Weekly Critical Response 14: Race and Writing in the Classroom

This week I zeroed-in on chapter 4 of Barbara Monroe's book Crossing the Digital Divide, in which she embarks on a fascinating case study of the writing styles and telltale content found within the school writing assignments of an ethnically diverse group of seventh graders. The school in her study is located in the American Southwest and consists largely of children of Latino (Mexican) heritage, with various constituents of white, Plateau Indian, Filipino, and African American ethnicities. The diverse lot provides a good cross-section by which Monroe evaluates the ethnic characteristics of the students' literacy.

The chapter began as other chapters have begun throughout the semester: with emphasis on the disparity between white children and children of color in our public school systems. Monroe offers a rather unique study in which she acquired a semester's worth of seventh grade writing assignments--with paper topics ranging from fictional stories to non-fictional autobiographical narratives that provide insight into each student's level of creativity and the complexity of their communicated thought processes:

...the discussion at hand will provide a productive starting point for understanding exactly how and why certain ethnic groups have such great difficulty with academic literacy [and how] teachers should address this difficulty... (90)

Initially, I found myself detached from the premise of the book, which is established in the introduction as a text heavily bent from/for an educator's perspective (a text tailored by an educator for the benefit of future or current teachers to assist in the preparation of a more effective curriculum). My fear was a lack of familiarity with that perspective, but my reservations were soon shed as I immersed myself in Monroe's study. I particularly enjoyed reading the included samples of student work and Monroe's subsequent semiotic/psychological analysis of each piece. Ultimately, I found Monroe's research enlightening, but at times I thought some of her conclusions came from left field--rather more like generalizations than satisfactorily substantiated by the study itself. For example, I am somewhat perplexed by the development of ideas on page 109:

"I have traditions," another [student] writes in his "All About Me" paper, "but I can't really remember." Such statements speak to the cost of assimilation: the loss of traditional culture in the lives of immigrant and American Indian families. But it is a loss that has not caused most of these students much pain, at least not yet. (109)

I have no idea how Monroe came to the determination that the loss of "traditional culture" has not caused "most of these students much pain." The very fact that the student included such commentary would incline toward the opposite. Not to mention, how do we understand the student's forgotten traditions are a result of ethnic assimilations versus some other kind of forgotten familial traditions that may or may not be indicative of the student's ethnic minority status? In fact, we are not told the ethnicity of the student in question--which is in contrast to the open information shared about most of the other student examples--so we simply must assume that he is not a white student with average American "traditions" of his own. Not that the circumstantial context Monroe raises is not valid or important reality--hardly! I just have a problem with building such an intricate web from a fairly cursory statement (which unfortunately, happens in shades throughout the chapter).

Monroe emphasizes the practicality (the value) of storytime within a child's household. She terms parent-child/child-parent storytime a "literary event" during which time the parent can entertain as well as challenge their child with comprehension questions and a submersion into the use of narratives and language. The child's interaction with the story and with the parent creates a learning exchange, a "literary event," during which time the child establishes important critical thinking skills. These claims are convincingly contrasted by the lack of storytime in Latino households (reasoned by Monroe as an ethnic trait established by elders who do not as frequently communicated with the youth), and the affinity for children of color to instead establish their "literary events" with popular culture technologies such as movies, TV, music, Internet, etc.:

Movies are their stories. As such, they need to be brought into the classroom in a systematic, critical way, along with other kinds of stories that represent the best (and the worst) that has been thought and written. (114)

She ends her chapter beautifully with the conclusion that academic literacy tends prejudice toward children/households of color; for children are exposed to critical thought in different ways and the public school system favors the "literary events" more commonly found in the white household. By utilizing elements of pop culture (films, TV episodes) in crticial ways in the classroom, children of color can be taught to think and see the world differently.

Citation

Monroe, Barbara. Crossing the Digital Divide: Race, Writing, and Technology in the Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press, 2004.

Weekly Critical Response 13: Convergence

This week I read parts of Henry Jenkins' book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Initially I was confused as to what the title, and perhaps more so the subtitle, truly meant. I had never been exposed to the theory (or reality) of convergent media in explicit terms before (though I think it safe to say that most of my life has been immersed in the conflation of old and new media, and old and new technologies, without giving it much thought). As a result of my fresh introduction into this discussion, I found Jenkins' comments about media and technology (importantly, the differences between the two realms) particularly fascinating. Sadly, and rather embarrassingly, I had never made the disassociation between the two before!

What's more, just days ago I hammered out a rough draft of my first of three major papers due this semester. The paper is written for a recent art "history" class that focuses on visual art from 1970 onward. The paper I wrote deals with reception in the visual art of the postmodern; specifically, I take a descriptive look at the changes in interface from modernism to the art of the postmodern in an effort to analyze how artists have altered their uses of mediums (technologies) to facilitate a transformation of their (work's) relationship to their audience. The thesis of my paper is that art of the postmodern relies, and relishes, in varying degrees of viewer-generated narrative, meaning, and context (and, depending upon the artwork's interface, even interaction by the viewer). My fixation on the interface of fine art of this period was inspired by the readings encountered this semester in this particular English course, along with my intense study, in another course, of important critical theories such as reception. After reading Jenkins' book I feel the urge to go back and bolster my analysis even further with his discussion of the applications of media and technology as separate entities of a larger "protocol." For me, this was an a-ha! moment.

For instance, on the subject of media and technological divergence, Jenkins writes:

history teaches us that old media never die--and they don't even necessarily fade away. What dies are simply the tools we use to access media content--the 8-track, the Beta tape. These are what media scholars call delivery technologies ... Delivery technologies become obsolete and get replaced; media, on the other hand, evolve. Recorded sound is the medium. CDs, MP3 files, and 8-track cassettes are deliver technologies. (13)

Jenkins uses the example of recorded sound, but I can just as easily apply this concept to my study of visual art's reception and interface. The artist's messages shift dramatically at the onset of postmodernism--almost exclusively to an interest in cultural/political critique. Additionally, the artist's interface (which simultaneously refers to the way the art is constructed as well as the way it is to be received by those who view it) changes dramatically from the formalism of the modern to the intensely personal and nebulous nature of the postmodern. Visual art become less specific (more nonobjective) and its formal qualities more diverse (think of video installations, architectural sculpture, body art, et cetera). By Jenkins' model, art of the postmodern changes technologies while its media (its message and content) evolves. Rather than two sides of the same coin, this divergence could be thought of as two separate coins. It becomes more complicated, however, when artists--such as those of the New Image School--choose to return to old technologies like painting and photography (which flourished in modernism) to carry their distinctly postmodern ideals. That would indicate an instance when the media evolved whilst the technology, arguably, reverted back to traditional technologies as a reaction against newer technologies that had become popular at the onset of postmodernism! It's a complex relationship--incongruous and prone to flip-flopping back and forth between technologies--as Jenkins teaches us.

Jenkins' discussion of "protocols" is also a revelation for me. He quotes historian Lisa Gitelman: "Protocols express a huge variety of social, economic, and material relationships. So telephony includes the salutation 'Hello?' ... and includes the monthly billing cycle and includes the wires and cables that materially connect our phones..." (14). In other words, protocols represent a system of complex relationships between people, technologies (mediums), and media that work in tandem to provide a service, an experience, entertainment, information, and so on. The protocol of postmodern postminimalism can be described with a video installation by artist Bruce Nauman. An example of one of his installations could include a system of (literal) corridors and paths along which the viewer walks, with technologies such as television monitors and closed-circuit cameras, to create an interface that requires the viewer to be seen within the artwork itself (thus, a series of complex cultural implications are felt by the viewer, not the least of which is a self-reflexive feeling of surveillance). Through monitors and cameras, the viewer sees himself seeing himself! Protocols clearly exist, in micro form, in all kinds of postmodern art (and in modernism, and various other periods, as well).

Jenkins goes on to discuss instances of how old and new media "collide" within our recent American culture. Chapter 6, for example, investigates the collision of political and pop culture. Continually referencing a "mobilized collective intelligence," Jenkins speaks about how users of the Web have the ability, more than ever, to come together in common interest to disseminate opinion, factual and important information, entertainment (i.e. parodies, political songs, documentaries), and (maliciously or unwittingly) misinformation that can pollute the process of sharing. It's the advent of a "peer-to-peer" culture (a culture of sharing and speaking out) as opposed to the old traditions of a "one-to-many" culture (composed less of of a two-way conversation and more of a tyrannical system of information delivering prone to sway and "spin") (219).

I like Jenkins' discussion of parodies, such as The Daily Show, and how they offer new ways of seeing political debate, as well as offering debate to a new audience (i.e. youth). There are obvious problems with parody--for if that is the only source one acquires information, they may not be obtaining a complete picture. However, an argument that Jenkins appears to make, and that I fully agree with, is that youth culture (the demographic of parodies that poke fun at politicians and false information in the mass media) may not be exposed to these important topics otherwise. I, for example, hardly ever watched the news because I felt it was a vacuous system of one-sided journalistic coverage that seldom ever investigated what I was most interested in. As Jenkins continually projects, new technologies are helping give old media (old discussion of important topics such as politics) new, and more fully realized, life. In blogs and in online communities, people all over the world are asking important questions and seeking out information for themselves. I believe this is causing old media protocols, such as the broadcast news networks, to reexamine how they cover the news. Brilliant! CNN, for example, is closely aligning itself to new information culture by continually promoting their own blogs, online information sources (such as watching the vote tallies of the '08 election come in live, online), and even asking viewers to report the news (i.e. iReport, where people can upload important commentary and videos of events that unfold in real time). The "peer-to-peer" cultural is influencing the way old media operates.

Week 12 Discussion Questions

Hello class. These questions pertain to this week's reading:

Nakamura, Lisa. Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

In the interest of covering as much territory as we can, I am asking 6 questions, one from each of the 5 chapters as well as the introduction. I'm sure each of you will have something valuable to add.

Introduction Question:
According to Nakamura, paraphrasing Vijay Prashad: "'color-blind' replaces the color line as the prevailing practice that permits resources to be unevenly allocated based on racial identities" (3). What does this statement mean, particularly in the context of digital spaces such as the Internet (remember the history of the Internet and the "promises" anonymity offered)? How does Nakamura demonstrate the reaction of minority groups to and/or against this concept throughout her book?

Chapter 1 Question:
On page 40, Nakamura begins to mention the "gaze," which has had massive implications throughout art history, and certainly within a myriad of other disciplines. What does she mean when she references the "racialized gaze [that] may contribute to digital racial formation" (40, mid-page). How is the gaze active in online visual art such as avatars? Is the gaze now more manipulated by the creator (of the image) or the viewer?

Chapter 2 Question:
Nakamura boldly states, "the Internet has tremendous potential for challenging colonial regimes of power, particularly those that privilege access to the written word" (88). In what ways is this statement supported? Do you agree (if so, can you hypothesize an example of this happening)?

Chapter 3 Question:
On pages 102-103, Nakamura writes a powerful passage that raises some important questions about the idea of copies and originals (this is a huge discussion concerning the art of the Postmodern, in particular, as it becomes easier for virtually anyone to make copies and for artists to create works without true "originals" {i.e. photography}). What does Nakamura mean by "the creation of copies without originals" (102) and "what happens to the notion of personal identity in the age of new media" (103)?

Chapter 4 Question:
On page 156, Nakamura discusses the invisibility of the pregnant woman and the "ways of seeing that represent the fetus and mother as occupying different visual frames and tends to visually reinforce the notion of their separate existences" (156-157). What is the role of the ultrasound in this debate, and what are the implications of "[reinforcing] the notion of the pregnant body as really two bodies" (159)?

Chapter 5 Question:
Much of Nakamura's book, and much of this semester, has been spent negotiating an understand of "race" and its inability to clearly define us. Nakamura states, "The Internet is a popular communication medium that is used differently by different racial groups" (184). Suddenly, Nakamura addresses race as a present, distinguishable, and quantifiable categorization as a means of surveying and determining online usage. What does this say about race? Is Nakamura legitimizing it has a categorical system? Should Internet surveys inquire about "race" at all?

Weekly Critical Response 12: Visual Culture, Digitizing Race, and the Internet

This week's reading was Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet by Lisa Nakamura. I took many and particularly detailed notes over this reading as it is my task this week to initiate a class discussion. Unfortunately, this makes crafting a response to the reading rather more difficult because I find myself having so many questions to ask and so many topics I would like to summarize. Alas, I shall fixate, ever so briefly, on the most prevalent ideas presented in a few spots of the book.

One of the contributions to the difficulty I face in extracting key ideas, versus many, presented in this text has to do with the volume's breadth. Much to Nakamura's credit, she is an incredibly thorough theorist and scholar, but to her detriment, however, her writing at times reads as tangential and untethered. I find myself underlining several significant claims on consecutive pages -- each idea fairly independent and, in fact, important in their own right, though Nakamura doesn't necessarily cultivate them to any great length, or perhaps she does go to great lengths to cover a great deal of ground and in the process over saturates, or steers away from, a cohesive message -- which would be Race and the Internet. This is, I feel, the hangup of the text, but the bounty here is plentiful with brilliant remarks and analysis. Nakamura is evidently a gifted researcher and rhetorician, as I find myself continually enriched by many of the developed concepts she dishes.


The Introduction

Though many great ideas are addressed, the outline of the book is presented, and a thorough (if not exhaustively so) analysis of Jennifer Lopez's foray into new media is presented as an interesting case study of Internet interface and racial/ethnic presence in new media, I find myself keenly interested in Nakamura's discussion of "visual culture" (VC) as both a method of analysis and an academic discipline within her introduction. Indeed, Nakamura references VC studies time and time again throughout her book, so it becomes important, early on, to establish a firm grounding as to what VC is and what it aims to accomplish. I believe she did this well in this lucid summary of VC's foundations:

Visual culture studies was born in response to a crisis in art history: it is an insurgent art criticism that merges at some points with cultural studies but has different foundational texts that are oriented toward constructed social identities and a concern with the visual apparatus. Art history is a long-standing and canonized field in the letters and sciences and had become mired in debates regarding its adherence to traditional modes of analyzing visual objects that resulted in many scholars identifying against it. (11)

This is perfectly conducive to my understanding of VC's roots. As a VC graduate major, however, I find myself somewhat at odds with her further parameters. Nakamura slides between the use of the phrase "new media studies" and "visual culture" rather liberally, and goes on to define VC as a discipline that is (and should be to an even greater extent) concerned with the study of new media, but specifically the cultural implications of new media (this is somewhat perplexing, as art historical study, particularly of the Postmodern, has been interested with "new media" of the contemporary age since the 60s, and even more so in the 2000s -- to advocate more interest in new media is redundant). In the same breath as the last quoted excerpt Nakamura goes on to boldly state: "In theorizing digital racial formation theory, I am proposing a somewhat insurgent response to new media studies, a move that may seem premature considering its recent vintage. However, there are many advantages to correcting the omission in new media studies of gender, race, class, and communication as quickly as possible" (11). At once Nakamura is aligning VC with "new media studies" and suggests that even more emphasis must be put on the study of cultural aspects of new media under the umbrella of visual culture. While I hardly mean to undermine the value of "gender, race, class, and communication" as important conventions to study under any discipline, I would agree with Nakamura that is seems "premature" to require such social-savvy from the discipline of VC, especially given VC's closely-tailored roots as an art historical discipline that has for so long operated on a cannonical, regimented, and formalistic plane.

Visual culture represents a re-branding of art history, as Nakamura accurately describes it, to include cultural contexts of art (in other words, we are to study, as "upgraded" art historians, cultural implications concerning the creation and the "new" social meanings found within visual art). VC, at Illinois State University at least, has been founded in the art department as a substitution for art historical study; quite literally, a master's degree in art history is no longer offered, instead one receives a degree in visual culture (I am such an aspiring student -- and this program shift has only occurred within the past two years, so I am happy to be covering fresh ground here!). It appears to me, from Nakamura's reflections in her introduction and through more explicit examples throughout the rest of her book, that she is synonymizing visual culture too closely with cultural studies; what she is describing is an even more hybridized discipline of Internet-, new media-, anthropological-, cultural-, rhetorical-, and visual art- studies. Visual culture is not yet set to that hybridized standard. At least, my personal interests still gravitate largely toward the "aesthetic" and "creative" arts that Nakamura respectfully ignores in favor of marginalized social visuals such as AIM buddy icons which, she admits, have not struck much interest in visual and cultural research (I can personally understand why, because the visual culture studies she defines is not yet realized).


Chapter 1 - The Visual Culture of AIM Buddies

In this first chapter Nakamura focuses her analytic eye on the -- admittedly -- obscure topic of AIM buddy icons (those 50 x 50 pixel images that appear next to Instant Messages as one chats online via AOL's IM service). Even though I had some qualms with fixating on such an obscure resource, I admire Nakamura's interest in carving out areas on the web and examining the implications of even seemingly trivial cultural productions such as these small avatars.

I was elated to encounter Nakamura's reference to Postmodernism:

Indeed, the Internet seems made to argue postmodernism's case, as online anonymity makes it necessary for identity to be signified in active rather than more passive ways. However, as the Internet's user base changes, and changes in software make it a more enriched graphical space that enables youth in particular to express their taste cultures ... the "profiles" and avatars they create to literally embody themselves in disembodied spaces become less about performing a cross-gender or cross-racial alternative or "passing" self to deploy in public communities and more about expressing diasporic, ambivalent, intersectional selves to use within close communities. (47)

Postmodern identity is a significant part of contemporary art history (if one can refer to the relative present as "history"). Thus, Nakamura's relation of small screen avatars to the notions of postmodernity struck close to home. I was suddenly able to add value to these small graphical spaces as I viewed them in terms of self-expressive, culturally-significant (to the creators, at least, if no one else) visual images that, in fact, have the ability (and often do) convey a sense of identity and one's "placement" in society -- or the sub-cultures to which one feels closely aligned. This same type of analysis is often applied to "fine" art of the 20th- and 21st-centuries; a visual culture historian's interest in the work of artist Keith Haring, for example, will unavoidably deal with the purpose of Haring's cultural message (why he insisted on creating public art and what his compelling and universally accessible images say about himself and cultures to which {he feels} that he belongs and should critique).


Chapter 2 - Mediating Visual Cultures of Race on the Web

This chapter features an extensive investigation of the website alllooksame.com. Through an analysis of visual rhetoric, Nakamura reasons why the site may be perceived as offensive to some (on the surface, it appears to advocate a lack of individuality between certain Asian populations), but ultimately she determines that the website raises important questions and facilitates culturally valuable Internet discussion (in the site's forum) -- not to mention, the site acts to break down the widely held assumption that people can be easily racialized into groups. The site successfully presents the message that most users cannot, in fact, tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean peoples. While the "test taking" seems crude at first, as Nakamura stresses, the site ultimately works to dissolve the idea of race as a means of cultural identification: "the 'truth' about race is not a visual truth, yet it is one that is persistently envisioned that way" (81).

Other important theories are discussed in this chapter, such as the digital divide that, for so long, has separated the majority group of Internet users (mostly white, mostly male) from the minority groups that have relatively limited access. Cautions are stressed, such as the "Westernization" of other cultures (the notion of "culturecide" {88}). There is a provocative discussion of India's growing access to the Internet and the overwhelming amount of English websites that become virtually useless (pun intended!) for non-English speakers (so the skill to navigate visually, rather than textually, becomes self-evident). There is a worry, too, that the large volume of Western websites might "Westernized" non-Western cultures; so a claim is made by some scholars that perhaps it will be better for non-Western cultures to avoid the Internet altogether. To this debate Nakamura relays the interesting anecdote on photography as being a Western technology that has since been appropriated by African Yoruba peoples (and in fact peoples all over the world) to "serve [their] unique and particular cultural needs" (93). Of course, this story offers evidence in favor of Internet use all over the world, for each culture has the ability to appropriate it for their own uses (as has been done with photography) rather than risk conforming to the Western cultures that "supply" it.

[In the interest of brevity, I will be happy to save my treatments of Chapters 3, 4, and 5 for class discussion and presentation! To my classmates: the discussion questions will soon be emailed to you, and I hope to see you Thursday.]

Citation

Nakamura, Lisa. Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Brief Book Review: Aerosol Kingdom by Ivor L. Miller

Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City by Ivor L. Miller has served my purposes perfectly: I required an introduction into the realm of street art, or, what Miller rightly terms, aerosol (or graffiti) culture. This book does not represent a comprehensive history of graffiti art -- that would be difficult to do as the movement and "period" of this form of art is hardly finished and can hardly be evaluated from beginning to "end" -- rather, this book represents a touchstone of investigation into the subject of this movement, importantly, in the terms of a self-contained culture and not just a style. It should also be expressed that "graffiti art" is not synonymous with a far more general heading "street art" -- rather "street art" is a recent phrase to signify, among graffiti, a plethora of varying styles and concepts "performed" on the streets.

It is difficult now, in 2009, to think of graffiti as anything but art. Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring are artists that have helped make the notion of graffiti a well-recognized form, if not a mainstream consciousness, of painting (and even personal style) and it is difficult to look at such dazzling and creative visuals in an art historical context and not consider it, intrinsically, an incredibly important artistic movement. However, Miller reminds us, by tracing the roots of the New York City street art scene to the mature stages we now find the once-rare, now-popularized, art form in, that it was not initially received (in fact, not received for a great deal of time) as legitimate or creative -- it was once nothing but a nuisance to transit authorities and an "eye sore" to busy business men and women (not that it still, shamefully, isn't perceived in that way today). Miller informs us that even from its first wave (its first "generation") graffiti was entirely about expressing the views of the oppressed and, as a gathering force all its own, actually caused a graffiti culture to be born that people around NYC could identify with. Indeed, it was a culture with its own language (both visual and semantic) and message (frequently political, occasionally personal, and sometimes a markedly unique blending of both).

Miller writes: "My project follows the culture from its emergence in the frontier days of early signaturing, to the golden age of whole-car murals and letter technologies, and to its global status" (9).

Miller's book is important because it focuses an eye on the beginning stages of a culture that has, over the course of nearly 40 years, manifest itself into dozens of sub-categories and sub-cultures in every cranny of the globe. The globalization (and I use that term so affectionately) of graffiti art is a remarkable aspect to follow. What began as an incredibly isolated and specific visual and textual rhetoric of borough (and "ghetto") life in NYC has become a means of expressing and orienting oneself to very universal ideologies of political subjugation, capitalistic tyranny, and the residue of colonial oppression that exist virtually everywhere people do.

Though I am fresh to the subject, a unique examination found in Miller's book appears to be the careful consideration of graffiti's ethnic roots. The culture, according to Miller, is deeply submersed in a hip-hop mentality that features significant aspect of African, African-American, and Caribbean traditions. Tethering graffiti so closely to these ethnic traditions is, in many aspects, irrefutable, though some of the artists interviewed for the book appear to resist the implications. Some view their roots in aerosol culture as something indicative and loyal to NYC life rather than outside or "foreign" ethnic forces -- though Miller does well to steep NYC history itself in African-American and Caribbean tradition (the city as a melting pot). Great comparisons ensue, like the references of graffiti to jazz, blues, and gospel music as art forms intrinsically American. In a far broader sense, Miller eventually asserts that an understanding of graffiti is, "central to a contemporary dialogue on issues of race and class" (14).

In addition to the visual and textual rhetoric of graffiti, Miller frames his research with important examination of the technology used and -- crucially -- developed by the early street artists. Custom spray can tops; the appropriation of words and language and the creation of new words and meanings; the reinvention of the signature, of the name, as crucial expression of identity; the use of city technologies (such as the train systems) act as canvas, metaphor, and vehicle for transporting the artwork to multiple segments of the population. Every aspect and technology used by the graffiti culture helped to frame and further their concepts to a broader and, ultimately limitless, audience.

The book is rich with many interviews with first- and subsequent generations of graffiti artists. Because so many of the artist are still alive, still active, and still eager to communicate the story of how the movement began, Miller's book is greatly enhanced by a tender and compassionate interest in receiving first-hand information and critique on the subject from those who lived -- and created -- it. The book is filled to the brim with great images, great quotes, and great analysis of graffiti art as it progressed from the early 70's to the early 00's. A must read for the novice art historian, like myself, for a foray into the world of graffiti. It will be impossible to understand great artists like Basquiat or Banksy without an understanding of street art's roots. Miller takes us there.

Weekly Critical Response 11: Technology, Disability, and Subjectivity

This week's readings focused on the interaction between disability and technology -- and, ultimately, the subjective perceptions that ensue either on the part of the disabled user or on the part of those witness to the interaction. How does technology shape the disabled individual's personality and body? How does this cyborgian process (of combining technology with the body) affect other viewers? The main thought circulating through each author's text is a call for more equality in terms of getting technologies to disabled users, appropriating technologies to fit each user's needs, and modifying the perceptions each of us has regarding disability (which, ideally, will assist the aforementioned steps).


The Cyborg Concept

Once again this week we return to the concept of the "cyborg." Last week it was in the form of cyberfeminism, this week "cyborg" refers to a rather more literal melding of technologies and humans (when we use technologies to change our physical makeup, be it a wheelchair, crutches, glasses, et alii). Obviously, the more severe the disability, the more extensively one may incorporate technologies to assist in the "normalization" process; that is, to make the disabled person more independently equipped to participate in life processes, social interactions, and entertainment.

In their article "Cyborgs and Stigma: Technology, Disability, Subjectivity," authors John Cromby and Penny Standen talk in depth about the process of combining technologies and the disabled, and the perceptions created therein. Importantly, the authors take the step to define what "cyborg" means in the context of their research. They offer up three crucial views of the term, the first being that "'cyborg' is used as a metaphor in order to gain political and conceptual leverage in debate," second they state that it "can refer to the transformation of subjectivity by the array of communication technologies currently available," and, lastly, they define it as a way to "refer to the physical augmentation of the bodies of people with and without disabilities" (Cromby & Standen, 97). The latter definition is the most obvious one. When a lot of us consider the term "cyborg" we think of a Terminator or RoboCop type character (monster?) that can either obliterate a population, or save it from an equally perilous situation (as Thoughtware.TV contributor Anders references in his video essay "On Disability, Adaptive Technology And Cyborg Societies"). Cromby and Standen's second definition, focusing on the subjectivities of communication technologies, is perhaps the most unique and informative take on this topic of disability. In fact, the authors go on to state that, "These last two uses of the term 'cyborg' reflect a useful classification of technologies for people with disabilities, since these can be said to fall into two broad classes: physical prosthetics which augment their bodies, and communication devices which extend their subjectivities" (Cromby & Standen, 97).

The authors go on to address the history of subjectivity, in a way, by discussing German Critical Psychology and its reasoning which describes "how subjectivity is structured by possibilities" (Cromby & Standen, 98). By this, the authors are suggesting that "need itself arose as a consequence of social organisation... subjectivity is simultaneously biological/organic and societal, since the... nature of the possibilities available will strongly condition the subjectivity which emerges" (Cromby & Standen, 99). In other words, technology changes the world view, and the world's view, of a person with disabilities. For example, the notion of contradictory technologies that can create dependence in its user (the disabled, arguably, have the ability to become dependent on technologies to improve their quality of life even more than others find themselves more needlessly dependent on "comfort" technologies), and the fact that assisted technologies can, while solving mobility or accessibility issues, create other problems (like a wheelchair that eliminates the activity of the leg muscles which can then cause atrophy). It becomes important, then, to study and ask the end-user what technologies are most important and how they should be used. Usability becomes a major factor in the melding of technologies with the disabled -- just as usability is a factor in less transformative (cyborgian) technologies as I've discussed in previous responses. It is crucial to know how a technology is used and what goals are required of it by its user -- surprisingly, this is so often a fleeting, or virtually nonexistent, stage in the globalization of new technologies.


Disability and a Link to Poverty

Authors Jim S. Sandhu, Ilkka Saarnio, and Ronald Wiman, in their article "Information and Communication Technologies and Disability in Developing Countries," link disability and poverty. It's a commonsensical stance that is easy to follow: disabled people have fewer accessibility options, therefore the opportunity for education and occupations is hampered. This is nowhere more evident than in developing countries where much of a person or family's income is based primarily on hard labor -- clearly, those physically disabled in such a way that aren't able to participate in labor are further stricken into poverty. Countries without access to communications technology, such as computers and other forms of information media (the types of technology that can help disabled people communicate with those in their immediate environment), don't have as much access to education resources -- therefore these areas deprive people of their voice and their ability to hear other voices from around the globe. As Cromby and Standen point out in their article by paraphrasing Eric Hobsbawm, "there are more phone lines in Manhattan alone than in the entire continent of Africa... two thirds of the world's population have still never even used a telephone, never mind a computer" (Cromby & Standen, 97).

Sandhu, Saarnio, and Wiman define disability for us as a "collective responsibility of society at large to make the environmental and attitudinal changes necessary for the full participation of all citizens in every area of life" (Sandhu, Saarnio, & Wiman, 2). This is the resounding call of their essay; to provoke an "attitudinal" change within society, which, most of the authors admit, has been taking place over the last several decades with fresh mandates, laws, and policies by many national governments to increase access and accessibility not only in the purely physical sense (i.e. ramps into buildings) but also in an intellectual, or usability, sense (i.e. access to software and computers).

As I have discussed in previous responses on this blog, there is a "digital divide" between those who have access to information technologies and those that do not have access (or have severely limited access). Sandhu, Saarnio, and Wiman address this divide which plagues massive segments of society even in "developed nations" that have access and even create abundant and diverse resources. However, the authors modify the digital divide from the commonly viewed "horizontal" divide between cultural, ethnic, and geographic groups to include the "vertical," which would address the divide within the divide -- that is, people who, because of their disabilities, even if able to come in contact with current communication and information technologies, cannot access that technology because of physical or intellectual impairment (Sandhu, Saarnio, & Wiman, 8). As societies make progress to include the excluded segments into the use of information technologies, we must also make simultaneous steps to ensure that no one will be at a disadvantage when they receive access. We must include accessibility with the access -- we must make efforts to modify existing technologies to allow disabled users the ability to learn and communicate equally.


The Art of Disability

In her essay, "Artists with Disabilities: A Cultural Explosion," author Pamela Walker brings to light the divisions within the art world by addressing Disability Culture and the need to make subjective steps on both sides of the aisle (those {dis}abled). Walker's first-person perspective is refreshing to read -- from her personal history growing up as a disabled student (the the lack of accessibility during that era) on to the present era of Disability Culture: "The 1970's brought a new approach to being disabled: disabled people became empowered and realized that they did not have to just accept and cope with inaccessible situations -- things could be changed" (Walker). Akin to the book I addressed in my Week 8 Response, Global Indigenous Media, Walker mentions the use of media to essentially rebrand the image of disabled persons. By taking control of medias (much like the indigenous peoples addressed in the aforementioned book) she asserts a need to get "actively involved in making our own images" (Walker). Her use of the term "images" is, I think, twofold, insofar as it refers to the perception by many of disabled persons (as well as a disabled person's perception of him- or herself and other people in a similar situation) in addition to the aspect of art that Walker, an artist herself, incorporates in her thesis.

In direct commentary on disabled artists, and in an effort to define Disabled Culture, Walker makes the enlightening distinction:

The observer of disability art has a interesting challenge: they can focus on the disability and think it's incredible that the person has done what they have done, or they can focus on the art and see how the disability has flavored it, or they can become familiar enough with the disability that it becomes only background and the art is the message. (Walker)

This moment in Walker's essay is, I think, a brilliant and necessary revelation. There is a peril in exhibiting art as that of a "disabled artist" -- Walker cautions that viewers (or beholders, as in Wolfgang Kemp's Receptionist theories of art history) may acutely fixate on the fact that it is, in fact, created by a disabled person and should therefore be viewed and judged in a realm separate from "able" artists. This is hardly what either party (the disabled artist or the viewer) wants. There is a choice, then, on the part of the observer (the viewer, the beholder) which takes place in the stage of reception which dictates how that observer reacts to, values, and analyzes a work of art which must, I feel, simultaneous embrace the disabled aspects of the artwork (that is, if the artwork conveys a message of Disabled Culture or disability in a more specific sense) and/or evaluate the artwork as completely separate from the disabled artist. If the artwork does not specifically set out to comment on disability in its content, how is it appropriate to think of the art in the context of disability?

Citations

Cromby, John and Penny Standen. "Cyborgs and Stigma: Technology, Disability, Subjectivity." Cyberpsychology. London: Routledge, 1999. Print.

"On Disability, Adaptive Technology And Cyborg Societies." Thoughtware.TV. http://www.thoughtware.tv/videos/show/1121-On-Disability-Adaptive-Technology-And-Cyborg-Societies

Sandhu, Jim S., Ilkka Saarnio, and Ronald Wiman. "Information and Communication Technologies and Disability in Developing Countries: A Technical Note." October 2001.

Walker, Pamela. "Artists with Disabilities: A Cultural Explosion." National Arts and Disability Center. University of California, 1998.

Weekly Critical Response 10: Cyberfeminism

This week I read Domain Errors: Cyberfeminist Practices!, by editors Maria Fernandez, Faith Wilding, Michelle M. Wright, and various contributing authors. The crux of the book focuses on concerns facing women in the age of information technology (with special interest in the Internet). The reading of this particular book is somewhat timely as news reports have lately been surfacing informing us of "new labor department statistics that show women now make up nearly 50 percent of the workforce" (CNN.com). This news seems like an important milestone that I imagine those responsible for Domain Errors will be pleased to find transpiring. That women are now almost equally as present in the workforce seems like a response to some of the issues raised in the book. That women are still not treated equally, unfortunately, hasn't changed much in the same span of time.

Alas, I have found some accessibility issues with Domain Errors. The book positions itself as an address to women, and, further, to women already submersed in-, and familiar with-, the cyber issues presented. This is particularly exemplified in the lack of any clear definition of cyberfeminism, or any revelation as to the actual purpose for the "movement":

...in discussions at the First Cyberfeminist International at Documenta X, in Kassel in 1997, definition of cyberfeminism was declined in favor of the declaration that cyberfeminism was a practice which embraced a gamut of attitudes towards art, culture, theory, politics, communications and technology––the terrain of the Internet. ...Instead of a definition, the participants (including Wilding) devised the 100 anti-theses––definitions of what cyberfeminism is not... (18)

In a defiant gesture perhaps, or in an effort not to paint themselves into a corner with a fixed purpose, the attendees of the First Cyberfemist meeting chose, rather than to define their agenda, to define what they are not. This presents some obvious issues for those interested in learning what the ideologies of cyberfeminists are. An instance of confusion:

Each contribution to this book––whether text, image, performative project, manifesto or rant––suggests strategies for critical and tactical cyberfeminisms. Domain Errors! invites readers to jump-start new projects, theories, conversations, connections, actions, and becomings. (11)

Again, without knowing what cyberfeminsisms are, only what they are not, I have a difficult time understanding what the goal is. Is this a new wave of feminist theory (in the essay "Situating Cyberfeminism," Fernandez and Wilding seem to suggest that "old" feminism is not sufficient)? Within the book I continually hear a call to action on the part of women everywhere, but the inequality in technology that the authors speak of (especially concerning the Internet) is not abundantly apparent here. I am told more than I am shown. As a result, I have a difficult time tethering cyber to feminist in the context the editors are creating. The book, though sometimes nebulous concerning an overall hypothesis, does succeed at presenting a series of important, though disjointed, insights that sum to an informative lesson on gender issues facing global cultures.


Trying to understand cyberfeminist views of the Web

Interestingly, I find myself agreeing with an opinion that Maria Fernandez addresses, only to oppose it, in her essay "Cyberfeminism, Racism, Embodiment":

Electronic media theorists and commercial entities alike maintain that “differences” of gender, race and class are nonexistent in the Internet due to the disembodied nature of electronic communication. (29)

I tend to agree with this theory. For example, the Internet is one of the most impersonal places one can imagine; where people tend not to have identities unless they perform special efforts to establish an identity. That identity can either be falsified to some degree, or completely true (though the audience will never know to what degree). This is why I have a difficult time understanding the cyberfeminist perspective that apparently interprets the Internet in such a personal way. The Internet works to remove face-to-face social interaction and to appropriate social relationships into a less humanistic experience. Words, not faces, are generally seen. That this should be the home base for a new feminist movement -- in a virtual world, when real world feminist concerns are far from solved -- isn't explained or reasoned within this book to my satisfaction.

In her essay "The Woman Question: Adressing Women as Internet Users," Susanna Paasonen comes closest to addressing the "cyber" part of cyberfeminism directly. One of her two major "woman questions" is: "how [could women] be better addressed as net users, and with what kinds of contents and services [could this] be accomplished" (92). A valid question to be sure, which is eventually addressed by the analysis of high-profile sites directed at women (including Tampax, Oxygen, and Libresse). Ultimately, Paasonen sums up her essay with this statement: "Information networks are not only media of tomorrow, but, more crucially, they are parts of a cultural continuum for reproducing cultural values and hierarchies" (106). This is a very reasonable assessment; one I think we can all agree with. However, I fail to see how this is an issue particularly exclusive, or even indicative of, the Internet. The websites that Paasonen calls out are corporate-driven, heavily branded spaces sure to be injected with imagery to target their core audience. The idea that young women will be shaped in any great degree by the colors of the Tampax homepage is, I would venture, unlikely. The "reproducing" of "cultural values" that Paasonen alludes to can be found in virtually every culture around the globe in practically infinite forms other the Internet. Isolated tribes in Africa, for example, maintain intrinsic ideals of gender roles that are passed down through generations. That women (and men) are shaped by dominant expectations in their culture is certainly an issue worth addressing, but it is an issue deeply rooted beyond technologies like the Web. Again, this is why I have a difficult time understanding cyberfeminism -- it seems an ideological movement primarily concerned with symptoms rather than causes. That is not to say that symptoms of the gender divide, that surface in technologies like the Internet, are not worth addressing... hardly!... I think it is awkward, however, to address technologies like the Internet as the key conduit of a much more expansive problem.


Race

One of the reasons why I've been so hard on Domain Errors is because it takes on the position of being hard on other theories and criticisms, somtimes to a fault. For example, take Michelle M. Wright's essay, "Racism, Technology and the Limits of Western Knowledge," in which she hottly criticizes the independent arguments raised by Henry Louis Gates and Anthony Walton regarding the African American struggle for computer literacy. Ultimately, she blasts the scholars for not suffiently defining, differentiating, and blaming Western technology. Gates blames the lack of gumption and intertia for change on the part of African Americans, while Walton simply doesn't differentiate between technologies to Wright's liking. This is a mislaid argument, I feel, as one of my critiques of Domain Errors is that it doesn't put enough effort into clearly defining its own territory. Wright is splitting hairs by suggesting Gates and Walton don't blame technology enough... after all, they're all arriving at similar conclusions insofar as there is a gap in technologies between minorities and the dominant race, class, and gender in Western cultures.

Eventually, however, Wright makes a great mention of binary oppositions by referencing semiotics and semantics: "Just as 'gender' is incorrectly synonymous with 'woman,' the deviant from the male, so 'race' incorrectly denotes 'black,' the deviant from the white norm" (47). This is a smart analysis that reminds me of Structuralist ideas of gendered oppositions and marked and unmarked terms such as "young" and "old", or "man" and "woman." I believe Wright is aligning cyberfeminism with important elements of previous waves of feminism in referencing such theoretical insights. This is a nice spot of lucidity that I can fully appreciate.


American Sperm

I adore Terri Kapsalis's essay, "Making Babies the American Girl Way." Initially, I was taken by her summary of the American Girl dolls and the sometimes eerie glee that girls have for the toys. Then, I became disturbed by the photographs of girls holding their dolls that continued on even after Kapsalis stopped talking about American Girl and began talking about sperm donors and the mechanics of the sperm banking business. Eventually, though, Kapsalis did a marvelous job of linking the mentality of doll selection (choosing the histories, idosyncracies, and physical traits of a given doll) to the prospect of choosing sperm based on pictures, fact sheets, videos, and even essays written by the donors (and the fact that companies sell this information to their clients makes it all the more odd). Crafting the perfect child as part of motherhood is apparently something introduced at an early age these days -- and the ability to "craft" your child based on donor specifications is a reality that continues on into actual motherhood. It's just creepy, and Kapsalis conveyed the creep-factor brilliantly! How this ties to cyberfeminism is rather perplexing (other than the image of creating a mutated cyborg child), but I am happy to have heard this feminist concern at any rate.

Citation

Fernandez, Maria, Faith Wilding, and Michelle M. Wright (editors). Domain Errors: Cyberfeminist Practices! New York: Autonomedia, 2002.