> Quite aware that language could be considered a technology--Ong et.
> al.--but what Jim did was set up a false analogy of language being a
> technology in the same sense as computer hard soft-wear or a burnt stick
> of wood. This is quite other: a comparison between two very different
> categories of thing. This allowed Jim to side-step the whole issue of
> tools:
>
> tools in the old sense of pencils, pens, etc.
>
> and tools in the new sense of microsoft, the Internet, etc. etc.
>
> my contention is that the former do not attempt to manipulate the user in
> the manner that almost everything associated with computer technology
> increasingly does: primarily economically.
>
> Jim's ringing the changes on language as technology is simply a red
> herring that draws us away from the original question and allows him to
> give lectures, nice as they are.
>
> Jess

You ascribed to corporations a kind of dominance in computer art and over
computer artists that I don't think they have, and said I was necessarily
'buying into' all sorts of things that I am much more selective about than
you realized. I wanted to deal with that, Jesse. Also, I wanted to outline
why I don't think they have that sort of power, so wanted to talk about open
source projects and their importance not only in computer art but in society
more broadly.

I brought up the notion of language as technology to illustrate that
corporate domination of the realms of information processing can no more
sustain itself than corporate domination of language. In other words, if the
tools and environments of information processing are not simply a passing
fad--it must be clear by now they're not--then they need to be able to
mature and grow in ways that proprietary, corporate domination precludes. We
can see that by imagining what would happen were there to be corporate
domination of language. Not only would it be very bad for thought and
expression and the general state of both people and language, but it would
fail. It isn't feasible to maintain that sort of control over language. And,
similarly, it isn't feasible to maintain utter corporate control over
information processing. For the same sorts of reasons.

I think it's true, as you say, that corporations tend to be quite
manipulative with their software. The eternal upgrade, for instance, and
manufactured obsolesence of the old version. The hogging of file
associations, for another. On and on. But, for serious work, we eventually
realize that we cannot be continually dependent on a corporation to maintain
the software. It's just not feasible. And that's becoming more commonly
understood. Certainly it took me a while. Also, open source alternatives are
emerging that may not have all the bells and whistles of the corporate
version but are definitely coming along and are now usable for serious work.
HTML 5, as an alternative to Flash and Director, is a good example. So too
is Firefox as an alternative to Internet Explorer--in fact Firefox is, by
now, far and away the superior browser.

HTML 5 does not have all of the expressive power of Flash and Director when
it comes to things like audio and video. But I am in the midst of
discovering that it has its own possibilities which I hope to explore
somewhat. This is an exploration of a public technology that will be widely
used for some time in all manner of endevours. The possibilities are of
course shaped by the technology. But artists typically want to do all sorts
of things that the technology was never intended to do, and in so doing, we
broaden the human scope of the technology. We help transform the technology
from a machine language into something that can carry the human signal and
hold the human touch. If it is true, as McLuhan maintained, that
technologies are extensions of our body and cognitive capabilities, then
this sort of work is important to the human journey; imagine if print had no
art and was limited to business documents, advertising, and so on. What a
world that would be.

ja
http://vispo.com/aleph
http://vispo.com/aleph/images/slidvid1