critical (of) theory

Language As Technology: Transgressing Man To Cyborg

the "net" has not been given it's proper bow in the information age. the basis for the internet began many, many years prior to the advent of the ARPANET, even prior to the university of pennsylvania's ENIAC . it began when we homo sapiens (or rather our genetic forebears) began to communicate--using language.

the origin of language is a huge debate and suffice it to say, i ain't gonna touch that.

but whatever the debate, as far as i've been able to understand, we all agree that modern use of language comes from somewhere... and has roots. the migration/displacement by foot or later technologies such as the chariot (although there is argument against this migration) has influenced the languages we speak today--we see it in the roots--proto-celtic, proto-indo-european, sino-tibetan etc, etc, etc. whichever way the influence of language, one thing agreed is that language and its semantics travelled and influenced another to another based on migration or imperialism or war/savage/brutality--whichever the process, it travelled. leaving behind legacies--creating a web, shall we say.

okay, let's put that aside for a second.

the song: griot, two-spiritis, and other groups that carried oral traditions.
the epic: homer and the illiad
the poem: ferdowsi and the shahnameh

these were the social studies text books back in the day. this is how our ancestors preserved their history through poetry, through song... through religion.

communication.

somewhere in our evolutionary language-d history we've created quite an elaborate system of communication. especially when you compare it to our mammalian siblings. homo sapiens communicate on such an intricate level that some scientists argue is genetically written-in fact our dna structure from our borebears who could maybe just communicate and not as intricately is one strand different.

technology:

ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Greek tekhnologia ‘systematic treatment,’ from tekhnē ‘art, craft’ + -logia (see -logy ).

systematic treatment. if one of the branches of homo sapiens from our mamal siblings or pre-historic ancestors is this ability to communicate on such a complex and interwoven level... then can we not call language a technology?

it was innovative in it's day, after all.

okay, maybe i can sway you on that argument--but a cyborg? c'mon...

check it out:

the internet began as a way for the different groups, organizations and universities working on defence items to communicate... to transfer information... and most important, to share their knowledge (history--ie from x i derived y) of their project. soon enough "the web" was no longer in the hands of the government, but rather private, commercial companies such as Prodigy, AOL, Earthlink--providing the spider bot to crawl through and retrieve information from one place/computer/server to another.

so... the transfer of information on the www goes from one computer hub to another to another creating a web as we refer to it. this web is global.

one day a friend of mine was playing virtual pool (billiards... not the other pool...) in vancouver. she got to "chatting" with the person she was playing. that person was in iran.

how far have we really come from our forebears' break from grunts and pointed fingers to writing a blog?

because really, the internet is founded upon the principals already established about transferring information. from one person/computer to another person/computer. there are hubs. networked and ready to host you and your net. it's the same concept--

except--

the audible voice--is really only code. it's a code that follows a period. .qt .wmv .html

within one generation the avenues of commication have radically changed towards the digital--towards cell phones, texting, email (forget email anymore... don't you chat??) vlogging, blogging... pdas, ipods, mp4, mp3, mpeg4... v i d e o g a m e s. we live our lives in code.

take for example a story from my old roommate. she'd as some point started a relationship w/ someone in santiago, chile--and while that person had a cell phone to call from--at times they would communicate via the webcam and email available in a particular street/area in santiago. try doing that one geration ago--try even conceiving of that idea a generation ago.

no, we don't all have access to this new "technology" in communication. and those who don't are still in the majority. but we are all a affected by it.

big brother...