Qualms About Mountain Lion

Like millions of other people, I've become a Mac user and fan over the course of the last 5 years. From about 2007 - 2011, it seemed like Windows couldn't touch a thing Apple was doing with its operating system (I'll try to stay away from phones and tablets for the moment). Leopard seemed to be almost perfect when it was announced, and Snow Leopard built on that core functionality. Whoever was designing these systems seemed to know how to build a program that got things done without a bunch of fancy crap that complicated the experience. But starting with OS X Lion last summer, the focus has seemed more on redirecting consumer spending back towards Apple than on improving the user experience.

Lion launched in the summer of 2011 with new features like Mission Control, the Mac App Store, Launchpad and inverted scrolling. All of them mimic or borrow from iOS software that was designed to function effectively with limited controls, small screens and direct hand gestures. And none of them really have a place in a desktop operating system. Writing for Gizmodo last summer, Jesus Diaz put it better than I can: "The OS X team has produced an incongruent user interface pastiche that won't satisfy the consumers seeking simplicity nor the professional users in search of OCD control." In the same editorial, Diaz's contends that Apple had gone askew by "attempting to appeal to everyone." With the announcement of Mountain Lion yesterday, I'm thinking that Apple isn't trying to appeal to anyone, but to create the type of simplified, restricted environment on Macs that already exists on iPhones and iPads.

The new "features" highlighted as part of Mountain Lion include Messages, a supercharged chat program, Notification Center, exactly what it sounds like translated directly from the iPhone, iCloud integration, Notes (this is a new feature?), Game Center, the most annoying of the forced apps in iOS, Twitter integration, and Gatekeeper, a program that forces you to buy all of your software from Apple provides upgraded security. Combined with the updates in Moutain Lion, OS X (the "Mac" moniker has been dropped) is now a powerful operating system with a ton of decorative iOS crap all over it. I'm sure a lot of this stuff is useful to some people, but in general, I'm not enticed. Where is the sleek, natural-feeling control, the machine that will do what it's told with smooth user control? If I wanted an idiot-proof Christmas tree of a system, I'd use AOL or surf the internet on a Wii. 

And AOL is the apt comparison here. A few weeks ago, Adam Pash artfully decried the attempts of Facebook and Google to be what AOL once was: the be-all end-all of the internet, closed architectures whose design is meant to keep you within their system and only their system. As they've grown up, the services offered by Google and Facebook have only gotten bloated and creepy in a corporate-totalitarian sort of way. And the same thing seems to be happening to OS X.

Gatekeeper is perhaps the most telling feature of the new OS. By default, any program that you attempt to install that has not emanated from the Mac App Store or been registered by the developer with Apple is labeled as dangerous. A window pops up warning the user and suggesting that the offending program be deleted. These settings can be changed to become more flexible, but for many users, all software not approved by Apple will now be considered off limits. Gatekeeper is being touted as a security feature, one that coincidentally happens to direct users to Apple's own software (or software it profits off of). The direction this is going isn't hard to see: a computer architecture in which all software must go through the actual gatekeeper: the App store. And with every other feature seemingly designed to integrate iOS and OS X, Apple is moving towards full integration of all aspects of tech life into its own software and hardware, with all of the money going one way. Apple doesn't yet have the market power to do this, but it seems to be what they're gunnin' for. They are following the path that made Windows a progressively shittier product for a good 10 years: focusing on monetary domination more than user experience.

I'm also not writing to harp on Apple in particular. In "old media" as well as new, and across brands and products, this type of control is becoming more and more common. What worries me as much as the devolution of Mac OS X is the degree to which the internet and computer experience are slowly congealing around several huge companies, all of them working to make their products worse through a focus on control and commerce. We have a Google search enginge that redirects you to its own products, a Mac that tells you non-Apple software is dangerous, a phone that tracks everything you do on it, a social networking site which slowly removes its own privacy controls and sells your information all over the internet. I'm not saying that using Google, Facebook, a Macbook or an iPhone is currently going to stomp your freedom in some horrible way or that any of them are horrible products you shouldn't use (I use all of them); it's because I thought they were all so fantastic for a few years that it bums me out so much that they've all gone in the direction of gimmicks and control. I'm saying that as these things progress, there's a creeping feeling in my mind that all is not right, that the democratic aspects of the internet and the "tech revolution" are being increasingly rolled back by traffic directed to a few sources. Just as 90% of the media is the United States is owned by 6 companies, I guess the internet, and the programs we use to access it, are now the spaces being colonized.

In the Realm of Greatness: Notes on Norwegian Wood

Last night I went for a second time to see Norwegian Wood, a fever dream of a love story, written and directed by Vietnamese/French film maker Tran Anh Hung and adapted from Haruki Murakami's 1987 novel of the same name. It follows Watanabe, a college student living in Tokyo in 1967. He has moved there after the suicide of his best friend, Kizuki. In Tokyo, he runs into Kizuki's old girlfriend-since-the-age-of-three, Naoko. Things get a bit crazy after their relationship develops and she takes a turn for the worse psychologically. Also in the picture are Midori, a cute, enigmatic fellow student with a crush on Watanabe, Nagasawa, a suave womanizer and friend of Watanabe, and Hatsumi, Nagasawa's mistreated girlfriend.

I don't want to do a review of the film; my opinion isn't clear enough for me to make a judgment or evaluation yet; even after two viewings, I feel ambivalent about the film, unsure exactly what to make of it. It's certainly gorgeous, easily one of the most visually stunning films of the year, but I couldn't quite penetrate it. Perhaps it's the foreigness of the culture, both in time and geography, or maybe it's that it's an adaptation, not only of a fairly long novel, but of a Murakami novel- which often means quiet, tricky characters and dark mystery. A tough project for any film maker. Or maybe the film is just puzzling and enigmatic, to its credit or from lacking some greater vision. Regardless, I've compiled my thoughts and questions in the notes below, hoping that writing about them will illuminate some issues in the film.

1. I said it above, but, Holy Lord is this movie beautiful. Certain scenes, such as the one in which Watanabe is caught between two groups of student protesters running through a corridor, are so well constructed and well shot that they give me the chills. Cinematographer Ping Bin Lee does a beautiful job. I'm eager to take a look at his or at director Tran Anh Hung's other films...or whatever either one has coming in the future.

2. Speaking of those protesters, though, what the hell ever happened to them? There are 3 scenes involving student protests at the beginning of the film (all of them wonderful) and then...nothing. I wonder if they play a larger role in the novel or what, but there was a whole other dimension here that was teased and then...poof. Nothing.

3. This leads to one of the central issues I have with the movie- there are so many intruiging elements to the way it's filmed- the beautiful protests, the endlessly lingering, Terrence Malick-esque shots of nature, the long, uncomfortable sex scenes, the opium-den apartments that every character seems to live in- all of this wonderful stuff, but much of it never really seems to play into the plot in a more meaningful way. I was so adoring of the film the first time I saw it, especially for the first half, because there is so much potential here, but the only thing the film seems to care about are the particular relationships between the characters. Perhaps that's the point, that all of the world is opaque and unimportant in the face of this love, or at least this imagined version of love, but...well, maybe I just wanted a different film than the one actually on offer.

4. On the other hand, one of my favorite things about it is the way it unfolds slowly like some sort of fantastical dream. Nothing other-worldly happens, and yet, the mood of dark enchantment, of power and emotion, is present in every second of the film. It's slow-paced as all hell, and yet, EVERYTHING IS INTENSE. As Naoko and Watanabe walk through the park, the leaves shiver and, if you're in the right mood, so do you. Perhaps the atmosphere of the film is meant solely as an expression of their desires and emotional states, but none of the characters command enough sympathy to roll with them the entire film, and so such skillful construction of mood seems a bit wasted.

5. Adding to the visual element here is the music. Damn! What a job, Johnny Greenwood (of Radiohead and There Will Be Blood fame). Half of the move is accompanied by period songs that are employed effectively and at times, are even meta-textually wound into the plot (on several occasions the music stops abruptly, as if controlled by the characters' actions). The other half is soaring violins and orchestral peices that slowly move into warped, demented Kubrick/Walter Carlos territory along with the direction (Watanabe's greiving scene is straight out of The Shining). Even the sound editing is wonderful. The woods, the city, the scenes that are strangely silent. Like above, really a dream of a film they put together.

6. Why does EVERYONE want to have sex with Watanabe? Every fucking female in the film wants him bad and wants to talk, constantly, about how much sex they want to have with him. This struck me as a bit mysogonistic and male fantasy-esque. Kind of killed some of the vibe.

7. The character development is truly stunning here. Their paths in the film are not a straight trajectories. Apropos for a bunch of 19-20 year olds, and strangely lacking from many films about this age group, is the degree to which all of them are genuinely confused. Characters frequently contradict themselves and seem to switch off between different types of emotions for each other, without necessarily being aware that they are doing so, and without making it so obvious to the audience. Their paths are wandering. Just as conversations are often set while walking and pacing and shaking in torrents of emotion, so too are the paths of the characters semi-dialectical and wandering.

8. The moving is very Wuthering Heights. Think Catherine and Heathcliffe crying and moaning on the moors. There is a lot of crying, some screaming to the heavens, a lot of emotional torment set amidst wild scenes of harsh nature.

9. At the same time as the characters develop fluidly and in unsettled ways, there is an air of fate about the film, reinforced by the repeated violin track that plays over dramatic scenes as well as the way that the characters discuss their lives in such absolute terms: love, responsibility, forever. Of course, part of this is the intensity of nineteen-year-old love. But part, I think, is the direction. The film, through some of the visual and musical aspects mentioned above, has the feeling of a dark fantasy playing out, as if these young lovers are Shakespearean mind-giants. Several 19th century European works come to mind most heavily- of course Wuthering Heights, but there's also a lot of Madame Bovary and Great Expectations going on here. We're certainly in the land of high fiction. But perhaps that is the fiction in which the characters are living and we are mere guests on their emotional journey.

10. Oh, the travails of adapting a book. In some ways, it works for this film. You can't include everything from a 400 page novel in a two hour movie, and so some of the clarity is gone. Sometimes, this adds to the mysterious logic that plays with your mind. It works some of the time. Events happen with ambigious cause and effect- to us and to the characters. One short scene opens with Watanabe in a record store, his hand covered in blood. Store patrons stare at him aghast. He stares down at his hand, as shocked as they are. The manager runs up with paper towells to cover his hand. The scene ends. What the fuck just happened? But it works. Events unexplained can work. And doesn't this happen in real life anyway, and especially when there is intense love and longing? Maybe not bloody hands, but there is certainly more  feeling than there is understanding, more confusion about events and actions, even your own. This is rarely so well represented as in the dream-logic of this film. On the other hand, the mystery detracts from the film's overall impact. I left the second screening with little to think about but atmosphere and vibe. For a film that presents so many enigmas, that seems to push you to unwrap its meaning, there didn't seem to be a whole lot to unwrap. Some vague statement about living life to the fullest, perhaps? But still, no one ever seemed to enjoy life very much in this story. By the end, the film felt both too long and too short. It could've used another three hours and it also could've cut about 40 minutes. A shorter cut may have been more effective in slow-building the emotional landscape without becoming cumbersome, or a longer cut could have really given us a fuller sense of the world of these characters and some more of the substance of their thoughts.

11. In the end, I'm left agreeing with the quote on the film's poster: this movie seems to be "in the realm of greatness." But I'm not quite sure it ever makes it all the way there.

Notes from The Ghibli Retrospective Part 1: Ocean Waves

Studio Ghibli's Ocean Waves (1993)

Set in a small town outside of Kyoto(I think, it was hard to keep up with the Japanese geography, which features heavily in the film's plot), Tomomi Mochizuki's Ocean Waves ("Umi ga kikoeru")  follows the developing relationship between two high school friends, Taku and Yatuka, and a mischevious and beautiful newcomer from Toyko, Rikako. Their story is set at a private high school in a small seaside town. The rhythm of adolescent life there really comes alive in the film: the slowness, the cloistered feeling, the closeness and at-times oppressiveness of going to a small school in a small town. All of these feelings are encased by the narrative device of Taku's reminiscing. The film begins and ends with him heading home for a high school reunion one year after leaving for college. This bookending serves well as an means to enhance the springtime-of-youth vibe that Waves seems to go for.

Saeko Himuro's story manages to avoid cliches or the tendancy of teen stories (at least western ones) to devolve into unrealistic adventures. Because we care about the characters, there is no need to send them to the moon or to have them crash a car. Fitting for a movie about high school, small events becomes big ones in the lives of the young protaganists. Although there is some action, the story doesn't really go anywhere. An illicit trip to Tokyo between Taku and Rikako doesn't result in sex or even a little smooching- just Taku sleeping in the bathtub of the hotel and Rikako having a rum and Coke. The films unfolds more through the characters and their relationships with each other than through external events, which figure here mostly to allow the teenagers to learn more about each other.

The retrospective at IFC was my first chance to see Ocean Waves and I was pleasently surprised. Some of the lesser-known Ghibli films, The Cat Returns for example, can seem childish and derivative, overdoing the melodrama that all of the studio's films contain on some level. Ocean Waves mostly avoids this trap through underplayed action, slow pacing, and a character-driven script. On first viewing, I enjoyed it more than the more promoted, more popular, Miyazaki-directed Ponyo. If you get a chance to see it (and I didn't in the 18 years since it's release), it's definitely worth a look.

*image from omohide.com

Slacker Utopia

Richard Linklater's Slacker (1991)

It's Christmas day and I'm home for the weekend from New York. I think for most people, there's an air of emotion and nostalgia to coming home, seeing your old friends, getting away from your usual life. For me, it sets a reflective tone and by the second or third day here, I find myself engaging in more creative, inspired, maybe even spiritual ways of thinking.

Anyway, I was getting a cup of coffee at 7-11, the only store that seemed to be open. Christmas, like any holiday, bestows a certain feeling of calm to the streets. People move slower. There's less of them out. It's one of the rare times that there is quiet in a public space. Any conversation, whether with a store clerk or a person you know, can take on an intimate quality, even if the content of the conversation is casual or trivial.

So, as I was walking out of 7-11, there was a guy standing by the trashcan, maybe 35, balding but with long hair, in a sweatshirt and jeans, a giant pair of headphones around his neck. He was opening up sugar packets and putting them into a coffee. He looked a bit crazy, and as I walked by, he shouted out "Hey there!" with a big smile and an expectant look on his face. I responded back in kind and picked up the pace of my walk, a bit leery of a conversation with someone who seemed odd. I've had too many random, confrontational, or scary interactions in New York not to be timid about the chatterings of strangers.

I walked on and down the street, then doubled-back to go a different direction. I was wandering a bit, and as I crossed the parking lot diagonally he walked past me about 5 yards away. The way we moved reminded a bit of the camera movement in Slacker, Richard Linklater's 1991 experimental film in which the camera follows from person to person as dozens of characters conversations between friends and strangers flow with little to no tension. People pour out monologues and delve into intellectual topics with the same ease that they would discuss the weather.

And in thinking about Slacker, which admittedly, has been on my mind a lot lately, I realized that I had just had a bit of a Slacker moment. But a real Slacker moment, not a filmic one. An impoverished interaction, laden with hesitation, fear of the unknown, and a host of invisible social boundaries. There was no monologue. There was no intellect. There was only "Hello" and an unsaid goodbye. In the film, we would have walked for several blocks, with the man rambling on about some intriguing conspiracy theory. In reality we parted immediately.

And it got me to thinking more on just how utopian the film really is. It envisions a world in which the inner yearnings of our consciousness are expressible at almost any time and to any person, in which our isolation from each other is almost non-existent.

I picture myself waking early on a Sunday morning at age 19, brimming with excitement over some line of poetry or song lyric, bursting with thoughts and musings too broad to be articulated, and waiting for someone who I felt close enough to that they might understand to wake up so that I could at least attempt some expression. But even when they did wake up, and even when we try to express those inspired inner ramblings, a host of other walls are erected, immediately and invisibly, always already keeping us from communication. To exchange a greeting (which rarely happens in Slacker), to ask how someone is doing, what they've been up to, to engage in established social practices, is to move from an inner, personal world, into a social world that is always the same- at least at first. And in this movement, we are cut off from a communication so direct, so dream-like.

In that sense, Linklater's film, along with its companion, Waking Life, seem to present a sort of dream communication, a world, whether realist or fantastical, in which the words flow freely, in which the poesy of our thoughts is able to be articulated with immediacy.

***

I'm going to be writing my thesis on the idea of utopia in Richard Linklater's films this spring. I'll be using this blog as a platform to jumpstart  and explore my thinking on his movies and subjects related to them.

Studio Ghibli Retrospective In New York

For anyone with an interest, passion, or obsession with Studio Ghibli, GKids is holding a retrospective at the Independent Film Center in New York Dec 16 - Jan 12. Whether you've seen these films before or not, if you're in the area and have a chance, getting to check out some of the most visually impressive and thematically deep animated films of all time in 35mm on a big screen will surely be an excellent experience. Personally, the only Ghibli film I've seen on anything larger than a modest living room TV is Howl's Moving Castle. In addition to films that are easy to come by in the states on DVD, there will be screenings of Only Yesterday and The Ocean Waves. The full title list hasn't been announced, but I'm also keeping my fingers crossed for an advance screening of the upcoming The Secret World of Arrietty, set to be released Feb 17 by Disney in the US. To sweeten the deal even more, there will be both Japanese and English screenings. No word yet as to whether this will be for ALL films or only select screenings. Overall, this is great news to help tide over NYC-based Ghibli fans until the release of Ni No Kuni sometime in 2012.

If you're new to Ghibli, my recommendations are as follows:

1. Princess Mononoke

A fantastic piece of eco-criticism with unusually complex and morally ambiguous characters set during a fictional iron-age. IMO the best animated film ever.

2. My Neighbor Totoro

This one is really a classic. Totoro tells the story of two young girls move to the countryside with their father after their mother falls ill, only to discover that there is a wondrous world hidden there. Story isn't really the right word here. This film is more about experiencing a place and a mindset than it is plot-driven. Truly magical.

3. Grave of the Fireflies

Directed by Isao Takahata, Grave takes a more serious tone than most of Miyazaki's films. Set in WWII-era Japan, this tearjerking, heartstring-tugging film follows a boy and his young sister during and after an allied bombing campaign.

4. Porco Rosso

This one doesn't get as much attention, but it's one of my favorites. It's Miyazaki doing his best take on Hemingway, with some magical realism and fighter planes thrown in for good measure.

5. Spirited Away

By now, every one and their mother has seen or heard about this visual stunner. Still the only foreign film to win the Oscar for Best Animated Film.  If you haven't seen it, go do it. 

I Don't Know What Video Games Are

A few weeks ago I wrote about how the most common media to compare video games to was  film. At the time it seemed a bit strange to me that the easiest comparison was films and not other types of games, as one might expect given the title "video games." That games don't readily come to mind when talking about video games, to me refects a confusion about what the medium actually is. personally, architecture always seemed a fitting comparison. I can imagine looking with awe at a work of beautiful architecture from a distance. I can also image exploring it, walking through it, interacting with it, as I would with something like Mario 64. And as I think more and more about the question of what games are, I’m inclined to the position that most video games are not in fact games, but a new type of media entirely that contains aspects of games within it.


What do we know about video games though? We know what they are not. We know video games are not films...or books or plays for that matter. And for a moment, I’d like to assume they aren’t games either. So what are they? In the article linked above, Most computer games aren't games at all... Mike Jones examines the nature of games, comparing various definitions of "game" to four popular video games (Tetris, Bioshock, WoW and The Sims), ultimately concluding that, of the four, only Tetris truly constitutes a game. In looking for the proper term, Jones suggests a fragmenting of our concept of video games, implying that there is no one category for all of them to fit under. In doing so, he suggests the terms puzzle, simulation, interactive story and virtual world, before eventually using the term “screen-based media entertainment and art,” a few times to refer to our broader cultural category for video games. This term seems overly broad though, applying to television shows, films, the Wii news feed, and any number of the diverse forms of entertainment that now inhabit our screens. It also applies to many games in the strict sense of the word like Solitaire or Snake. But I don’t think Jones sees it as a true definition either.  


Like Jones, I don’t endeavor to provide a successful definition of video games in this post. As Rick Altman writes in Silent Film Sound, "New technologies are always born nameless. Assimilated to multiple possible models, new technologies always begin life with multiple monikers rather than a single stable name." Maybe, as video games become widely accepted enough to demand more attention and increased variety, we will get to the point where multiple names become more appropriate than a singular name. And so I’m not going to try to re-name “video games,” but only to add some thoughts to help better understand what they are. I believe the concept of “crisis historiography” will be helpful here. First developed by Altman in a work that focuses mainly on the development of the cinema in relation to a host of other mediums- radio, vaudeville, photography, theater and others, crisis historiography provides a helpful twentieth century paralell to our twenty-first century dilemma. 


Altman uses cinema as his main example, but broadens his scope to highlight the ways that we conceptualize and define all new technologies and the resultant art that comes out of them. He argues that all representational technologies are socially and historically contingent. Moreover, they are defined specifically in relation to previously dominant modes of representation. For our purposes in looking at video games, literature, film, theatre and painting are the culprits. He writes,

Successful representation has always depended on the ability of new media to disguise themselves as old media, to meet the requirements established in existing media. Because new representational modes are perceived and appraised according to in-depth training received in the school of previous modes, proper understanding of representational technologies must always start with analysis of one medium’s attempt to do the job of another. (17)

In highlighting the ways in which we, perhaps by necessity, use standards established by previous media to explore the newer mediums, Altman defines nearly to a tee our current discussions about games. Consider the following quotes from Roger Ebert, G. Christopher Williams and myself:

– Ebert, “Video Games Can Never Be Art”

No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets. 

We appreciate the design of the narrative circumstances in Hamlet because we are not involved in any way in the action…It’s a bit more difficult to make such an argument about the player’s experience in Catherine…
– G. Christopher Williams, "Why Video Games Might Never Be Art" 

When my game experience felt so much like my literary one, and not at all like my experience with the film, it brought to mind the overlaps between games, films and movies. 
–Myself, "Final Fantasty VI For the First Time: Why (Some) Video Games Might Be More Like Novels Than Films"

In each quote, we see the inability to escape from notions about how art and artistic mediums do and should function...notions that are based on our experience with previous forms. There are established standards that develop in large part from the previous media available to us and from the previous thinking about art through these media. And by assimilating our new experiences with newer media to our old standards from old media, we are able to make sense of what is undefined and novel. But are we accurate? And if we are not accurate, what elements of meaning, representation, truth, exploration and understanding do we miss out on by applying standards for what constitutes good theater or literature to a video game or internet video?

Given the blossoming nature of the medium in discussion, it seems like a safe bet to say that we don’t totally understand video games. Bur do we even understand the old standards and values that we use to evaluate art? If, like Altman argues, our understanding of media and art is socially constructed, then how can the theories and artistic standards that surround these artistic texts not be socially and historically contingent as well? Writing about the changing attitudes towards Shakespeare in America over several centuries, Scott Juster touches on this issue in an eloquent peice arguing that definitions of art are inherently mutable:

Herein lies the most insidious aspect of our historically-relative cultural hierarchy: we are compelled to position specific games and the entire medium along some theoretical, fallacious grand chain of artistic merit.  The chain is powerful and restrictive.  It brings order to a chaotic world by telling us what pieces of art are higher than others.  The chain feels like it has existed forever and is immutable, but we know that this is not true.  As is demonstrated by Shakespeare’s history in America, the boundary between mass entertainment and high art is composed of little more than social beliefs.

In our discussions of the validity of video games, we use definitions and terms as if they are settled and absolute, occasionally paying lip service to their ultimate subjectivity without really believing those disclaimers. However, the limitations of our own experience prevent us from knowing either the nature of art or of video games themselves. From Plato to Nietzsche to Barthes, there are innumerable theorists to back up whatever position we want to take about art as we attempt to define constructed and abstract concepts in ways that suit us. But the question is never settled. Both the mediums and the standards are in constant flux. And it seems at this point, we don't even have settled terms to discuss either.

Image via Girl Gamer UK

The iPhone 5 is the Message

The announcement of the iPhone 5, or 4s or 4G, or whatever it's called, will occur in about 3 hours. With the pending revelation of the object that has inspired such hysteria and obsession from around the blogosphere and popular news media, I thought it apropos to reflect on how much the medium has truly become the message today. While I don't expect anything grand from this latest iteration- a better camera, quicker loading times, maybe some voice integration- I, along with a shitload of other people, have been thinking about how the iPhone has ushered in a new era of wiring our brains to communication technologies. I had an IPhone for about two years, but even without one, I've retained the habit of constantly looking down to my phone, checking my email ten times a day instead of one or two, of expecting to know the name of any catchy song I hear in an instant. When it is constantly accessible, information takes on the quality of a drug, altering the way we interact with the world around us. I don't believe this is limited to phones either. Steven Totilo, writing on Kotaku about the Wii U, reflects not only on the influence of technology on our lives, but how our lives and relations have changed to such a degree as to demand adaptations from future technoligies that wish to appeal to our new techno-social structure:

For all its faults, Nintendo is probably making the right gaming console for our times. Who sits on a couch with other people in order to all focus on the same thing anymore? Do people really gather to watch a TV show together or have dinner? Think about it. Is their attention undivided and on the same thing? Of course not. At least one person is checking their iPhone, logging onto Facebook, reading a text or sending an e-mail. The globally rich society that plays video games is the same globally rich society that in the year 2011 always already has a private screen in the palm of their hands. (emphasis mine)

Subtly drawing on Louis Althusser's "always already" concept, the gist of which is that all of us are subjects of our society's ideologies before we can really consciously think about whether we are or not, Totilo adds a new technological demention to Althusser, updating subjecthood for the twenty-first century. In the case of the do-everything-for you iPhone and its second-class bretheren, the Android phones, we are already in the grip of the machine, and it in ours, before the first questioning editorial about what might have been lost is even published.
And so, with today's announcement, it seems that quite literally, "medium is the message," or, more elaborately, "the 'message' of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs" (McLuhan 8). We are not excited for the announcement of the phone for what its call-making potential, but for the imagined totality of increased access to communicative habits and the imagined, potentially impossible expectations of something that will revolutionize our lives and the way that we interact with our environment, something that will "shape and control the scale and form of human association and action" (9). Beyond my theoretical speculation, neuro-psychologists are starting to study these effects. The New York Times recently described a study that showed immense influence on emotions and reactions that we generally tend to think of as immensely personal, even spiritual:

Earlier this year, I carried out an fMRI experiment to find out whether iPhones were really, truly addictive, no less so than alcohol, cocaine, shopping or video games. In conjunction with the San Diego-based firm MindSign Neuromarketing, I enlisted eight men and eight women between the ages of 18 and 25. Our 16 subjects were exposed separately to audio and to video of a ringing and vibrating iPhone. 

In each instance, the results showed activation in both the audio and visual cortices of the subjects’ brains. In other words, when they were exposed to the video, our subjects’ brains didn’t just see the vibrating iPhone, they “heard” it, too; and when they were exposed to the audio, they also “saw” it. This powerful cross-sensory phenomenon is known as synesthesia. 

But most striking of all was the flurry of activation in the insular cortex of the brain, which is associated with feelings of love and compassion. The subjects’ brains responded to the sound of their phones as they would respond to the presence or proximity of a girlfriend, boyfriend or family member.

If even a part of this is the case, no content or function of the phone has a chance of valuation at the level of the phone itself. Today, the phone is the message. From our vantage point in 2011, the reconfiguration of our minds and social relations hasn't yet begun. We are still living in a world shaped largely before the internet, before personal computers and before smart phones. Any one born in the last ten years will live in a world where these are ubiquitous and unquestioned, much as I can hardly imagine life without electricity. It's kind of exciting and maybe a little sad. I miss looking at the same screen as everyone else I know.

See also:
Feed by M.T. Anderson
Singularity
Image via iHackBlog