Tools

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.
- ALBERT EINSTEIN

Once a new technology rolls over you, you are not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.
- STEWART BRAND




I usually try to keep this blog centered on things that are culturally applicable, as a kind of aide for orienting oneself in the hodgepodge of stuff that bombards our five senses everyday. Maybe the reason that I do this is because I myself suffer from a sort of anachronistic spin in the midst of American postcolonial culture from time to time. It's not that I am trying to suddenly drop an emo blog about cultural disorientation, or start morphing into some kind of pedant of pragmatic pleasantry, but rather make the point that culture, while it is sociologically and esthetically interesting, is indeed a tool.

"The Joker is a tool? Second Skin is a tool? Cyberpunk poetry is a tool?"

Sure.

It is ideas that are tools, whether they be banal or practical. Banality is cast into conversation and written work all the time as filler that allows one to keep going. When the banality is questioned or confronted by a refutation, the mouthpiece expressing the banality switches gears into expressing the more difficult linguistic tasks that are designed for "getting to the point," "simplifying, " and "taking care of business." So in the case of the Joker, sure; Batman is a movie that is about this and that, it is entertaining, it allows you to chill out with friends and take a load off after a week of work. In this context, a film can be consumed at face value; it is a filler for the sake of perpetuating a stasis of pleasure, AKA, post 5 o'clock quitting time. However, if one has a need to articulate an idea that may be somewhat unpleasing, complex, or painfully real (environmental problems, political issues, health concerns), then ideas take on a whole new meaning; they take on the guise of culture and become an active communicator. Now, the Joker is not a figure that you point your finger at over a beer, but the messenger of a sociological idea; Second Skin is not an entertaining documentary about people hooked on a video game, but a reality check on cyber-economics; Cyberpunk poetry is not a whack trend, but an exercise in reading. Transcending banality is the key in making culture work as a tool, and is an ability that belongs to empowered individuals.






A good example for getting across what I wanted to share on this idea is the Whole Earth Catalog. This publication, created by Stewart Brand, is one that can be considered as an origin of cyberspacious internet principles. The catalog targeted the most innovative and effective scientists, artists, mystics, thinkers and technical writers and compiled their work into one book; it is a network of ideas available for use and revision. From this catalog, one could read a short synopsis of a book, a brief outline of what could be learned from that book, and then either take down the title and seek it out in a library, or order the book directly from the catalog. If, say, you were interested in learning about how the human eye works, you could open up the catalog to the "Science" section of the "Learning" chapter and gain access to the latest and most influential literature on the human eye. Brand's idea was that, "The flow of energy through a system acts to organize that system" (Whole Earth Catalog, 1971). The purpose of the catalog is stated as follows, found inside the front cover:



PURPOSE
We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far remotely done power and glory-- as via government, big business, formal education, church-- has succeeded to point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing-- power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.


This model of knowledge seeking was adopted by computers when UC Berkeley, Stanford, and the U.S. Government successfully established a network of machines, capable of relaying messages in an informational flow between these three institutional bodies. Eventually, the network would obviously grow into what we know today as the Internet. Graphics, audio, video, and 3D imagery have been conceived of and developed (using the same systematic processes that it intended to enhance) to give us a system for harvesting knowledge. Books and the Internet are then synonymous with culture, and it is culture that inevitably portrays the methodology for actualizing an idea into a tool to be utilized in non-cyberspacious reality.