Meditation on mediation

All this talk on mediation of late has me thinking about, well, mediation. Beyond media ecology, mediation has meaning in the world of negotiation. But is media-mediation so different than negotiation-mediation?

Sherry Turkle's TED talk Alone Together includes a brief mention of the problem of communication technology addiction: that the metaphor of addiction is inappropriate because the only way to deal with addiction is to stop using that 'substance' and that's something no one is seriously going to do with our modern communications networks such as the Internet, social networks, or smartphones.

"These technologies are our current partners in the human adventure. The notion of addiction with its one solution that we know we won't take makes us feel hopeless and passive," Turkle says.

While our smartphones might be packed jam-full of gee-whiz apps and capabilities, they aren't actually smart in the way a sentient being is smart. Yet I wonder whether using negotiation tools such as BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Settlement) and ZOPA (Zone Of Possible Agreement) might be useful in assessing and negotiating the type of relationship we want to have with our technologies?

We're a long way from our technologies being 'smart' in the sense of having a personal say in this negotiation yet these technologies do mediate our interaction with others across all spheres, including professional and personal. Is navigating technology enough, or do we need to be active negotiators?

Mediated life: digital afterlife

An entertaining and surprisingly (disturbingly?) familiar look at what the future might entail:

Who upgrades the upgraders?

Mediated writing: the writing ball is a thing like me

Nietzsche was famously noted to change his writing style as he adopted a mechanical typewriter instead of writing longhand or dictating to an assistant. The typewriter mediated--changed--the way he communicated, a change rejected by Heidegger as unwanted.

Nietzsche even wrote a short poem for his 'writing ball':

The Writing Ball is a thing just like me: of iron
And yet easy to twist, especially on journeys.
Patience and tact one must richly possess
And fine little fingers to use us.

Schreibkugel ist ein Ding gleich mir: von Eisen
Und doch leicht zu verdrehn zumal auf Reisen.
Geduld und Takt muss reichlich man besitzen
Und feine Fingerchen, uns zu benuetzen.

Underscoring some of the vagaries and quirks of the machines themselves, Hammacher Schlemmer's description of the typewriter they sell is absolutely marvellous:

The Wordsmith's Manual Typewriter.
This is the manual typewriter that recalls the thoughtful, well-written correspondence of yesteryear. Devoid of technological crutches such as spell-check and deletion, each of its 44 keys requires a firm, purposeful stroke for a steady click-clacking cadence that encourages the patient, considered sentiment of a wordsmith who thinks before writing. Using a 10-characters-per-inch Pica 87 font, it faithfully reproduces the eclectic printed impressions of its forebears—variable kerning, subtly ghosted letters, and nuanced baseline shifts—imparting unique, personal character to every letter, piece of prose, or verse of poetry. Updated with a lightweight yet durable ABS housing and carrying case for easy portability.

... and of course, don't forget that unlike word processing software, users must use a double-space after the monospaced period.

Mediated art: Ways of Seeing

Ways of Seeing (1972), an engaging series by John Berger, opens with a look at how mass reproduction of paintings mediates a different relationship with a painting than a person seeing the same item in its original environment, whether on a moveable substrate such as canvas or as part of a particular building.

The first part of the first episode is here:

The notions discussed in the first episode are credited to an essay by Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935).

The series' content is fascinating, but so too is the meta of the medium, seen from a 2013 perspective.

Berger explains what we're viewing both for what's in a shot as well as how the shot is being broadcast and the ways the medium changes the content of what we're viewing. This meta-narrative is deliberate: Berger is making visible aspects of viewing we often fail to notice or forget is present.

The precise framing and carefully choreographed camera movement of each piece seems sedate compared to typical video today. Our gaze is directed at each step, and only late in the episode is music introduced for a particular purpose that further aides in mediating the meaning and experience of the images we view.

Colour is also intriguing. Berger as narrator stands in front of a blue screen that only serves as a backdrop that contrasts reasonably well with his clothes and skin, not as part of special effects. The final credits also point out that the item is BBC Colour, further reminding viewers of today that colour wasn't necessarily a universal given in video or film footage.

The opening title is static over footage of television production equipment: no swooping animations or other visual noise (... but for the sake of reminiscing, here's a nifty Flash re-build of several historical television logos). Paintings are depicted without additional title overlays: we need to listen to Berger's narration to know what we're viewing if we don't already recognise the painting.

Additionally, the opening includes a selection from Dziga Vertov's film, The Man With a Camera, ground-breaking in many ways that could appear quite familiar to modern audiences. Vertov's full-length film is also available here in a re-scored (1996) edition: