Subject Lines: Fragmentation,

Construction,and Computing

Johndan Johnson-EilolaClarkson University

mailto:johndan@clarkson.eduhttp://www.clarkson.edu/~johndan/

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Space + Motion = Subjectivity

• Why does Microsoft Word suck?• Why do we still primarily browse the

web?• Are we going anywhere?

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MS Word

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Dreamweaver

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Office Wall

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From Time to SpaceThe great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history: with its themes of development and of suspension, of crisis and cycle, themes of the ever-accumulating past, with its great preponderance of dead men and the menacing glaciation of the world. The nineteenth century found its essential mythological resources in the second principle of thermodynamics. The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and the far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at the moment, I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein. One could perhaps say that certain ideological conflicts animating present-day polemics oppose the pious descendants of time and the determined inhabitants of space.

Michel Foucault,“Of Other Spaces,” p. 23

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Theories (I)

• Foucault: From History to Space, Microphysics of Power

• Jameson: The Sentence Involves the Subject Uniting Past and Future in the Present

• Ronnell: The Telephone Call, Technologies Socially Constructing Hailed Subjects

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Theories (II)

• Marvin: Technologies, Developers, Marketers, and Users Mutually Constructing Each Other

• Feenberg: Primary and Secondary Moments of Technology Development and Use

• Reich: Symbolic-Analytic Work• Hall: Articulation Theory

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Articulation Theory

An articulation is ... the form of the connection that can be made between two different elements, under certain conditions. It is a linkage which is not necessary, determined, absolute and essential for all time. You have to ask, under what circumstances can a connection be forged or made? So the so-called ‘unity’ of a discourse is really the articulation of different, distinct elements which can be rearticulated in different ways because they have no necessary ‘belongingness’. The ‘unity’ which matters is a linkage between that articulated discourse and the social forces with which it can, under certain historical conditions, but need not necessarily, be connected.

Stuart Hall, “On Postmodernism and Articulation,” p. 141

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Articulation Theory

• Ideology is structured like language

• No necessary correspondences, but no necessary non-correspondences

• Local rather than global/universal

• Open to change

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Symbolic-Analytic Work

• Identify, rearrange, circulate, abstract, and broker information

• Principle work materials are information and symbols, their principle products are reports, plans, and proposals

• Frequently work online, either communicating with peers (they rarely have direct organizational supervision) or manipulating symbols with the help of various computer tools

• Job titles include investment banker, research scientist, lawyer, management consultant, strategic planner, and architect.

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Maps of Use

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Problems

• Tendency still towards unity, linearity (or, at best, hierarchy)

• Tendency still towards single views• Creation still enmeshed in Romantic

view of genius/production• Lack environments for writing in, and,

and as fragments

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Or,

• We continue to believe in the myth of unity.

• From Adam and Eve• To the World Wide Web

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(re)Articulation Processes

• Recursive figure on (re) articulation: totality > disarticulation > fragmentation > rearticulation > totality

• (Notes about totalitarianism)

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Maps of Production

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Comparing Subject Constructions

• History constructs a continuous subject (mythical, but accepted)

• Microsoft Word as a reading and writing environment

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Writing in MS Word

• Top down, left right• Moving in a rough

line• Layout (2D)

subordinated (but somewhat available)

• Pages in linear order

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Equals Reading in MS Word

• Top down, left right• Moving in a rough

line• Layout (2D)

subordinated (but somewhat available)

• Pages in linear order

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Reading the Web

• 2D Layout of Page• Multi-linear

(macrostructure)• But still linear• Texts are relatively

fixed and distant (uninhabited)

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Writing the Web

• 2D Layout of Page• 2D Layout of

Textspace (macrostructure)

• Time Colonized• Writing Becomes

More Spatial

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Listening to Music (II)

• iTunes• Simple Playlist

– Linear– Receptive

• Smart Playlist– Contingent– More spatial– Music collection

becomes a database

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Producing Music

• Fragments• Rearrangement• Transformation• Spatial• Recursive• Database-like

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Flaming Lips

• Parking Lot Experiments

• Zaireeka

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Turntablism

• Production from Consumption

• Awareness of History Through Sampling

• Awareness of History Through Performance (Funk 101)

• Scratch Notation (DJ Radar, etc.)

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Composition as Articulation

• Multiple forms of “composition” (writing, design, production)

• Bridging Production and Consumption• Beyond Consumerism• Weblogs as Productive Web Use

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Weblogs

• Linear + Spatial• Individual + Social• Fragmentation +

Totality

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Weblog Writing/Reading Spaces

• NetNewsWire• NewsMonster• Tinderbox

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NetNewsWire

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NewsMonster

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Tinderbox

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Conclusions: Where Do You Want to Build Today?

• Understanding the mutual construction of tech development and use

• Moving beyond unity without ending in fragmentation

• Building a sense of history without determinism

• Moving from a passive to an active reading/using subject