Nichols - The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems

Nichols, B. (1988). The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems. The New Media Reader.

The computer can act as a a metaphor and suggests new ways of thinking about ourselves and our environment.

Cybernetic – Self regulating mechanisms or systems with predefined tasks.

How do cybernetic systems, as symbolized by the comber resonate with the transformations that were symbolized by the camera.

Mechanical Reproduction and film Culture.

-       The industrial society has the assembly line and mass production.  It changes:

o   Economic mode of production

o   The nature of art

o   Categories of perception.

It strips art of its aura or authenticity.  An association of essence with authenticity.

The aura of an object compels attention.

-       Use value is determined at the location.

-       Uniqueness is part of contemplation.

-        

Mechanical reproduction cannot produce authenticity.

Ojbects without aura substitute mystique.

Author asks the question is photography art.  But:

-       He also asks if societies view of art has changed, or

-       If how we see the world has changed.

The ubiquitous copy reflects industrialization and capitalism.

-       Montages rip things from their environment.

-       Collages juxtapose multiple scenes.

Film can expose man to his own environment.

To shoot is to record the original.

To cut is to edit.

The camera reframes reality and provides enhanced details and added perspectives.

Montage – Collecting dissimilar is important to Benjamin.

Seeing new way s is ideological but transformative.

-       They are new skills.

New ways of seeing presuppose new ways of social organization.

-       Based on culture of mechanical reproduction.

-        

Is our sense of reality being adjusted by means of electronic computation and digital communication.

It’s determined by the relationships we form.

Economics has changed from producing to processing information.

Digital media replaces the individual encounter.

Have cybernetic systems brought about changes in our perception of the world that hold liberating potential.

Do images, or representations control sensory image.

Capitalism – Human c&c against animals.

-       Monopoly Capitalism – Human C&C against machines.

-       Post industrial capitalism – Against computers, biogenetically engineered organisms.

-        

Reflections of human identity.

Digital tends to be interactive rather than static like text.

The camera could see more than the eye.

The computer can render what is palpable.

Cybernetic communication simulates and alters our relation to our environment and our mind.

The photograph comes from somewhere, the computer comes from nowhere.

-       the photograph comes from the experience of the photographer.

-       The computer comes from the imagination of another.

Cybernetic systems give form, external expression to the mind.

The computer not only simulates the exterior world, but also the interior world of consciousness by experience.

The copy reproduces the world, the chip simulates it.

The interactiveness and desire for control replaces the object and desire for possession.

The cybernetic metaphor – transformation of self and reality.

Metaphor – Humans as automated intelligent systems, but automated intelligent systemsas humn, not just the simulation of reality, but reality of the simulation.

Hyper reality – Being more real destroys reality.

Does life exist in artificial support systems.

Do artificial systems obscure life in the same way mechanical reproductions are questioned as art.

The embodiment of cybernetic imagination where abstract concepts become embedded in material form.

U.S. Supreme Court more amenable to patents for new life forms over software.

Starts to question free will and dependence.