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Week 2 – Lifestream Synthesis

This week I have been continuing making my way through the reading list for Block 1 and further exploring cybercultures.

I enjoyed our second group session on Togethertube and initially I found the viewings a little harder to make sense of compared to last week. However, after watching them a few times I noticed some similarities between them. The majority of clips demonstrated machines/robots communicating in a human like manner and being capable of humanlike independent thought – certainty far more advanced then the binary operation usually associated with them.

I’ve also spend some more time in thinking about the impact technology has had on life and culture. I’ve been considering old ways of life and how they have been modernised by use of technology. Some tasks have been made more efficient, some quicker, some cheaper, some have replaced people all together.

I have been giving some attention to virtual reality and how our senses can be manipulated to have better than life experiences. This was inspired by the Sterne reading and his example of sound being overlooked in favour of virtual artefacts in the creation of virtual worlds.

Furthermore, I have been reflecting on some of the issues surrounding equality and inequality as a result of cyberculture. It is quite overwhelming to think of the influence technology has had over just about everything and scary to realise some problems we have created in pursuit of digital excellence.

 

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Week 1 – Lifestream synthesis

The first week of Education and Digital Cultures has been really quite incredible. Not only because I am in awe at the technologies that we have been using but also the idea of cyberculture and posthumanism.

It really does boggle the mind trying to comprehend the influence that technology has on today’s society and culture, both from the perspectives of where we would be without it and the seemingly limitless places that it will take us to. It is just as difficult trying to imagine a boundary where the human race would be willing to slow technological progress and go it alone.

It is well documented that machines can make us bigger, better, faster, stronger and push us well beyond our physical capabilities, but this week I have been considering the spiritual side of machinism. Can what makes us unique and individual be enhanced through technology? There certainly seems to be an expectation that machine intervention will inevitably lead to improvement. However there is a danger that it can damage the qualities in life that make us function as humans (love, compassion, kindness etc).

Perhaps this is why this week I have noticed a paradox in human beings craving advancement but seemingly unwilling to forgo dominance that they have over the universe – and to that end I introduce you to my new friends Siri, Cortana and Alexa.

Machines help us reach limits that we simply wouldn’t be able to reach on our own. But do they help us develop as a race?