Axel Bruns and Mark Bahnisch have released a timely report on ’social media’. Axel has posted an executive summary on his blog where he also hosts a PDF copy of the report.
I haven’t had a chance to read through the whole thing yet, but all of their findings and observations as stated in the executive summary are largely applicable to the enthusiast forums in modified-car culture that I did a little research on as part of my PhD.
The Romantics proclaimed the beauty of Nature. Kant used events in Nature as examples of the terrifying sublime. I am often surprised when I am caught unawares by the beauty in the world. I don’t get to enjoy the sunset from my balcony much, as I don’t leave work until it is dark every night. I forgot how beautiful it can be.
Sitting at my computer doing an overdue referee for a journal article I became aware of a warm golden light streaming through the blinds. The sun was setting and there were light storm clouds in the sky that were about to drop rain. The clouds burdened with moisture reflected the brilliant orange glow of the setting sun. I took a few photos as the sun set.
A lost soul poses the question to Slashdot:
Where does a geek find a social life?
The responses are half lmao, half serious business and half wtf (that’s right, 150%, cause it’s that awesome):
don’t call it meatspace, it freaks out the normal people.
If you try something and it fails, you can always reload from a previous saved game. If only real life were like that… “Wow, that didn’t go over well. ctrl-z! ctrl-z!”
It doesn’t matter where you go, or what you do. Just start talking, and when it feels awkward, and people give weird feedback, don’t take it personally, move on, and try again. After a while, you’ll be person of character, and able to interact meaningfully with everyone.
You could start by not ASKING SLASHDOT…
video is a bit gaf, but song rocks.
Pete is to be a dad sooner rather than later. Good one!
Reading Todd McGowan’s article in the most recent issue of Film-Philosophy it is clear that Hegelians have a radically different conception of the future than I do, and I guess I am a Deleuzian. McGowan argues that the representation of the future in science fiction cinema can not be but an expression of the present ideologies. I agree. So the future of science fiction is not the future at all, but an ideological representation of the present. What, then, is the future?
Brian Massumi has best explored what I would call the actuality of the future, which is another way of saying, in the first instance (pun intended), the actualised virtuality of the present. The virtual can not be represented as such, only actualised. Does this therefore mean that the future can not be actual or is only ever actual? Otherwise the future would be, without any becoming. The futurity of the present, that which is to come but has not yet been actualised, is both present and in the future. The present is not this instant, the first or otherwise, but what is happening contemporaneously now. That is to say, the present duration does not merely exist within the contemporary now; rather, the contemporary exists beyond the present. The virtual exists as the contemporary that is not present, but in the future. Think of events that you are part. Your marriage, it is happening now, so stop reading this infernal internet, but it is also yet to happen. Your marriage has a future, I hope. The happening has not yet been exhausted.
The actual future, that of the present that has not yet been actualised and that of the contemporary, that is not yet present, has little to do with representations of the future in science fiction. I am very interested in the future, because capitalism functions most demonstratively in this space, in what Negri and Hardt called the passage from the virtual to the actual. My interest is specifically in thinking a Deleuzian conception of the spectacle. I agree with every critique in Guy Debord’s masterwork, The Society of the Spectacle, except for his assumptions regarding time, for his assumptions are far too Hegelian. I’ve written about this somewhere, I need to find it.
My primary example, at this stage, is of the ‘rewards’ card — the frequent shopper card, the Fly Buys card, the ‘points’ card, and most telling, the ‘loyalty’ card. ‘Loyalty’ examined through the lens of the Kantian imperative is a question of moral duty. ‘Loyalty’ examined by way of a Deleuzian event mechanics is an effect of modulating the field of possibility in the passage from the virtual to the actual. It is not a question of identity, but a constriction of the field of action. We are all Pavlov’s dogs, it is the character of the reward that defines us and whether or not we are worthy of it. Some of us are more worthy dogs than others.
The loyalty card operates within the space of the contemporary that is never present. There is a deferral of an actualised present that hums with an affective tension. It is pure ideology in the way a closure and contradiction is represented as an escape, a reward. To invert Derrida’s hauntology, capitalism haunts the present with the future while never escaping the contemporary. A perverted eschatology, the deferral of the present is its own reward.
I watched Terminator 4 again last night. It was better on second viewing. I watched it for what it was doing, rather than watching it filtered through my expectations and what I perceived to be its faults. One thing I did like was Sam Worthington. He can actually act. This I found I little surprising. He expresses it here, in an interview:
Did you see something in that canon that you wanted to bring forward?
Sam: I wanted to make a role where he’d actually feel pain ‘cause I’d never seen that, I’d seen a bit of it in Blade Runner but I’ve never actually seen a movie where a cyborg or a robot hurts, not only physically but mentally and emotionally. I wanted to ramp that up a bit.
Australian actors seem to transition from working in Australia to the big time of Hollywood like they move through a phase space. It is very weird. It is like Australians only get to know about Australian actors once they leave Australia. I think this tells us something about the Australian media. What would happen if there was a fucking ruthless Australian publication or broadcast that only examined Australian popular culture directly and others only indirectly, like they do in the US? Am I stupid, do they already have this? I think it would have a positive effect on Australian culture.
Public holiday and I am working…
Here is some They Might Be Giants. I’ve got my hand inside the puppet head.
The enthuse issue of MC Journal is finally up. It wasn’t easy juggling a fulltime (plus!) job and getting the issue sorted. In the future I shall leave myself much more time to organise what needs to be organised. I thank all the contributors for their patience and excellent work. I also thank Axel Bruns for coming in at the end to basically save my skin and tie up all the loose ends. At just under a month overdue, it really is better late than never.
‘enthuse‘
EDITORIAL: The Challenges of Enthusiasm - Glen Fuller
FEATURE: Enthusiasm as Affective Labour: On the Productivity of Enthusiasm in the Media Industry - Goetz Bachmann, Andreas Wittel
“If you can walk down the street and recognise the difference between cast iron and wrought iron, the world is altogether a better place”: Being Enthusiastic about Industrial Archaeology - Hilary Geoghegan
Never Coming to a Theatre near You: Recut Film Trailers - Kathleen Williams
Enthusiasm, the Creative Industry and the ‘Creative Tropical City: Mapping Darwin’s Creative Industries’ Project - Clementine Ruth Hill
Promises of Peace and Passion: Enthusing the Readers of Self-Help - Rebecca Hazleden
“Gently Caress Me, I Love Chris Jericho”: Pro Wrestling Fans “Marking Out” - Wilson Koh
The Blonde Goddess - Meera Atkinson
My writing has changed considerably since I have become a cog in the cultural industry. I was speaking with an old friend over the weekend. It is the first time we have really spoken in a long time. He asked me if I miss all the theory stuff. At first I was going to say, Yes. But then it occurred to me that I don’t miss it, because it hasn’t gone anywhere. Almost every article I write nowadays, and I write many, is in some way written in relation to what I worked so hard to express in my dissertation. There is something to be said for testing one’s ideas in a radically different cultural and social milieu. It is far from the case that I need to ‘dumb’ my ideas down, rather I am challenged to express the force of the ideas in ways that are actually forceful. The alleged elegance of a well argued scholarly piece leaves much to be desired if it isn’t actually read by anyone. Where is the efficacy then? To write in another discourse and yet address and grapple with the same intellectual problems that drove me to finish my dissertation in different ways is the current challenge I face. To participate in the practices of subcultural valorisation that belong to this scene I am part of, so my words actually mean something is my task.
