technoculture314-09

Hello, I am two thirds through undergrad double major BA: FMTVS & Asian Studies and two threads are coming up in high relief: French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) and Cybernetics; the link being slight. Foucault’s corpus centres on, how does one elaborate a history of rationality? But for me, I find his jubilant, ludic, poly-vocal and hypermedia style very alluring. He didn’t want his work viewed as static absolutism rather, "to be a kind of tool-box which others can rummage through to find a tool which they can use however they wish in their own area… I don't write for an audience, I write for users, not readers”

Michel Foucault.

Last semester I completed my gen eds of Chemical Materials 100G and Psych 109G and was surprised to see how relevant they were for me and heartily endorse gen ed for anyone. Don’t be put off by subject specific terminology for example in Chemical Materials 100 G: crystalline-crystallizing-crystal-glass -glassy-amorphous ….! You will get used to it after a while. Mark Jones and Michelle Dickinson were a great lecturing combination as well. I also completed Japanese Pop Culture 249 and became interested in engines like: Nintendo, Sony, Sanrio, Konami and Bandai rather than movie content such as Miyazaki Hayao.

Key concepts for me are: Singularity between attributed neural plasticity, swarm/cloud computing, qualia emergence, Turing complexity, C³I Pentana, nanotech substrates and synaesthesia of phonological surfaces. Negotiated histories of collective consciousness habituate swarm system intelligence and catalyzing the velocity of the subject, illuminate cybernetic discourse (Lamont, 2009).