Date: Thu, 19 May 94 02:22:20 EDT
From: ma-AT-dsd.camb.inmet.com (Malgosia Askanas)
To: technology-AT-world.std.com
Subject: Re:  Paul Virilio


Erik asks:

> Malgosia, I'm curious to know whether you think that the television
> and the telephone are extensions of bodily modes of thinking or not.  
> On one view they are just extensions of our eyes and ears and voices, 
> but on the other hand one can be said to be in two places at once 
> when using the phone.  [...] But when I think of the telephone I am 
> sympathetic to Steven's viewpoint and feel that this technology has 
> expanded my ability to act in the world.  I don't think we give up 
> a whole lot by using the phone.

Well, one can only be said to be in two places at once if one
deprives "being in a place" of its physical meaning, and associates 
it purely with a certain kind of _effect_.  In a sense, as long as
one does not regard the use of the telephone as a way of "being 
somewhere else", the telephone does not present a problem and is 
simply a convenient tool for getting something done.

I, too, would tend to regard the phone as relatively unproblematic,
perhaps because the experience it offers -- being purelu aural at the
moment -- is considered so limited as to not be capable of displacing 
anything else.  But in Clinton's NII agenda, for instance, we are
invited to contemplate a situation in which "no matter where you go 
and what time it is, your child can see you and talk to you";
"the best schools, teachers and courses are available to all
students"; "the vast resources of art, literature and science are 
available everywhere", etc.  The words "see", "talk", "available",
are used as if the aspect of personal contact was irrelevant to 
the word's meaning.  When seen on a monitor, a teacher, one's child, 
a piece of art, are presumed to be just as "available" as if one 
was having live contact with them.  Perhaps they are even more 
"available", since one can turn them on and off at will, record 
them for later "availability", slow them down or speed them up, 
and so on.  Live contact becomes a somewhat technologically 
inferior version of "contact", and live contact with a local teacher 
becomes indisputably inferior to electronic contact with the "best"
teachers.  

This kind of shift usually goes hand in hand with corresponding
changes in the environment: the fact that one can "see films"
on video connects with changes in the landscape of movie
theatres and in the ways films are made.  Similarly, the vision 
painted by the NII agenda seems to signal a phasing out of local 
schools and a shift in what are considered "good teaching skills".  
It is only by virtue of such processes that things are given up 
as a result of new technological developments. 

- malgosia