The Existential Tweeter, a ship adrift.

SUSAN Please use this image of ship

http://booktwo.org/notebook/a-ship-adrift/

Turner’s “Fighting Temeraire”, radical vision of the past, future and industrial age.

3 key questions.1) How do people interact with each other and the

world (the bit that isn’t people) and what does that say about being human?

2) In a digital age are things different due to “perfect information”, “instant communication”, “instant friends” and “data” ? 3) What does this mean for how we relate to each other and with the world interact today and in the future ?

Who is the existential tweeter ?• He or she is someone who uses the internet to find its

potential to communicate real feelings, thoughts, emotions and ideas. He or she is someone who is as one with data.

• It is a pointer to how 100 years from now we will view our technology based world in hindsight.

• It is a denial of the purely technological nature of the internet.

• Philosophy and technology based art is basis of my argument.

• Digital art provides a keyhole view of the future.

Why I wrote this.• We define ourselves in part via our relationships with others.• How did that work in Existentialism ?• How does that work in Social media (the new community)?• Can we be optimistic in an existential sense about a technology driven world and

its effect on community?• Is there a new humanist paradigm emerging from the internet or are we on the

verge of something more radical ?• Are we cyberutopianinsts or cybersceptics ?

• Why is this important ?• Because our lives are changing substantially as a consequence of technology. Is

there a new consciousness emerging?• This is definitely a political question but also metaphysical.

The Existential Tweeter• We need to start with some key ideas on how

people interact as defined in existentialist thought.• Sartre’s “Hell is other people”, Martin Buber’s “I

and Thou”.• What happens if we deny ourselves human

interaction (Julian of Norwich).• Social media, connected with everyone and no one

?• Beyond Social media, the internet as the Mother of

Big Brother.

Who are we going to meet today ?

• Jean Paul Sartre • Martin Buber• Julian of Norwich• Sophie Calle• Haiku Jam• Stanza DNA.• James Bridle (a ship adrift).

A bit of philosophy.

• Sartre : L enfer c’est les autres. From “No exit” is about how others see you not how you see yourself.

• Buber: I and Thou, and I and it. The basis of real human interaction (and with God), and the interaction with things.

Garcin concludes that rather than torture devices or physical punishment, "hell is other people." This is because we only see ourselves through the eyes of others. And we see their evil as signalling the latent evil in us.

Martin Buber (1878-1965)

Buber I and Thou (1923).

I and it (Ich und es).I and Thou (Ich und Du).

“Like primitive man the child lives between sleep and sleep (a great part of his waking hours is also sleep) in the flash and counter-flash of meeting”.

“Through the thou a person becomes I “.

Julian of Norwich b:1343, bricked herself up forever (Anchorite).

Julian of Norwich (1343-?)From Revelations of divine love (14th century)

“AND thus I saw that God enjoyeth that he is our father, and God enjoyeth that he is our mother:”

“Then went [weened] I verilie to have passed, and in this case sodenlie all my paine was taken from me, and I was as whole, and namely in the over-part of my bodie, as ever I was before. I mar vailed of this sodaine change: for me thought that it was a privie

working of God, and not of kind.”

Julian of Norwich• In being totally cut off from society (she would

not have used Twitter) she creates intimate relationship with God, the father and the mother.

• Reinvention of model of social content, Not L’enfer cest les autres !

• Extreme mysticism and rejection of community. • A radical model of human interaction.• Polar opposite of social media as human contact

irrelevant, only contact with God.• A bit like contact with data ?

Ideas of contact with other people, dialogue, existence.

• How does this work in a technological world ?

• How does it work with new fast forms of communication ?

• What does this mean for consciousness ?

Being Human

• Hell is other people.• I and thou, the key to being me.• Substitute human interaction for

interaction only with God.OR• Go on Twitter , Facebook , Linked in.• Become part of a Data based universe.

Has the internet changed the nature of communication ?Can it communicate beyond the superficial ?How does human interaction operate in a digital world ?What is the role of the virtual community ?Is there any space for the sincere and serious in an online world ?Is Buber’s I and thou a thing of the non digital age ?Is Julian of Norwich mystical communication impossible in an world ?

2 technology ideas that refer :

• Cyberutopianism ie communities facilitated, education no loneliness (from my book)

• V fast and efficient, can tell everyone a piece of news if you want to. Get feedback

• Cybersceptisim: end of the authentic human communication, twitter Facebook totally fatuous

• Or localisation of Internet as per Rewire

Some info from Dan Cobley from Google, and others.

• 2.5 billion people are on line at any one moment• 50 million tweets a day

• Cyberutopianism• Cyberscepticism.

• Extreme Localisation or extreme globalisation (too much choice)

• Infobecity

Adopting and adapting to the internet.

• Sophie Calle. Art installation and e mail.• Haiku and Twitter , looking for meaning.• The error message• Haiku error messages• Haiku Jam• Data in the emergent city (Stanza).• Stanza re DNA ???

http://www.stanza.co.uk/about/• A ship adrift.

SOPHIE CALLETake Care of Yourself

Calle got an email from a lover, dumping her. She asked a team of women – all experts in their professional fields – to respond to it. Each woman interprets the

letter from her point of view: a jurist analyses it as the termination of a contract, a translator examines its grammar, a composer turns it into music.

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry

messages

The Web site you seekCannot be located, butCountless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.Reflect, repent, and reboot.

Order shall return.

Program aborting:Close all that you have worked on.

You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.I am the Blue Screen of Death.

No one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.Today it is not working.

Windows is like that.-

A file that big?It might be very useful.

But now it is gone.

Yesterday it workedToday it is not workingWindows is like that

Stay the patient courseOf little worth is your ire

The network is down

Three things are certain:Death, taxes, and lost data.Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,but the water has moved on.

This page is not here.

Blue skies broke the manHe stood there smiling for herHer voice chimed through wind

Stanza DNA

Stanza DNA• Ich und Es, Ich und Du, Ich und Data (the new

paradigm• What is he addressing ?• If world is at mercy of technology and if human

interaction is no longer I and Thou (viz Twitter etc) , how do we relate to our world or each other ?

• The answer lies in data and technology and ite relationship with ME and with THOU

• The data inclusive city • DNA is data, all is data• CCTV is data• We are agents in a data driven world• We are all part of the artwork• Artificial intelligence is part of this

Charlie Gere on StanzaStanzas object oriented aesthetics

“Stanza’s work may be seen as offering, an object-oriented aesthetics, that enables non-human actants to participate in the processes of representation and art making, and in doing so finds a means of expression that is adequate to our complex,interconnected world.”

“The mother of big brother.The avatar city is not only controlled by the real city in terms of its function and operation, but also utterly dependent upon it for its existence.Underlying conceptual theme. The mother of big brother .”

HOPE THIS ALL MAKES SENSE !

• Existentialism, hell is other people, I and thou.• Julian of Norwich, the most intimate

relationship with God the mother, no connection with Thou.

• Internet, extreme banality , BUT• New paradigm, the connected city, the mother

of big brother.

James Bridle, a ship adrift

• Data creates its own integrated paradigm..• What is division between humanity and

data ?• What determines patterns in data ?• What is the New Aesthetic ?

Fiona Banner, James Bridle, Artangel “A ship adrift”, Southbank.

SUSAN Please use this image of ship

http://booktwo.org/notebook/a-ship-adrift/

http://shipadrift.com/log/2013/01/12

So here’s what I think.

• The advent of the internet has changed forever the fundamental human paradigm of I and Thou, and I and it.

• A new technology based form of expression and art has emerged which has liberated data into a democratic data integrated world.

• This leads to a data integrated paradigm of human consciousness, hard to conceive and delineate today. This also redefines political and economic models.

• The mother of big brother.• It is the opposite of Julian of Norwich in her cell in

Norwich.