This part of the tour draws to a close...

Start: Chicago, IL
End: Windsor, ON (home)

As this part of the tour draws to a close, I have a couple of reflections.

First of all, the tour was successful, as many people have, I am sure, started to think about their finitute and about how technology can outstrip their humanity. While this has been true since the beginning of technology -- yeah, I'm sure there were some pensive cavemen who lamented that the invention of fire and handtools would take homo sapien in new and potentially dangerous direction -- the speed at which technological advances are being made today is just increasing the "dread" of technology vs. the human condition. The human condition both holds us back and moves us forward. Whether this is a brain vs. animal thing is another dialogue.

Here is an interesting photo. It is Michigan Ave on Saturday morning with the draw bridge up and a green traffic light right in front of it. I'll let you, the reader, figure out all of the ironic implications of it.

The Dreadmill is not over since there is at least one more performance in Canada before year's end, but this two-week US East tour is history. And like Marcel and I discussed in the car today, it's going to take us days just to absorb and process what we have seen and done in the last 15 days.

On a more personal note, I think I have reached some sort of neutron state. We talked to a lot of people and experienced a wide variety of reactions, and the subsequent discussions went into all sorts of tangents. The interesting thing is that the presentation and its technologies were the starting points. I think people will get it. The balance between technology and humanity is a personal setting, that may be cast dependent on many factors, all related to the human condition and the time at which people are in their lives. Ahh, the life is a journey thought comes here .. from where and to where is another thing.

There are a number of subtle messages to the presentation -- one is are we really real? Or are we just a collection of memories? If so, which memories are real -- the ones we actually lived, or the ones invented in media images? This sounds like one of those deep philosophical questions that people should really think about when they have time. Marcel was lamenting, every time we were around children, how he misses his family. Obviously memories weren't just enough -- they made him long for more interaction, and possibly the creation of new memories. My advice, based on what I've learned from Dr. Phil on TV ;-), is for him to spend as much time as possible with the interactions and to be in the "now". Which is entirely strange, because that is what actors are trained to think in their mind when in a scene.

I, on the other hand, to be quite frank and truthful, didn't miss anything or anyone during the trip. Like I said, I feel quite neutral now. I don't think this is depression (as my last ex-girlfriend thought), but rather a stage that I have reached. The dreadmill tour took me away for two weeks and make me reconcile some things, we'll see what comes as the result. Indeed, we'll see what the Dreadmill does in general. Is it time to patent or trademark it? Hmmm, I think I just opened up another Pandora's box of ownership of ideas.

France is burning

It's hard to blog tonight from the safety of this hotel room. Paris is burning, and hotels in Amman, Jordan were bombed this week. The hotels were a Radisson, a Grand Hyatt, and a Days Inn. This just makes certain elements of this conference seem all the more frivolous--even more frivolous than the breathtaking swimming pool on the 12th floor.

What elements of the conference am I talking about? This is a contentious post, but here goes. Let's see if I can be lucid.

One of the presenters today quoted Raymond Williams regarding culture. He suggested that, according to Williams, the idea of culture represents the "damaging arrogance" of human beings oppressing other species. He then suggested, like many, many others at this conference, that we should turn toward a "posthhuman" understanding of being. We should stop being so self-centered as human beings (anthropocentric) and respect the consciousness of "companion beings" (machines and animals). We should even abandon the study of the "humanities" in higher education (for those who are unfamiliar, that's pretty much English, History, Philosophy, and Languages) because they are arrogant and destructive.

Wait a minute. What did Rayond Williams really say? Here is the exact quote:
"The concept of a cultivated minority, set over against a 'decreated' mass, tends, in its assertion, to a damaging arrogance and scepticism."

This is crucial to understand. The problem with culture is not that humans are arrogant neglecters of animals and machines--the problem is that humans are not respecting the humanness of other humans. Do you get that? The problem is not that we don't respect the being of dogs and cats (which many humanities scholars seem to prefer over children); the problem is that we don't respect the being of other humans.

Here's my final rant on this point: Now more than ever, it's time for the humanities to stand up and represent humans. We are an endangered species, destined to outstrip ourselves and destroy the planet. It's as simple as that. All the rhetoric in the world won't stop the march of our technological way of being. We are human, imperfect, finite. But technology challenges us to overcome this. We want perfection, immortality, efficiency at all costs. And we don't fit into that equation.

That being said, the key to survival is not in embracing companion beings, but in embracing human being as a finite and fragile "thing." When this comes first, compassion for animals, caretaking of nature, securing the sustainability of the planet all fall into place.

Does this sound too lovvy-huggy? Then so be it. I need a saccharine cocktail to quench the burning of Paris.

Mapquest didn't explain this well .. or this part of town is Wacked!

Start: St. Louis MO
End: Chicago, IL

We arrived in Chicago last night, and our hotel is right downtown. The directions from Mapquest didn't really explain thigs well, for two reasons. (1) The exit from the I-94 that it recommended was closed, and (2) streets are on three levels around here. Yup, that's right, steets on top of streets, with the same name, of course. Our hotel is on Michican Avenue, but if you are arriving from the west on Lake street, you'll never see the hotel, because you weill drive under it. If you come from the south or north, you'll be on the "upper" Michigan Ave, and you will see the front door. There is a street called Wacker, which goes north, south, east and west, as well as up and down. It's starting to make some sense now, but it is definately a point of confusion. Check out the photos.

It's nice and warm (for November), and we are in the shopping mecca of the mid-West. I have a feeling I'm going to spend some serious money this weekend. The question is, do I buy clothes that fit me now, or that will fit me after I finish the diet I am going to force myself to go on next week? There is some serious dining in the city, and a lot just within walking distance of the hotel.

This city has dynamic architecture, but the Marine City building doesn't usually make it on the top lists -- even though I think it should. I like the fact that the parking garage on the lower levels looks like a bee hive, and you can see how full it is by looking for empty spaces, and of course, there is the marina at the very base of the tower. How cool would it be to live so large that you have a fancy import car in the parking garage and a small yacht in the marina. Dreams are free.

St. Louis Conspiracy

We arrived in St. Louis last night as a layover on the way to Chicago. The city presented itself as an assault on the senses. Standing beneath the famous arch is a disorienting exercise in self-microtization. The destruction of old Bush Stadium, incessant pounding shaking the bowels of Broadway street, was equally unsettling. And then there's Hotel Millennium.

This panoptic hotel is the perfect location to stage a post-Watergate conspiracy thriller movie. I can picture the chase scenes on the freeway, the shootout by the arches, and the confusing pea and shell game played by CIA agents in the hotel. Maybe, as Fredric Jameson suggests, conspiracy films provide a "poor person's mapping of the postmodern age." Do you have to be rich to map the postmodern. Heck, the hotel room was only $59/night including parking. We clipped a coupon from a book we found at the Missouri Welcome Center.

Escapee

I forgot to post these photos, which I took upon arrival in Shreveport. I was just taking a shot of some guy at a liquor store phone booth. But he looks very angry doesn't he? I think he was intoxicated.




HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A death row inmate who slipped out of a Texas jail last week wearing street clothes was captured Sunday as he talked on a pay phone in Shreveport, Louisiana, authorities said.

Charles Victor Thompson had a bicycle with him when Shreveport police, acting on a tip relayed by the U.S. Marshals Service, approached him late Sunday, Harris County Sheriff's Lt. John Martin said.

"He was standing in front of a liquor store and appeared to be intoxicated," Martin said.

When the officers asked his name, he said "You know who I am," then identified himself as Charles Thompson, Martin said.

Martin wouldn't discuss the tip that lead to Thompson's arrest and said authorities were still trying to determine exactly how Thompson got to Louisiana and if he had help in his escape. A $10,000 reward had been offered for information leading to his capture.

Thompson is scheduled to be in court Monday in Shreveport, and if he waives extradition, he will be returned to Texas immediately, Martin said.

St. Louis after dark

Start: Shreveport, LA
End: St. Louis, MO

This was the longest drive leg on the trip. It took about ten hours to get to the Gateway to the West city, and we arrived after dark. Tomorrow we are on our way to the Windy City for the final performance of the trip. There we should have time during the day to explore the city and see a few sights in Chicago, and do some shopping.

Our hotel here is across the street from the arch, and a trip to St. Louis would not be complete without photos of the arch. It is bigger than I expected, and it's metallic and shiny. It reminded me of the rainbow that you chased as a kid, looking for the pot of gold, or whatever the myth was. But with the arch, you can go up and touch it. It is illuminated by giant spotlights in the ground that direct light up. Unfortunately my camera has shutter speed issues in the dark -- the shutter stays open for a very long time, so any camera movement, makes the image blurry, so photos of us standing on the lights were either blurry or too dark.

Two blocks in the other direction is the new Busch stadium construction site. They have built the new larger stadium around the old stadium, and are tearing down the old stadium with a crane and wrecking ball. The sidewalk shook with each hit. It was very cool to watch, and the sounds were incredible. It makes me want to go out and demolish something old.

St. Louis is a city I would to come back and visit again. It has a good vibe and is a mixture of industrial, music, business and mid-west hospitality. What a difference a good steak dinner makes. ;-)

I am not a motivational speaker.

As much as I try to persuade Dreadmill audiences otherwise, this is not a motivational talk designed to urge people to "exercise and eat right." Last night, after the performance in Shreveport, a student came up to me and asked the following:

"Do you think swimming is good for you? I have a lot of back pain, and I'm wondering if I should start swimming, or maybe take up jogging."

My response:
"Swimming is great. Go for it. But don't listen to me. I'm not the kind of doctor who helps people."
He didn't laugh. I have had this sort of question at every performance thus far. There are many, many people out there who, at some point or another, on a regular basis, are very concerned about their health. They may even be in pain, and they may event know what causes the pain. But they don't know how to get out of the cycle that causes their pain or poor physical condition. In general, I think people just don't have a solid awareness of their bodies and what makes them feel good. But I'm not going to pursue this any further right now, because, as I stated above, I'm not the sort of doctor who helps people.

That being said, there was another question last night--a comment really--that has cropped up at each and every performance. The questioner noted that, while sitting there watching me sweat and suffer, she felt very edgy, very concerned, even uncomfortable. This may have been especially true last night because I clearly overdid it. I ran too far, too fast, and actually completely blanked out halfway through. I lost my train of thought, and had to slow down for about a minute to let the oxygen return to my brain. Part of the problem, I think, is that I'm starting to feel residual pain in my knee from a 50K that I ran in September.

I like this comment about edginess and discomfort in the audience. The goal of the performance, after all, is to provoke dread, anxiety, an acute awareness of the finitude of being. Anxiety, as many philosophers have suggested, is the psychological/affective/cognitive condition most suitable to authentic being. And we all want to be authentic, right? But this doesn't mean that one has to walk around all day dressed in black and bemoaning his fate as a finite animal. Anxiety can manifest itself in many ways, even in delight.

I also like the idea that the performance provokes concern or "care" (I hope in the Heideggerian sense, but I'll blog on that later), and increases the audience's attunement to what I'm saying.

Now I'm off to eat some spam and sit for 10 hours in the car.

SPAM... the real thing

What's in the cubpoard..

We found a can of SPAM in the pantry. I can't convince Marcel to try a fried SPAM sandwich. In case you can't read the text on the can, the front announces the "Crazy Tasty" signature recipe collection. On the back, pinepples and SPAM on a stick. Yummmmm. I haven't had SPAM for decades. I don't remember what it tastes like.


We do have a grill, but he still refuses, even after the run, but I got a "maybe" for breakfast tomorrow. The copy on the back of the can is interesting..

"Warning: Delicious

This recipe is so easy, anyone could make it. You don't need a Ph.D. in rocket science or one hundred years of cooking experience or even a fancy hat. The ingredients are few and the process is simple and the result is yummy. That's the secret of SPAM(r)."

Hmmm, we have a fancy hat and a Ph.D.

Yeah, it's been a slow day. The presentation isn't until 7 PM, and then after that, dinner with the profs of Centenary. I'm thinking this will have an art slant, so it may be something interesting. I seem to work well with groups of artists.

Getting close to Texas

Start: Jackson, MS
End: Shreveport, LA

Another four hours on the road today, and it felt especially long since this area is sparsely populated. It makes south western Ontario look like a metropolis.

We did cross the Mighty Mississippi earlier today, but with the extreme heat this week, it was shrowded with fog and we didn't get to see it. Hopefully, we will have better weather when we cross it again on Wednesday.


Shreveport is an interesting place at first pass. It is much larger than I expected, and with a number of large casinos down by the river. They have built a festival park/plaza near the casino area, and are starting to put up a big convention centre and other attractions to bring people out of the casino, and into the town. Sounds quite familiar, feeling a bit homesick.

Centenary is another small and compact campus, with brick buildings that are much larger than they look. We have nice digs -- an entire furnished house to ourselves. The guest book dates back to 1991! The dreadmill presentation is until tomorrow night. It will be interesting to notice the "art" spin on it, having presented at GA Tech last week.

Johnny cash: serious scholarship

Speaking of serious scholarship, I want to follow up on Steve's note that we purchased a Johnny Cash CD today. The title of the CD is "Johnny Cash: The Legend" (Columbia, 2005). The picture, stolen by Wikipedia and re-stolen here, is featured in the CD. Read about this image at wikipedia. The research is worthwhile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash

Johnny Cash should be considered as the patron saint of necromedia theory. The man in black embraced his finitude to the point of making his own deteriorating health a public phenomenon. He revised Trent Reznor's song "Hurt" so that it pointed not to the self-pitying/self-loathing diatribe of a heroine addict, but the reflective/repentant swan song of an ageing celebrity. Check out the video here (the song was nominated for a Grammy):
http://www.losthighwayrecords.com/e/cash11403.html

The song on our new CD that struck me the most was "Piece by Piece," which I hadn't heard in years. The song is about a southern guy (Johnny Cash is perfect list'nin' on the road from GA to LA) who moves to Detroit and works on the assembly line. He plans to build himself a Cadillac by stealing one part at a time from the plant. But by the time he attempts to put the car together, he realizes that he has parts from 20 years of manufacturing, and they don't fit together. But he persists, retrofits himself a Cadillac, and takes his wife out for a ride.

This is a perfect analogy for what it's like to create a Digital Media Studies Program. If you try to put it together piece by piece over several years, you end up with a monster. Why? Because digital media changes by the nano-second. The curriculum you designed last year is outdated after three monhts of its approval by the board. The course you design for the fall term is outdated by the winter term. As Steve experienced just today, students come in with version X of the software in a lab where you're teaching version A,B or C. Running a Digital Media program requires constant running. Or, put more eloquently, it's like building a brand new car piece by piece over a period of 20 years. By the time you get all the parts together, they're mismatched and outdated.

Well, maybe it's not that bad. But it's close. I'm going to use this analogy--and play the song--at the Conference of Society for Literature, Science and the Arts in Chicago, which is where we're heading in a few days. The title of my talk is "What Is Digital Media Studies?" This is also the title of a book I'm co-editing with the one and only Jeff Rutenbeck of the University of Denver. One way around the retrofitting problem is to build the program--or the car--all at once. Devise the curriculum, create the courses, and hire the faculty. Then once you have gathered all the pieces and built the "car," it's much easier to replace pieces as they become outmoded. But the university administration has to be willing to make the investment, or a program director is destined to build a monster. In short: buy the car (even if you have to borrow the money); don't steal the parts.

You see: Johnny Cash IS serious scholarship.

Here are the song lyrics to "One Piece at a Time," courtesy of metrolyrics.com. I'll take them off if the record company comes after me. But I don't think Johnny would have minded.

Well, I left Kentucky back in '49
An' went to Detroit workin' on a 'sembly line
The first year they had me puttin' wheels on cadillacs

Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by
And sometimes I'd hang my head and cry
'Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.

One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I'd sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin' caught meant gettin' fired
But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired
I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.

CHORUS
I'd get it one piece at a time
And it wouldn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is a round.

So the very next day when I punched in
With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
Now, I never considered myself a thief
GM wouldn't miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years.

The first day I got me a fuel pump
And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
Then I got me a transmission and all of the chrome
The little things I could get in my big lunchbox
Like nuts, an' bolts, and all four shocks
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy's mobile home.

Now, up to now my plan went all right
'Til we tried to put it all together one night
And that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.

The transmission was a '53
And the motor turned out to be a '73
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.

So we drilled it out so that it would fit
And with a little bit of help with an A-daptor kit
We had that engine runnin' just like a song
Now the headlight' was another sight
We had two on the left and one on the right
But when we pulled out the switch all three of 'em come on.

The back end looked kinda funny too
But we put it together and when we got thru
Well, that's when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin
About that time my wife walked out
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
But she opened the door and said "Honey, take me for a spin."

So we drove up town just to get the tags
And I headed her right on down main drag
I could hear everybody laughin' for blocks around
But up there at the court house they didn't laugh
'Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.

CHORUS
I got it one piece at a time
And it didn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.

(Spoken) Ugh! Yow, RED RYDER
This is the COTTON MOUTH
In the PSYCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on

Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH
And negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER
You might say I went right up to the factory
And picked it up, it's cheaper that way
Ugh!, what model is it?

Well, It's a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56
'57, '58' 59' automobile
It's a '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '67
'68, '69, '70 automobile.

Something deeper

After reviewing Marcel's pedantic postings, I feel like mine are quite simple. To tell you the truth, I really don't know what my thoughts are on this subject.

Having gone through some yoga training and practice, I learned that the acceptance of one's mortality, and the fact that we will all grow old and die, is one of the basic principles of yoga as a "religion". So that doesn't shock me.

Working at a gym, and having gone to numerous fitness conferences, I know that our bodies are all falling apart due to technologies -- more specifically, furniture and lack of "natural" and regular movement. I balance all of those long hours of sedentary behaviour with, of course, an intense hour or two at the gym. And now, with my age, I'm starting to get the injuries that are bound to happen with this "fitness warrior" attitude.

Having decades of experience with technology, I know first-hand both how great it can be, and how annoying and life-destroying it is as well. I'm waiting for the introduction of 12-step programs related to technolgy and its side effects.

I'm still reconciling all of my past experiences with the current dreadmill tour. I get the added insights of listening to Marcel explain the project to people at dinner parties, border gaurds, and hotel receptionists. And the presentation is never exactly the same twice, with some new angle being introduced at each stop.

credibility

Due to popular demand, I'm posting a happier photo of myself in the Vortex chapeau. Could this photo impede my attempt to shape myself as a "serious" scholar?

After all, research is supposed to be conducted in the mode of melancholia. What would happen if scholars were happy while doing their research? What if research was conducted more like play and less like mourning? Would it be valid research? Can play be considered serious research? Ask the video game criticism crowd. . . .

Mississippi Evening

Start: Athens, GA
End: Jackson, MS


These are long haul days. We're overnighting just outside of Jackson, MS., and we tried to buy beer in a "blue county". I was told by the cashier that this is bible belt country, and we are in a county where you can't buy beer on Sunday. She apologized, but probably thought we were heathens. I guess I shouldn't be shocked by this seeing that we come from liquor-sales controlled Ontario. All we had to do was cross the river in to the next county, 1 km away, and we are in beer land.

The drive was very long today, but we stopped in to a Walmart along the way and purchased a Johnny Cash CD to listen to on the drive. It was a fantastic choice. I'm a new fan. The pictures are from the midtown part of Atlanta. The cap on the tower is very insteresting, and lights up at night. It must be about 150 feet of structure at the top of the building.

merchandising.org

While we were in Atlanta, Steve and I decided to visit Vortex, a famous burger joint that has been awarded "Best Burger in Atlanta" several times. As it happens, the entrance to the joint is a giant skull. The burger was so good that I bought a hat with the restaurant logo on it. As you see below, it just seemed appropriate (and maybe even a fit replacement for Steve's "this-is-not-a-cowboy-hat" hat.





I also bought a T-Shirt because the price was right and I was running out of clothes. But my intention was to trade a Necromedia T-Shirt for a Vortex T-Shirt and then invest the money I was going to spend back into the Humane Computing Fund. The manager was just too busy to consider that sort of barter. I guess the Fund is what is on my mind tonight. For those of you who are reading this and haven't yet visited dreadmill.org (yes, .org not .net), please do so asap. The primary goal of this dreadmill endeavor is to establish a fund that will support the work of scholars or artists who work with technology to "enhance human being rather than outstrip it."

This brings me to the Necromedia T-Shirt, pictured below. Anyone who donates $20 to the Humane Computing Fund (which is overseen by the Ernest Becker Foundation) receives a Necromedia T-Shirt. Thus far on the road we have only sold about 10 or so T-Shirts. I just can't get used to the idea of "peddling my wares" after giving what is supposed to be an academic lecture. It is for a good cause, but what does selling T-Shirts do to an academic's credibility? It's instructive to consider the possibility that Ernest Becker himself lost his credibility by publishing a "popular book" (Denial of Death won a Pulitzer Prize). I suppose that appealing to wide audiences is bad for a scholar's career. . . . I guess I'm safe then, in the end.

On the road again

After a night of magic tricks and saurkraut, we are heading off this morning going west, for the long haul to the next stop of Shreveport, LA. Athens, GA is a very nice university town, with a lot to see and do as in most university towns one hour away from a metropolis.

We didn't get a chance to diagnose the heart rate monitor curcuit -- so changes will have to be made "in vivo", later in the trip.

I did get one marriage proposal at the botanical gardens ;-)

Muchas chicas

Start: Atlanta, GA
End: Athens, GA

We finally had a day of not driving and/or not performing (yesterday), and things are much better now. We are both more relaxed, and the warm (jacket-free) weather is still abound with sunny blue skies.


Atlanta, or at least the mid-down section, is a very nice urban scene. We hung out near the hotel, and at one of those ultra lounge bars that was just a door. It's nice to be with a local host, Marcel's friend Ron, who could lead us to such places. We tossed a frisbee in a park, I did some yoga and tai-chi earlier this morning, washed the dreadmobile, and we feel a lot better, and it's the weekend!!



One photo is from the hotel room in Atlanta. Do people really try to hang their coats on the sprinker head? The other is from a street in Athens, GA, where you can pay your parking tickets at the box on the corner. Convenience indeed.

Beth told me last week that the female to male ration in Athens is 4 to 1. It appears to be true. ;-)

Tony Hawk Helmet Cam

Now you can record all your insane skateboarding tricks with the Tony Hawk Helmet Cam.
http://www.playdigitalblue.com/products/helmet_cam/info/

This is a less flexible version of the Samsung head cam I used for recording the Detroit 1/2 Marathon. The advert on TV for the Hawk head cam suggests that you can now make your own sports adventure movies. This idea touches upon a discussion I had with a student of Jay Bolter's at Georgia Tech. She's a film student, and she remembers being incredibly resentful of iMovie when it first came out. Suddenly, a free software program (iMovie wasn't the first, I should note) was available to the ignorant un-film-schooled masses. Anyone could suddenly edit their own movies without a $10,000 (at least) Avid editing suite. After a while, however, she got over it. Anyone can film and edit their own movies--but that doesn't mean they're going to be good movies.

This led us to a conversation about critical theory being print-specific, and not translatable into new media. This hypothesis might simply be a way for critical theorists to hold a monopoly on their practices. Let's face it--if the current generations of critical theorists start doing their work with web sites, digital video, multimedia, etc., they instantly become dilettantes. But if they stick to writing, they will always be masters of their medium. Perhaps theory is the ne plus ultra of the practice of writing--critical theory is a demonstration of the highest mastery of the written word.

When a media criticism program touts the fact that they instruct students in a balance of theory and practice, they are merely echoing what critical theory programs have done along--but the practice of theory is writing, not digital media production. Cling to your writing, theorists, when you let go, you run the risk of being an amateur--or an artist.

Jay Bolter's Class

A highlight of the visit to GaTech was guest lecturing in Jay Bolter's media theory class designed for students entering the PhD program in Digital Media. One student asked a very tough question: "What is so novel about the concepts you're presenting during the dreadmill performance?" Her point is that the method of delivery is "novel," but the message has already been delivered by others in books and articles. I'm not sure that's entirely true, but I would say this: some research is about presenting new or "novel" ideas (a concept that is rooted in a capitalist technobureaucracy, but I won't go there), and some research is about synthesizing the ideas of others to make them more accessible. Paul Ricoeur, the French philosopher who died while I was in Paris last summer, was famous for his ability to synthesize, and not innovate. The point of dreadmill is that a few critical theorists have talked about technology's relationship to death, but none have focused on it in a specific and sustained study. What's more important is that no one has synthesized all of these thoughts on death and technology into a single area of study called: Necromedia Theory. If these ideas can be synthesized in a clear and provocative manner, and possibly made accessible to readers outside of critical theory, then I think a valuable service has been performed for the intellectual community.

This is what I enjoy about the Ernest Becker Foundation. You attend a Becker conference about death reckoning, and you're accompanied not only by philosophers and anthropoligists, but also by nurses and doctors involved in palliative care. If I can make concepts from critical theory useful to their practice, I don't consider my work less "rigorous."

Now onto the novel part. Isn't it possible that the mode of delivery itself makes an old idea new? Yes, this is a "the medium is the message" sort of comment. While critical theorists may discuss death, suffering, etc. in abstract terms, very few put their words into practice, choosing instead to dwell in the realm of the abstract, maintaining the Cartesian (body/mind) split in the name of philosophical "rigor." Does running on a treadmill while theorizing render it unrigorous? Does it turn criticism/theory into a carnival side show? Or does the dreadmill project serve as a critique of criticism/theory itself, which, as Terry Eagleton suggests, fails to account for a "large slice of human existence"? In After Theory, Eagleton proposes that cultural theory "has been shamefaced about morality and metaphysics, embarrassed about love, biology, religion and revolution, largely silent about evil, reticent about death and suffering, dogmatic about essences, universals and foundations, and superficial about truth, objectivity and disinterestedness."

Can new media help cultural theory get real? Or is theory a print-specific mode of thinking? When theory turns to digital media as a form of embodiment, does it become art? These are the "deep questions" that we grappled with in Jay Bolter's class, and no, I didn't try to evade them by claiming that the running had depleted my brain of oxygen.

Running in Detroit

It has been a long day at gatech, and there is much bloggin to do. But first things first. There's so much to blog about today that I'm going to cop out and do some catching up instead.

Here are some pictures from the Detroit 1/2 marathon, which I ran on October 23. Why post this now? Well, the head-cam images I captured while running have become a crucial part of the Dreadmill presentation, which concludes with me running through the Windsor/Detroit tunnel. The Detroit Marathon is the only day all year when you can cross the border as a pedestrian. Shouldn't that be possible EVERY DAY? Especially in a city plagued by obesity and empty sidewalks?




These images remind me of something Steve wrote in the last blog. Do I really look underfed? First of all, I have SWORN OFF ALL NUTRITION BARS. Steve should know me better. All that education in the sciences has blinded him to the less important things in life--like the life-shaping habits of your friends. The problem with those bars is that they are made of .... well .... wax. Do the research. And then go eat some yogurt, nuts, whole grains, and other "faggy foods." Oh, and did I mention the meat? Skip the Power Bar and reach for the slow cooked round steak. That is, if you have the time. . . .

That brings me to second of all: I eat good. More importantly, I don't dismiss "deep questions" because running on the dreadmill makes me tired. Here's an example of a question I answered: "At what treadmill speed does real time occur?" I fielded it without hesitation. Obviously the answer is 6 miles/hour--fast enough to release endorphins, but not so fast that you can't speak clearly or recall important concepts. What I do have a hard time with are questions designed to illustrate the brilliance of the questioner. I don't have to answer those when I'm sweating in a dress shirt and polyester slacks. Maybe Steve should answer those.

Time for fight club in ATL.

The Three o'clock Whistle

We did the presentation at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech). It's a very nice campus with lots of trees and a park-like environment. The strange thing is that every hour, just five minutes before the hour, you can hear this steam-engine like whistle in the background. They actually have an hourly whistle. Cool. The university is in midtown Atlanta, which looks like it went through an urban renewal just a couple of years ago. It is a very nice place, and it has been warm and sunny today.

The presentation went well, and the audience asked good questions afterwards, but Marcel is a bit tired after the presentation so he is unable to answer the "deep" questions. I think he needs to eat more food, to help his brain. I'll work on that. Article.

I think protein from "whole" food is better than protein from some Chemicalia-filled bar. Yeah -- we're probably going to have an argument over this later tonight ;-)

We had software point of contention again this morning. I don't think I can handle these "change the code" requests just one hour before show time. Epecially when they involve recoding the function that sets the speed of the video based on the current speed of the treadmill. (A non-linear relationship) I replaced the seven layer if-construct with a simple equation last week, but didn't expect an additional parameter to get thrown in this morning. I'll have to rethink that code and test it properly, since an error would literally be a show-stopper. We should get a good chance this weekend to test the code changes, and hopefully get the heart rate monitor working, which was disconnected for some reason months go. I have a feeling we'll find out why it was disconnected, just like we found out why there was a delay loop for the serial port reading. I think I like the number fluctuations though. I'm wondering if it's caused by the belt speeding up when the runner pushes off the treadmill, or whether is a technical fault. Hmmm.

Smoking Chicken

Steve and I ate lunch at a Huddle House restaurant in Corbin, KY on the way to Atlanta. The word “Huddle” is conveniently symmetrical to the word “Waffle.” As a kid, traveling out west with my parents, I remember seeing Waffle House signs on the I-75 shabbily transformed into Huddle House signs. The square yellow H U D D panels on the signs were conspicuously cleaner and brighter than the dingy L E . But that’s another story. What interests me here is the photo that we took from a gas station across the street from Huddle House.

Lunch at Huddle House was predictably enjoyable--or enjoyable in its predictability. The menu is a heavily researched distillation of southern US delicacies homogenized to appeal to a wider audience. To a local, the biscuits and gravy are typical fare; to a tourist, this dish is a quaint curiosity, and just bland enough to try at least once. I had three poached eggs and grits. The waitress chided me for putting ketchup on the eggs and jelly in the grits. Hey, I’ve been eating eggs and grits for a long time, so I can do what I want with them. I’ve tried all the variations, including stirring them together, with a good dose of Tobasco, into a gratifying mess. What made the lunch particularly southern was the cigarette smoke. Elderly people with yellow streaks in their blue/gray hair were chainsmoking between bites of chicken-fried steak, smothered hash browns, and pork BBQ.


Coming from an area of the continent that has turned smoking into an evil and destructive activity, I found this restaurant scene refreshing. These people had no concern whatsoever for their lungs or arteries. They were laughing (well, hacking) and enjoying a solid meal. Does the alternative to this freedom have to be a fear campaign that lists carb counts on billboards and rotten teeth and gums on cigarette packs?

An article about Dreadmill in the Lexington Herald Leader mentions the high obesity rate of Kentuckians. But the dreadmill performance is not an awareness campaign about obesity. It is not a motivational talk designed to cajole the audience into running marathons. (I must say that this might lead to some parallels to the movie “Magnolia”--but don’t get me started on Tom Cruise). Dreadmill is about physical and mental awareness, vigilant criticism, resistance, and intervention in the face of technoculture. I suppose, that being said, the dreadmill project is very much about fear--or rather, dread. There’s nothing wrong with dreadful anxiety, and there is nothing wrong with fear campaigns, as long as they provoke dread for the purpose of engendering self-actualization and not for the purpose of securing political power. If you look at the world through the right lens, cigarettes are invocations to “remember your finitude,” and not icons of US old-boy-network big money uber-corruption. But that reading has its place as well, I suppose.

Now, if anyone wants to post stirring reading of the semiotics of the smoking/dying billboard, I would be very grateful. It’s just dying for a good unpacking. Be sure to include the following words: cigarette, death, phallus, petit mort.

Commemoratio omnium fidelium defunctorum

It's 15 minutes before All Souls' Day. We are still in the thick of All Saints Day. But Souls are so much more interesting than Saints.

Below is an entry from Wikipedia. Note the "pagan" rituals of leaving out cakes for the dead and pouring milk on graves. I suggest you simply put out an extra table setting at dinner time tomorrow. Or else make up an extra plate of food. This might be a good way of acknowledging your finitude, especially if you leave the food out for a few days and let the stench build up. And for heaven's sake, watch out for those "venial sins."

From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Souls_Day):

All Souls' Day (Commemoratio omnium fidelium defunctorum), also called Defuncts' Day in Mexico, is the day set apart in the Roman Catholic Church for the commemoration of the faithful departed. The celebration is based on the doctrine that the souls of the faithful which at death have not been cleansed from venial sins, or have not atoned for past transgressions, cannot attain the beatific vision, and that they may be helped to do so by prayer and by the sacrifice of the mass.
The feast falls on November 2, or November 3 if November 2 is a Sunday or a festival of the first class.

Certain popular beliefs connected with All Souls' Day are of pagan origin and immemorial antiquity. Thus the dead are believed by the peasantry of many Catholic countries to return to their former homes on All Souls' Night and partake of the food of the living. In Tyrol, cakes are left for them on the table and the room kept warm for their comfort. In Brittany, people flock to the cemeteries at nightfall to kneel bare-headed at the graves of their loved ones, and to toll the hollow of the tombstone with holy water or to pour libations of milk on it, and at bedtime the supper is left on the table for the souls.

A Long Drive to Georgia

Start: Lexington, KY
End: Atlanta, GA

It was a drive day of over seven hours. Seven exhausting hours. The scenery was fantastic, the trees changing colours were spectacular -- but not for seven hours. We finallay made it to Atlanta around 6-ish and fortunately our exit was right where the traffic backlog started. We're in a new and modern hotel (with good water pressure ;-) in the GA Tech University area. It's a big city university -- a drastic change from the last venue, so it remains to be seen what the dynamic here is. After the presentation tomorrow, we'll have some time to relax and enjoy what this area has to offer.

More coffin photos

Here are some images of the setup, including rare shots of Richard the carpenter. There's also a good shot of Steve, donning his non-cowboy and definitely not gay Australian chapeau, doing some last-minute programming to prevent the video from looping endlessly, heating up the craptop, and igniting the coffin, which, by the way, is made of poplar. The blur in certain images are an indication of our high-speed efficiency.

Now if only Blogger would allow for a more efficient way of aligning images. . . .

Getting over it + Screening Coffin

Ok, so I have gotten over my resistance to blogging, and now I'm going to start contributing to this thing. Why the resistance? Maybe it's because a key component of the Dreadmill performance is about how people use blogs to achieve, in Ernest Becker's terms, a false sort of heroism. Ok, we all want to be recognized, acknowledged by our "fellow" being as a way of achieving self-actualization. But do we all have something worthwhile to say on a blog? Why should we think that other people care? That's all I'm going to say about this topic. For now.

Onto the tour.

Here are a few pictures of the "screening coffin" installed in the gallery at Transylvania U in Kentucky in an installation called "Necromedia." What is the "Screening Coffin"? It's a coffin with a computer embedded in the lid. The coffin stands upright and you sit in it to watch a video about the collusion of death and technology. The sitting part is important because the video talks about the immobility of our screen-obsessed culture. We are not "standing reserve" as Heidegger suggested. We are "sitting reserve."





My sincerest thanks go out to Bud Davis at Bert and Bud's Vintage Coffins. I hope he gets a chance to see the installation. Bud provided the classic wedge shaped bare bones coffin, and I added the laptop, silver velour, black rubber diamond tread and aluminum diamond tread. I also need to thank the master carpenter Richard Jacques, the master seamstress Jane Marinacci, and a whole group of Windsor, Ontario auto industry suppliers who provided the hardware: Stevens Steel, Canadian Automotive, Windsor Chrome Furniture, etc. This is a motor city project all the way--a sort of "Pimp My Coffin" project.

Local Paper Coverage (in advance)

Interesting links in local media ....

kentucky.com

But I don't think the performance is that disturbing.

We Need More Velcro

Location: Lexington, KY (the horse capital of the world -- but I didn't see any in this county, yet)

We just finished the presentation at "Transy", what the locals call the Transylvania University. They have a very nice and compact campus, a student/faculty ratio of 13:1 -- and only just than 1,000 students. Everyone here seems to nice and friendly. A few students were dressed in Haloween costume, and I lament not brining mine.

We did have an interesting question from a faculty member after showing the "illegal" border crossing. She asked what would happen if the authorities found out about it. Marcel answered that it would generate all sorts of publicity. Good answer.

A couple of photos from the U, including one to remind you that you still in the US.

Welcome to Kentucky

October 30, 2005


Started at: Windsor, Ontario
Ended at: Lexington Kentucky

After a six hour drive, leaving Windsor at 10 ish, we reached our first stop in Lexington, KY. It took me a while to get used to the fresh air down here. There is no smell of Chemicalia or even diesel fumes. That is quite refreshing.


There was nothing to eventful on the trip down, seeing that the driver doesn't like to stop, so that we can get to the venue on time, even though we did arrive an hour and a half late. Interesting things on the way down was the Bengal's football game in progress, with the stadium visible from the I-75. This region is definately "Bible belt". Scriptures on barns and silos, and no shortage of radio stations with Christian message with all sorts of ads telling people that it's not just enough to practice religion, you have to find Christ through absolute truth. Hmmm, so I changed the station to one that was playing "Eve of Destruction". Much better, and actually almost a religious experience. Check out the lyrics.


I found this sign for "Big Bone Lick State Park" quite amusing.

Once we did get to the gallery where the coffin exhibit will run for a week, Richard and Marcel assembled the exhibit, while I tweaked the video that is to play. I have no idea how much heat that computer will generate in the coffin lid, surroundound by tufed velvet and plywood -- but hey, I'm sure they have insurance and we will be across the state line by Wednesday. Seriously, the curator isn't going to leave the computer running solid for two weeks, so we'll be ok. Besides, I set the idle time out to turn off the disks.

They booked us into another historic hotel. Which was what they did in Waterloo, Ontario earlier. I am preferring the new modern hotels with water pressure and constant hot water temperatures. The ironic thing is that this quant hotel has the best WiFi access I've seen so far, and it's free, and they have a free printing service.