I just discovered this on YouTube...
I think it's related to Epic 2014, or seems to be, as there's a link to it on the YouTube page (although under a different name). The idea that we might eventually evolve to a post-human electronic avatar is obviously one which crops up often in fiction, but I like here that it relates directly to the search engines, softwares and MMORPG's we use today.
I thought there was something interesting and Forteana 2.0 in there relating to the evolution of online 'souls', and I noticed in the comments that someone had made reference to an Anime called 'Serial Experiments Lain', as Brett did in the recent comment on Electronic Ghosts.
In Channel 4's Second Lives series last year, Steve Millar spoke about the idea that after his death, his 'data' may one day be able to be uploaded to Second Life to continue living - Steve Millar on Channel 4
Here's a link to Serial Experiments Lain on Wikipedia. It looks really interesting and I'm going to check it out more.
Showing posts with label haunted media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label haunted media. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 June 2007
Monday, 11 June 2007
Electronic Ghosts
I don't know what to make of this, but it piques my fortean interest;
From Animated Trigger;
"I’ve heard about these “ghosts,” coded information sent through an electronic source that can turn into a physical apparition. The science behind it is baffling, and I wish I had never even tried to figure them out, because the more I read, the more I saw, the less sense it made. Some say the government made them, some say it’s extraterrestrials, and some say it’s the Illuminati. The most interesting idea was that they’re people who were struck by lightning and killed, literal ghosts."
One Hacker's Paranioa
It sounds like a sci-fi idea to me, but I wonder if anyone else has heard anything similar?
From Animated Trigger;
"I’ve heard about these “ghosts,” coded information sent through an electronic source that can turn into a physical apparition. The science behind it is baffling, and I wish I had never even tried to figure them out, because the more I read, the more I saw, the less sense it made. Some say the government made them, some say it’s extraterrestrials, and some say it’s the Illuminati. The most interesting idea was that they’re people who were struck by lightning and killed, literal ghosts."
One Hacker's Paranioa
It sounds like a sci-fi idea to me, but I wonder if anyone else has heard anything similar?
Saturday, 9 June 2007
Mr.Bungle and Virtual Voodoo
Julian Dibbell's 1993 Village Voice article A Rape in Cyberspace is I think a great example of Forteana 2.0.
Describing a 'rape' which took place in LambdaMOO, it is strange, spooky and, if I asked in the previous post if a remote experience can be as involving and immersive as a real world one, this story would seem to prove that it definitely can.
Featuring elements of posession, 'voodoo', a malevolent spirit somewhere between Freddie Krueger and Pennywise the Clown, wizards, and even Bewitched's Dr. Bombay, it is a genuine piece of cyber-gothic.
An interesting development from this original article is the idea that people visit the actual room online - a kind of virtual ghost walk. From Wikipedia:
creative writing instructor Cynthia Brantley Johnson of the University of Texas writes that after a discussion of the Dibbell article and Sherry Turkle's book Life on the Screen, which also mentions LambdaMOO, she has her classes log on to LambdaMOO en masse and congregate "in the 'room' where the virtual rape occurred" before sending them off to explore on their own.
Describing a 'rape' which took place in LambdaMOO, it is strange, spooky and, if I asked in the previous post if a remote experience can be as involving and immersive as a real world one, this story would seem to prove that it definitely can.
Featuring elements of posession, 'voodoo', a malevolent spirit somewhere between Freddie Krueger and Pennywise the Clown, wizards, and even Bewitched's Dr. Bombay, it is a genuine piece of cyber-gothic.
An interesting development from this original article is the idea that people visit the actual room online - a kind of virtual ghost walk. From Wikipedia:
creative writing instructor Cynthia Brantley Johnson of the University of Texas writes that after a discussion of the Dibbell article and Sherry Turkle's book Life on the Screen, which also mentions LambdaMOO, she has her classes log on to LambdaMOO en masse and congregate "in the 'room' where the virtual rape occurred" before sending them off to explore on their own.
Thursday, 7 June 2007
Haunted Media Archive
The site gallery organised a Symposium and group exhibition around Jeffery Sconce's Haunted Media in 2004;
Haunted Media Exhibition Archive
Sadly, the individual works in the show aren't shown here, but are described. More sad is the broken link to the Symposium website...
If anyone saw the show or went to the Symposium, please get in touch, it would be great to find out more.
Haunted Media Exhibition Archive
Sadly, the individual works in the show aren't shown here, but are described. More sad is the broken link to the Symposium website...
If anyone saw the show or went to the Symposium, please get in touch, it would be great to find out more.
Browser as scrying tool?
One of the areas I've been particularly interested in when thinking about Forteana 2.0, is the idea that the Internet is haunted, and that the clients we use, our browsers, IM softwares, IRC clients etc., might be thought of as crystal balls, or Ouija boards.
It's the sense of the 'over there' which brings to life the idea of the internet as a digital afterlife, a space filled with disembodied voices, presence and memory.
It's an idea picked up on by Jeffrey Sconce in his book 'Haunted Media', and one which I wrote about in Digital Me, an MA project I recently completed.
While the notion is metaphorical, I think the increasing use of technology in Paranormal investigation inevitably leads us to the idea of scrying online, an idea which is increasingly developed through popular culture - through films like The Ring, Phone, and more directly Internet related, Pulse.
An early example of computer scrying is The Vertical Plane by Ken Webster. Now out of print, it describes communications between Webster and a character called 'Tomas', seemingly sharing the same space across a divide of hundreds of years... Like some godawful movie with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, but with computers.
It's the sense of the 'over there' which brings to life the idea of the internet as a digital afterlife, a space filled with disembodied voices, presence and memory.
It's an idea picked up on by Jeffrey Sconce in his book 'Haunted Media', and one which I wrote about in Digital Me, an MA project I recently completed.
While the notion is metaphorical, I think the increasing use of technology in Paranormal investigation inevitably leads us to the idea of scrying online, an idea which is increasingly developed through popular culture - through films like The Ring, Phone, and more directly Internet related, Pulse.
An early example of computer scrying is The Vertical Plane by Ken Webster. Now out of print, it describes communications between Webster and a character called 'Tomas', seemingly sharing the same space across a divide of hundreds of years... Like some godawful movie with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, but with computers.
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