TBC: TBC in the age of flux

@davemee / TANDOT.co.uk / @MadLabUK

was going to talk about TBC in the age of flux, not sure where to start though.

wikipediaʼs always a good one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tbc theyʼve defined it for us

but then I came back it for a screenshot and it had changedwhich is definitive? itʼs easy to say the most recent one, but my time of access decides which oneʼs right

www.flickr.com/photos/ thepotato/333319881/

itʼs like schrodingerʼs cat - i donʼt find out the truth till I access it - access is the decider

Understanding Media: the extensions of man/Routledge Classics

now, i couldnʼt remember what i said i was talking about - I had to check the event website - and this reminds me of Marshall McLuhanʻtechnologies as extensions of the nervous systemʼ

and now we all externalise our knowledge - things we remember, how to do things - a critical skill is not learning per se, but knowing how to find someone elseʼs learning

©2003 IBM / HistoryFlow of ‘Iraq’ on Wikipedia

and we trust in an ever emergent, unfixed, quantum set of data and documents. this is wikipediaʼs ʻiragʼ page visualised.

www.flickr.com/photos/ doyle_saylor/444354042/

hereʼs another dead guy - walter benjamin, a german intellectual and essayist. heʼs quite famous for an essay known - in english - as ʻthe work of art in the age of mechanical reproductionʼ

# heʼs quite interested in the idea of ʻauraʼ, authenticity, which is lost in mass produced media

hereʼs a photograph of the making of itself - a metaphotograph. each step of mediation changes the meaning of the next step of the product, leaves less ʻauraʼ and authenticity

so this is ʻthe ambassadorsʼ, a painting by hans holbein... though actually, itʼs not. itʼs a photograph of it. and theyʼre not ambassadors, theyʼre a painting of ambassadors

and this is a photograph of a reproduction of it. a photograph of a reproduction of a painting of sketches of two ambassadors

so in a way, weʼve been messing with our idea of reality, memory and what is real for a long time.elizabeth loftus planted false memories of seeing sylvester the cat at disneyland into people by describing the tactility of the experience. of course, as a WB property this could not happen.

neuroproductions.be/twitter_friends_network_browser/

whatʼs this got to do with planning? decentralisation. these tools and technologies allow us to swap the referent for the reference - mobile phone numbers, twitter accounts, identity theft. as we use these tools we create increasingly inauthentic connections. they donʼt connect us - they connect abstractions of us

Wolfram Huke, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JuergenHabermas_crop2.jpg

so when we organise and coordinate activity - as we increasingly do - through these devices, it creates a disconnect between us and our outcomes. our communication isnʼt free, itʼs defined by the mediums it passes through, and the nature and conditions of them

thewwwblog.com/images/twitter/mikeyy-worm-attack.png

So when we have a great, but net-native communication environment like Twitter, where the brevity and limits are inherent parts of the communication, weird stuff can happen. this is how the mikeyy virus was so successful - it was easy to impersonate people

nosysnoop.wordpress.com/2007/09/26/couple-file-for-divorce-after-an-online-affair-with-each-other/

Taken to an extreme - Taiwanese couple - here reported as a bosnian couple - file for divorce. their representationsʼ start ʻdatingʼ electronically and only when they meet in the flesh do they realise theyʼre already together.

but at the same time - this gives us a lot of power. we can constantly improve our knowledge, share learning and experiences, and respond in a more timely and fluid manner than ever before. this is what scott did with his 20 versions of bladerunner. and in a way - tyrell too - a man who caused trouble with fake memories and abstracted identites.

www.flickr.com/photos/ brainsluice/294087990/

you know who else did this?

Conclusions:To be confirmed.

so what have we learnt? Iʼm not really sure - itʼs yet to be confirmed. but weʼre increasingly mediating our lives and memory through communal, changing channels and it will be interesting to see where it goes - whether peak oil will not only make things more difficult, but also render us dumber as the supporting rug is pulled out under us.

Thanks for strolling with me!

@davemee / @TANDOT / @MadLabUK