Week 11 Response - Reading and Writing in the Inca Empire

What a great question to end the course! To answer it, I turn to a paper that I had written about on record keeping in the Inca Empire. As they didn’t have a “traditional” writing system, they used knotted coloured cords known as quipu or khipu to record all aspects of societal data, transactions and distribution. The quipu was used within their administrative areas such as for census, finance, legal, agriculture, labor and more. Research has also suggested that the quipus were also used to tell narrative stories, like about war battles and information on genealogies and place names (National Gallery of Australia, 2016).

 Example of a quipu from the National Gallery of Australia. 

While it is known what purposes the quipu was used for, scholars have yet to know how to read the knotted cords. If I could travel back in time to when the Inca Empire flourished, I would tell them about the great interest people would have on their type of writing system in the future, and how we as humans have a desire to learn and discover the ancient and historical past in regards to the future of books and reading. With the issues people have in trying to decipher the quipus, I would also tell them they should safe guard a "Holy Grail" translator of sorts that can be used to read the artifacts, since as of now it has yet to be discovered. 

Overall, this shows that while the format of the book has evolved from print to digital, we as an advancing society always look to finding ways of understanding the readings and writings of the past, so that we can better shape and preserve them for the future to learn of our evolutionary state.   

All the best,

- Raquel

Image and Source:

National Gallery of Australia. (2016). Gold and the Incas Lost Worlds of Peru. Retrieved from http://nga.gov.au/exhibition/Incas/Default.cfm?IRN=227101&BioArtistIRN=41379&MnuID=3&GalID=7&ViewID=2

A Thousand Years Hence...

Not remembering how I got on the journey, I made my way across what seemed to be an endless salt flat before I happened upon a massive pyramidal structure gleaming like a mirror. Getting closer I realized how titanic it was in scale, the size of a mountain! All of a sudden, what seemed like an animated cloud of sparkles, spreading and folding like an aerial flock of lilliputian pigeons, appeared from nowhere and flew over me, producing a directionless sound, hissing in my ear in an oddly calming diction, it directed me towards a hatchway I had not noticed before in the ground.... what further wonders I met on my way... I cannot recount here, but suffice to say, I found myself eventually inside the the enormous structure, in a room of sorts, sitting across from a black turtle neck wearing individual, that looked human enough, but who's age or gender I could not begin to guess.

“We know how you came here, but WHY have you come here?” Xe asked me.
 “I came for a school assignment, I have important things to run by you about the future of  the book, as was deduced and theorized about in my own time” I replied, earnestly.
 “Books? Hm... I suppose you've got one on you now, don't you?”
“Uh.. Yeah. Here!” I handed Xem my sketchbook and a beaten paper-back Penguin edition of Gogol's Dead Souls.
Xe gave me a curious look.
“Your year of origin is 2016, yes? Aren't these obsolete, even in your time?”
“Well... Not really... Not everybody likes reading on screens or recording everything digitally... there's room for diversity in media formats. Generally we believe the death of the book had been greatly over exaggerated... "
I was going to go on, but Xyrs face seemed to grow serious all of the sudden, as xe thumbed the beaten Penguin's pages, as well as my own sketchbook's doodles, xe remarked:
“All I see when I look at these, are loneliness, cold isolation in time and space. Crippling ignorance. Indulgent self-glorification. Pointless subjectivity.”
“You mean you don't read things? You never take a moment to just be by yourself and read a single text? Or write one, for that matter?”
“In a certain way, archaic stranger, your question is incoherent. But we forgive your ignorance. If I may try and answer what you think you are referring to: In our time, at all moments we are in communication. This 'by yourself'ness you talk about so fondly, is a serious crime in our society.”
“A crime!? That's crazy, what do you do instead?”
“We don't 'do' anything. We are interconnected.”
“You don't seem so different from me.”
“This is an emulator running right now, so that you can interface with us. You're looking at a small and carefully bandwidth lowered fraction of me, or US, really. There's no practical difference.”
“What?”
“I don't expect you to understand. Not in your present state. Beings of your caliber lived their lives through a pinhole of experience. Even your 'inter-net' was a paltry trickle of inference and nonsense, all of you flaying, blind to the future, deaf to the past, jack-knifing from one terrible half-comprehended moment to the next, without ever being able to take stock of anything outside yourselves.”
“That's some pretty fancy words for a future-man!”
“Really? We've pulled them from your own head as part of the emulation and translation program. We hope they are not too unusual for you.”
I fell silent for a moment. I should have known better then take the Professor's advice about the assignment.
“I think I have to go now...” I said politely.
“OK.” Xe replied, indifferently.

A scampered back across the salt flat the way I came....

If ever saw that mirrored pyramid thing again, it would be way too soon.



-Ben

The Once and Future Book: explaining hypertext to Saint Augustine

Asleep and in a dream I visited Augustine of Hippo. I explained that I was from the future. Being faithful in all things, he believed, asking only that I explain the state of affairs of that time from which I had come. So saying, he sat down on a nearby bench and settled himself comfortably, as if preparing himself for a debate. Considering what might be of consequence to tell such a prolific author, I decided to explain the nature of publishing and reading in the future. So I began to speak.

“We still have books," I said, "but we also read on tablets. And the texts on these tablets are like images lit up from within. They are really fun to use.”

He glared at me from under a skeptical brow for a moment and then said: “There are some things, then, which are to be enjoyed, others which are to be used. Those things which are objects of enjoyment make us happy. Those things which are objects of use assist, and support us in our efforts...being placed among both kinds of objects, if we set ourselves to enjoy those which we ought to use, we are hindered in our course, and sometimes even led away from it; so that, getting entangled in the love of lower gratifications, we lag behind in, or even altogether turn back from, the pursuit of the real and proper objects of enjoyment.” [De Doctrina Christiana, Book 1, chapter 3]

“Yes,” I said, “when reading, I often stop to check my emails or watch YouTube videos, er, moving images of people or cats doing funny things. So, I end up extending my tasks and working the whole day long. It is difficult to separate work time from free time.”

When I was silent for a while, he continued: “But in regard to pictures and statues, and other works of this kind, which are intended as representations of things, nobody mistakes them, especially if they are executed by skilled artists; everyone, as soon as he sees the likenesses, recognizes the things of which they are likenesses. And this whole class are to be reckoned among the superfluous devices of men, unless it is a matter of importance to inquire about the purposes for which they were made and by whose authority. Indeed, the thousands of fables and fictions in whose lies men take delight are human devices and nothing is to be considered more peculiarly man's own invention than anything that is false and lying.” [De Doctrina Christiana, Book 2, chapter 25]

I thought for a moment about how to describe the act of reading on tablets, so as to make it sound useful and also comprehensible to a mind with no understanding of electronic circuits.

“As I said, the texts of books appear like images on the face of the tablet. And some text is highlighted. The highlighted words are signs which we can associate or link with other information in order to follow particular threads of thought...”

Before I could finish speaking, Augustine barked out in sarcasm, saying: “No one uses words except as signs of something else;...Everything, however, is not also a sign.” [De Doctrina Christiana, Book 1, chapter 2]

He looked impatient and so I continued, speaking quickly now: “The highlighted words are signs which serve as indexes pointing elsewhere to other texts. They are like shortcuts to texts from all over the world. It makes for efficient reading, when the reader controls the flow and direction of communication.”

Shaking his head, he explained a little about his theory of signs: “Some signs are natural, others conventional. Natural signs are those which, apart from any intention or desire of using them as signs, do yet lead to knowledge of something else, as, for example, smoke when it indicates fire. For it is not from any intention of making it a sign that it is so, but through attention to experience we come to know that there is fire, even when nothing but smoke can be seen. And the footprint of an animal passing by belongs to this class of signs. And the countenance of an angry or sorrowful man indicates the feeling in his mind, independently of his will: and in the same way every other emotion of the mind is betrayed by the telltale countenance, even though we do nothing with the intention of making it known.” [De Doctrina Christiana, Book 2, chapter 1]

And he looked at me with arms spread wide, shrugging his shoulders, as if to say, ‘What other signs does the average man need in life?’ Then he continued, conceding that such signs as links may well be useful for the studious man:

“For certain institutions of men are in a sort of way representations and likenesses of natural objects. And of these, those which are associated with devils must, as has been said, be utterly rejected and held in detestation. Those, on the other hand, which relate to the mutual intercourse of men, are, so far as they are not matters of luxury and superfluity, to be adopted, especially the forms of the letters which are necessary for reading, and the various languages as far as is required—a matter I have spoken of previously. To this class also belong shorthand characters, those who are acquainted with which are called shorthand writers. All these are useful, and there is nothing unlawful in learning them, nor do they involve us in superstition, or enervate us by luxury, if they only occupy our minds so far as not to stand in the way of more important objects to which they ought to be subservient.” [De Doctrina Christiana, Book 2, chapter 26]

He nodded and closed his eyes. I waited to see what he would say next, but the silence stretched on. Just as I leaned close to see if he was okay, I was startled by the great snore he emitted. This drawn out snarling sound so startled me, that at once I awoke and found myself back at my computer. Such, indeed is the Once and Future Book.

Best, Laura

Week 11--The Alexandria Library

I recently heard an interview with Alberto Manguel on CBC radio who has recently been appointed as the new director of the National Library in Argentina. In this interview he said, “The idea of copyright, the idea of originality is a 19th century invention. Before that we were much freer to use the universal library as if every page were ours.” His writing credits include a book called A History of Reading. He also is currently involved in a project with Robert Lepage in Montréal called Bibliothèque de Nuit, a project inviting visitors to virtually explore 10 of the most fascinating libraries in the world. It explores what libraries are from a social, philosophical, and architectural perspective.

This got me thinking about the Alexandria Library as well as a comment made by last week’s guest lecturer about the origins of the word pirating (the ships coming into port, being searched for books, the books being copied and the copies being returned – not the originals). The ambition of the Great Library to collect every authoritative book in the world and the painstaking work of the scribes to copy those books is breathtaking and incredible to me. Given the resources needed to copy all those texts, I think the Alexandrians would be very interested to learn about how quickly books can be copied by either by scanning or being copied from a “born digital” versions, and that the space needed to house the books would not be so much a physical building, but a server. The notion of materiality and textuality would be very much challenged in their minds, and it would certainly open up a very interesting conversation.

The library was destroyed in a fire some time during the first century of the Common Era and all those books went up in smoke. Luckily, there were other copies!

Interestingly, a rather analogous endeavour by Google was in the news a few years ago. An article in The Guardian published in 2009 called “Google's plan for world's biggest online library: philanthropy or act of piracy?” is an interesting example of a modern day attempt to amass the world’s literature into one collection. Google has run into Copyright issues and I’m not sure if they have abandoned the project or not. I don’t think the Alexandrians would not have stopped at copyright laws even if they had existed, but it is generally agreed that a commercial company should not be entrusted with a component of the world’s intellectual property.


Sources used:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/the-past-is-not-the-present-do-food-animals-have-rights-alberto-manguel-s-curious-mind-the-great-hunger-1.3497315/alberto-manguel-s-unquenchable-curiosity-1.3497648

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/aug/30/google-library-project-books-settlement

http://unllib.unl.edu/LPP/phillips.htm

Final Post

What a lovely, fun question!

It almost sounds like the premise of a novel ...

“If I could go back in time and tell people in a particular era about the future of books I would …

… return to the fall of 1928, to Cambridge University trying to find space to sit in a crowded lecture hall at Newnham College where Virginia Woolf is about to deliver a series of poignant lectures; lectures which will become her infamous extended essay, ‘A Room of One’s Own.’

One of the key points Ms. Woolf makes in her speech is the inability for women to easily access scholarly material due to the prejudice (and pride) of male bureaucracy. She stresses upon a woman's need for financial independence and space of her own to expand her literary wings. 

I would love to be able to tell Ms. Woolf and all the women in that lecture hall that the world is going to evolve magnificently and mindsets are going to radically change. Female authors will be on equal platforms as their male counterparts and will have equal access to literature, information and anything else their hearts desire (in most parts of the world). That the possibility for women to have a room of their own and financial independence will be realized. That books will be written proudly by female authors and female writers will be celebrated.

I would also implore Ms. Woolf in private to please maintain a healthy distance from the River Ouse.

I shall leave you with one of my favourite, inspiring quotes from Ms. Woolf found in 'A Room of One’s Own'.

“I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.”

Thank you for a fantastic semester!

~ Fareh

Jackson Ossea's Experience With Cory Doctorow and Project Gutenberg

Picture Source

           Most of the books I read on my e-reader are protected by some form of digital rights management (DRM). The e-books that I read which are borrowed from the Toronto Public Library are protected by DRM in a way which prevents my having access to them beyond the twenty-one day borrowing period.

            The DRM has always made it clear who owns the book that I am reading. The point is furthered when the 21 days are completed while I’m reading the book in question and my device automatically turns to the main menu - preventing me from completing the book.

            DRM ensured that I did not own the book in question. But the idea of e-book ownership significantly changed for me when I first came across Project Gutenberg, a unique kind of digital library. Their collection largely consists of thousands of e-books which have fallen out of copyright. It’s become a great resource for texts which are considered to be “classics” such as the entire bibliography of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Aristotle, H.G. Wells, and Leo Tolstoy.

            But there is one notable exception. One of Project Gutenberg’s champions is critically acclaimed and currently living science-fiction author Cory Doctorow. Apart from his books, Doctorow has gained a reputation for his unique views on copyright – believing that intellectual property should not be monopolized and that copyright laws should be liberalized to the point where all digital media can be shared for free.

            Not wanting to look like a hypocrite, Doctorow has made many of his most famous and sought after books available for free on Gutenberg just like the other items available in their collection. They are some of the only items available in their collection which are currently protected by copyright, but which are made available through permission.

            Before discovering Project Gutenberg – or even the Internet Archive – my idea of ownership was that I had to physically go to Indigo or an online retailer in order for me to find the possibility of owning a copy of the book for myself. Gutenberg provided an outlet that resembled the way one would obtain a copy of a work through internet piracy but without any of the legal issues that come from using something like the Pirate Bay.

            The idea became even more strange when I discovered that Doctorow’s works, which remain in copyright, had the same availability through Gutenberg as the works of Plato or Shakespeare. Even for those of us who are familiar with his unusual views of copyright still find it strange that no financial transaction has to occur in order to obtain his most critically acclaimed work, Little Brother.

 It’s unreasonable to assume that all authors will make their best-known works available for free in their lifetime like Doctorow because they rely on royalty cheques to pay their bills. But it’s irrefutable that ideas which are similar to his, as well as the presence of digital libraries such as Project Gutenberg, has dramatically altered the way I can become the owner of a book.

Week 10 Response - Changing Ownership of the Mixtape

In tracing my experiences with the changing nature of ownership in a digital world, the Playlist feature within computer and music products today is a good example of how mixtapes have evolved. I could still remember as a teenager having the cassette player on the ready to record songs that I liked through the radio, which believe me was not easy. The use of CDs came not long after in terms of creating mixtapes, and cassette tapes were then put to the side. But back then obtaining music by radio through the cassette player was “free” whilst nowadays practically everything can and must be purchased online.

Although while I spend my time nowadays purchasing music through iTunes, cassette tapes are still currently in use, if not for nostalgic purposes, especially when it comes to the mixtape. I credit the Guardians of the Galaxy film in some ways reintroducing the fun it came to listening to a cassette mixtape. So much so that the mixtape seen and heard in the film was even released in cassette form, in addition to its CD and digital formats.

Therefore just as you can purchase contemporary music through vinyl, you can do so also on cassette tapes. This then begs the question, what forms of digital ownership has reverted or gone back to its analog counterpart? Thus, is there a distrust in digital ownership that leads people to purchase original print and analog forms? I myself still purchase CDs when I find that I like listening to most or all of the songs within an artist's album. Although I enjoy more of the flexibility and freedom that digital music has given in regards to picking and choosing the one or few particular songs, without having to purchase the entire album.

- Raquel

Image source:

Google Images. (2016). Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix Vol. 1. Retrieved from http://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/6/90/5447f2c0a199e/landscape_xlarge.jpg 

Hybrid Readers a solution to the endangered unique bond between book and reader

Hi everyone,
While researching resources for my essay for the course, I came across an 'illuminating' article that expands on the idea of ownership in a digital age and the "concrete relationship with the material". 

Though the article is 5 years old the content is still relevant today as it explores the ways in which 
publishing companies attempt to retain book readers through extra content in an attempt to add bells and whistles to the e-reading experience "in an age of flattened text". 

I appreciate the way Hybrid Readers is finding new and innovative ways to engage e-readers with physical print material.

Hope you're all having a wonderful long weekend!

~ Fareh

What about technological liberation and the pleasure of the text? The relationship between technology and materiality

This week's blog question to examine our digital ownership practices caused a moment of consternation, since I don't own an e-reader. Nor do I play video games or purchase music or movies on the internet. When I'm home, I listen to CD's, believe it or not, and if I want to watch a movie on the weekend, I either borrow a copy from the Media Commons on the 3rd floor of Robarts or if I'm in the mood for a new release, I rent one from Queen Video on Bloor Street. I have nothing to contribute to the blog this week. Will technological backwardness count as a valid argument for exemption from the assignment? Doubt that will cut it with Galey!

Is downloading digital academic material on my computer a sort of ownership, I wondered? If so, then I have something to say in my blog. As I began to consider the implications further, I realized with dismay that I'm really only 'borrowing' book chapters and articles, which doesn't count as ownership at all, since I acquire these materials through the university library. There is no outlay of money. I bring no weighty tome home in a crinkly plastic bag. Unwrapping the plastic shrink-wrap is not part of the experience of reading these school texts and I never have to make room on my book shelf for class readings; I just save them to my USB. Sunk again. I really have nothing to say in my blog entry. How annoying!

Sitting silently at my computer for a while, my hands not touching the keys, I began to think about terminology. Is 'borrowing' the correct term for my class-related reading? When I download the text from the catalogue, no receipt is generated on which is stamped a due-date by which I must return the borrowed materials. While I sometimes dump the said readings in my computer trash, I certainly never give them back to the library. PDF copies of born-digital texts are like photocopies of printed books or journal articles: no library would accept stacks of photocopies if a patron tried to return them at the end of semester. Can you imagine? "Here, this stack came from Robarts and that stack came from the Inforum. Oh, and can I have a refund for the photocopying fees, please?" -- As if!

Mind, I generally like keeping the scholarly readings from the various classes I've taken. In fact, if I really like an e-book chapter assigned as required reading for some class, I will download more of the book if the publisher's website will permit. Some of the major academic publishing houses, especially the British ones, actually allow download of complete books. Believing that functionality coincides with legality, it became a habit of mine over the course of the last year to download complete books whenever possible. At the time, I didn't know that this was actually illegal. Just checking the small-print copyright policy on the said academic publishers' websites I now realize that they actually prohibit downloading more than a chapter of any book: 

"Unless otherwise stated, users may make copies, printed or

otherwise, of one chapter or up to 5% of the pages from each title, 

whichever is the greater."

For a minute I tried to argue in my favour: I do nothing more than 'use' these copyrighted materials! The library purchases digital texts from publishers by means of subscriptions or flat out purchase. When I go into the library to sit and read a book, I am only using that book. How is that different from downloading a digital book to read? What about Paul Duguid's argument, which we read way back at the beginning of the semester? Technology is liberation: information just wants to be free! Back in the 1970's, Barthes distinguished "between the 'work', servant of one master, and the 'text', an item of pleasure for many." [Duguid, "Material matters: the past and futurology of the book," 75] Isn't a PDF visualized momentarily on a computer screen the very epitome of evanescent text? But then there is physical proof on my computer that they are not. And then it hit me: electronic texts are material! This is exactly what Galey had argued in his study of e-books of Joanna Skibsrud's The Sentimentalists (2010): e-texts are material artifacts. [Galey, The Enkindling Reciter, passim] 

I couldn't sit still then. I got up and paced around. Sat back down again. Materiality had come up in this week's reading as well, I thought. It was discussed in Yochai Benkler's introduction. Having only skimmed the piece previously, I read it through and realized that he was making much the same article as Duguid. Benkler's introduction was like a manifesto, in which he urged individuals to realize that the minority no longer controlled the material means of production, but that the material means of production of our current information age is found in networked computers, now more inexpensive than ever before and widely available around the globe. In his view, the internet revolution has endowed individuals with the power to shape our own lives, both singly and collectively. [Benkler, The Wealth of Networks, passim] Nowhere does Benkler mention the dark 'material' side of the internet revolution, e-waste. The controlled obsolescence of technology -- computers, phones, tablets and e-readers -- that creates mounds of technological garbage, which we don't see, because the crap is shipped overseas to countries willing to pollute their own soil, water and air to recycle such material in exchange for dumping fees. 

We are still mired in materiality. Large conglomerates continue to control the means of production. Electronic texts are still physical and legal entities. And the only free books I see are Benkler's pseudo-economic treatise and those forlorn titles sitting in the box on the corner of Bloor & Brunswick leftover when the street bookseller packs up and goes home. 

Best, Laura

The role of ethics in the acquisition of digital media

The blogging question for this week is extremely timely as it touches upon issues that are being discussed today in terms of ownership, copyright concerning print and digital resources.

What does it mean to own a resource? Beyond the physical.

Over 20 years ago (back in the days of VHS) when Beauty and the Beast came out, my parents bought a copy for me from the toy store. I watched it so many times that it physically hurt me to share it with my cousins who promised they would return it the next weekend. Not having the tape gave me separation anxiety (I really loved that cartoon, and still do. Belle had a deep appreciation for books that other female Disney protagonists lack).
Cut to present day where video files are easily shared amongst one another through usb flash drives and a VHS is an object from a vintage 90's past.
A video that could only be shared between one household at a time is now replaced by an mp4 file that can be copied and duplicated onto multiple platforms. One object is physical and the other is a computer file, which while physical, is not tangible.

My Dad and I got into a discussion on the imbalance of ownership when downloading available content online (ebooks, movies, music, etc.)
He said downloading illegal movies or streaming them online is akin to physically stealing movies from a store. When I argued (to play devil's advocate, disclaimer: I completely agree with him) that movies online aren't tangible physical objects in the way movies at the store are i.e. a physical DVD is different from a file that one can simply torrent without consequence. My dad pointed out it is the ethics of the situation that come into play regardless of the form of the object, whereby principles of theft and illegal access to content remain the same.


What are the ethical implications for password sharing on Netflix? Would you share your password with a friend if they didn't want to pay for an account? Is ownership transferrable multiple times?
I see less people borrowing DVDs from the library because they stream movies online and have started sharing Netflix passwords with others to cut down on gas costs to come to the library.

The ways in which people access media in 2016 and how it affects public libraries' digital collections is worthy of a research paper.

Is it fair and honest to download movies online and share them with friends on USB? Some people argue that if it's available online that it's a form of open access. Others adamantly refuse to watch anything online unless they provide some form of payment (those are the true Internet heroes) and another group of people wonder whether it is possible to moderate the Internet fairly (I fall into this category).


Do we normalize the way we download digital resources we don't pay for that aren't legally open access?
There are some people who dislike the hustle and bustle of movie theatres (isn't obnoxious popcorn munching part of the movie experience?) and wait until a decent copy of a film is available online for them to watch. It isn't legal and they save the $12.99 fee, but it's become such a normalized process where ownership changes hands so many times that everyone has a piece of the seemingly endless pie. And the trouble is that it's available online, all the time.

The true nature of owning a digital resource depends on
a) the resource itself
b) how one came to acquire it
c) how one chooses to use it
d) whether one chooses to share it

~ Fareh

Nostalgia and Digital Rights Managment

Image source

I fear my experience is bland and unoriginal, but it was new for me, once. I remember distinctly my first encounter with a computer game ownership mediated through a content provider/distributor software. It was back in the hazy days of the early millennium when computers game were still tangibly piratable by physically just burning a copy of the CD-ROM occasionally. I'd come to learn of a game, Counter-Strike that was supposedly something I might really enjoy and had inexplicable cultural value I wanted in on. I was very surprised to find how little anyone seemed to be able to pirate it. There's was no copies floating around, at least in my neck of the woods. Once I stumbled upon a download for an old demo of Counter-Strike 1.6 but when it asked to me to install some then unheard of additional program called "Steam" on top of the game itself, my sketch alarm went off and I just didn't bother with it.

Years later I would come to buy a corporeal box of "Steam" games that included counter-strike among others and I realized what "Steam" did. It was a content library system that you had to have an account for, and logging in was the only way to play the game. In exchange for this mild chaining of the game to your person (or your account) you got automatic updates and patches for all your games, had a chat function to talk to different Steam Members and all sorts of proto-social media attributes that have since grown substantially.

My steam account existed but half forgotten for a few years as I fell out of the gaming hobby, but many of my friends never quit. When finally some of the titles they were playing seemed really interesting somewhat recently, I was informed that Steam had developed a new kind of system where you could "share" your virtual copies (or really licenses) to play games, meaning that my friends could give me access to games they were no longer playing, and I could play them for free, so long as I wasn't on at the same time as them. Now while one might easily complain this is still a manufacturing of  an artificial scarcity ( *someone yelling "information, everywhere it is in chains!"*) the capacity to share actually brought me nostalgia to my old 1990s/early 2000s computer game days of mild piracy, where many of my friends would circulate copies of game titles that we liked amongst each other. There was a social element re-introduced into the virtual licensing, which I think is a very clever move by Steam, and not to sound too much like a corporate hack, I think this is why they don't get as much flak as Amazon Kindles or Netflix in regards to content controlling/dispensing services, they keep it playful and seemingly minimally legatious.

-Ben

The Waste Land App and Remediation

I felt quite inspired by our classes on e-books and particularly, the Waste Land App by Touchpress Limited. In my opinion, this app allows the poem to be experienced in an entirely innovative way. To summarize (or in case you weren't present) not only can one read the extensive notes simultaneously with the poem, they can actually watch video clips from expert critic interviews, or specially filmed dramatizations of the entire poem. A reader can also choose from 8 different voices (including Eliot’s) to recite the poem to them. Finally, there is the option to view digitized images of the original manuscript with hand written notes and changes made by Eliot. 

I will be looking at this app as a new medium of textual representation and applying Bolter and Grusin's theory of remediation. The concept of remediation is explained by the process of immediacy and hypermediacy. On the one hand, Immediacy is the ways in which the user forgets the medium in favor of the content or task, such as watching a movie that totally engrosses the person in the story telling that they ignore all editing and special effect processes. On the other hand, hypermediacy is the representation of multiple or concurrent mediums on a single digital plane. A couple of iconic examples are Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel that depicts stories from the bible and the Windows environment that allows the user to open multiple tabs and pages with differing content. Media is constantly absorbed and repurposed into a different media formats, however, there is a constant motivation to erase traces of mediation. For example, web pages are hypermediated with illustrious photos and video streams. While the media facilitates a relationship between the viewer and the meaningful content, the viewer actually does not want to associate with it, and instead wants to achieve total immediacy. 

 I want to argue that The Waste Land App is hypermediated source demanding immediacy (Bolter and Grusin). It is not easy to forget that one is encountering this version of The Waste Land on a digital platform such as a touch screen phone, iPad, or tablet through a download application. The constant tapping and swiping motions make the hypermediated reality of the medium difficult to neglect, nevertheless, the immediacy present within the app allows what McLuhan describes (in Medium is the Massage) as the medium transforming into extension of our human senses.

I will use McLuhan’s, The Medium is the Massage, alongside the original print version T.S. Eliot’s, The Waste Land and will uncover the ways these texts have become modern and progressive by engaging in remediation. Together, the digital texts will demonstrate how the concept of digital literature and the condition of authorship of digital texts have created a paradigm where digital texts have succeeded in replacing the print-narrative form. In the case of Eliot's The Waste Land, the digital re-imagination has created an advantageous way of both following, understanding and experiencing the poem. The essay will prove that this digital text do not support the argument that remediated literature destroys user experience by overwhelming the reader’s senses. Instead, the app offer a more fruitful experience because the content and historical context is entirely accessible and existing within one space (as compared to reading a print version and pausing to research a definition or translation, flipping to end notes, constantly glaring down at the mini foot notes, missing critical author intended long pauses). 

Take a look for yourself: http://thewasteland.touchpress.com/

Madiha Zahra