From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Thu 05 Jun 2003 - 18:51:56 GMT
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
> > > Venues are external, and one's birthday can be remembered in
> > > countless different ones. If you are thinking of 'cultural venue'
> > > as what one has inside oone's head, that is cognitive and internal.
Kenneth,
> > That was not what I had in mind !
> > Venues are indeed external but than only the ones that we consider to
> > be cultural/ social/ political/.... Remerber what Wade said , that the
> > cultural venue not only retains the expectations of the performances,
> > but as well as the memories of both the performer and the observer.
> > Thus that the internal and the extenal are necessary, including thus
> > the cognitive and thus the internal.
Joe,
> External venues retain recognizeable traces of human activity insofar
> as such activity has altered the venues' physical form, but they do not
> store information in the sense that brains and books do.
>> This may turn out to be not the best of examples but here I go,
I think you 're right at least for the first part of your comment, but by
the second I wish to add,
In his article, 'Do Artifacts Have Politics,' Langdon Winner shows that
indeed they do.
Fly- overs built in NY on highways which lead up to the beaches
of Long Beach Island were very low. Their builder, Robert Moses
was known for his racistic attitude. The constructions were so low
that only cars could pass, and no busses.
That meant that only the ones who could affort a car could reach
the beach. And in the time of Moses, those people were white.
Those bridges carry thus a political statement.
In a sense, yes, information is stored within.
Latour Bruno, French philisopher and antropologist, claims things
posses a ' script ' he calls it.
A plastic coffee- cup from an automatic, has the script written all
over, ' throw me away ', meanwhile a mug is washed off.
And do compare an electric shaver and a Ladyshave.
The shaver can be opened and thus can be repared, a Ladyshave
is sealed tight, women can 't access the technology they use.
In so far, women are not only seen as techological imcompetent,
but the access to the inside is being denied.
And, this Wade, can interest you, by the scripts, a ' translation '
is being induced.
There are 2 ways, a/ invitation ( to perform certain handlings)
and b/ inhibition ( discouraging certain handlings)
An example is the GSM, the device induces an very intensive
contact between youngsters, because they can drop at any
time into their friends lives, invitation.
But at the same time people are not willing to make clear cut
apppointments, those are not very wild if you call one other
all the time, inhibition.
And yes, the venue can hold within information, a speed ramp
translates the handlingmode ' I have to speed because I am in
a hurry ' into ' I got to drive slow because I have to spare my
shock absorbers '.
Any venue, take a landscape is very different in its presence,
the information you perceive is quite different if you observe it
by passing it with a train, or by riding on bike or by taking a walk.
The landscape is the same, but the induced information, due
to the kind of performance you ' perform ' is different_ and
that info, I can 't imagine it is then already present inside your
head is being part (is stored within) of the venue.
You access it by the way you perceive it.
Regards,
Kenneth
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu 05 Jun 2003 - 18:56:22 GMT