February 20, 2005 18:11 | Confession / Cyborg / Technology

Screenology

The screen is really messing with my head. I don't mean just the screens of my computer.. I mean "the screen", as the interface to the network and my expanded mind...

(Here he goes again...)

Two examples.

Last night, moblogging this picture of my drink; spending a few moments absorbed into the screen of my P910, when the task was done and I looked back up, the switch in realities was staggering and eminently palpable. I viscerally FELT the shift in... modality, in mindframe, in realities.

Just now, I was going though my photolog, stopped for a moment on this photo of Emma, just when she, from the couch, which is located behind my desk, just a bit beyond my screen, meowed. The disjunction and recombination of the inputs from the two worlds was jarring. Again, viscerally affecting me.

Ten years ago, DdeK's "The Skin of Culture: Investigating the New Electronic Reality" pulled the lid back on my mind. Now his "The Architecture of Intelligence (The Information Technology Revolution in Architecture)" (Excerpts) is pulling it right out of my head... To counter this effect, a simultaneous reading of "Mind Hacks" and "Turning the Mind into an Ally" (Sakyong Mipham, Pema Chodron), to push it back in, trying to keep it within itself.

Half the time I don't know if I'm dreaming.

Comments

Dreaming is perception unconstrained by sensory input, and perception is dreaming constrained by sensory input.

- Stephen LaBerge

(http://www.assacon.com/2004/presentations.html#labergepreso)


I remember the physical feeling when I came back from 6 months in Burkina Faso (had a 9.6kbps connection for 20 computers) and used my parent's broadband connection. Remembering it, I wonder if it was a feeling of being reconnected to a part of my body.


Makes sense to me and it makes sense in my world. I am trying to imagine how I would function without computer technology plugging me into communications and interactions but in an obviously different interface and with a different purpose. On the other hand, it makes it much harder for me to relate to people in person because it's just plain easier with technology.