In Greek mythology, Tiresias was out walking one day when he came upon a mating pair of snakes. He struck them with his walking-stick, in the hopes that he might see which was male and which female, and Hera (displeased, as always) interceded, transforming Tiresias into a woman. He remained as such for seven years, until again he stumbled across copulating snakes; this time, he either trampled them or let them be, (depending on who is telling the story) whereupon he became a man again....

This episode in the story of Tiresias is - as all Greek myths are - steeped in the bygone culture (and rampant misogyny) of ancient Greece; and it is the same with all stories of gender variance floating around today. Take, for instance, the comedic trope of a man who discovers that the hot babe he's been hitting on is "actually" a dude- but I'd rather chat up gender identity with Tiresias than either of those fellows. He, at least, gained some perspective on the matter.

I am fascinated by the myriad ways in which people negotiate their own complex relationship to gender and the genders of others. No one can ever tell us what our own gender is. Our experience of it is purely subjective and internal - yet, it has wildly far-reaching influence on how we live our lives, and there are few other aspects of human experience and behaviour for which society (so to speak) has gone to such great lengths in attempting to naturalize and police brazenly artificial boundaries and limitations. I am not an advocate of dissolving all gender categories, or in any way against the traditional categories. I do, however, endorse the position that all boundaries are permeable, and the wider gamut of gender identities are equally deserving of recognition and respect.

This blog is my way of prodding the knot of snakes with my walking-stick - it is my way of celebrating and exploring gender variance through stories, visual art and entertainment.

Monday, March 29, 2010

On The Botlog:

 Episode 14 of Datum 9 (Model Spiner, verson 5.3)'s videoblog is the only episode of The Botlog. Any and all other episodes of this vlog are still trapped in the future, where humanoid robots (no doubt designed by a Star Trek TNG fan) are undergoing the slow process of gaining their full rights as citizens.



 In The Botlog:Episode 14 I personify and dramatize the blending of computer-based, synthetic elements with the natural world. The manifold-paradoxical nature of digital video and photography (as outlined by Lev Manovich) are metaphorically explored through the science-fiction trope of the posthuman android.

In this video, the relationship of computer-generated materials to data derived directly from the real world is inverted from the usual. Some of the most ambitious computer graphics today are created for big-budget film, wherein the measure of technical achievement is “the ability to fake visual reality [....] In other words, what computer graphics has (almost) achieved is not realism, but only photorealism.” (Manovich 15) My own performance, however, is contorted to blend with the computer-generated voice, seeking to seamlessly seem like an artificial person: an android, the likes of which are no more feasible in our present real world than is interstellar tourism. The end result of this inversion, however, is not so different. No matter which (real or C.G.) process is used as a yardstick, the illusion is always achieved by the standards set by human senses (ie. In the degree to which the vocals and lips are in-sync). It is no great stretch to say that, to some extent, the pull toward photorealism in computer-generated imagery is at its core the pull toward experiences based in human embodiment, and the closest an image or video mimics the imperfect impressions of our senses, the more easily convincing it will be. Consider, for example, the pull toward the visual conventions of an image captured through a lens— such as are an essential part of the anatomy of each eye.

The Botlog is an excerpt from a series that is posited as existing perpetually in the future. One characteristic of digital media is that it is always looking to the future. The next upgrade is perpetually rushing around the bend with promises of unflagging improvements (to assuage the costliness and irritation of keeping up). Part of the propulsive force behind this process is a distinctly Utopian urge-- the vague future is always full of infinite promise when it comes to the next operating-system upgrade.

One of the most enduring modern Utopias is the Star Trek franchise. Data, the android character from Star Trek: the Next Generation is a TV love song to Art and Technology combined. Thanks to the death (and thus preserved secrets) of Data's creator, he is presented as both the ultimate goal and finest achievement of the human race. Nonetheless, the clinching argument supporting his sentience is founded upon the episode in which he has sex with a human woman.

(The plural of the Latin word, Datum (The Botlog's main charcter) is Data.)

In the theories of N. Katherine Hayles,
Once we begin to believe that information is more essential than material forms, we vacate the old cosmos defined by presence and absence, entering a world characterized by the binary feedback of pattern and randomness, signal and noise. We leave the clearing and enter the screen.

The posthuman is thus not some Edward Scissorhands amalgamation of gizmos and flesh, but a new kind of subjectivity, one that privileges informational pattern-play over embodiment. (Davis)

For some, as with Star Trek's Data, posthumansim is Utopian and flung far into the future. For others such as Hayles, posthumanism is more complex-- depending upon the subtleties of our relationships with data vs. our senses-- and as imminent as any video on YouTube.

Sources:
N. Katherine Hayles review, by Erik Davis
Lev Manovich: The Paradoxes of Digital Photography
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