Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Gaming destroys families: Nintendo meets domestic comedy

Nintendo turns families into monstrosities: that's the argument of this Daily Mail story.

I have first-hand evidence that using a Nintendo turns my delightful, curious and funny children into argumentative demons full of aggression, wholly uninterested in anything apart from playing, and then playing some more.

But these monsters aren't very, well, monstrous.  Although the afflicted are children, the tabloid article presents none of the customary fears of children and technology: nothing sexual, violent, deadly, or seriously subversive.  The worst crimes seem to be time management, or aesthetic:

What is constructive about playing football on a tiny screen, or washing a virtual dog, or watching a hideous pink pony trot around a pink palace decorated with shells?

This is actually a species of humor, like Erma Bombeck's.  And we should expect to see more of it, grounded by cultural items focused on more serious anxieties.

(thanks to Peter Naegele)

Cthubuntu

The world's first operating system based on Gothic horror: Cthubuntu.  A bit of Halloween techno-horror fun:

It came into my possession after the sudden death of my mentor, an elderly UNIX system administrator who was wise in the ways of ancient lore. He was the head of the IT department at Miskatonic University and was regarded by many as an expert in the history of computer science. He was killed when a chair flung by an unseen assailant collided with his head; the mysterious circumstances of his sudden demise generated much speculation among his friends and colleagues. He had no children and no family, so I was called upon to oversee the execution of his will.

Nicely done, Ryan Paul.

(thanks to Steven Burnett for the reminder)

Cyberchondria: another way to fear the internets

A group of researchers has documented a new Web danger, people who imagine they have medical symptoms due to reading about diseases on the Web.  From the Microsoft Research report abstract:

the Web has the potential to increase the anxieties of people who have little or no medical training, especially when Web search is employed as a diagnostic procedure. We use the term cyberchondria to refer to the unfounded escalation of concerns about common symptomatology, based on the review of search results and literature on the Web.

(via Slashdot)

Mobile phones and intimate photos: beyond cyberfear?

A couple leaves one of their phones at a McDonald's.  When they come back for it, the staff have already (allegedly) copied intimate photos from the device.  Said staff allegedly unload the pix; the couple sues. 

One thought: is cyberfear based on unitary objects?  Do we fear single devices (the scary phone), aggregations (chat rooms), and behavior types (stalking)?  Perhaps the two-step structure this story describes - phone, then Web - is too complex for popular fears.  For now.

(thanks to Ed Webb)

2009: the year from The Economist

The world in 2009: The Economist makes its predictions for the next year.  It's one classic type of futurism: get a bunch of experts together, and they predict what happens over a window of time.  Lots of extrapolation from 2008, with some historical glances.

There is also a blog.

(via MetaFilter)

Rust belt Gothic

Creepy remnants of a Japanese medical clinic are the subject of this grim post.  It was one part of a rust belt town.  A series of scary photos are in there, like this one:

(thanks to organ-monger Saramin!)

Fearing the Gothic: Indonesia cinema

This fascinating article on a best-selling Indonesian film (Ayat Ayat Cinta, 2008) offers a fine example of Gothic fear.  That is, of how people fear or resent horror stories.  The mix the article shows draws on global Gothic culture, with a national flavor.

First, note the combination of undesireable things: sex and ghosts.

Worldwide, films which feature scantily dressed women, contain images hinting at or showing sex, or show horror or supernatural occurrences, have incited complaints on the basis of religious morality. Likewise,
Indonesian religious leaders often have voiced their objections to popular film productions that contain sex and ghosts calling them film maksiat (immoral films).

The article seems to assume that depictions of religion don't involve the supernatural.  That seems to mean focusing on religious practice in personal life, and not showing any divine intervention, miracles, etc. 

Second, there's a class argument.  The author complains about "Idonesian lower class horror films," without mentioning art films (if there are any, in this context).  This is compared with art which appeals to viewers who are "hip, fashionable and capable of socializing" - in other words, horror presents an economic anxiety.  Moral films represent the upward economic path.

Third, the paper is concerned about distancing Islam from horror.  For instance,

Several Muslim groups have not supported the mixture of horror and Islam shown in Indonesian film.

Fourth, there seems to be an anxiety about gender and sexual relationships.  Note the familiar concern about sexualized women, not men.  Combine that with the movie's plot, which focuses on marrying a man.  His sexual desires aren't a danger, apparently.  He is, in fact, a pious lad, and a religious student.

Fifth, there's a fear about... fears, specifically how some Muslims (not the author's side) might react:

[film] producers did not so much bear in mind censorship from the state, but rather from the street: read fear of Muslim protests. Muslim protests were feared most because some groups like the Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front) did not shun the use of violence to make their point that they would uphold the morals of the nation.5 The fear of FPI and other such groups was realistic since there was a history of violence by the groups attacking nightclubs, bars, and cultural centres. Moreover, as the government and police forces only half-heartedly countered these actions, many people were unsure about whether they would be sufficiently protected if they drew the ire of radical Muslims.

The article does historicize these concerns:

under Soeharto’s New Order, horror films which showed sexy women, violence, evil supernatural beings, and everything else that "God has forbidden," used a deus-ex-machina appearance of a kyai (a traditionalist Islamic teacher), or other religious symbol, to restore order at the end of the film.

It would be a useful classroom assignment to ask students to compare this with, say, the history of British Gothic in the 1790s, or the 1950s American panic about horror comics.

(thanks to Ed Webb)

New distributed storytelling technique: cameramail

An unusual combination of photography and mail art: cameramail!

On November 30th, 2003, an oversized postcard holding one disposable camera and a roll of 800 ASA, 27 exposure film was mailed from Lafayette, IN to Santa Monica, CA. A few days later, the postman knocked on the door of my friend and found him answering in his underwear. He did not understand the statement: "The Post Master wants to know why you are mailing cameras."

So many storytelling ideas come from this.  Chain mail - send a camera with a couple of images, ask the next to take a couple more and send it on.  Horror story - one could share spooky images, in a collaborative, unsettling riff on "I Found A Digital Camera..."

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Above the submerged metropolis

Fine image of an underwater city, no Deep Ones available yet:

(thanks to Innsmouth native Steve Burnett)

Take the stage in the uncanny valley

A new experiment in robot theater comes from Osaka University, according to the BBC.

Fascinating to hear this link back to the first great modern robot story, RUR, and perhaps an Asimov nod:

The play, called Hataraku Watashi (I, Worker), is set in the near future.
It focuses on a young couple who own two housekeeping robots, one of which loses its motivation to work.
In the play, the robot complains that it has been forced into boring and demeaning jobs and enters into a discussion with the humans about its role in their lives.

Osaka is a good source for these raids on the uncanny valley.  Remember this robot?

(via grinding.be)