I have been working for over two weeks now on a post following my presentation on how the 5 Senses are simulated online and on the relationship between sensual experience and interface.
While I am somewhat overwhelmed with the numerous examples and the immense details i have to plow through when it comes to simulating senses online (and the reasons why taste and smell are so much more difficult to represent and replicate on any interface/ machine) – I started thinking about a new project – submitting a paper to a special issue of the magazine “The Philosophy of Computer Science” dedicated to Minds and Machines (scheduled for Fall 2010).
The call for paper (CFP as academics like to call it) lists no less than 27 topics – but question no. 7 immediately grabbed me:
“What kinds of things are digital objects? Do we need a new ontological category to house them?”
Thinking about the ontology of digital being and on “digital identity matters” as some researchers already put it, threw my brain into a conundrum and started that tickle that i guess i am addicted to.
After sometime i realized that even though i may not know much about Computer Science i am rather familiar with digital beings and i’d love to think about how they occupy space in the world, the relationships they hold among themselves, and the differences between digital and physical objects.
I’d like to do a George Perec inspired exploration – and to move from smaller objects (or spaces) to larger ones. Georges Perec was a French writer and a structuralist who experimented not only with language and content but also with form. For example, he wrote a book without the letter E (La Disparition), a 500 words long palindrome and composed crosswords for living.
Georges a un chat
The first item that i’d look at will be the autograph, from there i’ll move to letters (or e-mail to be more specific, including spam), folders, books and finally – libraries. Initially i wanted to write about songs and images as well, but they’re less textual based and the topic is already huge.
There’s also a song i like, which is just perfect for this post – it’s conveniently called “Folder” (!) by a band called “Plastic Operator” and the animated music video for the song was directed by Pete Circuitt.
a “proper disclosure” following the Plastic/ Paper post
In fact I still have some CD’s at home. Nothing close to my pre-Toronto days collection (R.I.P)
Pits on top
My friend @EBurcat noted lately that a post is always something that comes after the fact. Looking at what’s left from my CD singles collection i am amazed by the irrelevance of something like a single in the age of music files.
Once upon a time I had over 10000 CDs in my house. My (ex-) boyfriend and I each worked for local branches of record companies (me – Universal Music and him Sony/ Warner Music) so obviously we both had a HUGE CD collection (although we were both obsessive CD buyers even before working in the music industry). I had a “modest” collection of about 1000+ CD’s and he had some 10,000 (not including vinyls). Those were the days when people were still buying CDs, and I remember how exciting it was to rush home from the record store and peel off the plastic wrap to listen to an album for the first time.
I
Derrida, Trauma, Photography and all that Jazz
D (my ex) LOVED things. HE loved buying CD’s almost as much as he loved listening to them. He loved possessing rarities and limited editions and had an amazing collection. Working in the radio and in the local music industry for years and being a music-head from birth, more or less birth (his earliest childhood memory: hearing “Breakfast in America” when he was about 1 a year old and pushing his crib towards the radio) – enabled him to have a magnificent collection.
Sebald Sebald Sebald (in English, Hebrew, German) but also some Dellilo, Foer, Hemon
In fact, our study walls were covered with CDs. One of the first things D did after moving in with me was to put up shelves (with some help from @OshikErnst), turning our study into a music room: a realm of CDs sorted alphabetically, but also by genre (Jazz, soundtracks, boxsets. Hebrew, etc). It was a very impressive “Wall of Fame”.
Freud, Lacan, Foucault and Art Catalogs (curated by Leah A)
We’re talking about the early 2000’s here. People were still buying CD’s, Napster was popular and music downloading and sharing were only beginning. What an age of innocence…
Did you know that the Hitler Bio can be helpful in preventing small-talk on airplanes? (a genius plan devised by my sista) - try it - it works!
The shelves and CD sorting were a project that lasted several weekends. When we decided to move to Canada it was clear to him that he was taking his collection with him. My task was simpler. I took only my favorite CDs and anything we had two or more of (I remember finding 4 copies of the first Destniy’s Child album…)ץ The rest was given to my younger sister who “inherited” the flat, our furniture, and the rest of our abandoned belongings (including the empty shelves in the study).
Still in Search of Lost Time
A year went by. My sis also decided to move to Canada. But she didn’t ship her belongings (nor did she have a massive CD collection she couldn’t part with – she’s got a more pragmatic attitude in some realms of life). A. threw away all the plastic jewel cases, bought a big CD case and kept only the discs themselves with the booklets. She brought it with her to Canada. Even today whenever I visit her, my heart still aches at the sight of my former CD collection.
from Dosto to "Nails" a contemporary Lit Mag
I still have BOXES filled with CDs and books in Canada. It’s been 2 1/2 years since I moved back to TLV and I still can’t bring myself to ship them back. I’m not sure why. I clearly don’t have anywhere to put those boxes, but it’s not that. Somehow I believe that if I haven’t opened those boxes in such a long time, I might as well live without them.
Bleak(er St.)
In my first years of traveling back and forth between Toronto and TLV I imported my most of my books back. I used to carry heavy suitcases filled with books, ask my family to help me carry, had to beg and befriend Custom Officers in order to avoid paying overweight fines.
Funny/ Weird Detective Novels and Some Poetry
But I never “imported” my CDs. They’re still there. And so is my stereo. I guess the two go hand in hand and that I now listen to music only from my computer or iPod, and my music collection is more virtual than physical. As Dylan put it – the times they are a-changing.
Warm Colors Work for ME
D’s CD collection is probably even bigger now (he works in the music industry in Canada). My sister is a proud Torontonian technophobe and doesn’t have an MP3 player. She doesn’t even use the mobile phone i left her (in Canada), she likes using Public PayPhones (for crying out loud!)
I keep some of the books here - just because i like their color
So, I engulf myself with books. Writing book reviews for Walla! sure helps, I got tons of books for free, but i am running out of space. Maybe Oshik can come over and build some more shelves for me…
It's beyond my understanding how come i have 3 copies at home of Sacks' Musicophilia. So i keep 1 by the bed - just in case
I know that i am partially to blame for the Rain Forests ruin. But isn’t paper more eco-friendly than plastic?
(quote from pack) all herbal supercritical mental clarity
I found “Neurozyme” on the shelf at the Whole Foods branch in Toronto. Been taking it regularly for almost a year now. It’s herbal. It’s supposed to help me focus. It doesn’t work. YET I keep taking a pill or two whenever I remember. I really like the name. Yes, you can either call me a sucker, or an optimist.
Make coffee
makineta
and while waiting for the coffee to be ready i do numerous other things like
Organize my books according to color pattern
colour scheme library
i am not that obsessive. i have another library with more books NOT sorted according to color. In fact, it has so many books, it’s no longer possible to see the original organization system…( LOL). I also like to
Make lists
tasks lists and action items
i love lists. They give me a fake sense of control. you write a list, you erase it after an action was taken, or a task was performed. hallelujah. But what happens when some items aren’t cleared and dragged from list to list to list? then it’s chaos again. bummer.
Turn off Twitter
shut down Twitter. bye bye TweetDeck
No. 1 disruption factor. so fun. so addictive. I <3 Twtr but it’s bringing me down – it’s the epitome of the information overload. quick, dynamic, friendly, hypnotizing. Log off is the only way to resist the thirst for knowledge and the desire to chat/ play with my friends that Twitter incites in me.
Become Invisible
invisible. invincible. or maybe just wishful thinking
I remember fantasizing about becoming invisible when I was a kid. This could really happen nowadays. virtually, of course.
Unplug
not killing the messenger (just putting it on hold)
Change status to Unavailable and disappear from the face of the earth. hmmm, or not, merely from the IM.
Swim
this suit was meant for swimming
laps. 40. or at least 30 minutes of swimming. no cell phone. no google. no gmail. no work. no twitter. no nothing. just boring monotonous laps.
and if all else fails…
Try to sleep more
sweet dreams are made of this?
I found out that on some days the battle is futile. it is just impossible to concentrate, to write, to keep my mind in one place and ban it from roaming and criss-crossing several paths simultaneously. on such days (if i am lucky enough and don’t have to be productive) i just gaze, daydream, or hang with my friends instead of looking for focus, mental clarity and ways to avoid procrastination.
(there’s another version of “Lost Cause” video. Universal ban embedding it. that’s a shame. looking for an alternative version was also a way to avoid focus… i guess i am mixing productivity with procrastination)
I Interviewed Zachi Dinar from Balora Interactive Design Studio for Walla!Tech. He made a funny comment about how virtual i am. I responded by showing him all the notebooks, books and electronic devices i insist on carrying around (laptop, iPod, cellphone). He said that it looks like physical things are calming me down – as if they help me counter the online world which is so elusive.
Sometimes I feel like a bag-lady, carrying so many things around – the bigger the bag, the more things i am tempted to drag along. There’s always a book, a purse, an iPod, a cellphone, a notepad to write “small” ideas in, and often a notebook to write longer pieces, action items, lists a scrapbook of sorts. It’s a habit i started while writing my dis – to write down ideas before they disappear, to get hold of them, a futile attempt to cling to words, those stubborn, magical entities.
book, notebooks, notepad, calendar
cellphones: old & older, both semi-functioning, i-pod, and toy-chimp keeping them company
My friend Yael, one of the most talented writers i know, sent me a short piece she wrote after we met for dinner several months ago. I arrived from work carrying, as always, a bag filled with tons of things. It was winter so I had several layers on (a habit from Canada where the heating is so intense you have to be able to peel off layers quickly once you’re in the overheated buildings if you don’t want to be boiled).This is one of the most beautiful things anyone ever told me, one of the most beautiful things ever written about me. very very flattering:
“I met Romi tonight. A whirlwind [...] Romi is living a life I would very much like to live, and yet she doesn’t seem quite happy about it. Her facility with writing is astounding to me. She has an idea, and just like that, the notebook is whipped out, the pen is scratching, or the laptop flipped open, the fingers racing. No barriers, she just writes and writes. Ideas, thoughts, criticism, philosophy, it all comes out of her. She lives a life that looks chaotic and scattered, but is actually organized in a library with a Dewey Decimal code that only she can decipher, but she does. She possesses mountains of information, about music and books, and art, and things that make your brain go tick, and carries it around with a notebook and a laptop and scarves and things. She has many things with her, possessions, items, colors. She walks in and takes off two or three layers before sitting down. Her presence is things. And ideas, and emotions. It’s exhilarating to be in her company, and also threatening, or maybe not threatening, but intimidating. Here is someone living in ideas. Living in thought, meeting once a week for think tanks, going abroad, living the life. She’s doing it, whereas I only think about it. It’s truly amazing, a hot air balloon in action, without the negative connotations that image may inspire to those who don’t believe in hot air.”
“Dewey Decimal code that only she can decipher” – loved it! what a great metaphor.
laptops - the old, the new, and the borrowed
all together now
yeah, i wish i wouldn’t have to have all those things with me every time i leave the house (for example – why do i need 3 USB drives? why4 pens and 2 lip-glosses?). Has my possession become my obsession? I wish i knew. Or trust technology more. Or have a better memory so i wouldn’t have to carry all this STUFF around. I know that it’s time to move on, but a smartphone, get rid of the iPod, etc. But in the meanwhile it feels like i need a cart instead of a bag, or at least a porter available on days when all this STUFF doesn’t fit into my bicycle’s basket (no wonder why i feel like basket case).
a look from above (everything fits the bag - except there's only 1 laptop here)
Things? Ideas? Possession? Obsession? All the same to me – be it the state of things or my presence in things it’s time to let go. Or get an iPhone…
The relationship between procrastination and time has been on my mind lately. Tried to measure how much time and energy i “spend” on every task i take upon myself. Writing proved to be totally unpredictable, though. Sometimes it takes forever until i am satisfied with what i write, whereas sometimes writing goes smoothly (sadly, this experience is rare… sigh)
Writing is tricky. It doesn’t lend itself to value/money parameters and quality doesn’t really depend on the time or effort spent on each piece. Any writer knows that often you just have to remind yourself that what could be done within the time constraints is the best that could be done – otherwise nothing is achieved. There are no real parameters for measuring creativity and although “Muse On Demand” (MOD) could be a nice service, it has yet to be invented.
I realized last week that some of these “zero productivity” days can paradoxically yield creativity. Whereas I am used to scolding myself for not doing anything worthwhile, i found out to my surprise that procrastination can actually be a good, healthy thing. It is a different mode of work, one that takes place behind the scenes; synthesizing things in our back-burner, so to speak. Work that is done subconsciously requires a different mindset and a different time-frame. No need then to stress, just wait and see. Maybe it’s like fishing… you cast your fishing rod and wait. It’s like ordering food in Sinai, way before you’re hungry… Something good will eventually come up.
Tim Armstrong came to Israel to spend / invest and visited the Garage Geeks yesterday. Romi Mikulinsky was there.
Tim Armstrong came to Israel to buy stuff. AOL’s new CEO, Google’s head of US ad Sales until several months ago, is here to shop. At first he will limit himself to window shopping – he’ll take a peek, absorb, get impressions, but his next stop will be at the cash register, where some shopping bags will be filled. Yossi Vardi knows this, and wants to make sure that those bags are proudly stamped “made in Israel”. A veteran like Vardi also knows what needs to be done: last night he played host in an evening organized in Armstrong’s honor at in the ‘Geeks’ Garage’ in Holon. This wasn’t yet another fancy to-do at the Hilton; this one was all about geeks, demos, beer, music, and humidity. Vardi made sure that Armstrong – jet-lagged and heat-stricken in the midst of a whirlwind 10-country tour of AOL branches – would remember last night, throwing in some gimmicks along with the unconventional locale. The purpose of the event, according to Vardi, was to ‘brainwash’ Armstrong into realizing that Israel is a hotbed of creativity and innovation – that he, as AOL’s CEO, should aim towards.
AOL's CEO Tim Armstrong
The laid-back and relaxed atmosphere encouraged the guests to ask direct questions and promote themselves and their businesses. Those who were a bit shy or hesitant were either prompted by Vardi to speak up or received a “hands-on” interpretation of their questions. A polite question asked by Roy Man, co-founder of the online game SaveanAlien.com, about AOL’s goals in coming years, was translated by Vardi into “with whom I need to talk to promote my start-up?” - and soon followed by an invitation to send emails to Armstrong’s personal email address (which he was “forced” to surrender). Jeff Pulver, among the guests, was volunteered to ask a question – and voiced what was intriguing everyone: “what will AOL look like under your leadership?” Unfortunately, Armstrong’s answer was less direct. Armstrong claims that the one thing that AOL needs most is (how surprising) innovation. AOL is soon to celebrate its 25th birthday – 25 years in which the company has acquired many companies. As far as Armstrong is concerned, the next 25 years are to be as impressive as the first 25.
Good-bye Time-Warner, Hello ???
AOL is going through a tumultuous period: two months ago, Time-Warner announced that it was parting ways with AOL and that the internet company would soon be an independent firm. This split is the final chapter of the failed merge (considered by some to be one of the worst in M&A history) – a merge that never fulfilled the potential of bringing together traditional and new media, instead damaging both firms. The significant decrease in both companies’ revenues made the two boards realize that the sooner they parted, the better.
This means that AOL is now searching for a new path: it is currently a content portal which is having trouble measuring up to Yahoo and Google, and suffering a serious diminishment of advertising revenues – it needs a blood infusion ASAP. This is why Armstrong was recruited to head the company and that’s why he is roaming China, India, and Israel in search of enthusiastic people with a spark in their eyes. This is why AOL Ventures was founded, a Venture Capital Fund to focus on communication, IM, and content – and the synergy between these fields. To sum it up – the coffer is full and AOL is eager to spend. Armstrong fulfilled expectations and praised ICQ and its business model that yields revenues by endorsing innovation. He admitted that he too would like to adopt a similar policy, and generally speaking, “to be more like Vardi.” In fact, Armstrong told us, “Vardi and I were separated at birth, and Vardi is the better looking and slightly younger twin…”. Although Armstrong comes from the world of search, he confesses that that arena is overloaded and therefore he seeks to focus on open code solutions, on communications, and on bringing computers and cellular closer. He aspires that the disconnect from Time-Warner (to take place by the end of 2009) will unleash a wave of creativity in the way AOL operates and perceives itself.
Jeff Pulver during his previous visit (on March 09)
Pulver and the End of Recession
Before coming to Israel, Armstrong’s last stop was India, which may have been why he compared the energy he encountered in the subcontinent to Israel’s. I asked Jeff Pulver if he sees any resemblance between Israeli and Indian entrepreneurs. Pulver, who always knows how to integrate spirituality and economic-philosophical insights in an entertaining and layman manner, began by declaring that the recession is over. “That’s it,” he announced, “the recession is over and good things are to happen already in 2009.” According to Mr. Pulver, in India there are plenty of resources but innovation isn’t necessarily their strongest feature – definitely not at the same quantity and manner it thrives in Israel. Pulver is one of the Israeli hi-tech scene’s biggest fans and supporters and therefore it is unsurprising to hear that there’s no basis for comparison between Israel and India, although Armstrong is more reluctant and ambiguous on this comparison. Pulver does not search for men in suits; he prefers people in t-shirts and flip-flops. In Israel, he says, there are more people achieving the impossible and they do not wear suits. When I asked him if he could come up with examples for recent start-ups that have impressed him, he said that in the medicare and bio-tech fields there are several promising companies and that he liked Waze.com’s dynamic network of drivers (presented at the ThinkNext event hosted by Microsoft earlier that week).
Pulver and I continued to chat about the “state of the Now” and the way the world was once again becoming flat – all the Twitter and Facebook updates have led to an overflow of data that is unimaginable in its quantity. Not only is each and every one of us becoming a compulsive content consumer, but we’re now content producers as well and everything is now suitable for broadcast. Data has gone through a liberation and democratization process, he says, and points out the latest events occurring in Iran as an example. We still don’t know what place corporate companies will have in this flat new world, where Twitter’s brief language and the accessibility of information have changed the rules of the game. Only time will tell whether Armstrong is the man to lead AOL back to the top, but one can hope that if he does, it will be Israeli wind in his sails.
Published in Walla! Tech on June 30th. Translated by Romi Mikulinsky, edited by the multi-talented Yael Nussbaum
from the advanced diving coursebook – instructions for meditative pre-diving mode (didn’t really work for me – but i do find it amusing!)
“before diving take a moment to relax. see yourself underwater, swimming in your grear, streamlined. horizontal, with the right weight properly distributed. Go inside your imagined self. Feel yourself moving through the water. feel the buoyancy changes. Feel yourself adjust through your breathing. Now hover. Feel yourself suspended; feel your gear; feel yourself slightly rise and sink as you breathe with perfect buoyancy control. Now make the dive that you saw.”
yeah right. the book says that seeing myself diving in my mind’s eye improves performance. as far as i am concerned, me and my imagined self had no such luck. I did however see two octopuses having sex , which was very cool. and weird. and funny.
I love books – always have. Reading literature is like a portal to a parallel universe where I can find refuge from everything troublesome, tedious, or overwhelming in this world. Books are a maze in which I love to lose myself (knowing I can always find my way out and safely return to the present moment with its pressing matters).
Books make beauty more tangible, more approachable; more present. They do not only tell stories: they convey thoughts, concepts, insights, dreams, and emotions. They expose their volume, their sounds, and their texture. Books can be magic; they can be music too.
Some books exist only in other books: their existence is limited to the realms of another work of fiction. Do such books have a bearing in our “real,” physical world? If a book was written by a character within another book, what ontological status does it have? Can it be placed or catalogued somewhere?
From Abelardo Morell's books photography project
The Invisible Library’ is a project dedicated to books that exist only within other books. It is an alphabetical index of literature that exists only as ideas, as unfulfilled potential. Might these books be considered as an challenge to write them? Or are they just that – ideas? To whom do they belong? Do they belong to the authors – read this slowly – who invented the authors who supposedly wrote them? In the invisible library for imaginary (or not so imaginary) books, they have a home in the virtual world.
Still in Search of Lost Time
