Shaviro, The Network Society

Shaviro applies critical theory to the “network”.

In the chapter called ‘fractal and viruses” Shaviro introduces some ideas on subjectivity and the network, comparing the structure of the network like a fractal where [every portion … has the same structure as the network as a whole….it is self similar across all scales, no matter how far down you go…pp12] as [web sites are linked on the WWW] and that this is the structure of our neuronic connections, which make us very much compatible with it.  This network is [impersonal, universal, without a center, but it is also perturbingly intimate, uncannily close at hand. This is why Deleuze defines subjectivity as a fold: it is “an interiorization of the outside….. a redoublig of the Other…. a repetition of the Different… it resembles exactly the invagination of a tissue in embryology”pp12 and Burrogs makes a similar point when he suggests that “the whole quality of human consciousness, as expressed in male and female, is basically a virus mechanism….my selfhood is an information pattern, rather than a material substance, that is implanted in me from without”…in a process that is simmilar to an embryonic unfolding, as fractal self similarity, or as viral, cancerous proliferation…. pp13”]. This is very much in line with the idea of the self as a system that Jung proposes that I discuss in my previous post.  In my research this is important because it brings into question the idea of subjectivity and with this, and for what is my intent, ideas of authorship, responsability for the work of art, etc

It is interesting the reference to the Monadology of Leibniz as a likely theoretical framework for the network. It seems very adaptable to something like Web 2.0. Shaviro he believes that Leibniz [anticipates the ontology of cyberspace… we are simultaneously connected and alone pp 28]

Speaking of artificial intelligence Shaviro states that this is [an unplanned, emergent property of any sufficiently dense system of connections. When the network expands beyond a certain critical threashold, it sets in motion a new logic of its own. Its nodes become spontaneously self-aware. Intelligence may not inhere in any single physical device, but it extends, distributed, all across the Web. pp117]

Shaviro quotes mcLuhan’s description of the new electronic media as simultaneous and instantaneous [pp130] and later attributes to technology a changed experience of “space” and “place” in the sense that [proximity is no longer determined by geographical location … but rather by global flows of money and information. The predominant form of human interaction in this space is networking…. (hence) being connected. pp131].  This detachment from a specific location opens up opportunites of connectivity and interaction and enlarges people’s relational opportunities… at the same time re-writing the parameters between these relations and the body.  I struggle to use the world “alienation” because I do not mean that this changed contribution to the body is a less embodied one.  It is certainly different to interact with people on a online platform than it is just meeting them face by face… however the emotional and physical response is still there, and is big, considering the amount of time that people are now “taking away” from their traditional lives in favour of social networking sites, communal videogames, chat rooms etc.   Technology has again generated a change in our lives, and pushed us to ask ourselves important questions about the ways we lived before and after the technology was released. Artists appear to have been reacting to these very issues as installation and site-specific works of art have emerged throught the 90s and are more and more acquiring importance as a language. Is this new wave of site-specific, performance – based experiential forms of art a reaction or at least a re-elaboration of the above issues of misplacement, de-localization, dis-embodiment and re-embodiment into different forms (the avatar for instance, or the text based box in a wiki) ?

And if you look at the bigger picture, at the system as a whole… are these works of art needed to be able to bear these changes that technology forces upon us ? is there some compensatory flow that feeds back into the system and serves as some healing tool ? By being able to touch and smell and talk to a work of art, are we reassured that our bodies are still here, in this space in this very moment, that they are not just transcoded into a network, that we are not attached to the Matrix?

Or better, are artists telling us what we are now lacking, what we now need… some sort of “trouble shooting” mechanism that alerts us of some things that we are not noticing, that might transform into patology if we are not careful… is this what people mean to be the “social” value of art ?

more: Shaviro states that [psychedelic drugs and electronic technologies affect the sensorium in strikingly similar ways. The both disperse and decenter subjectivity. consciousness is scattered all across space, and yet in a strange way, intensified. COncentration is no longer possible, for too many things are happening all at once….. you may feel disengaged from your immediate physical body , but you are caught up instead in a new process of virtual, prosthetic re-embodiment pp188]

In summary some interesting consequences of living in the network society that Shaviro points us at: [Information is the universal equivalent of money, is the common measure and the method of exchange for all knowledge, all perception, all passion and all desire.. The universal equivalent for experience, in short….. and also…  Anyting youwant is there for te asking You can get it right here and right now. All you have to do is pay the price….pp249]