Lecture 4: Extended Abilities - Where Is the Body/World Boundary?

1. Lecture 4:Extended Abilities Professor Victoria Meng Where Is the Body/World Boundary?

2. Previously? New Model: Beginning of Lecture Middle of Lecture End of Lecture Review Review Review

3. Review: Janet Murray • Multiple connections • Complementing a linear narrative • Good for test and paper review

4. Lecture 4:Extended Abilities Where Is the Body/World Boundary?

5. I – World Boundary: Skin? From the second edition of De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body), 1555, by Andreas Vesalius, who pioneered the scientific study of human anatomy – what’s underneath the skin.

6. Body Boundary Experiment • Directions: • Make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes. • Focus on listening. • Move your feet along with my words.

7. Body Boundary Experiment • Can you describe the texture of the ground beneath you? • Does it have any irregularities? • Could you “feel” the ground through your shoes?

8. Body Boundary Experiment Sing with me now: “These shoes are made for walking…”

9. Body Boundary Experiment We CAN feel the ground “beneath our shoes.” We CAN extend the boundaries of our bodies beyond the skin.

10. Review: Marshall McLuhan All media are human extensions:

11. Body Boundary Experiment • I – World • (I – Shoes) – World • I – (Shoes – World)

12. Conclusion 1 • Correct: • (I – Shoes) – World • I – (Shoes – World) • Incorrect: • I – Shoes – World

13. Conclusion 2 • Formula: • (I – x) – World • I – (x – World) • (x = any media, tool, technology, or instrument; for example, pens, shoes, clocks, screens, etc…)

14. Conclusion 2: Corollary! • Correct: • (I – Media) – World • I – (Media – World) • Incorrect: • I – Anything – World • I – People – World

15. Conclusion 3 • Media is never neutral. It either changes the value of the “I” or of the “World.” • (I – x) – World • I – (x – World)

16. Review: • There is only ONE I – World boundary. • All media can affect the nature of this boundary. • There is always a tradeoff for media use.

17. Reading 2: Don Ihde, “Adam and Galileo” Phenomenology: An approach to philosophy that emphasizes the study of consciousness and direct experience.

18. Reading 2: Don Ihde, “Adam and Galileo” (I – Language) – World Versus I – (Expert Jargon – World)

19. Reading 2: Don Ihde, “Adam and Galileo” Adam : I – World : : Galileo : (I – Instrument) – World

20. Reading 2: Don Ihde, “Adam and Galileo”

22. Review: Terry Flew • The Three Levels of Technology: • Tools (Artifacts) • Techniques (Activities) • Context (Arrangements)

23. Reading 2: Don Ihde, “Adam and Galileo”

24. Reading 2: Don Ihde, “Adam and Galileo” But for every revealing transformation there is a simultaneously concealing transformation of the world, which is given through a technological mediation. Technologies transform experience, however, subtly, and that is one root of their non-neutrality. (p. 49)

25. Reading 2: Don Ihde, “Adam and Galileo” A technological object, whatever else it is, becomes what it “is” through its uses. This is not to say that the technical properties of objects are irrelevant, but it is to say that such properties in use become part of the human-technology relativity. (p. 70)

26. Reading 1: Lev Manovich • Four screens: • Classical • Dynamic • Real-Time • Interactive

27. Reading 1: Lev Manovich Classical Screen

28. Reading 1: Lev Manovich

29. Reading 1: Lev Manovich A hundred years ago a new type of screen, which I will call the “dynamic screen,” became popular…It can display an image changing over time. This is the screen of cinema, television, video.(p. 96)

30. Reading 1: Lev Manovich Real-Time Screen

31. Reading 1: Lev Manovich Interactive Screen

32. Reading 1: Lev Manovich Relying too much on screens can imprison us. Review: Janet Murray It is reductive to blame media objects for our addiction to them.

33. Review: Marshall McLuhan Media are human extensions. The medium is the message.

36. End of Lecture 4 Next Lecture: Our Media, Our Selves: How do the media affect who we are?