i'm thinking about the "body/machine/image complex" through the lens of
duration:
"between squirts of Windex she glimpses tv, but the dryer buzzes, the
machines call. They help to pace her, providing units of measurement."
Jordan Crandall - Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:27:00 -0400 (EDT)
departing from J. Crary's relational analysis of the camera obscura, i
would like to suggest that any contemporary inquiry into the negotiation of
subjectivity within increasingly mediated environments needs to carefully
examine how our experience of duration is extended and manipulated through
the various technological apparati we interface with and traverse daily.
duration points to that which continues from a beginning to an end. yet
how does this continuity become tranformed within environments of multiple,
simultaneous activities and events ("between squirts of Windex she glimpses
tv")? to a certain extent, i think we've internalized the skills to cope
with Simmel's hyper-fragmented urbanism when we encounter the proliferation
of 'picture-in-picture' televison screens in the suburban living room,
cellular telephones attending and distending dinner table conversation
within the space of a restaurant, and so forth. yet just what kind of
subject is articulated through this navigation between psychological states
of both divided attention and multiplied distraction? how are existing
structures of signification realigned through the (sometimes rapid)
alternation between these different states? it seems to me we're talking
not just of rhythm here but of polyrhythms. Patterns overlapping, sliding
in and out of phase with each other, interrupting... each of which has an
intinsic durational cycle.
the act of pacing seems to me to provide an opening for such an inquiry,
for 'pacing' suggests a durational structure that may be both imposed upon
us (the cycles of a washing machine/dryer) as well as imposed by us
(measured, calculated footsteps providing a heightened concentration); this
interplay between the passive and active dimensions of a subject's pacing
offers an alternative to both distopic scripts of a technologically
determined environment as well as utopic visions of a technolgically
empowered (and purportedly liberated) subject. what remains is a
negotiated field through which life transpires.
still, as we accept an increased pace of daily events, we find ourselves
faced with accepting either a decrease in the possible duration of any
given activity or an increase in the number of activities ocurring
simultaneously. to a certain degree, developing technologies have focused
on augmenting our ability to manage both options. yet to what degree do
both the events and activities available to us become prescribed by the
durational structures of the technologies developed to mediate this
condition?