Rajaati! hit the nail on the head as usual i see! :) i agree.. "the fact that cyberspace allows for the realisation of these hegemonic aspirations could lead to an interesting discussion" - it was exactly what i had attempted in my post... now i wonder if it came across clearly....?
However, am not sure if choosing to not have an avatar is resisting the hegemonic force
i mean.. you can always equate it to the voting process and sya choosing to not vote and voting for "nobody" is an active choice... but am not sure if thats a satisfactory argument for an avatar - an incarnation that depends on visuality....the counter argument would be that the absence would hint at the visuality.. but if all of us choose to not have an avatar? would undifferentiated absence challenge anything?
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Blogging back
When I put up the avatars ( I don’t know why I don’t want to call them ‘ my’ avatars) my intention was to hint at exactly what dear rajati kannan wrote about – the fact that one has absolute control over it! But frankly, even after creating two avatars, I don’t think I have succeeded in representing what I had set out to represent. The nagging question is -Why? Not simply because perfect representation is impossible….. but because, though I get to choose from 5 different hairstyles (to borrow Rajati Kannan’s phrase), I didn’t quite like any of them and had to settle down for that which was closest to what I had in mind. Aren’t five hairstyles too limited a number for an option that is supposedly ab/used by people world over? The application I used to create the avatar, called ‘ Zwinky’( first hit on the google search list) gave me just four options for the ‘body’ I wanted. I could choose from “hot girl” “ hot boy” “ cute girl” “cute boy”. The “hot” options showed “ perfect” bodies and the “cute” options were that of little girls and boys! Maybe I should have choosen another application that gives one more options! But the fact that there are only a certain number of body structures you can choose from (this is strictly for lay people like me who depend on first hits of the google search to create avatars) still remains moot, despite which, as Rajati Kannan says “the avatars are everywhere”!
All am trying to say is that the “avatars” capitalise on very stereotypical imaginations of the body, that are very much rooted in the ‘real’ world. I can choose to be whoever/whatever – a ‘hot boy’, ‘hot girl’, ‘cute boy’, ‘cute girl’. But that’s it. I cant be a rickety old man leaning on his cane for support! Maybe i can be...maybe i could have created an avatar with a different body structure, if i had chosen another application ... but it would all depend on what am ' looking for' in the cyberspace... if my priority is finding dates i wouldn't think twice about using the "hot" body!
Notice Manasi’s collage of avatars. Maybe the man in the last row, supporting a frilly frock does challenge the gender constructs of the ‘real’ world. But the fact remains that his/her ‘body’ is the perfect hourglass figure! ofcourse! It could well be a deliberate choice. But that still doesn’t defeat or challenge popular, stereotypical constructs of a desirable body of the ‘real’ world.
Which is why I would not go so far to say that in cyberspace, “new power structures are created". It merely has the potential to, as haraway would put it, make way for ‘effective progressive politics’. The question “how does the cyborg negotiate his* relationship with the digital avatar and the cyberspace” (*emphasis mine), is therefore quite a complicated one. One needs to look beyond the “gender codes”, the replication of the same etc.….. and more at the dynamics that underlie such codes, how they have, if at all, changed or not.…. It’s a question that demands detailed and systematic discussion, that is, I think, quite outside the scope of this blog. But those interested can visit http://identifycrisis.wordpress.com/.... The arguments are stimulating!
And…. “how do we resist hegemonic forces in the cyber-space?” – an important question! ‘knowledge’ – the immediate answer. To hack and access restricted sites is an unimaginable task for a person like me! But am sure its all in a days work for those IT pros!. But how then do we resist the hegemony of knowledge?? To that I have no answer.
All am trying to say is that the “avatars” capitalise on very stereotypical imaginations of the body, that are very much rooted in the ‘real’ world. I can choose to be whoever/whatever – a ‘hot boy’, ‘hot girl’, ‘cute boy’, ‘cute girl’. But that’s it. I cant be a rickety old man leaning on his cane for support! Maybe i can be...maybe i could have created an avatar with a different body structure, if i had chosen another application ... but it would all depend on what am ' looking for' in the cyberspace... if my priority is finding dates i wouldn't think twice about using the "hot" body!
Notice Manasi’s collage of avatars. Maybe the man in the last row, supporting a frilly frock does challenge the gender constructs of the ‘real’ world. But the fact remains that his/her ‘body’ is the perfect hourglass figure! ofcourse! It could well be a deliberate choice. But that still doesn’t defeat or challenge popular, stereotypical constructs of a desirable body of the ‘real’ world.
Which is why I would not go so far to say that in cyberspace, “new power structures are created". It merely has the potential to, as haraway would put it, make way for ‘effective progressive politics’. The question “how does the cyborg negotiate his* relationship with the digital avatar and the cyberspace” (*emphasis mine), is therefore quite a complicated one. One needs to look beyond the “gender codes”, the replication of the same etc.….. and more at the dynamics that underlie such codes, how they have, if at all, changed or not.…. It’s a question that demands detailed and systematic discussion, that is, I think, quite outside the scope of this blog. But those interested can visit http://identifycrisis.wordpress.com/.... The arguments are stimulating!
And…. “how do we resist hegemonic forces in the cyber-space?” – an important question! ‘knowledge’ – the immediate answer. To hack and access restricted sites is an unimaginable task for a person like me! But am sure its all in a days work for those IT pros!. But how then do we resist the hegemony of knowledge?? To that I have no answer.
Monday, October 26, 2009
In response to my co-blogger's 'avataars'
"There are many versions of the self. It's not a single unit any more, even in physical, tangible terms".
Image downloaded from http://www.gregorylittle.org/avatars/idmenu.jpg
Control~ the public and the private!
“The orbitalization of privacy through the erasure of machinic-organic boundaries, and the forging of an indissoluble connection between simulation and surveillance technologies. The cyborg and the clone as the paradoxical figures of the hyperization of privacy and its fantastic, absurd crash into nothing. The clone and the cyborg are the ultimate Others, inscrutable because they are perfectly known” (Bogard 145).
The above cartoon can be used to finally venture into the question of privacy for a cyborg? when everything that you are, or you claim to be, is on a system, that can be accessed/decoded both legally and illegally, what happens to the notion of privacy? what are the public and private spaces in the cyber-world? how are their forms and structures different from the spaces in the real world? Is faking every little detail about yourself an alternate way to ensure privacy?
Linked to the notion of public and private is the notion of surveillance. Is the cyborg always under scrutiny? We already know the various ways in which the state functions like a 'panopticon' and using the cyberspace is a common method of surveillance now. So how does one fight this and how do we resist hegemonic forces in the cyber-space?
responses and some more questions..
All the anonymous commentators and the non-anonymous ones,
thank you very much for your comments.
Some of the points from your comments that I would like to respond to are:
One of you said that the codes of cyberspace are pre-decided, almost like we have a drop down menu. I agree, but at the same time, I am just wondering if the virtuality of the cyberspace can promise a radical change in these codes before a change in the codes that operate in the real world? For instance are 'gender codes' more flexible for 'digital avataars' than the so called 'real people'?
Romit: I join your argument regarding the pornographic debates. But I think what the cartoon is also trying to communicate is that there maybe a possibility of the human mind getting so affected by the language and technology of the cyberspace that it is no longer the content but the very form of the cyber-world that affects human functioning and imaginations.
Perhaps now the question is, how does a creator/user of the cyberspace negotiate his relation with a)his or her digital avataar and b) with the space itself in which new power structures are created. How does one identify the use and abuse of power in this virtual space especially in its form and not its content?
thank you very much for your comments.
Some of the points from your comments that I would like to respond to are:
One of you said that the codes of cyberspace are pre-decided, almost like we have a drop down menu. I agree, but at the same time, I am just wondering if the virtuality of the cyberspace can promise a radical change in these codes before a change in the codes that operate in the real world? For instance are 'gender codes' more flexible for 'digital avataars' than the so called 'real people'?
Romit: I join your argument regarding the pornographic debates. But I think what the cartoon is also trying to communicate is that there maybe a possibility of the human mind getting so affected by the language and technology of the cyberspace that it is no longer the content but the very form of the cyber-world that affects human functioning and imaginations.
Perhaps now the question is, how does a creator/user of the cyberspace negotiate his relation with a)his or her digital avataar and b) with the space itself in which new power structures are created. How does one identify the use and abuse of power in this virtual space especially in its form and not its content?
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
responses
Dear anonymous commentators of my last two posts - Thank you!
Anonymous commentator of the post “untitled....”you have hit the nail on the head!! I agree completely that nomenclature becomes redundant if we make sure that virtual space is not derogatory. In the same vein, i would agree with manasi that a demasculisation of the space is necessary, but only that. not a feminisation, because the way i see it, if we can attempt a demasculinisation, we are already attempting to create a de-gendered space.
Anonymous commentator of the cartoon... you have drawn attention to precisely that which i wanted to flag.... the way we negotiate our relationships in the cyberspace are so entirely different! As manasi was pointing out, it offers us soooooooooo many possibilities! we can create new selves and live on! I would call that potential. I would rather not call it threat, because am not able to say exactly what it would threaten. To couch it in the language of threat would be to think about this medium also in the same vein all media, right from the print media, were thought of in their initial years.
It is all about how we negotiate ourselves – our identities and our relationships in the cyberspace... not about how the cyberspace manipulates us.. that is to attribute too little agency to ourselves.
Anonymous commentator of the post “untitled....”you have hit the nail on the head!! I agree completely that nomenclature becomes redundant if we make sure that virtual space is not derogatory. In the same vein, i would agree with manasi that a demasculisation of the space is necessary, but only that. not a feminisation, because the way i see it, if we can attempt a demasculinisation, we are already attempting to create a de-gendered space.
Anonymous commentator of the cartoon... you have drawn attention to precisely that which i wanted to flag.... the way we negotiate our relationships in the cyberspace are so entirely different! As manasi was pointing out, it offers us soooooooooo many possibilities! we can create new selves and live on! I would call that potential. I would rather not call it threat, because am not able to say exactly what it would threaten. To couch it in the language of threat would be to think about this medium also in the same vein all media, right from the print media, were thought of in their initial years.
It is all about how we negotiate ourselves – our identities and our relationships in the cyberspace... not about how the cyberspace manipulates us.. that is to attribute too little agency to ourselves.
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