Whispering Ambient Intimacies

I Want To Be Famous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
According to Wikipedia-A celebrity is a widely-recognized or notable person who commands a high degree of public and media attention. The word stems from the Latin verb "celebrare" but one may not become a celebrity unless public and mass media interest is piqued.

With the rise of the internet a new breed of celebrity has arisen. Hammock of CNN writes,
"The Internet is setting a new standard for celebrity. Fame is no longer about getting "15 minutes"; it's about becoming famous to 15 people." With previous communication technologies, books, TV, newspapers, film, an editor - owner - creator - saw an opportunity in somebody - this little glimmer was quickly mass produced and sold to the masses. Fans faithfully ate their daily dinner of a dream life that they could not touch. The CNN article focuses on David Weinberger;

Before, fame was about scarcity, with only a few people reaching the status of celebrity. But Weinberger points out that the fame of the Internet is about abundance.

what we see now is a world full of users creating their own culture----instead of a bunch of lonely isolated people who have no place in the medium that defines their culture outside the clicker and the pocket book -(and the reality TV vagrants)-----

As a community, we help bestow it, and as individuals, any of us can achieve it, given the right circumstances. Weinberger said, "Fame is becoming ours; we are making it ours, as we are doing so much else in our culture. Fame now reflects us."

Microfame - Internet Celebrity - Micro-Celeb- Z-lebrity- Whatever you want to call it is a reflection of the difference between TV & Internet in terms of the medium. As McLuhan said the medium is the message - McKenna comments on this captured by YouTube - that people who dispute over the content of TV are missing the point - the TV as a medium effects us differently than a book, differently than the radio, etc. -
The internet is exciting in that it allows viewer to create themselves and their communities (click, create, blog, twitter, browse, igoogle, youtube, flickr) instead of sitting in the living room and having their identity and community sold to them through the boobtube.
Want to be famous? Rex Sorgatz outlines the hard road to being a micro-celeb in his NY Magazine article. Self-publish like Adam Bahner's (aka Tay Zonday) -"Chocolate Rain" YouTube hit that made the 25 year old polisci student a multi-millionaire.

"microfame is its own distinct species of celebrity, one in which both the subject and the "fans" participate directly in the celebrity's creation. Microfame extends beyond a creator's body of work to include a community that leaves comments, publishes reaction videos, sends e-mails, and builds Internet reputations with links."


**Tweet***Tweet**Heard of Twitter - The --hottest thing-- since sliced bread. Twitter is a service where members make small announcements that are updated instantly to all of their followers-

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter is not only satisfying INSTINCTIVE impulses (i.e. the selfishness of being famous, the greed of wanting instant results, the need to speak and be heard, the freedom and equality in being able to take part in a conversation no matter your economic or social status) but Twitter is making each and every person who uses the medium to feel IMPORTANT.



So as I am reading about MicroFame I decided to make a tumblr account - Seems like a sweet website, like the email in from your phone, and even call in to leave an audio message. Unfortunatly I can only follow one friend from my google contacts - I guess its not as hot as Twitter - even though I only had like 8 friends on Twitter. But my FB account is off the hook and I have over 800 'friends'.
Thus the problem with some of these other sites that lack the user network already developed on larger sites like Facebook. To the average non-famous twitter seems like another unessary addition to their web surfing- but its advantage is its asynchronous nature. This is great for celebs who have followers but dont want to follow their fans updates.
FB and Twitter are at war right now (kind of).

FB is introducing new interface changes to allow for more twitter like micro-blogs istead of the original status update - FB attempted to buy out Twitter for $500 million...Evan Williams, Twitter's founder is no twitwad and most likely he has some tweetable ideas up his sleeve -
Next advantage - instant communication - word of mouth/text/ideas/too much info @ speed of super Now. Social movements are using social networking sites to spread their message
technologies to communicate for instant gatherings and to spread info such as the New Zealand Internet Blackout.

Twitter is a pencil. Facebook, on the other hand, is Photoshop.
Battelle's pencil/photoshop metaphor is close to cute - but misses the point - Yes Facebook is prepackaged space in which users can share easily but Twitter is something else. Clive Thompson's sees its true value, @ a tool for reporting your real-time location to friends — is cumulative."

The power of Micro Fame has created a psychological feeling of presence on Twitter.

Clive Thompson's article in the New York Times describes this feeling as ambient intimacy. It is like ESP - Ambient Awareness is "very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye" - excessive amounts of information - ideas - words - tweets - micro-celeb wannabes - the speed of now is at the fingertips - I see it all coming quickly - searching faster - live time - and I feel close with those who are also sharing my idea - my tweet - my click right NoW- Users, (perhaps cluckers is a better term - because people are clicking not just using)

The term is catchy - and it brings the human back to the discussion which often lacks human terms - Network - Hyper-Connectivity - Post-Human Subjectivity
Leisa Reichelt prefers ambient intimacy because it combines, "the human ‘ickyness’ of ‘intimacy’ with the distributed and non-directional nature of ‘ambiance’."
Reichelt thinks Tweeter like communication is good for phatic expression, language for sharing social information not necessarily ideas or information. For Reichelt ambient intimacy is the village green of the global village - But she is missing something uncanny at work - Ambient intimacy is better thought of in terms of a pattern of movement than a spatial metaphor. As McLuhan later moved from global village to global theatre - Ambient Intimacy is the movement of the actor who channels the performance - who performs catharsis for their society - It is the drama on stage - and we are all acting in this play. But the intimacy is a relation - it is the feeling between actor and audience - that brings tears to both eyes - more accuratly it may be the actors process of giving up self - to channel the social - to give birth - to the character - that relates - but it is all caught up in the movements.
Kathersis/Catharsis was the aim of Greek tragedy - Brecht critiqued this in the early 19th century - arguing that such a view of drama that did not aim to make the audience get on stage - to think - but only to reaffirm themselves as who they already were (audience) members - only a theatre that moved beyond Aristotilian catharis where the audience gains something from the play. Brecht also disliked the temporal fixation - as if the actor's emotion was in one moment - one time - that stage - one person - Brecht streches Catharsis to only being complete when the audience integrates the emotions into themselves - a goal to be achieved by the use of what Brecht calls the Verfremdungseffekt: the Alienation or Estrangement effect.
Instead of drama Brecht calls for Epic Theatre - He attempts to make the audience see things in a new way through the V effect - where by the audience is not simply blindly emphathisizing with the actor but rather holds a certain distance - but still familiar (Kiralyfalvi 90).


Brecht's method of alienation was confrontational - the actor would refer to themself in the 2nd or 3rd person - saying he did this - she went there -

Similar to status updates or twitter updates :

What are you doing?

Cyborg Deva is Blogging.
The computer is a strange stage for performing the self -

Hmmm--A blogger describes her performances of her breakup online -

" learned this lesson the hard way. I blogged about my breakup that started in February 2007....Blogging was cathartic for me... If I had to blog, he wanted to know, why did I have to blog there and not where my friends were?...Then came Twitter, which, thanks to its ambient intimacy, made staying involved in my friend’s lives a lot easier. Even though we were, in some cases, separated by 2,100+ miles and three time zones, we still had this wonderful sense of connection...what’s expressed publicly and tagged with my name? That’s big. And brave. And Google-able. And cache-able. It’s a huge leap of faith in our friends, our acquaintances, and most of all, in whatever this is between us"

Brenda Laurel writes an interesting article by which she sees human-computer interaction as a theatre - the computer is a performance - what users (audiences care about) is according to her not the tools, graphics, but the feeling of being there - Being in the moment -

Back to the Blogger --------Blogging was a release of emotion - Aristotilian notion of catharasis perhaps - Twitter was not a space to release - not a stage - but a means of communication. A whisper that escapes the lips and takes on a pattern of its own - It is now - instead of there, before, his, hers, etc.

Ambient Intimacy - Deva's Thoughts

Reading Response - Clive Thompson on Ambient Intimacy

This article outlines Facebook's rise from an idea that Zuckerberg had - to what the article deems the de facto public commons:
"Facebook became the de facto public commons — the way students found out what everyone around them was like and what he or she was doing."
Noticing that Facebook required too much browsing to keep updated on friends status Zuckerberg introduced the news feed which at first caused panic. Users were afraid that Facebook would become the big brother of the internet - Zuckerberg was suprised and added a privacy function but suspected that quickly people would realize they liked the news feed feature. And he was correct - after the initial response people found that they enjoyed using the omnipresent info at their fingerprints.
They had felt
""ambient awareness." It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye."

The rise of online networking is a response to social isolation that Robert Putnam identifies in Bowling Alone. As we have become increasingly isolated with the rise of industrialism - post-industrialism - with nuclear familys and laptops etc. the individual begins to see themselves as seperate from their community ---
---"This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends' and family members' lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting."
At first sites like Twitter and Facebook seem to give an overwhelming amount of trivial information - but this information is actually connecting people. Unlike emails these small updates do not require 100% of your attention and thus you can pursue them - forming loose but important social networks. Knowing that your teacher or your 'friend' across the world is sick - you might extend yourself in a way that has became impossible without knowing this information.
Dunbar an anthropologist is famous for saying that 150 is the top number of contacts humans can have and still know who they are. But this number is increasing - sort of. The number of loose ties is increasing but your closest friends does not necessarily change. This helps people solve problems - I know this personally I needed to get to an appointment and my phone was dead as well as my car. I changed my facebook status to need a ride ASAP - within 30 seconds I was instant messaged by a former member of the debate team and given a ride to my appointment. These connections are making clear the potential of joining with social networks to get things done - while the most successful have always known this - it is becoming undeniable in the internet age. Everyone is only 6 clicks, 6 friends, 6 twitters away from you.
But not all is cheery - while increased loose networks can help solve problems it can also cause a loss of intimate relationships - due to 'parasocial' relationships. We become more involved in fictional TV Show characters or Celebrities than with people in our own lives. We get more tied into our weekly TV shows than our friends - but this is why the internet to me offers exciting possibilities that TV did not. TV was not interactive - it was harder to 'be the media' but now its all a click away - if we engage our creativity we can form networks of our own that encourage creativity and the causes we care about.
So it appears we are not entering an unknown world where we know everyone's business but instead returning to small town lifestyle - you cant hide anything - and that might not be so bad. We are going to have to start caring about people for who they truly are - who we all truly are. A little bad, A little good, A lot of human - The constant updating - CyborgDeva is tying her shoes, doing her homework, walking through a door way is what Thompson refers to as a highly philosophical questioning. I am reminded of practices taught in a book about the 1970's Shaman/Cultural Guru/Lucid Dreamer Carlos Castenada that said one practice to become awake in life - and in dreams was to write down what you thought every time you walked through a door way. This causes a sense of realizing what you are doing - not just walking through life on robotic autopilot but really wondering- what am I doing?
For all the cynics out there I strongly reccomend you read this article - it raised some important questions for me, and as the article implies - perhaps what we are realizing in the increased anonymity of the internet is not a loss of identity but a much stronger self-awareness.

History of Cyberculture Studies

David Silver outlines the history of cyberculture studies from its emergence in the early 1990's in his article "Introducing Cyberculture", the introduction to an excellent anthology of Critical Cyber Culture Studies. Silver divides the history of cyberculture studies into 3 categories - Popular Culture

Phase 1-Popular Culture

In the early 1990's the field emerged and Silver writes it is"marked by its journalistic origins and characterized by its descriptive nature, limited dualism and use of the Internet -as - frontier metaphor"(Silver)

Generally descriptive, including Time magazine covers and the like popular media took on the task of introducing the internet to the technological 'newbies' (pretty much everyone). In these beginning times two drastic worlds were painted for the imagination, with the internet as either the end of times, or the begininng of a new utopia. Silver points to Birkets (1994), Slae (1995) and Stoll (1995) as some of the key Internet dystopians of the 1990s literature. On the other side was Wired magazine's publisher Louis Rossetto and their executive editor Kevin Kelly, along side the tech magazine utopians was a host of politicians such as Al Gore.

The frontier metaphor is another defining characterisitic of the early days, William Gibson's (1984) Neuromancer is credited as the origin of this fronteir mentality in which, "a new frontier emerges, one whose currency rests less in geographic space and more in digital information".

Second Stage-Identity & Community

Silver characterizes the mid 1990's work: "cyberculture studies, focuses largely on virtual communities and online identities and benefits from an influx of academic scholars."


Julian Dibell's often cited work, "A Rape in Cyberspace; or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society" was featured in The Village Voice in 1993. The article talks about "Mr.Bungle" a member of LambdaMOO who used a program to control the online actions of other members. The virtual community banded together to eliminate the character, her article articulated the complex identities and communities that exist within the virtual.

Silver writes,

"while cyberspace may lack for the most part the physical geography found in say, a neighborhood, city, or country, it offers users very real opportunities for collective communities and individual identities. It is upon these twin pillars -- virtual communities and online identies -- that cyberculture studies rests."

Key to articulating the idea of the virtual community were cyber scholars Sandy Stone and Howard Rheingold. Silver places Rheingold's The Virtual Community as the first pillar of cyberculture studies, and Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet as the second. Both take an optimistic view on the internet articulating the internet as a space where through playing with multiple identities a more holistic sense of self is realized.

In the mid 1990's cyberculture due in large part to the work of Turkle and Rheingold, "cyberculture was often articulated as a site of empowerment, an online space reserved for construction, creativity, and community. Fortunately, however, this simplification was matched by the richness found in the nascent field's welcoming of interdisciplinary views."(Silver).

Sociology introduced interactionism and collective action dilemma theory, while anthropology began to explore the intersections of individuals society and networked computers. Cyber ethnographers entered users experiences in a variety of online areas. Linguists studied writing styles and feminist began to study gender within cyberspace.

Stage 3- Critical Cyber Culture Studies

The third phase cyberculture to include four areas of study-- online interactions, digital discourses, access and denial to the Internet, and an interface design of cyberspace -- and explores the intersections and interdependence between any and all four domains" (Silver) Beginning in the late 1990's the third generation of cyber scholarship emerged with a more complex perspective .

Silver point to the foundations of critical cyber-culture studies

*explores social, cultural, and economic interactions*

*unfolds and examines stories we tell about such interactions*

*analyzes wide range of social, cultural, political, and economic considerations which encourage, make possible, and/or thwart individual and group access to such interactions*

*assesses the deliberate, accidental, and alternative technological decision- and design - processes which, when implemented, form the network and its users*

In order to provide a context to the topics cyberculture scholars studies attempts to locate the ways in which the internet has been the internet has been constructed within culture in order to take a critical view of how we have come to define the field itself.

Other scholars have attempted to make new findings instead of rehashing the work of Rheingold and Turkle. These scholars look to the rules and etiquette created within virtual communities.

As Silver points out an important aspect that is underdeveloped is the brief yet rich history of virtual communities. In my own work with Second Life I have been amazed at the historical narrative described by Linden Labs and its community members as well as from journalists and scholars. SL has had its own rebellions, wars, political movements, and colonization.

---Discoursing Cyberspace---

"for some scholars (Borsook 1996; Sochack 1993; Ross 1991), cyberspace is not only a site for communication and community but also a generator of discourse…two disturbing discourses of cyberspace have emerged: the Net as frontier and cyberspace as boystown." (Silver)

These discourses reinforce gender norms that label women as weak and fragile and reinvoke the Individualist American myth.

--Getting Online--Access and Barriers

Few scholars have entered the study of marginality online, a necessary task! Issues of race, ethnicity, and sexuality do not disappear online but rather are key to the field. Silver points to the digital divide in which disparities of race, class, and region has continued to grow. Ethnocentrism also dominates the internet with English as the key language. Also newbie snobbery and exclusive language creates barriers to entering the net community. Male users tend to dominate the virtual but, female users have created their own spaces .

Silver points to the material questions of access but I am also interested in the way that a cyberculture literature review can be retold to include the work of marginalized people to highlight the ways in which people have navigated the web.

Within the next few years virtual learning environments are expected to take an increasing role in educational settings with one in five people expected to participate in a virtual environment (Prins, 2008; Traphagan, 2007) Yet the digital divide has not decreased. Critical pedagogy authors argue that the classroom should be a place that teaches students to question knowledge not merely reproduce it. In order to do so attention to students identity and cultural background are necessary as a step in engaging the power dynamics of the classroom.


I think our work is an examination of the performance of identity - or non identity within the net community of anonymous. A historical perspective is key. Performances of identity have always been key to education about identity and citizenship. National identity was dependent on these performances which negotiated contradictory identities, this required creating a unified ‘us’ that required an internal ‘them’ to identify against (Dickinson, Brian, & Aoki, 2006)
In order to increase the use of internet in the service of a pedagogy of the oppressed or a critical pedagogy, scholars must be connected with the technologies they use and understand the benefits and downfalls of them well enough to critique them. Instead of simply focusing on material access rhetorical educators must turn towards the technology itself and the ways that it is forming future democracies (Porter J. L., 1997; Ballif, 2001; Banks, 2006). As Banks writes, “Real access goes far deeper than the passive consumerism that drives almost all computer advertising and much technology policy - it is about the ability to use computers and the Internet as a means of production too” (p. 138).

Silver points to the importance of design or interface which, "can have a substantial impact upon the relative success of a site's intentions".


Silver cite's Nakamura's "Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Toruism and Racial Passing on the Internet" showing how race has been designed out of the internet. This essay has been influential in my desire to understand how race and gender are designed within my thesis work on Second Life, how are they designed within the interface. It seems a glaring piece of work is missing from our work on anonymity online, race. How is anonymous and its interfaces intersect with race? On the YouTube videos I have the face is masked, yet what is underneath that face and the only skin is white as I have noticed. If anyone sees any alternate videos please point them my way. Also how can an interface which tells the story of our work to either enforce limiting views of identity or empower everyone to access the internet.

Other Sources Cited from my research
Ballif, M. (2001). Seduction, Sophistry, and the Woman with the Rhetorical Figure.
Opitz, A. (2006). The Primitive Has Escaped Control: Narrating the Nation in The Heartsong of Charging elk Studies. American Indian Literatures , 98-106.
Porter, J. (1998)Rhetorical ethics and internetworked writing. Greenwich: Ablex.


Prins, W. C. (2008). Unintended Outcomes in Second Life: Intercultural Literacy and Cultural Identity in a Virtual World. Language & Intercultural Communication , 101-118.

Traphagan, T. (2007). Evaluation of a Pilot Use of Second Life in an English Course: 2006-2007. UTexasPublication "http://web3.cc.utexas.edu/academic/mec/publication/pdf/fulltext/SecondLife.pdf">http://web3.cc.utexas.edu/academic/mec/publication/pdf/fulltext/SecondLife.pdf
***Other articles all cited within Silver's article***If you are trying to piece together the history of the internet this article is a GREAT place to start creating a literature review - as well check out this website - remember when reading the Silver article to look to the people he cites, citations are like links - only a click away!

Responding To Readings

Hines view of a methodology for virtual ethnography spoke to me. The need for a flexible method that no longer dresses up the research process as a form of observation that then collects data interprets and clunks out an end product that will speak the truth of the culture. The same could apply to a host of other disciplines and ways that research is taught. While not arming oneself with a predetermined answer the recognition that in the end a paper is rarely a linear process by which one comes to a conclusion that is either worth reading - and that people do not end up having to alter their beginning after they have finished the project.
So anyways - connectivity and flows as a method which involves entering the virtual and focusing on the meanings one finds within it. Hines writes that an ethnographer will never be able to do all the internet, and I do not think we should try to do all the internet. Could a user generated interactive live ethnographic experience - with also a self reflexive aspect possibly extend throughout the interwebs further?

Ethnography as Hines quotes Clifford & Marcus's Writing Culture is a story telling institution. So - what about letting history write a new story?
*another note I had while reading* Hines talks about the virtual environment as not being a boundary or space that can be temporally closed off - along with the ethnographic project, or subject. What happens when history itself is also less theorized linearly? No longer is their an authentic hope of finding an exact event but rather multiple interpretations of any one event - and many internet foresight was seen in the eyes of science fiction. It becomes possible to create new historical narratives - or literature reviews - or family trees etc. that are not based on what the grandparents said. History reveals itself as strategic - as does writing - I really appreciated the way Hines explained her method as a strategy -
In relation to my project....
When I ask is Anon a Woman? I ask because it is 1-strategic place for me to start - I have read more feminist work than not - I am defined as a woman in my 1st life when I walk into a room - And I can gain insight from this place - Also my original thought was that if women have been super visible or on display and look to how some despite constraints within society at the time were able to write, speak, etc. and enter the historical conversation that we may find they had to seek anonymity. Where men had the space and time and guise of man as the norm to hide - their speech was not in excess but expected - But this is not really just women, artists, revolutionaries, academics, writers of all genders, sexualities, races, have had to find strategies in response to the constraints around them in order to create.
So if identity theoretically--as man/woman ---than what strategies makes the / into a bird that can fly? ^
I think part of the answer lies in the bird ^ and in the flock. Benkin's reading of the internet as a new tool that does not mean the end of communication and family but rather a new grid of networking is important. At a rapid pace the possibilities to connect with others becomes possible. But just because it is possible does not mean people will seek out ways to use this. Throughout history those who had the determination and creativity were able to create networks with others that helped give them the freedom to live a life as they wished. In terms of me I have been strategically learning history and discovering the Ada Lovelaces, Mary Shelleys, Lynn Herschman, Helene Cixous - and maybe a future avatar who is already born or about to be? these are some of my tracings has inspired me to enter the technological world and seek out those who I want to work with like all of you digital ethnographers! I never really considered studying technology until I saw the web 2.0 video. Things clicked - and slowly or at the speed of light I am entering the online world in both research and my personal and creative life. This weekend I started making a virtual story inspired by our emails and a personal website on a easy pre done flash website and now I need to learn its flashy language- and I will. It is all only a click or maybe a lot a lot of clicks away, so lets get the world clicking?

So as I see right now I am looking at the subjectivity of the pirates - women - rebels etc to understand how despite either end anonmie - hypervisible - someone does anything at all. I think it requires a mix of the personal the past and the future.

I read that Whitehead article and I have things to say but realize I probably have already exhausted the reader. That article is super interesting. More later.

Articles Read-
Virtual Ethnography by Christine Hine
Chapter Ten of the Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler

Hybrid Identity

Project Trailer 1st Draft

Anon Organizing Strats

Social Organizing Against Scientology

CyberFem Poem

cyberdiva has left.
cybrerdiva has arrived.
cyberdiva drops homi_bhabha
cyberdiva activates gayatri_chakravoty_spivak.
gayatri_chakravoty_spivak says, "LEt me ask you how do *you* see issues of identity?"
cyberdiva activates homi_bhabha
homi_bhabha says, "Gee thanks for waking me up! I must have dozed off..."
gayatri_chakravoty_spivak says, "[to cyberdiva] You are most welcome!"
homi_bhabha says, "[to cyberdiva] You are most welcome!"
cyberdiva scrutinizes homi_bhabha's key word list...
cyberdiva activates donna_haraway.
donna_haraway says, "I also remember the dreams and achievements of contingent freedoms, situated know ledges, and relief of suffering that are inextricable from this contaminated triple historical heritage. I Remain a child of the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and technoscience."
donna_haraway says, "[to cyberdiva] Challenging the material semiotic practices of technoscience is in the interests of a deeper, broader, and more open scientific literacy which we will call situated know ledges."
cyberdiva teaches donna_haraway a new word.
cyberdiva teaches gayatri_chakravorty_spivak a new word.
cyberdiva teaches homi_bhabha a new word.
cyberdiva scrutinizes homi_bhabha's key word list..
cyberdiva teaches homi_bhabha a new word.
cyberdiva teaches gayatri_chakravorty_spivak a new word.
cyberdiva teaches homi_bhabha a new word.
cyberdiva teaches donna_haraway a new word.
cyberdiva teaches homi_bhabha a new word.
cyberdiva says, "hi again!"
gayatri_chakravorty_spivak says,"[to cyberdiva] HEllo there! How's it going?"
donna_haraway says, "[to cyberdiva] Hello there! How's it going?"
homi_bhabha says, "[to cyberdiva] the subject matter at hand is..."
gayatri_chakravotry_spivak says, "[to cyberdiva] Subject position is something that we in fact cannot ourselves declare. IT is something that should keep us careful because a subject postion is assigned, and the word there is 'sign'; it is that which makes itself visible through our textual production sin language and action. IT is therefore given over to readers. There isn't *a* subejct position."
donna_haraway says, "[to cyberdiva] Whoever and wherever we are in the domains of technoscience, our practices should not be deaf to troubling interruptions. Interpellation is double-edged in its potent capacity to hail subjects into existence. Subjects in a discourse can do refigure its terms, contents, and reach. IN the end it those who mis/recognize themselves in discourse who thereby acquire power, and responsibility, to shape that discourse.

-Rhadika GAjjala and Annapurna Mamipudi p. 115-116 "Analoging" the digital, digitizing the analog: cxontemplations on communities of production and virtuality from Domain Errors Cyberfeminist Practices A subRosa Project 2002

Alternate Histories of Hypertext

"Wampum strings and belts served to engender further diplomatic relations, and their presentation was a gesture that required reciprocity on the part of the recipient. Consequently, accepting a gift of wampum meant that the recipient accepted its implied message and responsibility. Wampum records are maintained by regularly revisiting and re-"reading" them through community memory and performance, as wampum is a living rhetoric that communicates a mutual relationship between two or more parties, despite the failure of one of those parties to live up to that promise (which we know was the result of most wampum treaties with the colonists; see fig. 4). Thus wampum embodies memory, as it extends human memories of inherited knowledges via interconnected, nonlinear designs {81} with associative message storage and retrieval methods. And it is this complex rhetorical functioning that first engaged my thoughts on how Indians have always been hypertextual." (Wampum as Hypertext An American Indian Intellectual Tradition of Multimedia Theory and Practice ANGELA M. HAAS SAIL Ser.2 19.4)

Seduction of A Cyborg

-A film by Lynn Herschman investigating the relationship between technology and the body - 1994