They all went in, the housekeeper with them, and found more than a hundred volumes of big books very well bound, and some other small ones. The moment the housekeeper saw them she turned about and ran out of the room, and came back immediately with a saucer of holy water and a sprinkler, saying, "Here, your worship, senor licentiate, sprinkle this room; don't leave any magician of the many there are in these books to bewitch us in revenge for our design of banishing them from the world. (Cervantes: Don Quixote)
He got carried away by the new media of his time. After that era, practically every new media form or technology has had its critics, been deemed suspicious or even malicious: newspapers, radio, movies, tv, computer games, the internet. Yet, they've been happily adopted by the masses.
Fiction and entertainment have a mission to tickle our imagination and to carry us away. First the audiovisual technology, and now augmented reality not only glues our imagination, but also swallows up our senses, the perception of our corporeal environment around us.
David Croteau, William Hoynes and Stefania Milan paraphrase Sven Birkerts in their Media/Society: "We do not need to know about the world; instead, we need to know how to access the data that will tell us about the world." (p.306)
Science fiction is eager to ask us what the real world is like – and what does it matter if we take our daily dose of soma. If one feels it a nice place to live in, and if one has the feeling of control, does it matter what's the boring truth?
Sight from Sight Systems.
So, if it were not for the bad of Sancho Panza and of his horse Rosinante, should one leave these self-made knights to live their dreams? Should we let Patrick hover on the living room floor and use his might when dating Daphne?
For now, the author stretches his back and pauses. Level 1 finished.
I have been thinking about the history of Spain lately, because I had an opportunity to travel in the Middle Spain a month ago. I saw Avila, Salamanca and Vollodilod, where Cervantes had written Don Quixote. All the cities in which we visited in Spain, were very old with narrow streets and old buildings. Finland is young - so is it easier to jump into future, change our living styles etc. Don't know but I love this long time perspective we have in edcmooc
VastaaPoistaAn intriguing post, I really enjoyed the links made to Don Quixote, and the reference to soma! Thanks for the link to Media/Society, I’ll plan to give that a read…
VastaaPoista"We do not need to know about the world; instead, we need to know how to access the data that will tell us about the world." (p.306)
Doesn’t this assume a divide between ‘reality’ and ‘data’, something that the Sight film seems to rely on as well? Don’t our human senses simply provide us with ‘data’ about the world anyway – meaning our engagement with the world is always mediated?
Jeremy, that is a very interesting question! It is in the core of human understanding to rely one's senses, no matter how comprehensive or limited 'data' they convey. As we humans have always shared a more or less similar way of gaining information, we haven't any other option but to (pretend to) trust it, and base our thinking, action, and communication on it. There's a wealth of philosophical discussion on this, search eg. George Berkeley's Idealistic "Esse est percipi / percipere", or G.E. Moore's opposing Defense of Common Sense. Philosophers aside, nowadays it's a practical issue on how be react to objects in the augmented reality. From psychological point of view I'm interested in 'self' and the interaction between self and un-self. And talking about these... how mediated is that, when words and concepts have a different logic than the 'reality'... I could easily get carried away with this topic :D
VastaaPoistaHeli, have you read Eco's 'The Name of the Rose'? There is a character named Jorge of Burgos. I like very much how this Spanish monk was constructed to depict the Iberian medieval spiritual climate and even the physical environment. Wonderful book, methinks! If you are interested in that book at all, here is my take on finding out what intertextual connections there are (sorry, a mixture in English and in Finnish): http://cmapspublic2.ihmc.us/rid=1177932528024_308931238_5182/The%20Map%20of%20the%20Rose.cmap (clearly another topic I get carried away easily...)
VastaaPoistaYes, I have Umberto Eco's The Name of a Rose in my bookshelf and other books too. Love them, learned a lot
Poista