address to the peeps

well i certainly hope that everyone's essay's went to plan, i managed to get mine in on time so that's the main thing right? :) i was thinking that if we are serious about keeping our own blog it wouldn't be *that* hard to make another one, i dunno seems like hassles are arising from using this one and then, the people who don't want to do it can go back to real life, pft, "real life" hahah. so overrated. meh, i just thought it might be easier that's all and then aaron could attack the template. attack i say. w00t!
later my minions
Kat xx

Warm Fuzzies

This little post goes out to all you naughty people who are procrastinating instead of studying! (Although the fact that I am writing this post proves that i am indeed doing that very thing)

here are lots and lots of warm fuzzies and good luckies to get you through your essays and exams.....

!@#%)(*&%%#$%!$%%$&&*^^%#!$@

no, they are not expletatives they are just inarticulatable (if that is a word) in arabic font.

it is also to prove to tama that this blog will be used post self.net.
the world does not end when we walk out of the tute room, tama, even if you may think so! ;)

while i am on that subject (sort of) hey tama can we please have super rights on this blog now so that we can change the template and stuff to make it pretty, kitty kat and aaron with an h want it too!!! PLEEEAAAASSSEEEE?

okay i will go and stop procrastinating now and so should you

GO AND DO SOME STUDY!!!!!!

warm fuzzies

orietta

ps cranium information will be posted at a later date (after about the 27th of nov when me and my flatmate stop stressing about all the STUFF we have to do.....)

cheers big ears!

i will stop random commenting soon....

,,,,

.....



now seems like a good time

no wait a minute

did anyone see what happened to carly? she hasn't posted or tuted lately?????

ok now i am done.

...focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.

well, yes obviously i'm not alone in thinking that this was a pretty darned good unit. the use of weblogs as part of our tutorials was something that encouraged my enrolment in the unit to begin with, i have a blog which some of you may have read and i thought it would be pretty cool to use them as a way to communicate with fellow students. and thankfuly it seemed to work! having the readings posted before the tute was helpful because the tutorial group knew the kind of argument that you would make and could prepare comments accordingly. it was also good to see people's different approaches taken in addressing the webliography questions and being able to give encouraging and perhaps even critical comments. the commenting function, and the mandatory comments meant that we were able to continue discussions after the tute. and even though we may not have used it to its full potential the fact that the option was there to post brilliant thoughts, clarify points or argue further when the tute was long over is useful in itself.

the infamous cyborg question...i was pretty against the whole "you're a cyborg" mentality right from the start. and i still don't really like it all that much. it's not because i don't agree that i am embedded in technology just that the word cyborg to me doesn't seem appropriate. maybe a word which has never had a hard core definition- a NEW word rather than a word which already has connotations attached to it. again i don't disagree that technology is a part of me and that i am a part of technology just that the word cyborg literally doesn't work for me as a definition. but as that is the only definition we were given the option of using, i am a cyborg- i admit defeat, you've broken me down, finally.

the course (though i'm sure this along with everyone elses comments will just be used to inflate tama's ego!)was different from anything i have ever done and many of the students i have spoken to agree that more discussion was stimulated in this unit that any other. ethics issues and debates on a range of topics were new and challenging. this unit certainly challenged the way i think about the future and "life" whether it be real, virtual or artificial. the guest lectures were relevant and extremely interesting. the multimedia and etc used was a great way to keep us awake and making the lecture not only educational but enjoyable. i could go on but it's only going to be more about how great i thought the unit was!!

p.s. i thought you guys in my tute group were wicked. there was always discussion and humour-a-plenty. i'm a better thinker for having listened to your opinions, it's a shame the tutes couldn't run for longer like the 8 point units used to do, i had so much fun with you guys! thanks guys and thanks tama for being so approachable and available for consultation, you're a wikid unit co-ordinator and awesome tutor, ok enough about you :)

p.p.s. cranium (wink wink orietta)

p.p.p.s. please don't mark me on my blogger grammar!

Egad, it's, like ... over!

So this is it, eh? And to think I was only just getting used to hearing Tama stumble over complex words in lectures! (I say this with the memory of what he said in our second-last tute, "nobody else is showing any restraint, why should you?")

I must admit to being a bit disconcerted by everyone's willingness to so readily identify themselves as a cyborg, although I'm not quite sure I can produce a good argument to disagree :-)
Early on I think most us interpreted being a "cyborg" as being at one with our technology, and although I suppose I fit this description I still like to believe that if cut off from my phone or computer, I'm able to improvise (although that might just be with more technology ...). But as I've mentioned a few times, I find it easier to agree with the later readings' interpretation of Haraway as being about the blurring of boundaries, particularly (but not just) those between nature and technology. This seems to me to be a very common thread in our contemporary society and one that digital technology is but one part of, and I suspect I'd have agreed to it sooner if I'd realised this was what Haraway was getting at! I quite doubt I'd have ever realised this fact if I hadn't done this unit.

As for blogs, well, what can I say, they seem to have been a resounding success. I think it was Orietta who described them as "like the forum in WebCT, but something we will actually use", but I think this was a tad cynical. Although there hasn't been too much spontaneous discussion, it has been quite thought-provoking to read through everyone's ideas here, especially since they're usually presented in more detail than what you can say in a few minutes of a tute. It would have been nice to see it used more, but then I suppose you can't expect too much from struggling over-worked students like us ...!

I think one of the most useful things I've taken from this unit is the idea of applying critical analysis much like what we do in other units in the context of online environments. I've seen a bit of writing about this before, but I've never thought about identity or community on the Internet in as much detail as we have this semester (hmm, can I start a debate here about the validity of applying ideas from 'real life' to virtual space?!). This was complemented by having an awesome tute group -- really, I've never had this much fun in a uni class (to quote Kat's first post here, "w00t!"). So thank you all, and good luck with essays!

Reflective Post

Weblogs have been an effective learning tool in this course and, I believe, could prove useful in other courses. Having our own tutorial blog has been particularly effective in this course since this course is preoccupied with notions of technology and our human relationship with it. I like the practicality of working within one of the technological structures that we are analysing in this course. For general english courses, blogs are useful because we can prepare for tutorials more thoroughly by reading eachothers posts before the tutorial and using the blog as a forum to discuss issues related to the course outside of tutorial time. Unfortunately in our particular blog, there was not a significant amount of this type of discussion, but this is possibly due in part to the (relative) unfamiliarity with the medium and preoccupation with writing mandatory posts.

Now to turn to the elusive sixty-four dollar question. Do I believe I am a cyborg? I remember in the first tutorial of the course verhmenently disputing this idea. I believe the ability to identify as a cyborg is based largely of notions of the cyborgian creature. If we associate the cyborg with the overtly machinical creatures from popular film culture such as The Terminator then it is very uncomfortable to identify with these creatures. I would definately agree with the notion that people who have been fitted with prosthetic body parts in surgery can be considered as cyborgs. Upon re-evaluation those, I think the notion of the cyborg is one of those slippery terms, like postmodernism that means everything and at the same time nothing. Let me qualify that statement. I think that Haraway was trying to use the cyborg to describe a new way of being where the discrete boundaries between 'technology' and 'nature' are blurred. Also concrete descriptions of any individual subject are blurred in this definition. In this sense I agree that we are all cyborgian subjects. We define ourselfs in interrelated and sometimes contradictory ways. Although I would live and breathe without digital technology, it is so enmeshed in my life, that my lifestyle without it would be unrecognisable. In that sense, I am a cyborg.

Overall I have found this course to be a challenging learning experience. I liked the course set up with workshops and blogs, it was refreshing to have different to the norm components in the course. The tutorials were great, it is the first unit when I haven't thought "When is this tute going to end!" I liked the practicality of the course aswell. Examples were given of current as well as dated sources, which I guess is crucial in a course about current technology. I also liked the interactivity of the lectures.

See you all! :)

Political Games Workshop:

The games that i played were September 12th and DonkeyJohn.

Question 1) Would the games have been effective in communicating their political message with people via the internet?
September 12th: Upon reading the press release for this game i realised how much it hadn't communicated anything to me. I didn't think about the civilians i might be killing in the process of protecting the towers nor did i think about the US terrorism strategy, however this is just me and perhaps it would have been more effective around the time of September 11th and not 4 years later.
DonkeyJohn: I think that once it was found this game had great potential. More people began to play it and political discussion surrounding the game increased. I think that combined with the rules it effectively communicates it's message despite its simplicity, though whether or not it would increase political activism in real life is questionable. It is a game and as such individuals might be reluctant to accept the reality of what it represents.

Question 2) Was the political message immediately obvious? Were you driven to find it out?
September 12th: for me the message wasn't immediately obvious and i wasn't driven to find out the political message because (if i wasn't in the tute) i wouldn't have known there was one. This is probably because i'm politically apathetic and as much as i should take note of policies and such i simply don't.
DonkeyJohn: only having read the rules would the political message of DJ obvious, if it was on the screen with no rules the it would be difficult to understand who we were as a character and what the barrels were- or maybe i'm just too unaware of the oil crisis.

Question3) My political simulation game;

The point i would try to make would probably be something to do with the lack of bulk billing available in australia.

the game would be arcade style, maybe like pac-man and you would have to collect money to pay for your doctors consultation without being trapped/killed by private health insurance monsters, or something like that :)

Playing Politics: Blogged Workshop Response

Do you think the political simulation games you examined would have been "effective" in communicating with people via the Internet?

As a Space Invader’s style game, New York Defender is effective in keeping players interested in stopping the planes from hitting the Twin Towers and thus playing the game over and over again. I am not sure if this would encourage players to communicate with others over the internet and there are no links to other sites. Kabul Kaboom asks the player to question the political message to a greater extend and in this way would inspire more political comment. It would be an effective ‘neutral’ starting point to discuss the 9/11 events. When I say neutral, I mean the game itself is a fact that is undisputable, unlike people’s interpretations of the initial attacks and what should be done about them. Although these games would not be effective in creating an online community in the style of Creatures where players would ask each other for advice and download patches and so on, which is how I initially considered the question.

Was the political message underpinning the political simulation games you examined immediately obvious? If not, were you driven or interested to find out what the game was trying to "say" (apart from the fact that you have to as part of the workshop)?

I think the political message in New York Defender is that terror is going to attack and the only way to stop it is through pre-emptive strikes. (In this case by getting the planes before they get the twin towers.) This is shown from the planes moving faster and coming from many different angles. I don’t know about others, but I found it pretty impossible to defend the Twin Towers for any length of time. On the other hand though, it may have been an ironic message, the planes instead symbolizing the paranoia present in Bush’s reaction to the attacks. In Kabul Kaboom the political message is more overt. The ludicrous nature of the Bush attack-aid strategy is clear when the player is collecting hamburgers whilst dodging bullets. There is a similar inevitability of death in this game as in New York Defender. By placing the player in a simulated caricature of a possible position of a civilian, they are able to empathize with the character and question the necessity of the attacks. This message was especially poignant for me playing the game directly after playing New York Defender because I was able to draw parallel between the inevitability of the terror attacks and the inevitability of the Bush attacks.


If you had to write a political simulation game similar in size and structure to those you examined, (a) what would be the point you were trying to make and (b) how would the game be structured and operate in order to make that point? (Just give a very brief outline).

Although there are many political points that I would like to make since, in my opinion, the scope of political points currently being represented in mass media is very limited, I think the area in dire need of attention is environmental issues. If I were to focus my game on an Australian audience (which I most likely would) then possibly I would tackle the salinity problem. There would be a central character with enough detail to appear lifelike, but enough fuzziness to be of indeterminate gender who the player would be positioned to identify with. Possibly the player could even create the character Sim-style. The important thing is the player should identify with and thus empathize with the character. The player would then move with the character through their ‘everyday life’ in such a way that the player would make the character do things that they would do in their everyday life. This section of the play would be in the center of the screen which is divided up into, say five sections. In the other sections there would be animated images showing the direct and indirect environmental effects of the character’s actions. For example if the character consumes food, the screen would show the effects of farming on land or as they sit in their manufactured chair, the effects of industry would be displayed. Significantly, as the character’s actions effect different things at once, the interconnectivity would be emphasized by multiple screens showing different effects. At the and of each animation, the screen would display a possible solution to the problem it previously displayed and end with the caption: “So what are YOU going to do about it?”

A Rape in Cyberspace...

“What happens inside a MUD-made world is neither exactly real nor exactly make-believe, but profoundly, compellingly, and emotionally meaningful.”

The tone of Dibbell’s article resembles a craftily written fantasy narrative. This may seem out of place at first considering the serious nature of the topic at hand, but upon reflection, fits perfectly with the setting of the crime in a place which Dibbell describes as a “semi-fictional otherworld”. One of the most significant themes I took from this reading was the exploration of online experience with reference to ‘RL’ and ‘VR.’

I don’t think that ‘rape’ is really the right word to describe what happened in LambdaMOO. The article also works awkwardly with this term alluding to both its excess (in the physical sense) and lacking (in that the actions were of a nature that is indescribable by current technology.) This mismatching of old terminology with phenomena created through digital technology has resonances within other areas of the course such as the theory surrounding weblogs. This use of terminology is just one way we look to use things in ‘real life’ that are readily understood to describe actions ‘online’. It is evident that these two spheres are not mutually exclusive. Our physical and online lives give and take meaning from each other.

The people who interact in online communities are the same people that exist in the offline communities. As we have seen in the Blacksburg Electronic Village, existing prejudices and concerns in the ‘real life’ community are transferred into the online realm. This can be seen in the way the users of LambdaMOO dealt with their ‘rapist’ and indeed with the act of rape itself. As Dibbell states “[legba] suffered a brand of degradation all-too-customarily reserved for the embodied female.” In the lecture, Tama discussed whether gendered power relations could exist in a completely textual space. I think the fact that these relations do occur shows that the embodied person behind the online persona cannot be separated from it. Dibbell describes the different sectors of the online community, which are similar to sectors found in a geographical community. As in ‘RL’ a serious common cause was able to bind the community together in order to action some form of social justice. A judiciary system was put in place that resembled their ideals of a democratic system experienced in real life.

A note on narrative ideals: I was recently reading a book that discussed the use of terra australis as a space of utopian narrative prior to European settlement. The book said that after Australia became a colonized space, other spaces such as outer space became the sites of narrative utopias. I would like to extend this proposition further, to say that since the entire of the planet and indeed our immediate spacial areas have been colonized, they are no longer available as utopian sites. Around the time of these writings, the Internet was being created as the next utopian narrative site. (“techno-utopian ecstasies of West Coast cyperhippies”) The significance of the ‘rape’ was that it shattered, for the users of LambdaMOO, this idea of a safe place, a utopia. So in the absence of this a community was created, where they attempted to create a utopian democracy. The impossibility of an Internet utopia comes from the idea I discussed earlier about bringing offline ‘baggage’ online, we cannot create a utopia and exist in it too, so to speak.