Plastic Bot Haiku

Soft fever tongues joy.

A kneecap grinds yet nights drip.

Mad heat convulses.

Soft fever tongues joy.

A kneecap grinds yet nights drip.

Mad heat convulses.

?destruction = digitization?

I ate the rest

Massaged Massages

The old civic, state, and national groupings have become unworkable. We have already reached a point where remedial control, born out of knowledge of media and their total effects on all of us, must be exerted... the mass audience... is instead merely given packages of passive entertainment. 

All

media

are

extensions

of

some

human

faculty—

psychic

or

physical.

Mere instruction will not suffice.

Rant of the Ordered and Ordained

Priestly, kingly, crown 

held aloft atop 

the mountain chain 

of smoke billowing 

frames, 

reactors in chains, 

leeching the sane, 

occupied and refrained against 

the sub-will 

of all holy and moly 

and burrowers of the ground, 

the gem-takers and soul-searchers, 

crafters of the ancient halls, 

smooth stoned, 

widening and closing, 

the breadth of an atom, 

falls upon the void of a million, 

stars stuck in spinning rotation, 

ceaseless until the final simmering 

of space upon space 

where no sound 

is made, 

make me a king, 

a king of nothingness, 

harkening and free of words, 

the unordained, 

the simplicity of a bookless shelf, 

all the royal information 

for the fingers to reach up, 

grasp, 

solemnly touch 

the liquid that forms 

the electric streams 

and billowing steam of 

the atomsplitting force 

of the mind, 

the fire, 

the 

lighting 

bolt 

of 

man 

on 

high

Unified Separations (Chapter From Book of Textual Degrees of Separation)

Ark, wrathful peace, night of the brute awash, alien antarctica, you will not pass me by heaving your berg of shadows without one day my entering your walls and dredging up your armature of sunken winters. For thy cunning I know well, [Mockingly. And of thy weakness I am fully aware too. And I sent them with commandment unto Id'-do the chief at the place Ca-siph'-i-a and I told them what they should say unto Id'-do, and to his brethren the Neth'-i-nims, at the place Ca-siph-i-a, that they should bring unto us ministers for the house of our God. The Central Sun causes Fohat to collect primordial dust in the form of balls, to impel them to move in converging lines and finally to approach each other and aggregate. It is evident, then, that I take feeling as a function in itself and distinguish it from sensation and intuition.

Kaku and Rifkin: Two Sides of the Same Coin

    Kaku and Rifkin, have got the ball rolling on the conversation about the evolution of consciousness. They are dead on in their allusions to the concept that the Internet, in it's hyper connectivity, is really a reflection of humanity's expanding consciousness. Never before has the earth experienced such a massive shift in such a short period of time, and never before have we been given such a chance to take part in that shift. Kaku lays out both dark and beautiful possibilities, yet seems closer to our present day state of affairs. Rifkin is more hopeful, but also mostly theoretical. The point that they concur on is that the changes we are undergoing are massive, and only through awareness and action will we remain relevant.
    The only limitations these two thinkers impose upon themselves are the limitations of science. They both trump science, and the recent discoveries being made in various fields, as proof of their conclusions. If we as a society are not careful, science will simply become a new theology amongst the many others, where scientists remain just as close-minded as creationists. The current status quo that hinders science from evolving is a pervasive dependence upon materialism.
     Science aims to build theories and concepts that help us understand the world through "hard evidence," i.e. material proof. The issue is that the scientist as an entity is a human being, who perceives evidence through the senses, and makes sense of it with the logic of the mind. This is the domain of consciousness, and yet has science fully explained consciousness?  I think not. The scientist may always seem to have an answer, but when it comes to the ultimate existentialist questions, such as the purpose of consciousness, we are left empty handed.
    The internet is just one of many recent technologies that acts as a solvent upon the boundaries with which we delineate reality; time and space. Cellphones, television, jets, microwaves; all of these continue to move into faster, more accessible paradigms, and our generation is somehow attuned to effortlessly ride the wave. The wave will some day crash though, for technology is a double-edged sword. Either we will become so enthralled with our powers and abilities that we will forget what is important and ultimately destroy ourselves, or we will recognize the need to consciously utilize technology for the enlightenment of all. I believe it comes down to what we do as artists. The stories we choose to tell, and the emotions we choose to experience are the very realities we create for ourselves to live in. Art, technology, and science are all aspects of a universal truth, and can therefore one day be synthesized to prove that everything is simply a reflection of the primordial creative act.

    Len Masterman, although writing on the subject ten years ago (a millenia in the context of the evolution of technology) clearly outlines the reasons that establishing a universal language of media literacy is imperative for students who want an education relevant to the world they inhabit. He explains the origins of media literacy as arising from a fear that the media was subversively and subconsciously indoctrinating young people. In their essay "Critical Media Literacy, Democracy, and the Reconstruction of Education," Kellner and Share point to the same origins in their summary of the protectionist approach to media literacy. Both articles, however, conclude that it is not enough to simply wage an intellectual war of morals against the media, but rather learn it's applications, and how we as individuals can become co-creators in the ever changing world we face.
    I strongly agree that it is an obligation of any educational system to continually reinvent itself in order to remain relevant. The children of today are not the children of yesterday, and neither is the world that they are being brought up in. If we have no say as to what images and sound permeate the air waves, then it is only fair that we are taught to analyze the context within which we live, and begin to see things as they are, and not how we are told they are. As a child I was lucky in the sense that there was minimal television in my home. It always stunned me when I went over to a friends whose parent actually let him have the remote and didn't care to remain in the room. The mind of a child is extremely susceptible to believing what it hears and sees, and commercials aimed at children are all too proficient in combining colors with songs to make the child believe that product will change their life. Such an acceptance of blatant commercialism will only be carried on through the years if teaching media literacy is not incorporated into all educational systems.
     After reading the above mentioned articles and considering the topic for myself, it would seem that by agreeing upon the need for a truly holistic and grounded study of the media and its various forms, education would not only be improved upon, but wholly transformed. The current state of public education seems to be one of mediocrity, adhering to the status quo, and not asking students to think critically. Establishing the importance of new media literacy would herald a shift in education towards a more global, progressive perspective. It would be the first change of many, and all for the better.