Freedom in the Wake of FOSS

Openness and freedom are important themes that several theorists have posited throughout the exploration of this course. The implications of these notions continue to resonate from one text to another, harping upon similar benefits and complications that arise from the essential nature of these two terms in relation to public/private, socio-political, and technological domain. Biella Coleman discusses in detail the movement of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) in her essay “How Free Became Open and Everything Else Under the Sun”. This push for free software, and open source software relates back to Keenan’s essay “Windows: of Vulnerability” which discusses the roles of windows in society, and public versus internal notions of self.

The opening of source code to the public is a direct link to the internal self. The television in Keenan’s article is questioned as to being a window “out onto the world, presenting a view of the distant”, or an intrusion “into the home… transforming space, transporting the ‘world’ into the homes of the world—opening them up and facilitating the arrival of the image and the other” (Keenan 130). The computer can be considered an additional window, one that now opens itself in a sinusoidal harmony between external and internal influences. One can now actively manipulate this window, having influence over it, instead of passively being transformed by it. Open source software raises this question of the double window, one that allows for a dual permeability, a constant flow from one to the other.

Coleman discusses how this openness to change is inherent in the idea of FOSS. That is the major benefit of FOSS but also can be viewed as negative to the person. Coleman asserts that FOSS’ “philosophy simply states that it is the right of every user to use, distribute, modify and redistribute computer software for any purpose” (Coleman), as being four essential freedoms. Freedom to do as one wishes, building upon and adding to others work is the perfect unification of minds in effort to create the most advancing programs. Keenan would argue that these ‘freedoms’ associated with this completely public software is not as freeing as we are led to believe. The allowance of one to imprint themselves on a software is their succumbing to light of the public bleeding into them through their computer screen. “In public, exposed to the blinding light of the other, I am without precisely the self-possession that would otherwise constitute my freedom. The enlightenment of this other light opens me not by freeing me but by exposing me, to all that is different in and beyond me.” (Keenan 136)

The question that arises from the conversation of these two texts is what is at stake? If the public “takes the form of nothing so much as a foreign body” (keenan 136) then it is an unperceivable invasion that occurs through the window of the computer screen. However there lies in this invasion the ability of the user to be proactive in their own individuality by transforming, and exploiting the very nature of FOSS. Coleman talks about how IBM attempted to harness FOSS in an advertising campaign for their own devices, and how this could be viewed as the capitalist spirit pervading into the freedom of FOSS, in the “late-capitalist movement” of exploiting free or cheap labor. However there are also opposing groups such IMCs (Independent Media Centers) whose mission is to “allow activists to directly make, move, and ‘become’ the media. (Coleman). To ‘become’ the media is the essential complication of this movement.

What is one sacrificing to being a part of FOSS? This is the ‘vulnerability’ that Keenan discusses. “Why do humans want windows?” (Keenan 131) There is an innate desire to become a part of something larger than oneself. Keenan talks about how in the public one is “neither absent nor captive” (Keenan 136). Keenan quotes Blanchot, “it is the other who exposes me to ‘unity’” (136), this unity that will connect everyone in one medium, that of FOSS. However with this unity comes the issue of individuality, what do we give up when we become part of a larger entity? Keenan furthers his argument with Blanchot again, saying that the other’s exposing us to this innate unity causes me, the individual, “to believe in an irreplaceable singularity, as if I must not fail him, all the while withdrawing me from what would make me unique: I am not indispensable; in me anyone at all is called by the other. The responsibility with which I am charged is not mine, and because of it I am no longer myself.” (136) Becoming a media, just like becoming anything, is an attack on a person’s individuality. To what extent is FOSS’ supposed freedom truly freeing?

The Sixty-One: Listener Celebrity and the Fourth Window

Stephen Chaloner
Alex Enscoe
Max Krugman

The Sixty-One’s online mission statement reads “thesixtyone makes music discovery a fun, adventurous experience … like a massively-multiplayer game for music junkies.” In this game players compete for points. There are two kinds of players: Artists and Listeners. Artists receive points by being “bumped” by their Listeners, and Listeners receive points by logging in often, bumping songs that later grow in popularity (indicating that the Listener has good taste) and listening to little-heard songs. Both types of member gain levels by acquiring points, and higher-leveled members have more influence on the website. The site’s conception of social interaction and the artist/audience divide is particularly intriguing in light of Danah Boyd’s article “Why Youth <3>

To Boyd, “the practices that … differentiate social network sites from other types of computer-mediated communication … take place in public: Friends are publicly articulated, profiles are publicly viewed, and comments are publicly visible” (Boyd 7). The Sixty-One is not the same kind of site as, for example, Facebook—its profiles are limited, and music is more important than networking. Instead of friends, members can subscribe to each other, and be informed of each new song a favorite Artist uploads or a tasteful Listener bumps. Still, it is a social network according to Boyd’s definition. Bumping drives the site, so a look at members’ comment walls yields an interesting inversion of what occurs on, say, Myspace Music—where fans thank artists for adding them to their friend list. On The Sixty-One, it is more often Artists thanking high-ranking Listeners for bumping them. Boyd also has it that "building an intricate profile is an initiation rite" (Boyd 11), in which identities are written into being. Here the object is celebrity—to become a popular Artist, or to be an influential Listener. In a sense, bumps on The Sixty-One are publicity incarnate.

Publicity is an important topic to Keenan. For him, the public “belongs by rights to others, and to no one in particular” (Keenan 133). He illustrates the division between public and private as “the subject’s variable status … defined by its position relative to this window” (Keenan 132). Keenan speaks of three windows: the first is vertical, human-oriented, allowing passage in and out. The second is horizontal, a technological tool, meant to let light in, exposing interiors in the sense of a photograph. The third is television, existing in global time, opening onto a “false day,” occurring “beyond the perceptive horizon” (qtd in Keenan 135). Now, however, it seems that there is a fourth window: the computer equipped with internet access. Keenan asks whether television is oriented “out onto the world, presenting a view of the distant (tele-vision)? Or does it intrude into the home…? …television at once contains the world and is then recontained by the home … that can then be reintegrated into the world home-system” (Keenan 130). The connection the internet provides is insistent and reciprocal: like television, the computer contains the world, but allows each user to broadcast as well as receive. It is not recontained by the home, rather, it contains the world and the home in a new system.

Keenan refers to Foucault’s discussion of panopticism in Surveiller et Punir: “That light can also be the dark side, as it were, of the humanist interpretation of the window … The subject comes into being as a ghostly silhouette, the target and the source of peculiar gazes that function by not seeing … requiring only light as the possibility of sight” (Keenan 128-129). Illumination by the light forces us to reconceive ourselves as objects and lend ourselves to similar interpretation by others. For Keenan, the public is indeed the intrusion of otherness into the security of the self, “the interruption … of all that is radically irreducible to the order of the individual … [tearing] us from ourselves, [exposing] us to and [involving] us with others” (Keenan 133). To him this is a violent action—he mentions a case in which a Brooklyn 17-year-old was killed by a bullet that came through his window. Keenan fears this “overexposure,” and is concerned about the power of mass media like television, whose controllers can project publicity with a force against with “all conventional means are powerless” (qtd in Keenan 134). The internet complicates these issues intriguingly: The Sixty-One’s members want to become public objects, acquire as much publicity as possible, project light onto whatever they can provide of their interiority—songs, comments, or some kind of quantifiable musical taste. The panoptic model is distorted: they want to be seen, want to know when they are being seen, and because of the structure of the website can know when they are seen. It is nothing new for artists to seek celebrity, but on The Sixty-One even listening is publicized—Listeners are in a sense gaze personified, and they want their gaze to be noticed.

Keenan’s argument hinges on the idea that “The public sphere is structurally elsewhere, neither lost nor in need of recovery or rebuilding but defined by its resistance to being made present.” The internet may not be exactly the public sphere made present, but it certainly appears to be a more accessible manifestation than has been possible until now. Perhaps this is where Keenan’s warning of overexposure becomes inadequate: this public is not completely beyond our grasp, we are given the ability to affect it through our actions and through our gaze, which is made real by the internet’s ability to remember what we have looked at. Profiles on social networking sites like The Sixty-One are at most weak simulations of self—yet still somewhat controllable protrusions of the self into the mass media that lives in universal time. Thus Keenan’s fear that “In public … I am without precisely the self-possession that would otherwise constitute my freedom” becomes, to some extent, unjustified. He says “Still … the figure of the human as prisoner—secure captive of self-knowledge and of a closed interiority … is challenged, disfigured, by the blinding light of another window” (Keenan 129). Artifacts like The Sixty-One open a multiplicity of windows, and beg the question: if anything is overexposed, is anything?

Operating Systems and Kittler

"Digitality" means simply to not exist. Everything that is anything has a mass, takes up an amount of space equal to its shape and weight. To be digital, is to be something, without actually being something. How is this possible? How can something exist but not really exist? It is the way that our bodies transmit thoughts and sensations, electrical impulses that shoot in every which way. Do our thoughts exist? They exist only in the subatomic particles that are used as stimuli to nodes in the brain. This is how a computer's hardware functions. For Kittler to say that "the bulk of written texts do not exist anymore in perceivable time and space" (There is no Software p.2) is precisely to say that they are beyond existence. They do not live, they do not die, they are eternal as long as they are understood by the hardware of machines. Interfaces are the links for humans to the physical electrical components of these machines. For the common individual interacting directly with the computer's hardware is impossible, that is where software comes in. It is the invisible harness that allows the "average Joe" to utilize the machine. The most important interface on any computer is the operating system. It is the control system that allows the user to have complete manipulation over the currents and pathways, the circuitry and the signals of the hardware. All other software's fall under the operating systems software. What are software's hiding? And are software's a never ending cycle of repetition and confusion?

Kittler states that software is an attempt at hiding the workings of the machine from the user. "On the contrary, the so-called philosophy of the computer community tends to systematically obscure hardware by software, electronic signifiers by interfaces between formal and everyday languages." (TINS p.2) So essentially, software converts the natural reactions of atoms into common language to be understood. With operating systems, let's say Macintosh's OS X, the functionality is reliant upon two things, the users knowledge and the machines capabilities. The OS is completely freeing to the normal user, allowing them to do what they please without many constraints. The needs of the users vary, which means the demands of the software shall too vary. However, the issue of compatibility remains constant with competing systems, Windows and Macintosh, the cross-demands between users requires softwares to be written for both OS's. The OS exists as a platform for every other working of the computer. In this sense it is the ultimate interface because the user interacts with a software, the software rests on other softwares and eventually through the OS is transmitted to the hardware. We the users don't see those interactions, in fact we see nothing other than the excited pixels on our displays. We remain dumb and oblivious.

With Mac OS X, the interface is completely useless in and of itself without software. Software brings the OS to life. It is merely a platform that allows other softwares to exist. It is actually a strange relationship between the platform, the tools (software) and the hardware. Essentially there are different layers to interfaces, information passes through multiple levels in order to be fully deciphered into commands. Again, it is a reoccurring theme, that of complete oblivion to the functioning of the systems. The interfaces are seemingly transparent to what we desire to accomplish. With Mac OS X the suite of softwares that come with it (iLife) is the starting point for any function of the computer. It is a confusing vortex of softwares, one software is dependent on another, which is then dependent on another, and so on and so forth. However, the engineers are good at what they do because to the normal user it is seamless.

What is this box in front of me? I don't understand the first thing about the workings of my laptop's hardware. This doesn't matter, I am able to do what I need with it. I ask nothing more of it except maybe to be a bit quicker at times. Does this mean that I don't need the body? Or is the body just invisible to me as a physical thing? Kittler states, "identifying physical hardware with the algorithm forged for its computation has finally got rid of hardware itself. " (TINS p. 3) Yet without the hardware software is literally nothing. Kittler talks about how in Germany there was a legal dispute over whether or not software should be considered a mental property. They concluded that software is material because it relies on material to function. Just as our mental functions rely on our physical bodies survival, so to does the software rely on the hardware. So to completely negate the importance of this box in front of me, to be blind to its functions is precisely to forget the very thing that allows me the freedom of the virtual world. My interface wants me to be oblivious, because in the fast paced modern world it is unnecessary to understand the electrical signals for everyday use.

"Software, if it existed would just be a billion dollar deal based on the cheapest elements on earth." (TINS p.4) The doors to nearly everything imaginable is just a click away. All that happens is digital information transfer through wireless routers into my hard drive. To think that something that isn't tangible can be worth so much is mind boggling. Just as in 'Second Life' when people sell the virtual property to others for real money, how can one own a space in a virtual world? This also raises questions of whether or not software creators should have some rights to money acquired through their softwares. Even writers who use Word and then sell a million copies of their books, should the programmers have some rights to the revenue? As we progress more into a digital age, these are the questions that will confront. As the softwares values increase, so to will money making ploys, security, control/freedom, and transparency.

wakeup_7

Gnosticism and The Matrix. The most prevalent idea in the movie is Neo as Savior figure. The One who will come back to save all sentient beings from their enslavement to the machine. This parallels the belief of Gnostic Christians who think that humans are divine beings trapped in a false world, who were enlightened and saved by Jesus Christ. In Gnosticism the belief is that the creator of our reality is a false god who fell from divinity. His goddess mother of the heavenly realm created him fatherless and malformed. She cast him down, and he lived believing he was the only god and so he created the earth and humans. Because his mother was a goddess, he had divinity in him, and he passed that along to humans. The humans live their lives not knowing that their real home is in heaven with other divine beings. Jesus was sent from the heavenly realms to save the human race from their selfish god who keeps them under his control. The parallels are obvious between this story and The Matrix. The AI machines are the false god, they harvest humans and control them. They keep them in this artificial reality. Neo is Jesus, the One who will save humans from their ignorance and show them the truth. This is where the themes of truth and reality come in. What humans believe to be true is false, their reality is not real, their existence is not real either. Therefore what they know, is not true knowledge because it is not a justified, true belief. Jesus brings with him the true knowledge, and so does Neo. Neo's transformation from the 'Doubting Thomas' to the Savior has everything to do with belief. He did not believe in himself until he no longer had to. Then he just recognized the reality of his situation and through doing so became the ultimate hero figure. The truth, the knowledge, the awakening, all are themes that played a roll in Neo's development as the One. They are crucial to the story of the movie, and to the faith of Gnosticism. The final scene when Neo dies and comes back is the most overt connection to Jesus and his death and resurrection. It is the climax of the film when Neo realizes finally that he is the One. He fully believes. What precisely is belief? And what makes him realize it? It is experience, it is the reality he comes to know. In the first half of the movie Neo is seen sleeping nearly 10 times. Sleep and dreams rule Thomas Anderson's life, he is in a constant dream until he 'begins to believe' (Chapter 33 1:54:32) When he is finally awoken this is when he obtains true knowledge.

wakeup_6

The matrix is a computer generated dreamworld, built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this... (battery) (Chapter 12 0:43:25)* Dreamworld again referenced here. Neo's reality is a dreamworld for Morpheus. However, both Neo and Morpheus believe that they are experiencing true reality. Therefore what reality means to one could be different for another. The signifier is reality. What that word means is different for Neo and Morpheus, however only one can be correct and that is Morpheus' reality. The important thing to note is that the semic code is what is being analyzed here. A theme that is reoccurring and lasts the length of the movie is this idea of what exactly 'reality' is.

You've been living in a dream world Neo... (Chapter 12 0:40:58) * Dreamworld, a virtual reality. A system set up to control. Real, dream, sleep, awake, knowledge, truth, existence.

wakeup_5

NEO: This isn't real? (touching a leather chair) 

MORPHEUS: What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. (Chapter 12 0:40:14)

Real, how do you define reality? Link this back to a previous blog posting in wakeup_4, wakeup_3. Epistemological questions of knowledge again are raised. The skeptics argument is precisely how AI machines control humans in the Matrix. See... hear...