I am on the internet!

I try to avoid Googling my own name, mainly because of my ancient history in student politics at McGill and the fact that most of the related articles that show up were published by the one student newspaper on campus that disliked me very much...

But I did search for myself tonight and found this clip from a brief interview that I did at the NAISA conference two weekends ago. You can find it here. It's kind of funny to listen to what I think I'm writing about. And how I stumble so violently over the word "determinism." I still think it's lacking in vowels.

Following the naisa conference

I had the opportunity to attend the recent NAISA conference last weekend as part of my research. I was surprised to learn during one of the presentations that the subject of this year's conference was "Time." I'm still somewhat suspicious that this was an error, because very few of the presentations had little (if anything) to do specifically with time- that is, anything can be said to deal with time, even if it doesn't treat Time as its subject.

Jonathan Goldstein delivered Saturday morning's keynote, which was my initial reason for attending. Unfortunately the keynote was structured as a kind of interview, and Goldstein and the interviewer had no rapport whatsoever. I think the presentation would have been much better served had Goldstein simply presented his work, rather than attempting to answer the interviewer's utterly banal set of questions. Nevertheless, some good did come of my attendance.

Goldstein explained a little about WireTap as a radio drama and as meta-radio. After explaining that "meta" is basically a fancy word for saying The Muppet Show, he explained that in many ways the show itself becomes a character. Because isn't a reporter, explained Goldstein, he is able to take a more literary approach to the content presented on the show. For example, he can fade out the voice of one of the characters and then talk about that character "behind his back."

In describing the process of producing a show for This American Life, Goldstein explained his initial reluctance to present as unstaged his studio-recorded conversations, worrying that it would sound contrived to the audience. He then shared the advice that he received from Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life: "... people listen to the show and think we're just little people who live inside the radio," basically explaining that listeners don't think twice about the fact that the conversation is recorded.

The majority of WireTap content takes the form of phone conversations, which further dissociates the audience from the idea of performance. This is remarkable considering it is the very staging of the episodes that creates the illusion of their authenticity. Of course, that being said, much of the content of WireTap is "real." Goldstein explained that there is constant interplay between actuality and script; blending fiction with non-fiction to get a story out. This is also a gift of the medium: because there is only sound, there is more creative opportunity to "micro-edit performances together."

Not only does Goldstein blend fiction into a non-fiction story, he also makes use of the media available to him to turn fiction into non-fiction. For example, in the episode "Protect Yourself" from Season Four Goldstein's eponymous character Jonathan discovers that a disgruntled former intern has uploaded humiliating sound bites of Jonathan to her blog, even turning one into a ringtone. Readers of this blog familiar with WireTap will know that at the end of each episode is an amusing soundbite made available for download as a ringtone. The episode "Protect Yourself" introduced the concept, and by Season Five ringtones were made available for listeners on the WireTap website. From time to time, the ringtones can be heard during the show when characters call each other on their cell phones. And it's pretty funny. More importantly, though, it demonstrates WireTap's ability to make fiction transcend itself into reality.

As listeners, we are persistently compelled to believe in the fiction of the show. But is it really fiction if it can so easily become real?

Where do I end, and where does my mind begin?

I wasn't always a cyborg. Like most people born before 1991, I had to learn how to adapt my body to the technological improvements made popular and convenient throughout the latter decades of the 20th Century. I didn't even start wearing glasses until 1999, let alone extend my lap into a bigger brain (2005), or my ear into a smaller version of that bigger brain (2009). But now my laptop and smartphone are as intimately related to my body, and as necessary for my daily functioning as my fingernails, eyelashes, and other evolutionary developments designed to make being alive more possible.

As time moves endlessly forward it is becoming more necessary to expand how I conceptualize my body's relationship with digital/new/cyber media. And I am not alone in doing this. Jonathan Goldstein's radio programme WireTap is saturated with this thought experiment. The more I learn about cyberculture the more I understand the complexities that make up Goldstein's thematic--not to mention my own physical and psychological development.

In the book Cyberculture Theorists: Manuel Castels and Donna Haraway, David Bell plunges into cyberculture as a complex topic of critical inquiry. What first attracted my attention was his particular engagement with the idea of technological determinism.

Technological determinism "The idea that technology affects society in a one-way relationship: technology is something done to society, to people, who passively experience its effects" (8).

While Bell readily acknowledges that this notion is an overly simplistic way of understanding the intimate relationships between people and technologies, he also recognizes the impact that this notion has on many (many) people:

at the symbolic (and therefore also at the experiential) level, lots of people do feel that they are in a deterministic relationship with these new technologies, that they are relatively powerless, that the makers and sellers of these things are in control, and that sometimes the technology itself is in control, too. (8)

Let me use myself as an example. This weekend I am going to Montreal to visit some friends. The cheapest means to get there is by bus, and the cheapest bus tickets can only be acquired via online purchasing. I have made online purchases dozens of times; I know the drill. I add my bus ticket to the virtual shopping cart; I fill out a form to prove that I am me and my credit card is mine; I click "submit."

In my typical online shopping experiences this is the moment when I receive confirmation that I am indeed who I am and my credit card is mine and now my bus ticket is also mine. But today my purchase required an additional step: I needed to fill out a "Verified by Visa" form. The form was mostly a more concise version of the previous, but with an additional box marked "password." I had (and continue to have) absolutely no idea what my Verified by Via password is. As with most password-protected web forms, there was an option for poor souls like me, who purchase online so rarely that we can actually fill out security clearance info once, save it, and then months later have no idea we've ever seen it before. I selected "forgot your password?" and was promptly redirected to yet another form which again repeated many of the questions I had already filled out (now twice). I filled out my birthdate, credit card number, security code on my credit card, my billing address, phone number, and email. All of this information was correct and matches the information my bank has AND the information Visa has. I know this because I have made online purchases before using this information. Verified by Visa, however, disagreed with the accuracy of said information, denied me the option of changing my password, and promptly froze my credit card.

Needing this bus ticket and feeling powerlessly angry, I immediately sent a text message to my partner which read thus: "fucking verified by visa has incorrect info and I couldn't buy my bus ticket online and now I can't use my card online for 24hrs." If we can presume that this text message accurately enunciates my thoughts and feelings on the matter (and as its author I can attest that it does), it is clear that even a relatively knowledgeable, smart-phone savvy, lap-top using adult still perceives technology in a relatively deterministic way. At no point did (or will) I blame myself for being unable to make this simple online purchase. Rather, I anthropomorphize (if one can even apply the term to cyber technology) Verified by Visa as some kind of material being with knowledge and intentions. It isn't a programme; it is an entity. The entity not only contains information about me, it fucking contains the wrong information, as though it could somehow have helped itself, thereby helping me. Moreover, it deliberately prevents me from taking any further steps to make this purchase by freezing my credit card for 24 hours. While I understand that this is part of a web of security measures developed to prevent credit card fraud, what it effectively does is deny the fact that I am me and my credit card is mine-- and as a line of code in a machine it really shouldn't have the right to do that. Moreover, being a line of code, it also doesn't listen to reason or accept the photo ID in my wallet as further proof that I really am me and  my credit card really is mine.

And yet I return to digital technology immediately to solve this problem! I send a text (SMS) to my partner and within three messages he understands that I need him to buy my ticket (online) for me using his credit card, more importantly understanding why. At no point have I had any non-technologically-mediated human to human interaction, but I go from powerless to virtually (pun) omnipotent within moments.

And then I decide to write a blog post about it, which is my medium of storytelling.

Conflict of interest

This isn't technically (digitally? legally? literally?) a conflict of interest. Not really.

Some months ago, the folks at WireTap decided to try out a listener's hotline. They claimed not to know what they'd do with it; they just wanted to try it out and see what happened. Listeners were encouraged to call in with all of their problems, whether personal or professional. This happened to be the same time that I was eagerly awaiting Jonathan Goldstein to follow-up on a previous email in which he stated that he was "happy to talk." I had emailed to request a date (no, not that kind of date, though I would not have declined such an invitation myself) to speak in person, as I was heading to Montreal for a short visit. A few weeks had gone by and I hadn't heard back from Goldstein. Wanting to find that delicate balance between pushy/stalker and disinterested/doormat, I had vowed to give it one more week until I wrote him again. But then! The listener's hotline appeared! It was like a gift!

Naturally I called in with my dilemma. What could have been more appropriate? "Hi, this is Marcelle calling from Guelph. I guess you could call this an academic rather than personal problem..." Goldstein emailed me two days later. We set a date and time and I more or less forgot about the phone-in.

Today, three or four months later, long after meeting with Goldstein and having the most enjoyable conversation about my studies ever, my partner Trevor greeted me at the door with the words: "I've got something I want to play for you." He began to play a WireTap podcast, an episode I hadn't yet heard (I've been slacking, I know). It was the phone-in episode. He fast-forwarded the episode to the end when "Bernice Meadows," the show's "voice," was in the process of thanking the callers. Then a montage of dozens of snippets from calls began. "I love your show," "long-time listener, first-time caller," "I've got a problem," "I need your help," and so on. And then- then! 

"where do I go from here?" Stop.

It was my voice. My voice sampled on WireTap! I knew it immediately. Its oddly deep but shallow tone. The asking of a question that isn't really a question. The sound of nonchalance with just a hint of anxiety and and a dash of nervous sweat. My voice.

My world and the fictional world of WireTap had finally collided- and I didn't even know it! For weeks I did not know! And now, now that I do know, where do I go from here?

Do not misunderstand me. I am not angry or disappointed or caught in a legitimate conflict of interest. No, no. I am amused, if anything. Delighted, even! But how will this fit into my project? It has to; the whole crux of my project is the legitimacy of the character Jonathan's anxieties about the disappearing body in the face of digital media technologies because the program itself demonstrates that digital media confuse the boundaries between the "real" and the "fictitious." Suddenly my "real" world in which I listen to and study WireTap is less distinct from that fictional source of material driving my project. I am implicated in my own project. And I did it myself! I blurred those boundaries all on my own.

I can't tell if I'm thrilled or terrified.

Uh oh!

I'm listening to a new episode of WireTap as I type; it's called "The Elite." Today's episode starts with an original theme song. Goldstein & co. have been on a mission recently to find a (Golden Girls-esque) theme song for the show. I listened to it realizing that there is no way that I'll be able to cover all seven of these incredible seasons in this project. Every new episode adds a further layer of complication to my understanding of the show's engagement with technology and the body. Today's episode starts with Jonathan and his sister, Marie-Claude, driving in the car listening to the radio, discussing a Lady Gaga song that has come on (see yesterday's post, which ends with my comments on Lady Gaga). Then Jonathan and Howard discuss Howard's internet IQ test results. And then Josh calls Jonathan to tell him he's been "tapped" into a secret society (which turns out to be a cult), but first accuses Jonathan of "tweeting" everything told to him in confidence. And then Gregor calls Jonathan to bully him into creating a twin, Corbin Goldstein, who will eventually become more popular than Jonathan, ultimately killing him (Jonathan) off.

It's incredible. I have no idea how to pick and choose among the scores of episodes, especially as new ones come out each week. Moreover, I can't even write a blog post in the 26 minute length of the show because now that I'm listening for it, every single conversation gives me more to write about. I'll have to choose some arbitrary timeline from which to select my episodes. Or draw them out of a hat? Email Goldstein and ask him which are his favourites? Take a poll? Transform my MRP into a thesis because there's too much to say?

Proposal submitted

My supervisor has accepted my MRP proposal and submitted it to the department! This is good- it means that this blog is not yet irrelevant. Unless it actually means that this blog is irrelevant because it's too early to know for what and how it will be useful. Or is it?

I am also beginning to realize that in order for this blog to be useful as an appendage to my MRP, I'll have to start labeling my posts. And probably writing about things that are useful. What do I even mean by useful?

There is a small problem in the near future that I'll have to eventually accept and deal with. it is this: I'm not particularly find of the sound of my voice (is anyone?). But still, if I'm recording a radio documentary as my MRP, I'm going to have to spend a lot of time listening to my voice as I edit. Maybe once I'm in the studio I can use an auto-tuner to make it sound like Lady Gaga is narrating the documentary. How appropriate is that? Lady Gaga is totally into this human-machine cyborg stuff. This is a good plan.

Gadgets

Sunday,

Blogger's blog options have lots of space for things called "gadgets." No matter how many times I start a new blog, I always try to add gadgets, and eventually delete them because they look so out of place. This is usually because I don't understand what the gadgets actually do. Or, I do understand, and I add them, and then I delete them for fear no one else will understand what they are or why they're there.

I decided this time would be different. This time, this blog, I will take a risk and add a visitor count. A real gadget that counts the visits to this blog. But, after about four hours of the counter increasing only when I hit the page refresh button, I was ready to accept defeat and delete it. But this is for research! I said to myself. The purpose of the blog is to document my anxieties, not succumb to them. So I met myself in the middle: I changed the name of the counter from "blog visits" to "Number of times I've visited my own blog." That felt better. It was self-aware. Witty. Dare I even say, post-modern?

But there's no way I've visited this blog 40 times since yesterday. Six times, probably. Maybe 10. But forty? Other people people are reading this. Enter new anxiety: people might read this blog. I'll have to start using spellcheck and proof-reading. I might have to add more gadgets.

Am I even allowed to do this?

My MRP proposal hasn't even been approved yet, and here I am constructing part C of what will undoubtedly consume my entire life over the next 6 months.

If I were really being honest, I'd admit that the only reason I'm including a blog portion to my MRP is to give me an outlet to feel as though I'm procrastinating while actually doing work. I've done this twice already with two other major projects in my life (getting married, and getting a Master's). Neither of those blogs have yielded positive results for my level of productivity. Instead they hang over my head, like incomplete homework that isn't even for grades.

And yet I've done it again. I can't help it.