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Culture in Cyberspace, 3/4/96
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Date: Sun, 03 Mar 1996 22:08:50 -0500
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Bill LeFurgy
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CULTURE IN CYBERSPACE March 4, 1996/Volume 01, Issue 04
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Contents:
IN CinC
NEWS
Heavyweights Challenge Decency Act Thailand Concerned about Internet Indecency Brain Opera Nexis Journalism
NOTABLE ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB
Medium vs. Message Talkback! Information Age Communication Class Sharks and Jets Rumble in Cyberspace Curators, Teachers, and Dinosaurs Hyper-modern Photographs
OFF THE WIRE
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IN CinC
At the risk of sounding like a Las Vegas lounge act, CinC must thank its great audience. Not only have you been appreciative (as attested by several nice notes) but you have tolerated our glichy growing pains very well. Our manual list had a number of duplicate addresses and many of you received more than one copy of the last issue. But no one sent any hostile mail. The list (now with 1400+ names) has been carefully scrutinized and duplicates removed. Do let us know if you do get more than one copy (assuming that you do not want more than one copy).
CinC has also improved message addressing. A kind but firm suggestion called for use of the BCC (blind carbon copy) option for mailing, which should eliminate that annoying list of other recipients at the top of the message. This seems to work, although not perfectly. Compuserve subscribers, for example, still must be listed in the "To" section of the message. If anyone else finds problems with this method, please send me a note.
I know that not everyone who reads this has easy access to the World Wide Web. For this reason I do my best to include e-mail references along with web cites in the articles. In some cases, however, an e-mail reference is not available. Note for all new readers that do have web access that hypertext versions of the current and earlier CinC issues are available at:
If you would like e-mail copies of the earlier issues, send an e-note with "Send Earlier Issues" on the subject line. I will try to met such requests as promptly as possible.
Commercial interruption: The Internet now consists of an estimated 21 million web pages, 13000 newsgroups, and thousands of ftp/gopher sites. New information is added every second of every hour of every day. Information on every subject you can imagine (as well as on subjects you cannot imagine) is available. You probably do not have the time to navigate through this uncharted sea of information. INMA -- proud sponsor of CinC -- can help find what you need and get you results fast. We can give you citations, text/data (where permitted under copyright restrictions), and written summaries. Results can also be supplied with HTML code for insertion onto your web page. Please let us know if would like more information.
Bill LeFurgy wlefurgy@radix.net Information Networking and Management Associates/INMA
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NEWS
HEAVYWEIGHTS CHALLENGE DECENCY ACT
Some of the biggest computer-related companies joined last week in filing a
lawsuit to overturn the U.S. Communications Decency Act. The Act imposes
criminal penalties for transmitting indecent material over computer networks
in a manner that may allow viewing by children. Plaintiffs in the suit
include Microsoft, America Online, Compuserve, Prodigy, and Netcom, along
with the American Library Association, Center for Democracy and Technology,
and other groups. The plaintiffs base their challenge on grounds that the
Internet deserves First Amendment protections at least as broad as those
enjoyed as by the print medium. The suit calls for individual users and
parents to determine what material is objectionable, and also claims that
the act will not be able to protect children from indecent material in any
event. Suits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others against
the act may eventually be merged with this latest challenge. The Center For
Democracy and Technology web site has extensive information regarding the
various suits, along with summaries of recent events.
CDT:
THAILAND CONCERNED ABOUT INTERNET INDECENCY
According to Thailand Business Day, the nation's government wants local
Internet site operators and subscribers to take responsibility for keeping
Thai Internet sites free of indecent material. The matter has become more
urgent due to reports of "web pages showing photographs of naked local
female television stars," even though the "photographs are the result of
twisted minds and electronic photo merging technology." Currently, Thai
Internet subscribers and providers are required not display indecent
material or to damage reputations. No one has yet been punished for
violating this rule. There is now some concern, however, that Internet use
in the country might come under firmer government regulation.
TBD:
BRAIN OPERA
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab has opened "an
experiment in large-scale artistic collaboration" know as Brain Opera. Set
to premier at Lincoln Center in New York during July 1996, the sight and
sound performance is to be a combination of works by "musicians, designers,
visual artists, hackers, invent[e]rs, etc." at the lab and anybody who uses
the Internet. Project director and musician Tod Machover is soliciting
digital snippets of audio and video material for inclusion in the work.
According to the New York Times, Brain Opera is a "life size illustration"
of author Marvin Minsky's idea that "human personality is not controlled by
a centralized conductor in the brain but instead emerges from the
interaction between a multitude of loosely connected mental processes." The
actual performances will vary according to real-time input from the
audience, both those physically at the theater and those participating via
the Internet. The final act of the show asks the physical audience to
either dance or sit and watch projected images while electronic sensors
detect movement and translates it into an element of the performance. After
New York, the show goes on the road to Edinburgh, Tokyo, and Singapore.
Visitors to the Brain Opera web site can get more information and marvel at
the dendrite-driven design, but will get something less than the full
experience with a browser other than Netscape 2.0.
MIT/BO:
NEXIS JOURNALISM
Last week's GNN Web Review had an interview with James Fallows, "a
well-connected member of the Eastern media establishment" who is currently
the Washington editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Author of "Breaking the
News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy," Fallows is an avid
Internet user but worries about "Nexis journalism," which involves using
information technology as a substitute for original thinking and reporting.
This is dangerous not only because it supports mental laziness but also
because it allows inaccuracies to live on through re-reporting. Fallows
talks about the need for more public journalism, which he defines as
publications becoming more aware of and accountable to the concerns of their
audience. He sees the Internet as an ideal medium for this kind of two-way
exchange.
WR:
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NOTEWORTHY ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB
MEDIUM VS. MESSAGE
A number of authors have taken hearty whacks at computers and cyberspace for
weakening traditional culture and seducing people away from more
contemplative and serious pursuits. One of the best know critics is Sven
Birkets, author of "The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an
Electronic Age." Birkets has taken an unequivocal position that computers
debase literature, claiming words on a screen convey a lesser effect than
words on a printed page. Birkets has even gone so far as to compare "Wired"
magazine to the devil. The most recent web issue of the The Atlantic
contains a long, thoughtful consideration of this position. While author
Wen Stephenson is sympathetic to many of Birket's ideas, Stephenson sums up
his own position in the essay's title: "The Message Is the Medium." He
states that "computers themselves, and the experience of cyberspace, can
appeal to our imaginations in ways similar to the aesthetic experience of
literary language," and that poetry has used "non-linear, cinematic
techniques... since the first invocation of the Muse." Stephenson cites
electronic publishing on the web as an example of the Internet's potential
"to expand the audience for works of the literary imagination; and not only
to expand access but also opportunities for interactivity, and for building
communities of creative minds that could not exist otherwise."
TALKBACK!
This is the name of a new online journal sponsored by the Lehman College
Art Gallery's Center for Long Distance Art & Culture. Editor Robert Atkins
describes the journal as "the first American on-line journal exclusively
devoted to on-line art and social issues," with the specific mission of
focusing " the reader's attention on issues central to on-line art and
digital culture, as well as to direct him/her to significant art sites."
Regular features include guides to online art and museums; "provocative
opinion pieces challenging the (electronic) status quo;" and articles by and
interviews with Glenn Lowry, Susan Sontag, Camille Paglia, William Gibson,
and Roy Lichtenstein. Included are reviews of online, searchable
collections of international art, including Antonio Muntadas' "File Room",
Cati Laporte's "Living Almanac of Disasters", and Susan Farrell's "Art
Crimes." Talkback! also includes an art gallery, which currently includes
Barbara Pollack's Pick-Up Lines project (a sampling: "what's your sign?",
"you're too pretty to be an artist", and CinC's personal favorite, "you look
lonely underneath that smile"). As one would expect from its title, the
journal encourages readers to send e-mail messages in response to its
offerings. The New York Times Magazine (2/25/96) describes the site as
perhaps "just the electronic ticket for those interested in pondering the
deeper meaning of the Internet."
Web:
INFORMATION AGE COMMUNICATION CLASS
The University of Alaska Anchorage Department of Journalism and Public
Communications has launched a web site in conjunction with a course on
Information Age Communication. The site and the course aim to provide "an
introduction to information sources on the Internet." Quoting an unknown
person's observation that "the Internet is like the world's largest library
.... But all the books are on the floor," the site works to establish order
with links to sources grouped under several categories. Useful references
abound to a wide selection of texts, reviews, reports, finding aids, and
other information relating to the Internet and its culture. Examples
include "News in the Future - Follow the M.I.T. Media Lab's efforts to
'explore and exploit technologies that will affect the collection and
dissemination of news'; "'The Internet: Which Future for Organized
Knowledge, Frankenstein or Pygmalion?' - UNESCO paper"; and "Session with
the Cybershrink: An Interview with Sherry Turkle." This site is another
excellent example of using the web in university instruction.
Web:
SHARKS AND JETS RUMBLE IN CYBERSPACE
A great deal of modern culture is actually recycled -- often more than once
-- from an earlier era. This is especially true for popular music, which is
constantly digging up older songs and imparting a modern spin upon them. So
it should not come as too much of a surprise that a group of pop musicians
has recast the songs from the 1957 Bernstein-Sondheim classic "West Side
Story." The RCA Victor recording includes a mind bending array of
interpretations, including a partial rap version of "Gee, Officer Krupke",
by Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and others; "I Have a Love" by country music star
Trisha Yearwood; "A Boy like That" according to the late Selena's "new
jack/Latin" vibe; "Prelude to the Rumble" by jazz-fusion artist Chick Corea;
and "I Feel Pretty" by Little Richard. Intrigued? Think CinC is making
this up? Check the recent New York Times review, or better yet go to the
recording's web site, which has digital audio clips from the 16 songs.
NYT:
CURATORS, TEACHERS, AND DINOSAURS
No, this is not a dissertation title (as far as CinC knows). It does
describe the successful integration of three somewhat different interests at
the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science web site. Curators and
other museum professionals can appreciate the effective page layout and good
details provided about the institution's services, collections, and other
features; the museum's involvement in related research and cultural
activities is particularly impressive. Teachers will like the detailed
descriptions of student projects as well as the useful information about the
museum and other sources supplied under the Teacher Services and Resources
section. And anyone interested in dinosaurs will have a field day looking
at the online exhibits. Reading about the museum's "life-sized sculpture of
Coelophysis, the official New Mexico State Fossil" might even compel the
non-New Mexican to plan a trip to Albuquerque.
Web:
HYPER-MODERN PHOTOGRAPHS
Frequenters of the alt.binaries.pictures.misc newsgroup (or the web site
that provides thumbnail graphics from the newsgroup) surely have seen them:
grainy, black and white photographs of buildings, people, fruit in baskets,
and other seemingly arbitrary scenes. They are representative of the
"12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project," which began about a year ago. The originator of
these images describes them as "a continuous, apparently random sequence of
original photos... authentic gritty, greyscale... corrupt and compelling
experience." A new one appears every 12 hours via the web, ftp, even
e-mail. In these days of anxious Internet copyright claimers, it is also
worth nothing that the "12 hour" project web page states: "No copyright
1995; Any use acceptable."
12 hr web:
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OFF THE WIRE
Last week a subscriber wrote comparing CinC to the Utne Reader. Hmmm--is
that good or bad? One of the great wonders of the web is that one can
quickly answer such questions. A visit to the Utne Reader web site quickly
confirmed that our subscriber not only has excellent taste in weekly e-mail
newsletters, but also in other information sources. The Utne Reader is a
bi-monthly print publication that bills itself as "the Best of the
Alternative Media." It promises that "If you're buried under an avalanche
of books, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, CD-ROMs, videos, online
services, cable tv choices.... if you're turned off by the media blitz but
need to know what is truly important, then Utne Reader can ease and
enlighten your mind." CinC couldn't state its own reason for existence any
better, although our scope may be a wee bit narrower. The web version of
Utne is termed The Utne Lens, "a field guide to what we think of as the
emerging culture." Want proof on how notable online publications think
alike? The current web Utne has a piece on "billboard commandos" and other
forms of culture jamming, a subject CinC covered last week. Now, if only
someone would compare CinC to The Paris Review....
Utne Lens:
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To subscribe or unsubscribe, please notify: wlefurgy@radix.net
Culture in Cyberspace is produced by:
Information Networking and Management Associates (INMA) World Wide Web creation, editing, and maintenance/ News and information services/ Computer system design, installation, and support http://www.radix.net/~wlefurgy/welcome.htm
Copyright 1996 by William G. LeFurgy; all rights reserved. Excerpts and sample copies may be distributed for non-commercial use so long as they are attributed and provide the CinC e-mail address (wlefurgy@radix.net). ```
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