Telephonics

In the essay of Tele-Agency: Telematics, Telerobotics and the Art of Meaning, Edward Shanken addresses the idea of determining how new media are to be used. It is a very similar discussion to what we have read in prior essays, however there is more of a focus on the use of certain language. Specifically, he argues that we should reevaluate the use of the terminology of “master-slave” for future work with robots. I think that it the language itself may be a hindrance in having mutual interactions between the machine or robot and the human. Shanken argues that a more “object-object” set of definitions may be more appropriate as a starting point for discussion and again brings up the point that the machine may be capable of arriving and consciousness which would change the way we engage with them. A primary issue is that the ethics for how object-object art and sciences is to be achieved should be determined.

Although I am still quite skeptical of machines achieving consciousness, I can see where we would need to discuss the ethics of such thing as it helps to structure how we will interact with other beings and machines. I could certainly agree with the statement he makes that eventually the "master" reaches a point of not being able to live without the "slave". Sometimes I wonder if we haven't already reached that point with our technology.

The discussions in the paper about telephonics was very interesting to me from a more practical point. I like the idea of using the technology to be able to interact with artistic designs in a "real-time" situation. In looking further into the work of Norman White and the Telephonic Arm Wresting I also found some other works my Norman White who has spent most of his time working on interactive media. One particular work that I found very interesting was the HearSay device from 1985 before email was commonplace. This message was around the world and translated into various languages. The final message had the major components of the message intact, but the details were either removed or changed. The original and final part of the message are illustrated below:

Original:

STILL SHORT OF BREATH, THE MESSENGER PULLED HIMSELF TOGETHER. HE LOOKED THE KING IN THE EYE AND GASPED: "YOUR MAJESTY, I AM NOT WAITING FOR A REPLY BECAUSE THERE IS NO MESSAGE BECAUSE NO ONE SENT ME. I JUST LIKE RUNNING."

Final:

THE MESSENGER, STILL PANTING, LOOKED AT THE KING AND REPLIED: YOUR MAJESTY, THERE IS NO NEED FOR AN ANSWER. AFTER ALL, NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. NO ONE SENT ME. I RISE ABOVE EVERYTHING.