Convergence culture

     As Jenkins notes in his work, convergence culture has been with us for some time, as the world has grown more multidimensional in terms of the technology we use and the demands we make of that technology. Our phones are no longer just phones, even those comparatively unsophisticated versions we hardwire in and dub "land lines." Certainly, they make calls, but even for the land lines there's an increasing degree of complexity in the behind-the-scenes process while a decrease in complexity by the end user. Analog signals have fallen by the wayside in telecommunications, in favor of (at least at points) digital translation. Our words over the lines are broken into digital packets, delivered, and reassembled in (ideally) the same order as they were offered, through a series of difficult-to-follow paths, packet switches, and so on. Given that the land line itself now has become more the back-up option to the default preference we offer cell phones, we see how such a shift speaks volumes as to what we prioritize in our efforts to communicate. We demand constant accessibility (though some do bemoan it, often on the device they purportedly lament), accessibility to others and from others.
    
     Add, then, the features of smart phones, and their similar displacement of "dumb" cell phones, and we see additional qualities demanded from our hardware. It isn't enough not to just communicate from wherever to wherever, but we want to be able to communicate in different ways through the same device. On the same phone, one can call traditionally, or initiate a video or audio conference over the internet, or send text messages and still images. We can choose alternate means for the latter, using social media applications to send our thoughts and pictures and videos, not just to one, but to many at once. We're always on the grid, so to speak, and producing content to display on that grid, from the banal to the sublime.
    
     Phones are an obvious example, but other traditionally "dumb" appliances now have had an intelligence boost. Smart televisions feed our viewing habits to advertisers, who in turn target us with more specific advertisements. Some models even send information on the peripherals plugged into the television, and information on those secondary devices themselves, such as thumb drives. Some, even more disturbingly, have cameras built in that (some fear) will activate and offer advertisers live images of us, from which they can derive through our clothes, surroundings, etc what content would most likely appeal. Our game systems, as Jenkins mentions, are no longer solely platforms for games, but offer services as varied as the phones earlier, allowing movie streaming, data storage, audio playing, and so on. Game players are, in some cases, encouraged to generate their own content and make that available to other gamers, as in the case of user-generated challenges in Dante's Inferno.
In short, we become more abstractly and more directly involved with each other as the lines of media blur and the delivery systems merge. While we still don't have the universal "black box" that Jenkins mentions (and likely won't, likewise as he predicts), we do have technology that allows for multiple roles to be fulfilled within a single framework. We become more integrated with our tech, and our tech grows to reflect our perceived needs. In this culture of human-machine evolution, we're not cyborgs yet, but we're getting there.

Existenz, Stelarc, and the coming Singularity

Existenz - The most interesting and critical concept of the film, to me, wasn't broached formally as a subject, but was implied from context at the very end. I'm referring to the Transcendenz programmer's discomfort with the way the game unfolded, it's anti-gamer/gaming message. This implies that somehow, the technology of the time represented not only takes feedback from user action, but also from user thought. Games shaping themselves around our actions is nothing new, conceptually, and across the spectrum of gaming, from analog board games to the highest-end virtual worlds, the difference in the feedback from action is simply one of degree rather than kind. The idea that a game can read and interpret our thoughts, however, and subsequently alter itself to fit those thoughts, is both intriguing and disturbing in the possibilities derived from it. That, to me, would make for the most truly immersive gaming experience, given that a world that caters to us on an individual, unvoiced-desire level is a world which we are unlikely to want to leave. Of course, the idea that thought is indeed readable by machines itself implies that thoughts have some heretofore unknown physical properties which the machine can pick up on. Examining that, a possibility implied is that thought, by being made hardware, can then be changed by changing that hardware. To give us new thoughts (and, a presumed extension, new desires, memories, etc) it just becomes a matter of altering whatever physical form those thoughts take, or possibly how the brain itself reacts to said thoughts. Breaking things down to a chemical level, we've discovered that thoughts of depression can be caused by a chemical imbalance, the brain getting not enough of one thing or perhaps too much of another. If the brain reacts to thought chemically, that is to say if thinking certain things causes certain chemical changes in the brain (which we know happens, in that happy thoughts/memories cause certain parts of the brain to become more active, likewise unhappy thoughts, sexual thoughts, language, etc), then to disconnect (or reroute) one's reactions, one doesn't need to change the thoughts themselves, just how the brain receives/perceives them. Simple, right? Granted, that's not a true interpretation of or alteration of thought, but it seems to be hypothetically viable as a work-around solution.

Stelarc - His works are interesting, and disturbing to a degree. The flesh hook suspensions, surprisingly, less so than the spidery exoskeleton. That thing just brings to mind...well, spiders, already not pleasant, and one of the more annoying enemies from the game Doom 2. The SecondLife arm avatar video was just annoying. Performance art is all well and good, but six minutes or so of watching an older gentleman wave around his hands so his SL avatar can move just one arm, while the other hangs limply, and while it gets hit periodically by blocks causing repetitive and discordant sounds isn't my idea of a good time. But then, I'm not an artist.

The Singularity - From what it sounds like, the term "intelligence" isn't accurate to describe the shift forward. Increased processing capability feels more accurate. There may well be a computer that can make connections faster than humanity based on a series of logical steps, but many advancements come not from rote work or even logical extensions, but from intuitive leaps. Intuition, and other factors that inform intelligence (as I conceptualize it) can't be hard-coded. Computers can't guess, because computers can't imagine. They can't imagine because they can't desire. They can't desire because they can't feel. And they can't feel because they aren't organic, chemical-based creatures. Referring back to the initial paragraph, we're all bags of chemicals (but not, I believe, only that), and the interaction thereof shapes us. Without glands, how can anything feel the impulses that are gland-driven, such as love, hate, fear, passion, and so on. Cybernetic intelligence enhancements to organic brains seems a more likely outcome, long-term, than any strictly-mechanical intelligence surpassing a purely organic brain. We are analog creatures, and the basis of our inner selves is analog, based on analog input and offering analog feedback. A digital consciousness, while conceptually faster and simpler with digital feedback, cannot surpass an analog one in terms of perception, ability, etc because there just don't exist the protein-based means it needs. A computer cannot strive, fear, or die. Thus, a computer cannot progress, save to the limits of the hardware it's housed in.