Things & Thoughts

A video of the Cinnamon Challenge by youtube user glozell1.

A couple of days ago I saw the movie Gamer (2009) and the concept made me immediately think of the cyborg. In this movie convicts who are on death-row are giving the chance to survive. The only thing they have to do is to survive thirty sessions in a game environment as human avatars. Through nanite technology, the cells in the human brain are replaced by cells that can be externally controlled by gamers. In the movie, the convict Kable gets controlled by the teenager Simon. The human avatars have to kill each other and all their moves are dependent on the connection between them and the gamer. There’s this delay in the connection, call the ‘ping’. This is the time the information sent by the gamer has to be received by the avatar in order to perform the tasks the gamer initiated. This ping is the weak spot of the human avatar, making him vulnerable to his opponents. [SPOILER ALERT]: In the film the chance that Kable survives the last round, gets smaller because of this ping. Other people want him dead and that’s why he has to get freedom to function without any delay (and later because he can escape the game by himself). [/SPOILER ALERT]

I thought the concept of the film was really interesting. In class we were talking about cyborgs, but I think this is whole new kind of cyborg. I can also discover several concepts we discussed during the course DAC. Through nanotechnology humans can be controlled by humans. Here, the human as a medium gets used as extension of other humans (McLuhan). Related to this is also the feedback loop between gamer – technology - human avatar. There’s also the blurring boundary of physical reality and virtual reality: for the gamer, it’s just a game (with real human beings). For the human avatar, it’s ‘real life’. He can kill real people and they can’t be resurrected, because it’s all real. There’s also the possibility that he can die himself. It’s also about absent presence, because the gamer is virtually present through human avatar, but physically absent.

I think it’s very interesting, because the film is about freedom and free will. In the movie, death-row convicts can gain freedom, but only if they give up their freedom and their free will. It’s kind of a paradox. I also think the clash between what the human avatar thinks and what the gamer makes him do is interesting. When a human avatar sees someone he wants to rescue, he can’t because his body is controlled by the gamer. The fact that the human avatar can’t talk with his gamer makes it even worse. The human avatar doesn’t have a voice and has to obey someone else.

When technology makes humans able to control other human beings, technology went too far.

By Délisa

birgit-en-mirte:

Privacy and surveillance

When you walk in England. You’ll be filmed about 300 times a day. Almost on every corner is a security camera. Even in the Netherlands a person will be filmed everywhere, for example in public transport, nightclubs, shops and even in a hospital. Our safety has become more important than our privacy.

But where is the line between violation of privacy and the collection of information for our own safety?  This can be a problem when someone is filmed without noticing it, as in the video above. This video lasts 20 seconds and really nothing is happening. But it can still be regarded as a violation of someone’s privacy. In this case the privacy of our teachers and fellow students. They had no idea that someone was filming them and I didn’t ask permission to post this video on the internet. Now everyone who visits this blog or shares this post can watch this video.

            But the teachers were in front of the lecture hall and so they were aware of people watching them. This has an effect on their behavior. They know that they should act as teachers and should not dance or sing. But if this video would have been taken in their home, without their permission, it would be completely different. It changes from a coveillance (watching and being watched) to a sort of panopticum. The subject doesn’t know he is being watched so the filmer has the gaze (and so also the power).

This made me think of a Dutch television program that was broadcasted some months ago. They showed an emergency room in a hospital with patients which were between life and death. It was broadcasted without the permission of the patients or the family of the deceased. In most cases, the patients didn’t even know they were filmed at all. A lot of people were against this broadcast because of the violation of the privacy.

Many people are afraid to lose all their privacy. They were shocked that even a hospital wasn’t a safe place anymore. The filmmaker gets more and more power over a person, when he collects more and more knowledge.

Knowledge is power.

-Mirte van Rooijen-

I like that you have put the theory of surveillance into practice during class. It’s a good example that sometimes you don’t even know that you’re getting filmed and that a video can be easily uploaded to the internet where everyone can see you. If you didn’t post this on tumblr, the teachers would never know.

You’re stressing a very important point here: “where is the line between violation of privacy and the collection of information for our own safety?” I think this is a very complex question without a clear answer. If you want to collect information for our safety you always have to ‘violate’ privacy. For example, if a video surveillance camera is put into a school hall and people are just walking through the hall without nothing happening, you might say that these people’s privacy is violated. They don’t do anything but they still get filmed. Everyone can see that you’ve been through that hall and walking towards a classroom et cetera. But on the other hand, what if there’s someone walking through that hall and puts a bomb there, because there are a lot of classrooms connected to that hall and the explosion would lead to a lot of victims. In that case, you might say that his/her privacy wasn’t violated, but that it was good that he/she was getting filmed. Then it’s all about safety. I don’t think that afterwards, many people would say that this person should never have been filmed because of a violation of privacy.

There are always pros and cons. If nothing gets filmed, the chance of preventing something is smaller. But if everything gets filmed, we feel our privacy gets violated. I think that the answer to your question also depends on how people are going to use the information of the video surveillance camera. Is it just for safety, not accessible to a third party and does it get erased at the end of the week? Or is it accessible to a third party that can use the information for economic purposes? It also depends on the fact if people are keeping an eye on one certain person or that it’s just about the location getting filmed and the persons are individually not important, so it’s not necessarily about what people are doing there, but just about nothing bad happening there.
            I can’t answer you question and I think nobody can. There are still lots of discussions about privacy, for example that you have to leave your fingerprints when getting an ID.

I also have one question about something you said in this part:

“But if this video would have been taken in their home, without their permission, it would be completely different. It changes from a coveillance (watching and being watched) to a sort of panopticum. The subject doesn’t know he is being watched so the filmer has the gaze (and so also the power).”

I understand that there’s a coveillance going on in the classroom, but I don’t really understand why there’s a panopticum when they’re at home. Normally they wouldn’t get watched in their home so they don’t know that there’s a possibility of getting watched (panopticum). Therefore, they’re not disciplining themselves and there’s no gaze that has a real affect on them. Or do you mean that there’s a chance neighbours hear you sing in the shower/ see you doing stuff through the window and their possible gaze is disciplining them?

By Délisa