yes lag is still very much an issue for those of us using the internet 
for live performance - & perhaps it always will be. even with high-end 
systems, all it takes is a blip in one step of the route. even things 
like skype can perform shockingly badly - the other day i was skyping 
with someone in the uk, both of us on home broadband that is normally 
fine for web cam streaming, & her image suddenly went into a beautiful 
slow motion. her voice carried on normally, but i totally lost track of 
what she was saying because i was visually hypnotised by the quite 
perfect slow-mo images. at other times we often experience sound 
disintegration that can be both frustrating & beautiful. i also 
sometimes suffer email lag - when someone has sent an email & it 
randomly doesn't arrive for some hours or even days.

i like lag because of its random unpredictability, & how it can create 
unexpected juxtapositions, particularly when it occurs in text chat 
environments & results in people's words & thoughts coming through late 
or out of order. this can be more interesting and/or amsuing than the 
intended conversation ;)  lag reminds us that we're working in real time 
& that nothing is absolutely certain or fixed.

h : )

On 16/03/11 8:07 AM, Alan Sondheim wrote:
>
>
> Hi Sue,
>
> This isn't a hay-cart; my gmail in fact is a lot slower. If it wasn't 
> - if the web wasn't - I'd be using it constantly. You might be used to 
> loading times, but I'm not. And when looking at Vimeo or the work 
> that, say, Foofwa and I have done together at http://foofwa.com/ , the 
> lag becomes appreciable. This is such a problem in virtual worlds that 
> I generally use the stat window to make sure things don't slow up that 
> much; I've had both SL and OpenSim crash on me (and I use a gaming 
> computer) - freeze. If you just use email or standard web interfacing, 
> you might not notice this; if you are working with, say, 6000+ 
> particles and god knows how many prims, it's a real issue. I've even 
> had to use traceroute to see what's going on. So lag is not only an 
> issue - for me it's _the_ issue at times; with the performances I did 
> in Chicago, for example, I had to test and configure the SL / OpenSim 
> interfaces in order to run my work.
>
> And particularly with avatars, the somatic experience is heavily 
> related to lag, bandwidth, interface configuration, etc. etc.
>
> Right now I'm working with AR with very knowledgable people at NYU 
> tech school (forget the name), and again - the first thing they 
> brought up was bandwidth in relation to smartphones - what size the 
> gif etc. has to be, how many fps, etc. etc.
>
> Lag btw is not just a question of slowness in routing; I'm referring 
> to issues of bandwidth, technology, hardware and software, RAM, video 
> cards, etc. etc. Sorry to go on about it, but I felt you were talking 
> a bit down to me; I should have made it clear that I'm referring in 
> general to being on line, not to just ascii (where in fact there is 
> also lag - and I use panix which is very fast), and to the new media 
> work I do.
>
> Ian Murray by the way brought up another issue - based on Second Life 
> work - and that is one of permissions; if lag/bandwidth - access and 
> processing - are part of the problem, the other part of that of 
> permissions which are built into any environment, and critical in SL 
> and OpenSim.
>
> By the way, I see virtual worlds also as forms of writing and 
> inscription, and have talked about this, for example, at epoetry and 
> digital literature conferences. As examples - in SL, scripting, chat, 
> instant messaging, bot- created visible texts, textures with generated 
> words, voice-overs, voice, etc. etc. To be (in the virtual) is to 
> inscribe.
>
> - Alan
>
> On Wed, 16 Mar 2011, Sue Thomas wrote:
>
>> Alan
>>
>> I love the way you write about lag but I have to say that personally 
>> I seldom experience it anymore and I think that will be true of most 
>> people. Typing into an ASCII terminal is somewhat rare these days, 
>> and your description makes me think of, oh I don't know, a 
>> description of riding on a hay cart or some such!
>>
>> Because there is so little lag now, at least in the West, the somatic 
>> experience has been transformed into something else, more of a 
>> real-time effect, not least because so many people use their phones 
>> to communicate more often than they use their computers.
>>
>> We experience variations in online speed very differently these days 
>> although, as you remark, this could change or degrade in the future.
>>
>> Best
>> Sue
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [log in to unmask] 
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of 
>> Alan Sondheim
>> Sent: 16 March 2011 02:48
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [WDL] Information about this list
>>
>>
>>
>> The description is interesting; I tend to think that all thinking 
>> life is analogic and if AI reaches a sufficient degree of complexity, 
>> it will somehow parallel that, which is one reason I'm interested in 
>> phenomenology and its relation to abjection, the impure and improper 
>> life (to reverse Kristeva). At least the moment, we're heavily 
>> embodied; I think a better description might be 
>> DIGITAL-WRITING-AND-LIFE for example. This is what I'm on about 
>> _now,_ typing into an ASCII terminal window, for example, and 
>> watching the interplay of thought and delay (as text feeds back 
>> slightly later, a result of network lag), thought catching itself up 
>> with produc- tion. I wonder that inner speech is so little discussed 
>> here; that is an occurrence that is usually taken for granted, but 
>> gets tripped up in lag. Lag is the soma and somatic of the net in a 
>> sense, what creates hallucin- atory feedback, and what might 
>> represent body. Originally like everyone else, I thought it would 
>> disappear; now, with net neutrality under attack, it's likely to grow 
>> worse.
>>
>> Here, typing, I see my speech and thought in print in an active 
>> environ- ment; as I pointed out years ago, there are others here with 
>> me, on the server, within the spreading network; my typing isn't 
>> local - you might say the terminal in this sense is the first cloud - 
>> I store elsewhere than my machine, and it seems to be all alive, 
>> unthinking, trembling, like that very old post of Andy Hawks I 
>> republished, about I feel the wires. -
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Sue Thomas wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> WRITING AND THE DIGITAL LIFE explores the impact of digital 
>>> technologies
>>> upon writing and lived experience within an interdisciplinary 
>>> context. We
>>> talk about the relationship of writing and reading in the context of 
>>> many
>>> subjects including 'new and old' media; craft, art, process and 
>>> practice;
>>> social networks; cooperation and collaboration; narrative and 
>>> memory; human
>>> computer interaction; imagination; nature; mind; body, and spirit.
>>> Contributions related to research, writing and teaching in the arts,
>>> sciences, and humanities are all welcome. The list is managed by Sue 
>>> Thomas,
>>> Professor of New Media at De Montfort University, England.
>>>
>>> The address of this page is
>>> http://jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/writing-and-the-digital-life.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _________________
>>>
>>> Professor Sue Thomas
>>>
>>> Faculty of Humanities/Institute of Creative Technologies
>>> Clephan 1.01d
>>> De Montfort University
>>>
>>> The Gateway
>>>
>>> Leicester
>>>
>>> LE1 9BH, UK
>>>
>>> e: [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> t: @suethomas
>>>
>>> w: Nature and Cyberspace: stories, memes and metaphors
>>> http://www.thewildsurmise.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> ==
>> email archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
>> webpage http://www.alansondheim.org
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>> ==
>>
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>
> ==
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> ==
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