Fuller, M.: Media ecologies : materialist energies in art and technoculture (2005)
0.00
0.0038753531 = product of:
0.011626059 = sum of:
0.011626059 = product of:
0.023252118 = sum of:
0.023252118 = weight(_text_:networks in 469) [ClassicSimilarity], result of:
0.023252118 = score(doc=469,freq=2.0), product of:
0.22247115 = queryWeight, product of:
4.72992 = idf(docFreq=1060, maxDocs=44218)
0.047034867 = queryNorm
0.10451745 = fieldWeight in 469, product of:
1.4142135 = tf(freq=2.0), with freq of:
2.0 = termFreq=2.0
4.72992 = idf(docFreq=1060, maxDocs=44218)
0.015625 = fieldNorm(doc=469)
0.5 = coord(1/2)
0.33333334 = coord(1/3)
- Footnote
- Moving on to Web pages-Heath Bunting's cctv-world wide watch, where users watching four Webcams are encouraged to report crimes on an HTML form, which is then sent to the nearest police station-Fuller shows how cultural and technological components mesh uneasily in the project. Fuller argues that the "meme" (a kind of replicator that mutates as it passes from person to person or media to media, and works in combination with its immediate environment) or "bit" of identity constitutes a problem for surveillance. Packets of information-often the most common "meme" in Web technology-is, for Fuller, the standard object around which an ecology gets built. Networks check packets as they pass isolating passwords, URLS, credit data, and items of interest. The packet is the threshold of operations. The meme's "monitorability" enables not only dissemination through the network, but also its control. Memes, or what Fuller calls "flecks of identity" are referents in the flows of information-they "locate" and "situate" a user. Fuller's work is full of rich insights, especially into the ways in which forces of power operate within media ecologies. Even when the material/technological object, such as the camera or the Webcam turns in on itself, it is situated within a series of interrelated forces, some of which are antagonistic to the object. This insight-that contemporary media technology works within a field of antagonistic forces too-is Fuller's major contribution. Fuller is alert also to the potential within such force fields for subversion. Pirate radio and phreaking, therefore, emblematize how media ecologies create the context, possibility, and even modalities of political and social protest. Unfortunately, Fuller's style is a shade too digressive and aleatory for us to discover these insights. In his eagerness to incorporate as many theorists and philosophers of media/technology-he moves from Nietzsche to Susan Blackmore, sometimes within the space of a single paragraph-Fuller often takes a long time to get to his contribution to the debate or analysis. The problem, therefore, is mainly with style rather than content, and the arguments would have been perfectly fine if they had been couched in easier forms."
