matthew prussman <mprussman@gmail.com> To: apallaoro@gmail.

com dissertation

June 25, 2011 3:42 AM

X Bibliography:

Ashby, W. Ross, 1956. An Introduction to Cybernetics. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons INC.

Baurillard, Jean.,1988. The Ecstasy of Communication. Translated from French by Bernard Schutze and Caroline Schutze. New York, NY: Semiotext(e).

Baurillard, Jean., 1990. The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena. Translated by James Benedict. London: Verso

Benedikt, Michael., 1991. Cyberspace: First Steps. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

Bergson, Henri., 1913. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by F.L. Pogson. Mineola, NY: Dover publications.

Bergson, Henri., 1988. Matter and Memory. Translated by N.M. Paul and W.S. Palmer Brooklyn NY: Zone Books

Clark, Andy., 2008. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Exstension. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Featherstone, Mike & Burrows, Roger., 1995. Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Hayles, N. Katherine., 1999. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies In Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Heim, Michael., 1993. The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press

McLuhan, Marshall. 1964, Understanding Media. New York, NY: Routledge

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1945. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith., 1958. New York, NY: Routledge.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice.1960 Signs. Translated by Richard C. McCleary 1964 Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Noe, Alva. 2004. Action in Perception. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

ODonovan-Anderson, Michael. 1997. Content and Comportment: On Embodiment and the Epistemic Availability of the World. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Ryle, Gilbert. 1949. The Concept of Mind. Chicago, IL: The university of Chicago Press.

Taylor, Paul A. & Harris, Jan LI., 2005. Digital Matters: The Theory and Culture of the Matrix. New York, NY: Routledge.

Trend, David., 2001. Reading Digital Culture. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing

The Presence of Anti-presence

Matthew Ray Prussman

The statement the mind is its own place, as theorists might construe it, is not true, for the mind is not even a metaphorical place. On the contrary, the chessboard, the platform, the scholars desk, the judges bench, the lorrydrivers seat, the studio and the football field are all among its places. These are where people work and play stupidly or intelligently. Mind is not the name of another person, working or frolicking behind an impenetrable screen; it is not the name of another place where work is done or games are played; and it is not the name of another tool with which work is done, or another appliance with which games are played. (Ryle, Gilbert. 1949. P.51)

A mans reach must exceed his grasp or whats a metaphor. (McLuhan, Marshall. 1964 P.63)

We are in the age of telepresence, presence at a distance (tele from the Greek at a distance,) or as Lev Manovich would define telepresence as the real-time communication whit a physically remote location. (Manovich, 2001. p.171) Though he goes on to elaborate that at its essence telepresence is not that of a presence, but that of an anti-presence, where a subject is interacting with a material world in which they are not necessarily physically present in a location to affect reality at this location. (Manovich, 2001. p. 167) This anti-presence he states, in its actuality, is acting over a distance. In real time, and would be more accurately termed teleaction. (Manovich, 2001. p.167) Teleaction in this light disorganizes what it is to be embodied, in a present, and how such a way of being in the world defines ones relation to, and

constitution of, space. What it means to be embodied, and how being of a body, and of space, with a present is now up for grabs in the realm of teleaction. I propose that the essence of teleaction is not that of an anti-presence, that its essence is very much a presence. That our action is not at a distance, but very much in the space of what we would term near. A theory of anti-presence is lacking understanding of what it means to be embodied and how the present, which is constituted by our body and perceptual experience, is of the body in which space is posited by. In teleaction this is possible, as Katherine Hayles states, by the idea that we are posthuman, where the prostheses that enable teleaction replace the body we are born to, for it is nothing but the original prosthesis. (Hayles, 1999. p.2) Our being of a body does not necessarily end with that of the one we are born to, though it may be where it began. With this view it is not just, as Marshall McLuhan writes, that we have extended our central nervous system, (McLuhan, 1964. p.3) but as well our exteropropriocetion, for we are profoundly embodied. (Clark, 2003. P.34) This is achieved by entering into a closed loop of feedback, where we are autopoeitically and reflexively (Hayles, 1999. p.138) coupled to our prosthesis, in a cybernetic system, a system of control and communication. (Ashby, 1956. p.1) Our body, the materiality in which we are embodied, that which is the instrument of our actions and gives to us our perceptual experience of the world outside us is now the many networks of circuits and electricity, various mechanical and electronic technologies implemented in doing so. We become the cyborg (Hayles, 1999. p.8), and very naturally because we are all natural-born cyborgs. (Clark, 2003. p.124) To illustrate this I will draw a comparative analogy, which I shall carry throughout this paper. My desire is to write this paper, and I am in need of a pen to do so. I look across the surface of my desk, my eyes scanning in saccades, to the point when my attention brings me to the object of my desire, a pen. I judge that it is in the far right corner of my desks surface and begin to lift and extend my arm by the muscles, ligatures and various joints within my body necessary so as to reach across the space that I have determined to separate me from the pen. As my arm approaches it, I can tell not only that I have reached it by the physical sensation of the contact of my skin on the surface to which I determine to be the pen. It is as well that I can see the image, (Bergson, 1988. p.23) which I term to be my arm, to coincide in the space in which the pen resides. I tighten my grasp and draw it towards me, and begin to write these words. It was my desire to write that motivated me to find the image that I relate to be a representation (Bergson, 1988. p.32) of the pen. It was my desire, brought about an act of attention, where a mental and perceptual field was created so that movements of the

exploratory organ or elaborations of thought became possible. (Merlau-Ponty, 1964. P.34) Attention is what set limits to the scene, this spectacle; it is what I owe my behavior to. The act of attention fixed the flux of all possibilities of what could be done. But that which acquired me this spectacle, that which presents this field, is that of my body, my eyes and arm to be termed the exploratory organs. For what would the possibilities of this place be unless I was of a body in this place? It is through stable organs and pre-established circuits that man can acquire mental and practical space which will free him from his environment and allow him to see it.(Merlau-Ponty, 1964. P.100) The organs I term sensory and the apparatuses of my body with motor capabilities are what can initially allow me to see a pen, to touch a pen; it is having previously manipulated them which established these circuits of know how. They are the modes of presentation for the material world that rests outside my body. They are what enable me to see and act in the spectacle that is my desk. Within this scene it is our body that indicates the parts and aspects of matter on which we can lay hold. (Bergson, 1988 p.179) My body and all that it is comprised of becomes the locus for my action, but how would I plunge into this action without the know how of my body? It becomes the original way for me to relate to this pen and this desk. I know nothing of them unless first I know that of my body. Though it may be the original point of relation it is not that which gave rise to my terming the forms of this spectacle. For my body is an instrument of action and action only. In no degree, in no sense, under no aspect does it serve to prepare, far less to explain a representation. (Bergson, 1988. p.225) We can in no way say that our knowledge of certain aspects of this scene, that the pen is what will write or even what a pen is, is as a result of my body. Knowing that I may see a pen and reach a pen, may wrap my fingers around it and move it to and fro is a consequence of the potentialities of my body; they and they only are the pre-established circuits. As the locus of my action, this body of mine must be controlled in a way that is not just as a result of my attention. My eyes could see, but how is it that they moved? They are not the fixed dead stare of a statue. I have the ligatures, muscles and joints of my arm in which to reach the pen and grasp it, but they in themselves cannot coordinate such a movement. It is by my nervous system that the seemingly disparate movements of my bodily parts come to be. It is that which is a mere conductor, transmitting, sending back or inhibiting movement. (Bergson. 1988. p.44) Its function being to receive stimuli; to provide motor apparatus, and to present to the largest number of these apparatuses to a given stimuli. (Bergson, 1988. p.44) This system, that stands at the point of relay for my sensory-exploratory organs, is that which can excite them based on the immediate sense-data (Bergson, 1913. P.104) received.

How is it that you say I begin to perceive my desk, the pen and all the things of this spectacle? I perceive the surface of my desk as my eyes move back and forth; the motion of my arm going towards that, which is the pen, is something that I perceive. Henri Bergson states that the actuality of our perception thus lies in activity (Bergson, 1988. p.57) I cannot say that I perceive the field of my desk if it were not for my eyes moving in saccades. It would as well not be so for me to state that I perceive the pen to be over there, if it were not for my arm being able to move to it. The content of our perception is acquired thanks to our possession of bodily skills. What we perceive is determined by what we do (or what we know how to do) we enact our perceptual experience; we act it out. (No, 2004. p.1) How would it be that I felt the surface of the pen in my hand if it was not by that of my hand gripping it? We do not begin to perceive until we begin to do. We know how to do because of the history our mind has established by previous manipulation of this body. This past is part and parcel of what we are able to perceive, but it is not involved in the present of pure perception, it is ideo-motor. (Bergson, 1988. p.68) Perception has another facet as well. It is our perception that measures our possible actions upon things, (Bergson, 1988. p.56) limiting itself to the objects which actually are present to our organs, and prepares our movements. (Bergson, 1988. p.179) My perception of the pen exists in that there is a pen on my desk; I only perceive that there is a pen on my desk because I know that I may use my eyes to see a pen. The action of me grabbing the pen is as a result of the capability of me being able to grab it with my hand. And I can only perceive that it is in my hand by the fact that my eyes see it while as well I can feel my skin on a surface other than my own. In that my perception is able to measure all the possible actions that can occur within the scenario at my desk is limited to what Bergson terms the virtual actions of my body. (Bergson, 1988. p.179) My perception becomes the knowledge that if I move my eyes in such and such a way I will see all of the surface of my desk, that if I move my arm in such a such way it will correspondingly go in those directions. But how is it so that the actions of my body and my perception gives rise to my understanding of what a present is? For Bergson, my present is, in its essence, sensorimotor. (Bergson, 1988. p.138) My present is located purely in the actions of this scene as they occur. For it is not in the recognition of the pen, a place of higher cognition which is the seat of the mind, it is in the real actions in the flux of this scene that gives rise to my understanding of what the present is for me.

In the continuity of becoming which is reality itself, the present moment is constituted by our perception of the flowing mass, and this section is precisely that which we call the material world, that part of which we directly feel the flux; in its actual state, the actuality of our present lies our present is the very materiality of our existence, that is to say, a system of sensation and movements and nothing else. (Bergson, 1988. p.139)

It is the real actions of my body, scanning the desks surface and reaching for the pen, where the present lies. I can say that my interaction with the flux of the material world is when I went looking for my pen on the desk, when I reached my arm out to grasp it and bring it towards me. The understanding that the object on which my eyes are fixed, by my attention, is a pen is not of a present. The movements of my arm as it traversed over my desk are of my present, but in knowing that I had to extend my arm in which to reach it, are not of my present. These movements, these actions that give rise to our perceptual content are where we directly feel the flux. They are the point-by-point plays, which we carry out unconsciously directed through a conscious will. It is not something I can relate; my present is only something I can be of. If it is by our bodily skills that we enact our perceptions and acquire a present, is it as well by our body that we understand space? Space, by its very definition, is outside us. (Bergosn, 1913. p.206) Space is not that of my arm, my eyes, and my central nervous system. Space is that which is around my body. But neither is space the pen. We are to say that these things are in space, but not of space. Space is where there is distance between things, a realm in which there are things to be done. I begin to understand the space that separates me from the pen as my arm in motion, across the background of my desk, moves in successive points to begin to reside with the area of the pen. It is that space is not a ground on which real motion is posited; rather it is real motion that deposits space beneath itself. (Bergson, 1913. p.213) These are the points that I can find relational value in, to have a determination of what space is, by the real motion of my body. And it is thus where space is posited. It is such that real motions, these successive positions of the moving body do really occupy space, but the process by which it passes from one position to the othereludes space. (Bergson, 1 913. p.110) It is the internal processes of my perception, attention and nervous system that elude space. The transmission of signals to my sensory organs, the multiple commands they receive by my perception measuring their virtual action are not in space, but of it. They are within the space of my body. I

can find no successive points of relation in which to judge them by, they are a system and domain all to themselves in which the rest of the world must remain outside. But the space that I measure, the space of real motions, is very much the space that is posited by my body, being that which I can find relational value to. For it is only by my body that I can begin to understand that the pen is over there; that I am here. The pen is far, while my hand is near. For as Merlau-Point points out;

a constituting mind is eminently able to trace out all directions in space, but has at any moment, no direction, and consequently no space, without an actual starting point, an absolute here in which can gradually confer a significance on all spatial determinations. (Merlau-Ponty, 1945. P.288)

This materiality in which I am embodied is the beginning of all that my mind is able to make sense of. It is what counts for the orientation of the spectacle, it is the virtual actions of my body that becomes a system of possible action, a virtual body with its phenomenal place defined by its task and situation. (Merlau-Ponty, 1960. P.291) My task is that of finding a pen and the situation is that of me sitting at my desk. What orientated me within this entire spectacle is all that which my body is able to achieve, and the points up to where it becomes in space and not only of it. My body is that which has allowed me to determine that I am here, sitting in front of my desk and that the desk is in front of me. I know after scanning my desk that the pen is over there, in a place which is not here, the place that I am. The pen is over there, in the far corner of this field; my perception is that which allows me to know, thanks to my body, that if I move my arm over there I am able to reach the pen. I term the pen far, because it is only a virtual possibility that I can reach it. The closer I come to hold the pen with my hand the more that this potentiality passes into something that I would call real. I find that what is near to me is that which is closer to the potential of being real for me, and not something which is only a possibility by virtue of my body. It comes now, as Michael ODonovan-Anderson states that;

...our spatial organization of perceptual information, and in particular our knowledge of the boundaries of material objects, depends on both the comportmental potentials of the body, and its actual activity in and

interference in the physical world. (ODonovan-Anderson, 1997. P.103)

The spatio-comportmental organization of the spectacle of my desk is explicitly by virtue of my body. It is its virtual action, its possible recurrent sensori-motor apparatuses, that allow me to establish such terms as near, far, left, right. It is as well the fact that I know my sensory organs will present me to such and such information in a consistent pattern that allows me to give content to my perceptual experience. It is this matrix of sensation and movement, which constitutes my present, by being in the flux of my developing relation to the material world. This is my here. We can contribute no more to my body in the actions of searching for my pen; we must thusly find that it is our body which stands out as the center of these perceptions; my personality is the being to which these actions must be referred. (Bergson. 1988. P.47) Let us reconfigure our analogy in the light of teleaction. Say I were to be sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, which is in a room separate from the where my desk is located. In front of me is an interface comprised of a screen, a computer, two joysticks with various functions. These components are linked together through software over cyberspace to another computer that is coupled to a camera and robotic arm. In front of the lens of the camera is the same field of my desk as which I previously saw. My desire is still to write. The joystick of my left hand controls the camera. It allows it to scan the surface of the desk, moving it from left to right, up and down, diagonally, in various ways, as well as to focus the lens zoom in by twisting it. The joystick in my right hand allows me to move the robotic arm in much the same way. I can extend it away from the central unit in all directions, towards and away, side to side, above and below. It as well allows me to open the grip of the arm and tighten it by compressing the joystick as well as rotate the hand of the arm by twisting the device. I use the joystick in my left hand to scan the surface of the desk in all directions to locate the pen and find it to be in the top left of the desk, by it being in the top left of the screen. I focus the lens, zooming in on that quadrant. With my right hand I move the arm into that quadrant and it appears on my screen to enter into the space of which I have zoomed. I lower the robotic arm to the space that I know the pen to be and put it in relation to the arm and central unit and tighten the grip of the arm around the pen. I know not just by the sight provided to me by the camera, my screen has as well registered my grip. I begin to return the arm back towards the central unit and lower it in hand to the piece of paper in front of the lens and begin

to write. The instrument of my action is now the system of technical components in which I can control through the interface, these being the organs of sensation and exploration that can perceive and act in this spectacle. The arm and the eye of this system, placed in the scene of my desk, is what indicates the aspects of matter that I may lay hold on. It is not that of the console, the interface of which my born body is place before that is the locus of my action; it is the prosthetic body of technical apparatuses placed before my desk. These are the stable organs in which I am able to act, they give no rise to representations, and they are simply that which allows me to see the environment. These are what will give content to my perceptual experience; the screen does not constitute the experience. The screen gives way to what lays beyond it, the point to which it ends; it is the virtual action determined by my body that defines this field. The screen falls into Roland Barthes logic where the screen is irreversible and incorruptible; everything that surrounds it is banished into nothingness, remains unnamed, while everything that admits with in its field is promoted into essence, into light, into view. (Manovich, 2001. p.104) The view of my perceptual field is the point of view that is on the screen, a point of view that is enacted by skills possessed by the camera and arm connected to the central unit. It is in this logic that the interface, as well as the system of circuits that connect it to the prosthesis at the desk, are nothing but a command center, acting as my nervous system, transmitting signals to my new body. They are what is interposed between that of what is affecting the eye and arm in this scene; it is what inhibits or excites movement within the scene of my desk. As Michael Heim defines it an interface denotes a contact point where software and hardware links the human user to the computer processorswhere electronic signals become information. (Heim 1993, P.78) It is merely something that presents stimuli to the sensory-motor apparatuses of my prosthesis and allows them to continue on in the field of my attention. Though it is not transmitted disembodied this information, for information to exist, it must always be instantiated in a medium. (Hayles, 1999. p.13) The flow of information very much becomes instantiated in the materiality that is the many circuits and apparatuses of the system that my personality is engaged. It finds its own phenomenal place much as my born body does; information, like humanity, cannot exist apart from the embodiment that brings it into being as a material entity in the world; and embodiment is always instantiated, local and specific. (Hayles, 1999. p.49) The information that is being transmitted to me over cyberspace and through the interface, as well as in the opposite direction, is existent because of the prosthesis that is at my desk. All information confers a definite spatiality and locale based of this existent. It is this, which gives locality and specificity in the same way as my body did when

placed in front of the desk. We already know that all content of perceptual experience is acquired through enaction. But if the content of my perceptual experience is enacted by my prosthesis is it feasible to state that I will incorporate it in the same way? Varela and Maturana find that enaction sees cognitive structures emerging from recurrent sensory-motor patterns and that enaction emphasizes the links of the nervous system with the sensory surfaces and motor abilities that connect the organism to the environment. (Hayles, 1999. p.156) As my mind learns to manipulate this prosthesis, to negotiate the virtual actions of this body, (the instrument of my actions), perceptual content is provided by such skills that are of my prosthesis and begins to inform my cognitive structuring. When I begin to judge near, far, I am able to do so now in virtue of my prosthesis; this is on the same footing as my born body. What we have done in this cybernetic system is achieve an autopoeitic (Hayles, 1999. p.8) relationship with our prosthesis. In Maturana and Varelas theory it is the circularity of its organization that makes a living system a unit of interactions and it is this circularity that it must maintain in order to remain a living system and to retain its identity through different interactions. (Hayles, 1999. p.38) By understanding what are the potentialities of my prosthesis I am able to retain any identity of where here is, that the pen is over there. If my mind could not become coupled structurally to this prosthesis it would move around in manners, which would be unable to achieve my goal. I would have no original way to relate to the objects in my field of attention. That which I begin to construct and identify as me does not stop at the body into which I am born, but we find that, as Kevin Robins states, our subjectivity is dispersed throughout the cybernetic circuit the boundaries of self are defined less by the skin than by feedback loops. (Featherstone & Burrows, 1995. P.138) The whole space of the kitchen table, the console and my body, fades from view like Barthes screen and it is the system which is something to which you are wired, and there develops a perpetual test of the presence of the subject vis--vis his objects an uninterrupted interface. (Baurillard, p21 1988) The joysticks, screen, software, computers, et al which had been used to generate a system is made, through a changed perspective, to become part of the system it generates. (Hayles 1991, p.8) The system has blended us into One and the Same. (Baurrilard, 1990. p.64) This system, this object, as Deborah Lupton states it, ceases to be an object and becomes a medium, a vehicle for impression and expression. (Featherstone & Burrows, 1995 p.98) It has become our body, it is of the same footing as our born body, not because it is identical in parts and functional values, but because the system of operation, the system that is inherent to our mind, finds homeostasis with that which provides

content to it in closed loops of feedback. These closed loops as well leave such things as the kitchen table, the kitchen, and the spectacle of my desk as separate from it. The determination of where my subject begins and ends is based on the fact that systems operate within the boundaries of an organization that closes in on itself and leaves the world on the outside. (Hayles, 1999. P.136) This is what defines the parameters of my subjectivity, that which I can actively control, that which I am agent of. Though is it this system that allows me to use my prosthesis also allow to me to have a sensory-motor present? Is it that which is in the flux of the real? My perceptual present was that of the real actions of my born body as they flowed with the material of my external world. Katherine Hayles quotes Norbert Weiners theory of cybernetics which states that perception does not reflect reality directly but rather relies on transformations that preserve a pattern across multiple sensory modalities and neural interfaces. (Hayles, 1999. p.98) By view of this, my perception stays intact in virtue of the closed loop preserving the pattern of my enacted perceptual experience. As such, we can follow on that if my perception lies in the activity of this prosthesis, and it can establish the real, having the sensory modalities by holding sensory-motor organs it can participate within the flux of the real. David Thomas states of Weiners cybernetic theory that we see how this system is alive because of the fact that it is operationally active by being coupled to the external world in a flow of impressions, of incoming messages, and of the actions of outgoing messages.(Featherstone & Burrows, 1995. P.26) It establishes the present for it is in it that I find the essence of my present; it is sensory-motor and not ideomotor. We must move onto the question of our prosthesis conferring the orientation of the spectacle based on its comportmental behavior. We need to know that our mind can intimate, from being in a reflexive and autopoeitic loop with a prosthesis, such spatial knowledge as near, far and various others from the enaction of our perception. I turn to the writing of Andy Clark in his book of epistemology and cognitive science, Supersizing the Mind. Clark points that our minds and our bodies are something which are capable of deep and transformative restructuring and that during this process, the same as when we were learning to coordinate the apparatuses of our cybernetic system, new equipment (both physical and mental) can become quite literally incorporated into the thinking and acting systems that we identify as our minds and bodies.(Clark, 2004. p.30) In this transformative process, the interface that our born body is in communion with, as long as it is successful, the new agent-tool interface itself fades from view, and the proper picture is one of an extended or enhanced agent confronting the (wider) world. (Clark, 2004. p.31)

Clark makes reference to an experiment conducted by Carmena. The experiment consisted of electrodes being implanted into the brain of a monkey who used a joystick to maneuver a cursor across the screen of a computer. The movements of the cursor were diverted to a robot arm whose actual motions are translated back into the on-screen cursors movements. (Clark, 2004 p.34) Clark quotes the findings of Carmena as follows;

the dynamics of the robot arm become incorporated into multiple cortical representations we propose that the gradual increase in behavioral performance emerged as a consequence of a plastic reorganization whose main outcome was the assimilation of the dynamics of the artificial actuator into the physiological properties of fronto-parital neurons. (Carmena et all 2003 in Clark, 2004. p.34)

Clark says in relation to the monkey that;

It had to factor in the mechanical and dynamical properties of the robot arm and the time delays caused by interposing the motion of the arm between neural command and on-screen feedback. By the time full fluency was achieved, it is reasonable to conjecture that these properties of the still unseen distant arm were in some sense incorporated into the monkeys own body schema. (Clark, 2004. p.34)

This is as well found in the work of Berti and Frassinetti in relation to a stick being used for reaching;

the brain makes a distinction between far space (the space beyond the reaching distance) and near space (the space within reaching distance) [and that] simply holding a stick causes a remapping of far space to near

space. In effect the brain, at least for some purposes, treats the stick as though it were part of the body (Berti & Frassinetti 2002 in Clark 2004, p.38)

Our brain begins to treat the virtual actions that exist as possibilities of my Same sat at the desk in my room to be as well real actions, which I previously established of my born body. My brain collapses the space that supposedly would be termed far away in a theory of teleaction, to be that in the space it would term near. Our brain negotiates what comprised elements form the overall body schema. The image I term my body is a construct of consciousness, (Clark, 2004. P.39) something that exists beyond my present and is seated at a higher level of cognition then my sensori-motor, though it takes the latter to create the former. What we find is that our mind can easily be placed in a new body schema, which is that of a suite of neural settings that implicitly (and nonconsciously) define a body in terms of its capabilities for action, for example, by defining the extent of near space. (Clark, 2004 p.39) The prosthesis introduced to the system of feedback, which constitutes my perception, has now incorporated the prosthesis to become an element of the real.

The body is also the point at which willed action, if successful, first impacts the wider world. When conjoined to the observation that, in the typical human case, these points of willed action include all our voluntary sensor movements, it yields the intuitive understanding of the body as the common and persisting locus of sensing and action. Extensive work on the technologies of telepresence suggests that the human sense of presence, of being at a certain place in space, is fully determined by our ability to enter into closed-loop interactions, in which willed sensor motions yield new sensory inputs, and by our ability to act upon at least some of the items thus falling within the sensory range(Clark 2004 p.206)

We are not the quasi-disembodied, weakly temporalized and spatially displaced(Trend, 2001. p.326) mind of Vivian Sobchack, but are the profoundly embodied mind of Clark. (Clark, 2004. P.46) Our mind is promiscuously body-and-world exploiting,

which is very much capable of incorporating new resources and structures deep into their embodied acting and problem-solving regimes. (Clark, 2004. p.42) Our body is negotiable, not just in the image that we term our body but as well in its body schema. When we become one with the interface it is the whole of the human sensorium that gets jacked in and we begin to negotiate the field of situated intentional action by virtue of the potentialities of our prosthesis. So then can the essence of teleaction be anti-presence? No. We find that it is the sensori-motor real of our body that defines our present. If we can safely say that this is the moment of our present could we say that in teleaction, which I now know not to be an action at a distance. For the space that is of the cybernetic system is now the body of the cyborg, it is the here of our body. I want to now refer back to the opening quote by Gilbert Ryle. The mind in his view is not one of a place, but of many; though I doubt he means simultaneously. You could draw many connections between this one statement and Andy Clarks extended cognition theory, though this is not the primary concern of this essay and is well beyond its scope. The spaces that Ryle draws are behavioral spaces/places; they are places that belong to a particular type of person and action. The place of my body is wherever there is something to be done, or very well could be done; they are places of action. It is not that the mind and body are in separate places; this is not a dichotomy I wish to draw. Rather they orientate the spectacle in different ways, yet collapse into one another. I chose not to focus on how the mind in particular orientates it because I find that it is not the operations of the mind which constitute that of my present: the present is brought about by the real movements and real sensations of that which I term my body. The physicality in which I am embodied. It is the present in which I am concerned. I find it impossible to side with a theory of anti-presence in teleaction. To be able to affect reality, in real time, in the flux of the material world, is necessitated by being present. For what is it to have presence if not to be of the present? It is my real sensations and movements which allow my to have that of a present, it is these real movements and sensations which allow me to be a presence. They are the continuity of my becoming as Bersgon might say and are that by which my perception constitutes the present and the being in which I have presence. If it becomes difficult for my brain to differentiate between a prosthesis and my born body in terms of my body schema, I find the theory lacking. If my constituting mind begins to find its place and orientation by the physicality which is my prosthesis, I find it to be lacking doubly so. In the same vein, I find it troublesome to term it teleaction, action at a distance. Though we drew only one instance, it was possible to illustrate that is an aspect of the mind to recoordinate itself with regards to the prosthesis implemented in the scenario of teleaction.

There exists for my cognition across the cybernetic system, no real movement, and it is real movement, which allows me to find relational value to posit space. As my own brain in cognitive structuring, begins to incorporate the prosthesis into its own body schema, the place of real action, the place I term here. I find it hard for me to say that these actions occur at a distance. The second quote is to make a conjecture, as to how one could come by a theory of antipresence. In Marshal McLuhans quote we can draw a wealth from its well. Take for instance grasp. The physicality by which I reach things. This is where action lies, real action and not a potentiality or virtual action. But a mans reach is a construct. It is a metaphor. A metaphor only has meaning in the mind of that who has it. It tries to reach beyond the flux of the immediate material world. This could be a theory of anti-presence. This is a presence at a distance, at a remove from the present. I find the realm of telelaction or telepresence to be a brave new world. It can shake up many previous misconceptions of thought as well as bring to light those, which have almost been forgotten. I do not dare yet re-term it. I know that further elaboration is necessary for myself, or others, to be able to come to a more comprehensive understanding if its implications. But it can be established that the terminology is at this point already an antiquated mode of thinking. As of yet I know no other.

Self-Evaluation

I wandered into to my dissertation with not too much aim as to a particular concern of mine. I am interested in media theory and performance. So I just started reading basically all I could. In all the books I read, it was from cover to cover. So very time consuming. I moved back and forth between different fields, epistemology, phenomenology, cognitive science, communication theory, cybernetics and media theory. My true hopes were to gain a broad understanding of what media and technology means by moving between all these fields. I found that at the end it was my knowledge in cybernetics and communication theory is lacking more than the others. This simple being as result of not having the mathematical skills to comprehend the formulas involved. I have gained a better understanding of the necessity to organize your thoughts. I am generally an unorganized person and this made it extremely difficult for me. I learned how to pair down as well. I found it incredibly difficult to find a point that could be expressed within

pair down as well. I found it incredibly difficult to find a point that could be expressed within 6500 words. I am not even sure if I managed to accomplish this. I also as well came to realize that I am very out of practice in writing. I have always been an avid reader and researcher but never dedicated much time to writing theoretically. This has given me the desire to try and continue on with it. Not that it is necessarily a strength of mine. But maybe a skill I would try to develop more. I feel that the weakness of my dissertation is probably its organization. I write in a manner, which is all over the place, and it is very difficult for me to create sequence. Even as I try I always go back and change it all to be out of order again. I was also dealing with many technical terms and big concepts. I found it hard to balance defining what the terms were I was speaking under and really where my own point of view was. I felt there was a necessity to cite and define every term I wanted to use. I feel the strength of my dissertation is difficult level of information that I try to incorporate. Though this at some point might have lead to my downfall. I hope that I was able mount it and use it properly. I would have liked to dedicate more time to it. As returning to the course this year and busy working before hand I managed to do all my research and writing from the beginning of the term. It is not that I did not dedicate time to it, but I worked on a much tighter budget of about 15 weeks in which to conduct my research as well as to write the dissertation. It is a labor of love and woe this dissertation. I would definitely want to take a particular point of research, say what would interest me know greatly is embodiment. If I knew the particular field I was interested in the beginning I could have a much finer scope in my dissertation The dissertation has greatly affected my studio work. They have been done concurrently from scratch. Though my research has greatly helped me in understanding the medium in which I am trying to grapple, it has greatly distracted me from being able to work within this medium.