PowerPoint Presentation Lecture

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computers as theater fdm 20c introduction to
digital media lecture 15.05.2003
warren sack / film digital media department /
university of california, santa cruz
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last time

• machiavelli a life
• excerpts from the prince
• latour on heterogeneous engineering/
  sociotechnical rhetorics
• mapping the actor-networks of a newsgroup
• a definition of media as machinations

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to map a discussion using actor-networks

• list all of the possible actants
• pick one actant -- this will be your first point
  of view (pov)
• examine how the list of actants are linked
  together from the first pov
• pick a second, third, fourth, etc. actant and
  examine the links between all of the rest of the
  actants from each of these povs
• pay attention to exchanges (e.g., replies)
  between actants follow how actants are recruited
  from from one network into another, from one
  side to another

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the actor-network graph from rec.arts.movies
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machine v. tool v. medium

• machine A machine, as its name implies, is first
  of all, a machination, a stratagem, a kind of
  cunning, where borrowed forces keep one another
  in check so that none can fly apart from the
  group.
• tool This makes a machine different from a tool
  which is a single element held directly in the
  hand of a man or a woman.
• Latour, Science in Action, p. 129
• medium A medium is a material, device, or
  process that holds people together or separates
  them apart from one another. I.e., a medium is a
  machine in Latours terms.

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outline

• computers as theater
• types of theater
• Aristotles Poetics
• Boals Poetics of the Oppressed
• actors, characters, and actants
• role-playing and imitation

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Aristotles Poetics

• if computers are theater, then what kind of
  theater are they?
• Laurel thinks they are Aristotelian theater.
• Beginning from Aristotles Poetics
• I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of
  its various kinds, noting the essential quality
  of each, to inquire into the structure of the
  plot as requisite to a good poem into the number
  and nature of the parts of which a poem is
  composed and similarly into whatever else falls
  within the same inquiry. Following, then, the
  order of nature, let us begin with the principles
  which come first. Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy
  also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of
  the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms,
  are all in their general conception modes of
  imitation. They differ, however, from one another
  in three respects- the medium, the objects, the
  manner or mode of imitation, being in each case
  distinct. For as there are persons who, by consci
  ous art or mere habit, imitate and represent
  various objects through the medium of color and
  form, or again by the voice so in the arts above
  mentioned, taken as a whole, the imitation is
  produced by rhythm, language, or 'harmony,'
  either singly or combined.

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Laurel on Aristotle

• One of Aristotles fundamental ideas about drama
  (as well as other forms of literature) is that a
  finished play is an organic whole. He used the
  term organic to evoke an analogy with living
  things. Insofar as a whole organism is more than
  the sum of its parts, all of the parts are
  necessary for life, and the parts have certain
  necessary relationships to one another. He
  identified six qualitative elements of drama and
  suggested the relationships among them in terms
  of formal and material cause. (p. 564)

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Laurels exegesis of Aristotle

• action
• character
• thought
• language
• melody
• spectacle Aristotle described the fundamental
  material element of drama as spectacle -- all
  that is seen.

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Laurel on plays and CHI

• Plays, like human-computer activities, are closed
  universes in the sense that they delimit the set
  of potential actions. ...it is key to the
  success of a dramatic representation that all of
  the materials that are formulated into action are
  drawn from the circumscribed potential of the
  particular dramatic world. Whenever this
  principle is violated, the organic unity of the
  work is diminished... (p. 568)

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Boal on theater

• The bourgesoise already knows what the world is
  like, their world, and is able to present images
  of this complete finished world. The bourgeoise
  presents the spectacle.
• On the other hand, the proletariat and the
  oppressed classes do not know yet what their
  world will be like consequently their theater
  will be the rehearsal not the finished spectacle.
  (p. 346)

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Boal on Aristotle, oppression and the oppressed

• ...the poetics of Aristotle is the poetics of
  oppression the world is known, perfect, or about
  to be perfected, and all of its values are
  imposed on the spectators who passively delegate
  power to the characters to act and think in their
  place.
• The poetics of the oppressed is essentially the
  poetics of liberation the spectator no longer
  delegates power to the characters either to think
  or to act in his place. The spectator frees
  himself he thinks and acts for himself!
• Theater is action! (p. 352)

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Bertholt Brechts epic theater

• The dramatic theater's spectator says Yes, I
  have felt like that too-- Just like me--It's only
  natural-- It'll never change--The sufferings of
  this man appall me, because they are
  inescapable--That's great art it all seems the
  most obvious thing in the world--I weep when they
  weep, I laugh when they laugh.
• The epic theater's spectator says I'd never
  have thought it -- That's not the way -- That's
  extraordinary, hardly believable -- It's got to
  stop -- The sufferings of this man appall me,
  because they are unnecessary -- That's great art
  nothing obvious in it -- I laugh when they weep,
  I weep when they laugh. (Brecht)

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Laurel on action and agents

• In a purely Aristotelian sense, an agent is one
  who takes action. Interestingly, Aristotle
  admits of the possibility of a play without
  characters, but a play without action cannot
  exist. This suggests that agency as part of
  representation need not be strictly embodied in
  characters as we normally think of them -- that
  is, as representations of humans. Using the
  broadest definition, computer programs that
  perform actions that are perceived by people can
  be said to exhibit agency in some form. (p.
  568-569)
• compare this to Latours actants

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Laurel on Aristotle

• In drama, character may be defined as bundles of
  traits, predispositions, and choices that, when
  taken together, form coherent entities. (p. 568)

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characters as bundles

• who gets to choice which associations are linked
  with whom or what?
• whats the difference between
• building a reputation and,
• gaining a reputation?
• recalling my exchange with jill walker about
  online caroline

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characters, reputations, identities

• what are these bundles of traits,
  predispositions, and choices that, when taken
  together, form coherent entities?
• what is a coherent entity?
• race
• class
• gender
• sexuality

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nakamura project statement

• My study, which I would characterize as
  ethnographic, with certain important
  reservations, focuses on the ways in which race
  is "written" In the cyberspace locus called
  LambdaMOO, as well as the ways it is read by
  other players, the conditions under which it is
  enunciated, contested, and ultimately erased and
  suppressed, and the ideological implications of
  these performative acts of writing and reading
  otherness. What does the way race is written in
  Lambda MOO reveal about the enunciation of
  difference in new electronic media? Have the
  rules of the game changed, and if so, how?

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what is lambdaMOO?

• lambda.moo.mud.org, port 8888

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nakamura on identity tourism

• Tourism is a particularly apt metaphor to
  describe the activity of racial identity
  appropriation, or "passing" in cyberspace. The
  activityof "surfing," (an activity already
  associated with tourism in the mind of most
  Americans) the Internet not only reinforces the
  idea that cyberspace is not only a place where
  travel and mobility are featured attractions, but
  also figures it as a form of travel which is
  inherently recreational, exotic, and exciting,
  like surfing. The choice to enact oneself as a
  samurai warrior in LambdaMOO constitutes a form
  of identity tourism which allows a player to
  appropriate an Asian racial identity without any
  of the risks associated with being a racial
  minority in real life. While this might seem to
  offer a promising venue for non-Asian characters
  to see through the eyes of the Other by
  performing themselves as Asian through on-line
  textual interaction, the fact that the personae
  chosen are overwhelmingly Asian stereotypes
  blocks this possibility by reinforcing these
  stereotypes.

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what are the risks of online role playing?

• can racial and sexual crimes take place online?
• what is the violence of a comment like nakamura
  quotes Seems to me, if you include your race in
  your description, you are making yourself the
  sacrificial lamb. I don't include 'caucasian' in
  my description (lambdaMOO player)
• a story from julian dibbell, rape in cyberspace

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next time

• media ownership