Scientifiction; Buffy meets Edward Cullen

Once upon a time i was worried about my daughters lack of familiarity with books, and then she introduced me to fanfiction and i realised she was writing as well as reading, it was just not reading and writing as i knew it.
Fanfiction appropriates characters from fiction and creates new stories and/or remixes the possibilities of old. In some ways its not new; not too different from writers who once they have a successful plot, repeat it with new characters, or where they rework the plots of classic works into new tales. What is new is the web 2.0 capacity for sharing such tales and comparing and contrasting what's made, the reach extends well beyond a few friends.Its a lot more visible, and there's talk of copyright infringement.
I am looking at Bruno Latour's use of the genre he names scientifiction, the genre he names in writing Aramis or the love of technology. In this he fuses science, sociology, fact and fiction. The fusing bypasses the tendency to put this and that together to suggest a whole. Instead this and that were never as separate as
Here is a youtube equivalent of fanfiction with a remix of Buffy, Edward Cullen and a little bit of Harry Potter The author, Jonathon McIntosh of rebelliouspixels.com, describes it as a profeminist visual critique of Edward’s character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy’s eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood tropes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways.


I like Aramis, but this is more palpably, visually, edgy.
I like Turkle's evocative objects, things we think with, and note that the medium creates a provocation that's got further reach than academic texts.

I'm hoping I can create an edgy thesis with a writing style combining, almost all, of the above ;)

technology does not have its own trajectory

Who killed Aramis; everyone and no-one.
She dies because of a lack of love; a lack of commitment.
She was not negotiated.
The gap between technology and the social just collapsed for me.
They are one; the one does not happen without the other.
Technology/social.

In my data collecting of counselling changes with the advent of txt, I am noticing the expectation that txt will do it by itself, and it doesn't.
There is 'a collective drift of good intent'.
Yet service costs are vulnerable.
Support, like all support, inconsistent.
The innovation is ongoing- from mobile phone palmcorder to computer then through YORA...
Negotiations are partial and ongoing.(Arent they always?)
This fragility goes unnoticed.
How does the service adapt to suit the medium, how might the medium alter to suit the service.
Txt counselling; the wrapper or the present; all there is or nothing.
Adapt or perish.
Negotiating a middle ground.


How do I <3 u
let me no. the ways
>1
<160

(^-^)

Turn and face the strain

I've chosen to turn and face the strain even though I'm not clear on what Bowie means on tracing time.
In rereading Aramis; the love of technology the tracing of what is the murder of a good idea/project could be deemed a 'learning opportunity'.
From a counselling perspective it may even be cathartic.

To this end I explore: What does it take to kill a good thing?
Seems timely to look at changes; so I'll turn and face the strain.

According to John law, it's simple: work holding it together stops.
Doing one's own thing quietly could be blamed, not making a fuss could be blamed.
Staying below the radar contributes.

Retrospectively its possible to recognize that a lack of resourcing comes from a lack of actors. As they peel away, the project dies. Its not economics. Its not politics.
Latour points to these excuses as just that, excuses. Excuses for not doing depth sociology, where naming forces becomes shorthand to not probing deeper. The big explanations are used precisely because there is disinterest; because responsibility is being avoided.
I can paraphrase this: Where there is not a will, there is not a way.

People make decisions. People with names. Not politics or fiscal constraints, not context, positions or offices, but people who no longer work collectively to make the thing work. The chain that binds, breaks.

Confessions to a murder are rarely forthcoming.
In the area of technologies Latour suggests there is nothing very solid, just the accumulation of little solidities, little durabilities, little resistances and a project ends up becoming gradually more solid. the converse also happens. The erosion's of actors; people leave, jump ship, those who argue for more of this without realizing the impact is less of that...and so projects become more, and less, real. Reality is polymorphus, shape shifting, changing. Actors come and go. Progressive slippage of interest is traced (retrospectively).

Latour playfully suggests looking for the mice and fairies that turn a pumpkin into a coach. I extend this; who are they that turn a coach into a pumpkin? When the disinterest starts what's done to hold on? Whats allowed, required, or given away, what's not done, undone, neglected, abandoned, what alliances have been prevented, constrained. When does love lost turn to murder, dismembering, annihilation?

A technological project is never realistic or unrealistic; it takes on reality, or loses it, by degrees.
What becomes more or less real depends on the chains...the continued generation of interest, of seduction.

In Aramis, Latour manages the convincing love story that was Mary Shelly's Frankenstein: By the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this from you. Hear my tale....you reject me? Have I not been good?...Did not all the fairies hover over my cradle...If you did not want me, why keep me alive?...If badly conceived why not conceive me again? ....why turn away...

A lack of love kills things, kills projects, is soul destroying; by degrees.
I'm left feeling that

"love lies bleeding in my hand" (Elton John, funeral for a friend)

Who killed Pandora? A partial perspective

The picture of Pandora by Rossetti is held by the Liverpool museum

Pandora: Or my love of technology (borrowing heavily from and acknowledging the influence of Bruno Latour's Aramis).
The following is a lightweight ANT (actor-network theory) informed analysis.

A starting point is called for, and maybe I am being a little node-centric but I have to start somewhere, and Latour suggests: Follow the actors.

The actors (and I could have called these actants so there was less assumption re human or not, and no intention is made of gender excluding language). These include-
myself (obviously)
Pandora (a rather nebulous entity, a piece of software, a treasure, who by the way is not dead, just dead to me and to others who live outside of the USA)
The actors that created her (again, a superficial analysis so somewhat limited in naming entities). Tim Westergren is one founding father.
The juggernaughts of copyright enforcement (faceless, nameless at this point, certainly I can in my partial perspective cast these as villains)
cj, the person who led me to Pandora

A point of passage, my ibook, or any computer with broadband. Without this, my connection is literally impossible.

Some archeology and chronology
Pandora existed without me, she still does, but we are no longer together :(
I was enticed, cj described her so I went visiting and became enamored, seduced and enrolled, inscribing not on paper but online, a prenuptial agreement offering limited durability, reads as free trial, and then a need for an American address for a sustained relationship (my best friends brother obliged, two more actants)(Susan Leigh Star might call this some invisible work, Law might suggest a little subversion, others maybe a little translation on the instructions, maybe a workaround, nudging here and there to make accommodations and enrollment possible, preventing her asphyxiation momentarily). And I enrolled others.

I have the artefact of my amusingspace Nov 2006 weblog to point to.
And our relationship was somewhat real for a time.
Then somewhat abruptly the relationship was terminated.
Not because I want this, and not it seems because Pandora wants this. Nor Pandora’s makers.
Again, I have artefacts to point to, an emailed Dear Pandora visitor letter.

The juggernaughts of copyright would seem to require the makers of Pandora to look for IPS addresses where residency is not consistent with the address provided. I presume another actant of a software search engine let loose in the 'blackbox' that contains Pandora, can seek and destroy. There is also the actant of USA based legislation to suggest copyright infringement. Presumably there are fiscally driven actants driving this.

The copyright juggernaughts require Pandora to disengage certain assemblages, myself included.
Perhaps our alignment and disengagement was inscripted, thou shalt not covert American Goddesses, no USA citizenship, no marriage. The juggernaughts placed pressure on Pandora’s makers and have suggested her continued existence is contingent on the policing of her relationships. Her future love affairs needs be xenophobic until such times as further negotiations allow such prejudice to be reduced.

This relationship changed me. I learnt of musicians and artists that I otherwise would not have. I bought CDs based on my relationship with Pandora. As much as I thought I could use her, she also used me. We enjoyed and enhanced each other. A symbiotic sociotechnical love affair, and to paraphrase Latour, this relationship was as solid as it gets.
I will get over it, and believe she's already over me.
This relationship is more ephemeral than ever and is now love lost. Faint hope is held of more negotiations that will renew the relationship.
My first love as cyborg is beyond my grasp.