BCM206

Civilisation of the Mind

Frank Tremain2 Comments

For this week’s topic, we explored the origins of cyberspace and the birth of the World Wide Web and the network society.

The remediation of this week is based on Cyberpunk 2077 meme. When the cyberpunk open world game was first announced, people began placing the title over questionable inventions.

The person pictured in my remediation, is Hugo Gernsback, who invented an early prototype of virtual reality with his “teleyeglasses”. Gernsback originally had the idea in 1936 but was forced to dismiss it as impractical until 1963 when he felt the electronics industry was catching up. As I’ve discussed in previous weeks, I’m always amazed at the different philosophers, writers and inventors from the 1900s who could ideate these communication technologies before they were even created.

Another interesting point from this week’s lecture was cyber liberty. As I stated on Twitter, I struggled to find anything on this idea relating to countries introducing online laws and the potentially banning of Tik-Tok. If you had anything regarding the topic, feel free to reach out on Twitter!

Frank Tremain.

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A Global Nervous System

Frank Tremain1 Comment

For this week’s topic, we examined the progression from the telegraph to cyber space and likened the world to the body, creating a global nervous system.

Made with Giphy: @ftre

The quote included in my remediation is from Nathaniel Hawthorne, who inspired the vision of a ‘global village‘ from Marshall McLuhan. While the global village describes the way in which we are interconnected as we enter into the electronic age, Hawthorne originally made a more personal parallel.

Unlike McLuhan, Hawthorne wasn’t a teacher or a philosopher, he was an author. This quote was delivered by Clifford, a character in his novel, The House of Seven Gables. While much of Hawthorne’s work has been criticised as being too ambiguous, McLuhan believed that they may have been intentional. The novel is regarded as a romance, but the ambiguity used reveals “the complexity of humanity and the dilemma man faces in achieving a unified view of existence.“

Frank Tremain.