> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> "Appropriate Technology: Artificial Products, Mediation, and Streaming Media"
> 
> Fakeshop [http://www.fakeshop.com]
>
(contribution for Acoustic.Space)
> 
> Streaming media embody one of the more prevalent paradoxes of digtial
> culture: live streaming events over the Web are simultaneously real-time
> events (in the manner that music concerts or theatre performances are),
> but they are also saturated with complex notions of distance, absence,
> remoteness (technological mediations which include networks, bandwidth,
> software, computer interfaces). Here the already complex notion of
> presence is infused with and constituted through technological
> mediation, a tension inherent within the notion of mediation itself (the
> distance or buffering which also establishes a connection). Streaming
> media are thus put into a unique space of immediacy (live, real-time
> event) and mediation (cybercasting via the medium of computer and
> networking technologies). Mainstream, commercial media rarely even
> recognize this tension, presenting media as simply transparent and
> immediate (we are seing this happen now with the incorporation of
> RealVideo). One of the tasks of the artist or cultural activist would
> be, then, to highlight and investigate this tension - a tension not only
> at the heart of streaming media technology, but a tension indicative of
> digital culture generally.
> 
> When considering new digital and streaming media, this situation of
> media with respect to cultural activity suggests that streaming media is
> not so much a technology in itself, as it is a way of intersecting and
> condensing a variety of already-established models (live TV, radio,
> video) with developing ones (computer and telecommunications-based
> networking), and restructing their relative ratios to produce not only
> new technological objects (interfaces, software applications, streaming
> media product and content), but also new social contexts that affect the
> sensory experience of media.
> 
> In other words, while a consideration of the possibility of alternative
> structures of organization for new media is an indispensable facet of
> making tactical media work, I'd also like to add to this that tactical
> media can only be fully effective if it is also
> aesthetically-formally-sensorially tactical as well. This means that,
> alongside an investigation into creating new distribution or
> broadcasting models, there must also be a concurrent investigation into
> the potential challenges, critiques, and experiments which are embodied
> and materialized in a given media (be it RealVideo, MP3, or Java).
> Already we are seeing technologies such as RealVideo and CU-SeeMe being
> restricted to the traditional models of mainstream media (e.g.,
> RealVideo programming based on the TV network; CU-SeeMe reflectors based
> on the cafe motif; RealAudio used to sell CDs online). Thus it is as
> pertinent for cultural activists and artists to consider how these new
> technologies may significantly change what is meant by "performance,"
> "art," or "theater."
> 
> While much thought on new and developing media such as RealVideo or MP3
> often replays a narrative strain of anxiety very familiar to the
> historic avant-gardes (innovation, potential revolution, incorporation,
> recuperation, commodification), an emphasis on the concrete and
> situational instances of using media suggests that, depsite the hype
> concerning DIY-culture, a technical ethic of "appropriate technology"
> still remains a useful and potentially critical tool for the use of
> streaming media technologies.
> 
> In the current, heterogeneous field of streaming media activity, there
> are (at least) three primary techniques whereby new streaming media
> technologies are used for critical-aesthetic-tactical purposes:
> 
> First, there is the appropriation of Web technology for particular uses
> which may or may not be previously designated by the technology itself.
> An example is the use of CU-SeeMe - primarily used in banal situations
> such as virtual cafes - to "stage" performative streaming media actions.
> The question in this instance are the potential meanings of
> (mis)appropriating technology, developed mostly within the software
> industry, and utilized for predominantly entertainment purposes.
> 
> Secondly, there are those instances where a number of technologies are
> put into a creative relationship with each other, forming a hybrid media
> situation. An example is the concurrent use of different media
> performing different functions (e.g., RealAudio streaming sound,
> CU-SeeMe streaming video, custom-programmed webpages, streaming webcams,
> Java applications, and IRC text). When this hybrid formation is combined
> with the first instance described above (given, of course, the
> always-troubling technical requirements), then interesting situations
> may develop where a given technology is not limited to it's technical
> specifications - thus the possibilities of streaming video-text,
> audio-chat, or web-CUSeeMe arise.
> 
> This leads, thirdly, to the possibility of actually producing or coding
> technology for use in given tactical media situations. Already we are
> seeing this with the development of alternative browsers, Java applets,
> and media activist freeware, and we might expect - and hope - that it
> will continue with streaming media technology as well.
> 
> Techniques of appropriation not only imply a technological re-situating,
> but they also have with them an appropriation of the
> (social-cultural-commercial) context within which developing technolgies
> are placed. Fakeshop has, for a number of years, employed this ethic of
> "appropriate technolgoy" in the use of CU-SeeMe, a videoconferencing
> software program originally designed for collective remote meetings in
> business and education. Since its development however, it has become the
> primary technology for the establishment of virtual communities, virtual
> cafes, and a variety of other "social" uses. In appropriating CU-SeeMe
> as a performance medium (which also involves the telematic "squatting"
> on various reflector sites, and, often, censorship from those servers),
> Fakeshop has attempted to create unfamiliar contexts with familiar
> technologies, investigating issues such as remote participation,
> mediation and the body, memory, science fiction, and the construction of
> social space online. Many of these issues have also carried over into
> like-minded experiments with RealVideo and RealAudio.
> 
> Thus, one of the most important questions, when considering the future
> of streaming media, will be how the contexts of developing technologies
> can be assessed (technological, commercial, social), and what range of
> mobility do those contexts offer for instances of critical use and
> appropriation. Alongside an inquiry into new organizational and
> broadcasting structures, we also need to undertake equally rigorous
> inquiries into developing new media languages, techniques, and
> aesthetics which are not the content to the technological form, but
> rather the very embodiment or materiality of the technologies.
> 
> Eugene Thacker
> Fakeshop member
> March 1999
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++




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