflects the accuracy and calculations of a researcher. However, Bush manages to incorporate both the structure of scientific research and elements of innovation. While he appreciates the organization of records in a library, for example, he also knows that the human mind uses associations. He draws the juxtaposition between the classifications of scientific studies and the natural order of the human mind; he uses a similar taxonomy to scientific research because it is user-friendly. The series of dots he designed that allows the user to jump from one subject to another is more organized than the human mind and even the simple classification of finding a topic in the first place is more ordered than the cognitive structure of the human mind; for example, the human mind would not list every topic it knows alphabetically before selection of an item. So Bush created the Memex like the hyperlinked page where a user can easily follow his/her train of thought visually and retrieve whole “trails” of information. The standardized classification of the Memex recording and searching procedure is similar to statistics, for example, that allow a researcher to understand, in detail, the results of a particular finding. Anyone with an understanding of how the Memex works (like the typical teenager can surf now) is able to create, record, store, add and search data in one place and view two different subjects simultaneously, as well. The universability of the Memex is intriguing because it allows easy accessibility of data for all people, however the innovative additions to the Memex that allow a user to interact with the data by creating trails, corresponds well with the human mind making this a very interesting, scientific invention.

Response #5 --kkline, Wed, 08 Feb 2006 01:17:33 -0500 reply
1. What are some of the interesting aspects of the article that relate to the evolution into the known desktop? 2. What are some of the metaphorical items on the desktop? 3. Have the limitations mentioned in the article actually developed into some of the concerns with desktops today?

1. I have to admit that the article in Personal Computing is very entertaining; due to the fact that it was written in 1984, the tone is of awe, bewilderment and over-all doubt in the innovation of a metaphorical desktop. The way in which a desktop in analyzed and discussed --as if it was a mythological concept-- is hilarious, especially when the doubts are discussed as to whether the windows will be helpful or not; however, the fear that the author has about whether it will, in a way, insult the users that are fluent in command prompting, for example. In response to this, I thought of my Dad who is desktop support; he has been working on computers since the 70’s and has seen them evolve to the way they are now, but, the metaphorical icons and windows do not slow him down. The construct of operation systems allows people to use computer in a very basic and easily recognizable manner; whether this is a good or bad feature is arguable, but it nevertheless allows a vast range of people to understand and use a universal format. For example, in going to different country and visiting an internet café, a user can theoretically browse the desktop without knowing the language as long as the icons are metaphorically accurate and significant in everyday life. Another aspect I found interesting in the article is the mention of how humans need to be instantly gratified, even with their computer software; the argument is that without being able to view the technical jargon of the computer, the user will forget what he/she is waiting for and will get impatient. I think this is the one comment in the article that holds true to today (because IBM certainly needed mouse hardware afterall) when it is common to hear a user that might not know much beyond solitaire screaming at the screen, “what’s taking so long?!”

Response #5 --sbaldwin, Wed, 15 Feb 2006 11:02:02 -0500 reply
Katie: Good questions. I agree that the PC article has a kind of antique fascination. We might say it captures attitudes at a certain moment that - for us - feel ancient and amusing. Good point about the relation between the desktop as a universal metaphor (e.g. in other countries) vs. the language-specific quality of command line work - perhaps the advantages and power of command line interfaces - and we have to grant that there are some - remain tied to specific language domains. Instant gratification: interesting to think about how this transforms our sense of information. If the only information worth having is what comes immediately, what might we miss out on?

Resonse #6 --kkline, Mon, 20 Feb 2006 22:33:41 -0500 reply
1. How would you describe an “electronic suburb”? 2. How does Reality Television coincide with a normal citizen in a Panopticon society? 3. What is the difference between Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality and how can augmented reality improve physical space?

Augmented reality improves physical space by grounding the multimedia within physical reality whereas virtual reality offers an alternative to physical reality. There’s something easily accessible and obsessible about videogames and any other form of virtual reality; this is why I have to reserve the next copy of Grand Theft Auto months ahead of its release date. And this is why for the next 3 months I lock myself in my apartment and live off of Cheetos while my eyesight declines even more than it already has. Grand Theft Auto offers an alternative to the stressful, yet eerily predictable world of outside my front door; this is America’s dependency and passion for virtual reality. The alternative to this setup is something mentioned by Manovich as a world that meshes together these 2 realities so that the alternative reality isn’t parallel to the physical reality, it is intertwined; this is augmented reality. Using technology to improve society instead of giving us an excuse for turning our heads to the problems; rather than jumping on the trolley to the land of make believe, we would transform our mundane world into a better place. However, I argue that the overabundance of cellphones and PDAs? may appear to capture the essence of the augmented reality, but instead it allows us to be even more aloof than we can be inside our houses. Grand Theft Auto is now portable so that I can go on a killing spree in my underwear within the comfortable setting of the subway while I ignore the business man adjusting his stocks on his laptop and the homeless man sleeping against the window. Believe me, I am all for videogames, but I foresee the virtual world seeping into the physical world where problems are no longer solved, they’re forgotten amidst to wireless controllers and Blue Teeth; where in the augmented world, microphones enhanced a voice, now it is silenced in the omnipotent presence of a Paris Hilton temper tantrum on television. Great idea Manovich, but where do we begin?

Your preaching to the choir --BoWVU123?, Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:57:15 -0500 reply
I had just made a similar response to yours with one of our classmates. Technology and virtual reality and all of that jazz has become an escape for an ever so stressful daily life. In a sense the improved technology has allowed us to become more efficient but with that comes more work.At the end of the day it is fun to have cool little things to stimulate the brain and just hang out for a bit.

Manovich Response --JMurray53?, Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:02:57 -0500 reply
I agreed with a lot of the points you made about virtual reality being an escape from our own lives which we may perceive as dull or boring. I am the same way about the Madden football video games as you are about Grand Theft Auto so I can relate to that as well. Your response asked a lot of good questions and was very thought provoking.

Response #7 --kkline, Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:11:17 -0500 reply
1. What are the differences, if any, between information, data and knowledge? 2. There has been plenty of mention on the topic of privacy paranoia in wayfinding, but my question is what affect will GPS have on humans’ understanding of freedom and how will the fear of getting lost correlate with straying from the path of life, e.g. will we always be on time and on target? 3. How does “the grapevine” of evolutionary psychology play a role in today’s technological advancements?

All societies have some element of the “he-said-she-said” form of communication; as humans, we trust experts only on those topics that are too in-depth and obscure for us to understand, therein making them the uninteresting topics. Astrophysics is something that 90% of Americans would let a scientist handle and never question the validity; however, astrophysics is also a topic that 90% of Americans would never type in their search engine. Based on concepts of evolutionary psychology, humans are engrained to be interested in the things that are easily accessible and easily comprehensible by a number of people. Evolutionary psychology also states that we are a community oriented people- hands down- because we relied on a pack mentality for survival during the hunter-gatherer phases of our existence. This combination is what has peaked the interest of most Americans in information technology; the “he-said-she-said” information can be transmitted twice as easily and twice as quickly to anyone on the globe. So that while the astrophysicists are plugging and chugging away in lab coats, the rest of the country is frantically thumbing in a message about who cheated on whose baby’s momma. The topics that link us together as a society, the universally understandable and equally interesting gossip, are what make text messaging, email and cell phones so freaking awesome. I’ll analyze my quantitative statistics in the library, but once I’m through the doors, I’ll check my messages to see what I missed in the meantime. So according to evolutionary psychology, we are products of our ancestors: reproduce, stick-together and talk about reproduction; leave the hunting to the hunters and the agriculture to the farmers. As mentioned in Morville’s chapter 3, gossip is what gets people ahead; we train for the skills required to work in a corporate office, but as humans, we are all still preoccupied with the basics of social interactions, the most primitive of basic instincts. Blackmail, back-stabbing and gossip are all ways to lower the status of a higher-up, therein retreating back to the survival of the fittest. Leave it to email to spread this news quicker, broader and easier.

Response #8 --kkline, Tue, 07 Mar 2006 21:34:28 -0500 reply
1. What are some dangers of log files? 2. Where can you find web bugs and how can they be disguised? 3. Should security be a necessary sacrifice for living in a consumer-oriented society? What, specifically, is the cost of living in a marketable culture? We are a society that wants everything to be immediate, instantaneous and catered to our needs, but how can a retailer, for example, know what we want and still provide privacy? In the world we live in today, we very rarely get a chance to create something from the ground up; for instance, we know when we need a new pair of blue jeans, but we typically do not measure ourselves, buy the fabric and sew up what we had in mind. Instead, we prefer to go to a place that was built to cater to the potential buyer --the mall-- where we “pull” items of interest from the rack and weigh the pros and cons. Even when we “build-a-bear” we are simply picking characteristics that have been pre-made; we act as choosers instead of creators. And typically speaking, we prefer it to be that way, looking at it from a cost-benefit analysis, we would much rather sit back and let the products come to us so that we are free to accept or reject them. But the cost of this monarchical approach to personalization just happens to be security, for in order to have the freedom to choose, marketing gurus must have the freedom to collect our information. The most recent (at least to my knowledge) approach is through the internet’s prevalence of cookies and web bugs; so that those things that a consumer has grabbed and pinned on themselves to define their identity, is now being used for categorization. Let’s say, someone who recognizes themselves as an avid collector of butterfly wind chimes, will be bombarded with advertisements and “you would also like” statements due to the transmission of cookies. The places we like to visit, the items we like to purchase and our personal home page preferences are all tracked for marketing purposes and for personalization of the user’s space. The main idea to consider is whether protection of information is more important and useful than configuring the internet to our preferences as we would personalize ourselves through our music and clothing selections.

Response #7 --sbaldwin, Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:37:26 -0500 reply
Katie: The "meme" is one measurement of gossip, shifting from the possibly unsystematic notion (gossip) to something more scientific - how an idea spreads and takes on a life of its own. I like the question about GPS. How does this change our sense of where we are in the world? If we rely on gps and other systems, do we lose our sense of place and the importance of a "thick" or "immersive" relation to place? Or, perhaps, do these new technologies lead to this relation in a new way? Perhaps the surveillance questions in fact build on this? i.e. surveillance is an issue precisely because of the shifting in our sense of place and how we arrive at it?

Response #8 --sbaldwin, Thu, 16 Mar 2006 09:00:59 -0500 reply
Katie: What this article calls "web bugs" are close to what we know as "spyware." Of course there are programs to remove spyware, but it's almost a losing battle. Plus, the good aspects of social software work through the same technologies. One thing we find with ubiquitous technologies, is that the advantages we seek are precisely tied to new disadvantages - perhaps a constant in all new things? I like your point about picking characteristics: this raises the question of how we construct individuality at a particular time. If today this means picking from an array of characteristics, this means both a reduction of freedom/individuality but also a new form for it to express itself through. Choice of information becomes the form of the individual. There's a kind of meeting of choice and self where these things are worked out.

Response #9 --kkline, Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:45:10 -0500 reply
1. What is Garcia referring to in the sentence, “capital is not threatened by chaos it thrives on it?” 2. Does globalization tie in to the disappearance of places? 3. What effects do moments and places have on memory? Depending on the outlook of the reader, this phrase, and well the whole argument itself, can mean many different things. It seems when Garcia is referring to chaos, he is really implying fear. It is this correlation that confuses me. Is he referring to fear of change, fear of order, fear of lack of authority, fear of authority directing our beliefs? Or is he referring to the theory that capitalism is so engulfing that it is adopting the characteristics of the radical movements and anarchy? Assuming that he is describing the last question, he might be discussing the opinion that the bourgeois are the ones designing, financing and consuming the products which are advertised through tactical media. Therefore, capitalism would need to modify itself in order to appeal to that particular mass of consumer, the kind that has the money to buy over the internet. Therein, capitalism itself is morphing into a pro-radical entity, while it thrives in the arms of anarchy which has death in one hand and rebirth in the other. While consumerism survives on change, the capitalist economy runs along side, changing in order to produce new products while the old are thrown away. Is Garcia referring to a theory that tactical media has made capitalism anarchic or that tactical media is chaotic and, therein, fits well with marketing since it is based on a capitalist structure of advertising? That the advertising within tactical media thrives on the everchanging demands of a consumerist society? That would make sense to me if that is what he is saying—but honestly I have no idea if this is anywhere close to what he is saying—that as humans striving to fill a void with bigger, better, newer things, tactical media is a perfect area for advertising since it is more fluid, unstructured (somewhat anarchic) and changeable to constantly be updated to fit the needs of the consumer.

Response #10 --kkline, Sun, 26 Mar 2006 23:56:09 -0500 reply
1. What did this essay have to do with psychogeography when it seems more cultural theory (Marx) based? 2. What, if any, are the differences between psychogeography and behavior/social psychology? 3. What is the relation between psychogeography and ambience and what effect does it have on the consumer? Since scenes conjure up specific associations and ambience is the setting for these sensations, they are directly related in the realm that supposes our environment affects our memories and our feelings within a given situation. I remember learning at some point that the cleanliness of an environment is cyclical in the sense that if a city is dirty, a citizen will continue to throw trash on the ground. However, the same citizen in a clean neighborhood would be more inclined to throw away their garbage. This shows the correlation between the environment and the person, especially within the context of poverty and wealth. We assume that a wealthy neighborhood is happier because it is cleaner and the houses apparently show more wealth of individual home owners; however, the opposite goes for poverty-stricken cities, hence the reason why many parts of Morgantown look like slums. For those who are in the middle class, the consumer based section, if money for a mansion isn’t an option, then at least living in a city with a clean front yard is respectable and gives off the appearance, or sensation of wealth. The assumption that this class has about a wealthier class may drive them to buy nice cars, big t.v.s and hot tubs because they are trying to push themselves closer to the wealthy categories. This increases the market because consumers are striving to fill a hole that they believe is caused by not being in the perfect neighborhood. They assume that if they buy tons of material items then they would be another step closer to the wealthy (or the wealthy in a poor neighborhood as opposed to the poor in a wealthy neighborhood). So they buy the bigger and better things while the market continues to create the items and rename the items and improve the items to feed the hungry absence of wealth in the middle class.

Response #11 --kkline, Tue, 04 Apr 2006 02:01:22 -0400 reply
1. What are other constructive ways to use GPS capabilities? 2. In what way is the Amsterdam map more or les accurate than a regular map? 3. How can these technologies be used to orient the traveler to his/her new environment?

I like the new uses that these websites provide for GPS; because the on/off switch is provided, there isn’t a feeling of privacy invasion since the user has chosen to participate. Also, the GPS technology is being used to enhance the environment instead of take the user away. The concern I had before about GPS was with these two aspects (privacy and detachment) but these websites prove that there are constructive ways to use these technologies. Don’t get me wrong, if put into the wrong hands, monitoring without consent is likely and would cause a great concern for both privacy and personal safety, but these websites offer an alternative that provides the ability to choose whether a user wants to be tracked. In doing so it allows more experiences, connections and associations with the environment than before. I think instances like this used in accordance with nature may not be too great because nature might have a lot more about it without human assistance, but in regards to cities, a history is provided along side the visual stimulations. I like the educational approach of 34 North 118 West Project, the practical influences of Realtime Amsterdam Project and the sociological approaches to Glowlab’s One Block Radius and Annotated Space. I particularly appreciate the more sociological aspects of the last 2 projects because they encourage people to look at the city in a new way, for example, typically people are so busy and distracted that they don’t take time to stop and look at the debris, or drawings or plantlife around the area. I like that someone has taken the time to do this and provided it to the public for easy access, which will hopefully encourage people to do the same in their own environments.