Hayles and Turner: Drugs, Cybernetics and Mass Media

For both Hayles and Turner, the scientists involved in both the Macy conferences and those around San Francisco, posthumanism, cybernetics and the role of technology on material things such as books, print media, and artwork were discussed. While Hayles and Turner both refer to the post-war era (i.e. heavily Cold War decades), for Hayles due to the immediate problems facing international countries such as weapons and technology being used for deleterious ends leads to the homoeostasis stage of cybernetics (9,18-19). For Hayles especially, men like Shannon and Weaver, and later McLuhan were responding to the advent of technology such as television and more precarious the digitization of print media (i.e. the first computer-like devices). Although the computer does not reach mass consciousness until the 1980s via room size CPU systems, Hayles presciently discusses the e-book phenomenon of the Kindle and the Nook when he writes, “because they have bodies, books and humans have something to lose if they are regarded solely as informational patterns, namely the resistant materiality that has traditionally marked the durable inscription of books no less than it has marked our experiences of living as embodies creature,” (29). Hayles discussion of the posthuman and cyborg was frustrating in that there really seemed to be no point at face value to argue whether or not human beings are machines. I was relieved to find even one of the participants of the conferences is quoted in saying in 1969 that “cybernetics itself seemed to [him] mostly baloney,” (73). His confession seemed harsh to me because there were some interesting points dragged out from these conferences. To highlight a few: the concept of access versus possession as indication of information’s value in the capitalistic age on page 39, about the role of the “narrator or narrative” on page 43, and I presume the materiality of information versus the conceptualization of  said information (body versus mind, randomness vs. patterns/algorithms) on pages 7-8 all. These major points or maybe not so major for others to me are the most intriguing and I found myself thinking about today’s technology where one could access a book via kindle but then also on his or her android phone anywhere in the world. the android screen is considerably smaller than a kindle or nook’s and the text depending on the phone’s capabilities may be altered. This may not change the story the text is telling but it may change how we view the story.

On a lighter note, Hayles has a fun anecdote about the Catholic Church’s acceptance and adroitness with new technology with the computerized confessional—little did he know that the Church now has an iphone App that with a mere $1.99 fee guarantees its purchaser a confession system where one can choose which sin they committed or even type it into the phone and then the cyborg priest will recommend the just punishment needed for redemption (just kidding on that last part-the sinner will still have to go to a human priest to receive guidance about punishment).

You can check out the article here:  

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/confession-app-roman-catholic-church-sanctions-iphone-app/story?id=12866499

                The Turner piece focuses more on the art scene of the Bay area. In his opening pages, he hearkens back to McLuhan and the notion of technology and any medium becoming the extension of man. Hayles also references this when he discusses the posthuman as one who may become merely a vessel of information and patterns rather than an individual. Turner’s piece is an interesting shift, whereas Hayles focuses extensively on mathematicians Shannon and Weaver and some fictional writers like Gibson and his contemporaries, Turner’s focus on the Beats and Merry Pranksters shows how reality can change through the use of psychedelics like LSD. Furthermore, many of the anti-Vietnam protesters in Berkeley also rallied against the administration and thus illustrated a growing distrust of the status quo and of American values. The New communalists exemplify the changing role of technology as a medium of social change. The Techno music for example, “allowed them to feel as though the boundaries between the social and the biological , between their minds and bodies…were highly permeated,” (68). The image again reminds me of McLuhan because then these individuals who may or may not be high on LSD are experiencing some sort of out of body experience not necessarily only attributed to the drug but also to the venue, the music played and the attitude of their fellow dissidents. In this case, the medium can be the music or the drug itself and not necessarily a pamphlet or brochure about the Fest.

                On a more economic and political note, the computer ultimately becomes the newest technology that revolutionizes economies and people’s individual role in the economy. Up until this time, there was a push to put more machines in factories and take over the repetitive tasks which were previously held by human workers (I always think of the guy who puts the cap on the toothpaste tube from a movie that I cannot remember). But now with projects like the Media Lab the extension of more mechanization and more infusion of technology in everyday lives and everyday activities in particular formed (180-1). The GBN and other networks were founded in the wake of a scenario ridden Cold War era in which a nuclear holocaust was staged regularly to exemplify how much of a threat it was for the U.S.  (185-6). In the end, both accounts show how different disciplines approached societies’ changing technologies and changing perceptions about American values and ideals. Cybernetics is an interdisciplinary field though Shannon and Weaver, and Weiner types seemed to get the most out of it conceptually—both writers refer to them extensively.