MachineMachine /stream - imported from spacecollective.org http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com Traversing the Altermodern: Tate Britain’s 4th Triennial http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/4692/Traversing-the-Altermodern-Tate-Britains-4th-Triennial In one of the most uncanny revelations in science fiction, the protagonist of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine awakes from his anthropic slumber: the museum is filled with artefacts not from his past, but from his future. From here the very notion of history, of memorandum, retrospection and the artefact is called into question. The Time Traveller has become lost not in space, but in time, and nothing will ever be straightforward again.

Like the Time Traveller I too am a wanderer of ancient museums in unfathomable lands. From… ]]> Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:58:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/4692/Traversing-the-Altermodern-Tate-Britains-4th-Triennial The Total Library Project http://spacecollective.org/projects/The-Total-Library Books that redefine reality - or - How to redefine the book... ]]> Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:58:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/projects/The-Total-Library How Things Become: The Infinity of Definition http://spacecollective.org/obvious/2426/How-Things-Become-Part-I-The-Infinity-of-Definition The perceiver's position in an architectural, or merely physical space, determines the dimensional imperatives of that person's mental qualia. It is interesting to note that each viewer of a rainbow stands at the centre of their very own optical illusion; that light, once split into its component colours, streams - within the constraints of nature - upon a mathematically defined axis, of no more or less than 42° relative to each perceiver's location. There is no definitive rainbow, indeed no absolute dimension from which one could view a rainbow, a horizon or simply a piece of architectural design. ]]> Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:47:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/obvious/2426/How-Things-Become-Part-I-The-Infinity-of-Definition How Technology "Reveals" the World http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/4091/How-Technology-Reveals-the-World
“There was a time when it was not technology alone that bore the name techné... Once there was a time when the bringing-forth of the true into the beautiful was called techné. And the poïesis of the fine arts also was called techné.”

Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology (1954)

For Martin Heidegger the essence of technology is to be understood as distinct from technology itself. Etymologically the word technology stems from the Greek techné, "the name not only for the activities and… ]]> Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:19:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/4091/How-Technology-Reveals-the-World The Metaphor is the Message Part II: Palimpsests Palimpsests Palimpsests http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3786/The-Metaphor-is-the-Message-Part-II-PalimpsestsPalimpsestsPalimpsests
This slice in hyperspace follows on from these past posts:
  • How things 'become': The infinity of definition
  • The Archaeology of 'The Book'
  • hypertext/?="The Metaphor is the Message" (Part I)

    • ...and is a direct response to this post by Robokku:
  • Temporal Hypertext

    • Time is important in the definition of any model, hypertextual or otherwise. At the moment I am interested in how new technologies allow us new ways to see, to realise the world around us. This constant re-definition of our realities can actually add temporality to… ]]>     Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:57:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3786/The-Metaphor-is-the-Message-Part-II-PalimpsestsPalimpsestsPalimpsests     hypertext/?="The Metaphor is the Message" http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3735/hypertextThe-Metaphor-is-the-Message Readers: Do you think in hypertext?

    The era of the linear tome is dead, information is a web - who'd have thought it - a net of knots in time and space, a palimpsest with infinite, self-referential layers.

    I find that the model of hypertext has become the metaphor via which my thoughts, my research, finds form. I can't read one book at a time. Instead I skip between many, following an annotation in one, buying a bibiliographed reference, dipping into books by… ]]>     Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:22:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3735/hypertextThe-Metaphor-is-the-Message     History as Revolution: A Dialogue http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3659/History-as-Revolution-A-Dialogue

    "It is in the corners of human space that the remnants of future knowledge emerge. The lost trinkets of history, left in shadows, in corners become the resounding symbols of the past for future generations. This position varies widely of course, dependant on different kinds of archaeology, but the position in space of objects determines their social and cultural value. This value, once transmogrified through time and 3dimensional space (the strata of layers) becomes of a different significance. The digging out, the re-finding of objects lets the forgotten corner becomes… ]]> Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:10:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3659/History-as-Revolution-A-Dialogue The Archaeology of The Book http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3474/The-Archaeology-of-The-Book


    Before the printed book there was the book as relic, the book as idol to knowledge. Those who could read dictated to the masses who could not. Books were material conduits to hidden, immaterial territories, placed out of reach of the proletariat – atop the holy pulpit or concealed within the labyrinthine catacombs of the private library – books were of the other, were unreachable.

    For a long time the book’s inaccessibility is what granted it an authority. Instances from the stream of time were… ]]>     Mon, 17 Mar 2008 03:05:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3474/The-Archaeology-of-The-Book