1) The Importance of Authorship Changes with Time
The time of the epic (Iliad, Odyssey, Beowulf) puts no emphasis on the author, stories passed down orally, the credit goes to the first one to record it, even though they did not write it originally. The true author is ananymousThen after the middle ages people use author as self contained validation based on the acclaim of a famous thinker. For example "Aristotle tells us...." Then in the 17th and 18th century there was a democratization of the author where the prestige is in the text and not the author. For the first time anyone can become a great author if they produce a great text. For example Einstein's ground breaking theory of relativity comes from a patent clerk, but the work speaks for itself.
2) The author in literature
Barthes: The destruction of the author comes naturally from simply writing. The reader always projects meaning subjectively. Who is really speaking?-->Identity loss Attempts to locate author through biography futile, "text speaks not the author"
Foucault: presupposes that the author is gone in order to examine the empty space left behind. In the future it won't matter where the text came from as readers dispel assumptions about the origins about the time, place and person that created a text. The text will be able to stand alone.
3) The author in new media (Manovich)
In the information/internet era there is a plethora of new modes the destroy authorship
a) collaboration and specialization: many works online require multiple authors for formatting, programing, graphic designing, actual writing, etc.
b) interactive works: the reader or user has new levels of input in new media. For instance digital poems where the user controls the progression of the work or games where the soft wear to create new levels.
c) online "menus" and authorship by selection. Connection back to Barthes concept of a text as merely a tissue of quotation--> impossibility of originality
d) the computer itself as an author: create formulas where a computer program generates original texts. Who is the author? The programmer? The computer? Both?
e) remixing and sampling: usually confined to music, but also applies to other new media works where certain programs or images or formats or whatever are taken off the internet and used in new works. Is this plagiarism? There is less stigma attached to stealing intellectual property on line. New media era's emphasis on sharing soft wear, programs, formulas, etc.
Conclusion: The death of the author is nothing new, but the internet has created many new ways of dissecting authorship and empowering the reader/user as the author/creator or at least a collaborator.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Aversion in the new concept of Avatar
The word 'avatar' is a perfectly ridiculous choice for the image attached to the moniker of a blogger or some other kind of internet personality. To me an avatar will always be some type of deity in human form, roughly the way Christians feel about Jesus. How 'avatar' got it's new definition is beyond me. The old definition is the antithesis of the new. The central concept to blogging is democracy. Anyone with a computer and the internet can post gibberish or profound prose or shitty poetry or personal experience or misinformation or whatever. The only possible connection to the real meaning of 'avatar' is that this ability to put your words out across the globe makes one a god in human form. This notion is so vain it is comical, not to mention sacrilegious, but that only adds to the mirth. I cannot comprehend why 'avatar' was chosen over something more apt like 'caricature' or 'profile picture.' Perhaps the new 'avatar' has a more complex definition than i realize, but even so, the comparison of a god in human form to the comic book guy from the Simpsons writing critiques about sitcoms is what comes to mind when i see the word 'avatar' used this way.
After surfing around my classmates' websites and a few other random blogs, the formula for an avatar seems to be a cartoon version of one's ideal self. Consciously or not this cartoon caricature is given attributes the individual wishes to highlight in themselves. I think a far better way to judge your author is to go to their profile and try to extract any information possible about interests, level of education, age, sex, etc. Anything would be preferable to the flippant pictures or cartoons or whatever. I suppose that given our current blog culture that the avatar provides insight to the seriousness or sense of humor of the author, but not much. In fact, writing should need no visual aids. Even pictures of famous authors on the back cover of a book adds nothing to the meaning of the text. I realize that few avatars are simply pictures of the author, and that the avatar adds a bit of personality to the page, but ideally the words should speak for themselves. No cartoon likeness is needed. Maybe the avatar is to help maintain the illusion of a solid self. That picture on your blog doesn't change though you do. As Lacan pointed out this sense of a constant self is an enabling lie. Allowing the reader to see that same image every time they log on to a blog creates some sort of solidarity. As Lacan says however the human psyche is naturally splintered, but the constant avatar gives the reader a feeling of sameness, even if the writer has changed voice. In fact the anonymity of the internet actually lends itself to the changing of voice, opinion, belief, etc, because there is no real responsibility for the author. We can post whatever we want, and there is no screening for contradiction. As Kunkle says, the internet and more specifically the monitor is conducive to this fragmented self, so much so as to cause a mild psychosis. Thus the avatar attempts to hide this constantly fluctuating self.
For my own avatar i wanted something real-not a cartoon. I took the picture two summers ago at the Swayambhu Buddhist temple in Kathmandu. At the time i thought it was just a droll sight, but it works perfect as my avatar. Besides the true meaning of avatar and the fact that i was at a Buddhist temple(not to say Buddha was an avatar, but close enough) the image of a monkey pouring bottled water on the ground is the perfect symbol for my blog. The monkey represents all bloggers-ambitious primates. The act of pouring bottled water on the ground represents both the absurdity and futility of taking a blog as fact, or at least too seriously. The hidden message being that as fresh water becomes more and more scarce we're approaching an eventual crisis. Similarly as we waste more and more time reading worthless opinions, hear-say, propaganda, and pure lies on blogs, good writing on the internet becomes harder and harder to find until we finally reach a crisis of online literature.
After surfing around my classmates' websites and a few other random blogs, the formula for an avatar seems to be a cartoon version of one's ideal self. Consciously or not this cartoon caricature is given attributes the individual wishes to highlight in themselves. I think a far better way to judge your author is to go to their profile and try to extract any information possible about interests, level of education, age, sex, etc. Anything would be preferable to the flippant pictures or cartoons or whatever. I suppose that given our current blog culture that the avatar provides insight to the seriousness or sense of humor of the author, but not much. In fact, writing should need no visual aids. Even pictures of famous authors on the back cover of a book adds nothing to the meaning of the text. I realize that few avatars are simply pictures of the author, and that the avatar adds a bit of personality to the page, but ideally the words should speak for themselves. No cartoon likeness is needed. Maybe the avatar is to help maintain the illusion of a solid self. That picture on your blog doesn't change though you do. As Lacan pointed out this sense of a constant self is an enabling lie. Allowing the reader to see that same image every time they log on to a blog creates some sort of solidarity. As Lacan says however the human psyche is naturally splintered, but the constant avatar gives the reader a feeling of sameness, even if the writer has changed voice. In fact the anonymity of the internet actually lends itself to the changing of voice, opinion, belief, etc, because there is no real responsibility for the author. We can post whatever we want, and there is no screening for contradiction. As Kunkle says, the internet and more specifically the monitor is conducive to this fragmented self, so much so as to cause a mild psychosis. Thus the avatar attempts to hide this constantly fluctuating self.
For my own avatar i wanted something real-not a cartoon. I took the picture two summers ago at the Swayambhu Buddhist temple in Kathmandu. At the time i thought it was just a droll sight, but it works perfect as my avatar. Besides the true meaning of avatar and the fact that i was at a Buddhist temple(not to say Buddha was an avatar, but close enough) the image of a monkey pouring bottled water on the ground is the perfect symbol for my blog. The monkey represents all bloggers-ambitious primates. The act of pouring bottled water on the ground represents both the absurdity and futility of taking a blog as fact, or at least too seriously. The hidden message being that as fresh water becomes more and more scarce we're approaching an eventual crisis. Similarly as we waste more and more time reading worthless opinions, hear-say, propaganda, and pure lies on blogs, good writing on the internet becomes harder and harder to find until we finally reach a crisis of online literature.
The Banality of Blog
With the construction of my own personal blog i have surrendered to the current ideology that everyone's voice is worth hearing. Now i know from personal experience that any dolt with internet access can truly post whatever. I have long suspected this, but having my own blog has forced me to confront the marauding of writing that the internet has sparked. The shit you read on a blog should always be taken with a sea of salt. Too many out there assume that because its on a computer screen it must be somewhat truthful or worth reading. The cold truth is that the vast majority of blogs are merely subjective rants. Stop reading this now and go find a piece of good old journalism.
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