New Media Cultures

This film raises some interesting issues for me. Firstly, the issue of our foods being genetically modified to become another food, for example the Nacho flavoured banana which Clara offers Adam at the start of the film. For me, our foods should be left the way they are, i.e. banana flavoured bananas and nacho flavoured nachos. Flavours and textures of existing foods should not be messed around with in my opinion.
The cloning issue interests me because theoretically, we would never die if we had the technology and permission to clone people after death, but as The Sixth Day suggests they would, would the clone possess the same characteristics as the original person? Memory and experience must surely be impossible to clone as they would not be contained within cells, as the physical matter of the human is... I feel the clone would just be a shell of the original person without any memory or experiences of the original human being.
The film also deals with issues such as gene modification. The idea of being able to make a human being without any flaws or potential genetic diseases seems in theory to be a good idea - we could limit the damage done to families by genetic diseases and prevent the suffering of thousands and thousands of people who could potentially be born with a genetic disease. would I do it? possibly, but I couldn't possibly say unless I was in that situation. The use of gene modification for trivial things such as amending hair and eye colour is going too far - I would want my own child to have the hair and eye colour it was genetically predisposed to have, not the designer or fashionable one I had picked out for it. Babies are not dolls to be played with, they are living beings who should be treated as such. Growing up as a designer baby would present all sorts of problems - would they be bullied for not being allowed to develop naturally? what if the growth process went wrong in the womb and they became deformed because of the cloning process or what if, because of the cloning, there were some terrible implications for the childs health in it's future? These would all be issues the child and it's parents would all have to live with.
Even HSBC bank are exploring the issue of cloning with the idea that all are entitled to their own points of view - according to HSBC, 55% of taiwanese people believe that cloning has already happened. In the advert, it is a boffin who has apparently been cloned and he arrives home after work to numerous versions of himself - in my opinion, one of me is enough for anyone - more than one would result in a complete lack of individuality and identity.

Digital photography is not something I have ever really thought about properly until this lecture. Even while I take photographs on my digital camera and the camera integrated into my mobile phone, I beleive I am taking photos of a moment in time, but then when I really think about it, it wasn't that at all. What I am actually doing most of the time is setting up a false moment in time, rather than just spontaneously recording one. Looking through the photo albums on my laptop and my mobile, there are very few pictures of real moments - there a few of me being pushed off my inflatable crocodile into a river, i.e. the before, during and after moments; that was a real moment in time and not one that I would like to remember, but it is in my album, mostly for the amusement of other people. There are a few very blurry pictures of my boyfriend in goal, as the ISO on the camera does not go high enough to compensate for the movement. It is quite hard to look at those moments and think about what he was actually doing, as most of the pictures are just blurs of black and yellow across the screen. I have pictures of my friends' wedding, but there is not one picture which is of a real moment in time. The actual ceremony was not photographed, nor the signing of the register or the cutting of the cake, but I have numerous pictures of them posing signing the register and posing cutting the cake. This lecture has made me wish I'd took more pictures of the actual moment in time, rather than the simulated one.
Digital photography has made me much more vain, because I know I have the power to retake or amend my photos if i'm not happy with them. Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I had to go back to an old 35mm camera and actually wait for my pictures to be developed and then scan them and start editing. And what would I do with the actual real object? Obviously I would probably bin it, as I wasn't happy with it in the firt place and had turned it into a digital image anyway...
The debate around the validity of photography is very real in my opinion. The onset of digital photography, or even photography in general (with the aid of computer editing technology) means that there is a huge abundance of anonymous images which can be passed of as either being photographed by yourself, or which you can pass off as yourself. Through the internet, people can invalidate photography by using photographs which do not represent themselves in any way shape or form. I could take any of the pictures from my mobile, transfer them to my laptop and then edit them so I could become a (seemingly) 6' brunette with brown eyes living in New York. Those of you who have actually seen me know that reality is closer to 5' blonde, blue eyes and living closer to New York in North Tyneside than NYC. This would be comparable to the works of Pedro Meyer, where he creates images of miraculous things in everyday life.
Patricia Picinini's 'The Young Family' presents a disturbing image to the viewer. Because of the completely realistic look of the animals(?) in the picture, we are forced to consider whether it could be an actual reality or not. When we look at the image we think about the advancements in technology which have enabled the use of pig's organs for human transplant and this forces us to wonder whether this has gone further than just body organs into a complete pig/human hybrid. New Media Cultures like the internet, multi-media messaging enabled mobile phones and other mediums mean that this fake image could be cirulated as reality within a matter of hours, if not minutes. The relief we feel when we find out that the animals (in the broadest sense of the word) in the image are imaginary is immense. Digital photography has the means to indoctrinate people in ways not unlike the one's in Orwell's 1984 - truth could be rewritten in minutes if the need arose using only a computer and basic photo editing software....

"The body is obsolete" (HAHAHA) Stelarc http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/
Stelarc's ideas for the post human body are quite ingenious in the ways that they strive to make the human body much more technologically efficient than it currently is, using technologies that are currently for use outside the body... Stelarc's idea for synthetic skin is probably quite marketable to those with enough capital and a need for a skin which can absorb oxygen into it's pores rather than the it having to be taken into the respiratory system by breathing, which no doubt actually wastes energy. The technology of synthetic skin is probably quite useful to certain groups of people, maybe sportspersons for example, as they would not have to perform the physical act of breathing, which would maybe save them some energy which can then be put into their sport and improve stamina? Also they could peform for longer, if their skin was able process chemicals and turn them into nutrients, because this might eliminate the need to stop for food and water, and would surely be an ongoing process.... maybe Stelarc could invent a system which could be fitted inside the body which would eliminate the need for sleep, which would make humans as efficient as robots and uber-employable!
Orlan has been using her body and plastic surgery since 1990, and she uses her operations as performances, rather than private surgical procedures. For her, the process of plastic surgery to enhance beauty is as important as the finished product is for others who go under the knife.
She is using her face as a canvas in order to create her own image of beauty using works of art as the ideal picture of beauty, but she does not have any regard for what the rest of humanity considers to be beautiful. As a feminist she is trying to show the ideals of beauty are not perfection but impossible to achieve. Orlan beleieves "the acceptance of one's natural self to be a primitive concept, given the technology of our time, and therefore does not believe that nature must be abided." (http://www.digibodies.org/online/orlan.htm)

Orlan

Watching videodrome made me cringe because although it was made 23 years ago I can see the ways in which our lives have changed to become more and more like the fiction shown in the film - the "cathode ray mission" for example - according to tv licensing, if you are over 75 you get your television license for free, or if you are blind, you receive a 50% discount on the cost of the yearly license - the licensing agency are equal to the "cathode ray mission" in that they are providing the ability to watch television to people who may not otherwise be able to watch it (legally at least).
Also when the UK switches off the analogue tv signal, the government is going to provide help for the poorest households in Britain so they can still have a TV - another scheme suitable to the "cathode ray mission" where those on Income support, jobseekers allowance or pension credit will receive help with the costs involved with the change over. "The support scheme will provide equipment to convert one TV set, and help with its installation and follow-up support, to people aged 75 years and over and people with significant disabilities – that is, receiving attendance allowance or disability living allowance. There will be no charge for this help for the poorest eligible households - e.g. those on Income Support, Job Seeker’s Allowance or Pension Credit. There may be a modest fee for this help for other households." (http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/en/how/faq.html#will-there-be-a-scheme-to-help-older-people)___##0##___ The only difference I think with this scheme and the "cathode ray mission" is that the poor people will not have to travel to specific places to watch tv like in Videodrome, as they can watch it in their own homes...

As far as the end of the social goes, I think I am guilty in contributing towards this - I would rather have a conversation using an internet chat client than use the phone, and email or text is my "preferred mode of discourse". Some of my friends see more pictures of the body of the person that is supposed to be Zoe Lisle (see blog picture) than they do of me, the actual real live person. I think we all need to leave behind the mobiles and televisions and computers behind for a compulsory afternoon a week to stop us losing touch completely with the real world. Even the development of internet based shopping has killed off reality a bit - take christmas shopping for example - when buying DVDs from play.com just to avoid the queues at Woolworths entertainment desk, other shoppers on there at the same time as you don't have the opportunity to wish you Merry Christmas, and probably wouldn't take it if they did. In Woolworths, at least you can reassure yourself that it definitely is Christmas, as people wish you a Merry Christmas and you look at the decorations. On the internet, you always wonder if the date on your computer is actually right, and whether it's actually may and Play are conning you into thinking it is Christmas to make money. It's also quite a lonely experience doing your shopping on the internet, especially if you are only doing it to avoid having to interact with other real people...