Cloud Punk. Herlander Elias
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Copyright © Herlander Elias, Author, 2017
All rights reserved. No excerpt whatsoever of this edition may be reproduced, recorded on a archive system, or be transmitted, in any way, or by any means, whether it is electronic, mechanical, photocopied, saved, or of any other kind, without the explicit permission from Herlander Elias.
Author: Herlander Elias
Translation & Proof Reading: Herlander Elias & Ondina Pires
Cover Design: Herlander Elias
Cloud Punk
THE DIGITAL FIFTH WAVE
Herlander Elias
Preface
It could even be a fiction book
It is a common thing fictional literary works which portray a dystopic future. Imaginary narrative is embraced by an uncomfortable restlessness when somebody tries to predict our machines and technology relation. This kind of future is unknown and there is a comprehensive fear. The future past narratives tried to anticipate what would be the present we experiment nowadays. Just for a moment, look around and you soon will realize that Skynet does not win, we are not source of energy to the machines, replicants do not kill humans, people need not to be genetically manipulated before born to be considered capable and we do not drive cars through desert-cities looking for gasoline. These are old visions of a future that does not belong to us. On the contrary, we live together with concepts as metaverse, data-telling, cloudware, cyberwar, blockchain, hyper-information and hierarchies’ fragmentation which provide an heterarchy culture of production and the diffusion of contents which is typical of a rhizomatic means. These are some of nowadays particularities. This is the reality we live in.
Notwithstanding, Cloud Punk: The Digital Fifth Wave, tells about our present.
In this work there is a deep reflection on the contemporaneity of a digital society, telematic, interconnected, hybrid, and one which produces and consumes a quantity of data unimaginable for the previous generation. We live in informative bubbles. Our online actions are watched. We give our consent, in a frightened pacific form, to be sold to big cloud companies. What is to be noticed in this work is the fact we live a process of memories, works, economy and consumer goods dematerialization and also of everything that can be scanned. In other words, the quality of the physical things is not a prerequisite for an object existence. What would be the physical existence of a work? The words I write here are equally true on a printed book or in an electronic book. The same movie exists in the theaters or in on-demand platforms. The object is not only independent from its materiality but it is also independent from its locality. The cloud is ubiquitous.
Our present is invisible to the most of the eyes. However, there are people who can see through the transparency of the immateriality. Differently from those who can consider this work as an example of a fiction with a near future flavor, there are others who notice the presence of a paradigmatic rupture of our way of existing and resisting in this world. To adapt and to transform: so it is and so it will be.
In this work, Herlander Elias reveals to us that he has a mind which walks in a lucid way by the threads of digital contemporaneity. He is a cyberthinker who can, with nimbleness, be away of the common places of discourses on technology. The author gifts us with an intelligent and intriguing thinking which certifies a serene capacity of detachment which turns the present we live holds flavors of a near future. He is, in fact, a person with attentive eyes to our time. Because he does not think only by himself, he thinks profusely and reaches multiple areas and disciplines.
It is noticeable that our post-digital society is not a theoretical concept anymore. During the reading, the author turns possible to us more than a conceptual comprehension; he makes us recognize the presence of this immaterial reality which crosses over our lives. He crosses over our humanity. He transforms us in post-humans who live in another habitat, with new biotechnological extensions. To accede this new habitat, nowadays extremely occupied by yotabytes of information created by us, is possible by machine intermediation only. The language of this new habitat, created by us, is perceptible by machine intermediation alone. We are creating a new universe, which cannot be experienced by tact, smell, or taste. Our human belief in heaven eternal life, in the clouds, has been turned in reality. The difference is that the place now is called cloud and our memories, in binary data way, will be there while there is energy to keep them there.
Nothing else is offered here besides present’s reality. This is fascinating.
By Flávio Almeida – PhD and lecturer at Universidade Da Beira Interior and IADE — Universidade Europeia. English version by Sandra Isoldi.
Introduction
Anywhere, anytime, it does not matter sophistication level or amount of belongings, culture and technology are always present in the human history. The act of creating and developing abstract concepts and artifacts belong to our humanity. Nature reconfiguration belongs to our nature. When we have the opportunity to create, we feel comfortable in the detachment, in the superlative, in the overcoming. Technology is a certificate of human intelligence, as well as of our arrogance. To be beyond, to be better, to be faster. Become the gods culture creates. Boats in order to dominate seas, planes in order to explore skies, vehicles in order to move faster, machines in order to have a demolisher strength , technology in order to be omniscient and to be omnipresent.
The technical reproductivity which so much disturbs Walter Benjamin, in the 1930’s, is largely signified again in the post-digital era. To create identical beings is desirable today. Digital reproductivity results in a reliable copy. From one original it is possible to create two originals. There is no demerit in the reproduction. Literature, music or movies artistic objects, for instance, are identical in theirs structural genetics: a long recipe made of binary code. The cloud relies on the copy to distribute content to its users. In the cloud, the copy is the original and, for users, what matters is the copy. The difference is in the way people enjoy the work. A movie in the theater is not more original than a movie in a streaming service. A physical book is not more original than an electronic book. The difference inhabits in the transcription of these works from a mean to another.
At the moment I write this text, I work at different semantic levels in my computer. At one extreme, there is the organic structure of my being and my cognition to articulate those words and, at the opposite extreme, the intersemiotic translation to a binary language where computer can perform their functions. Finally, another machine received instructions to precisely paint with ink specific parts of this exact piece of paper. In the case lecture occurs in a electronic device, pixels will perform the function of create the necessary contrasts in the screen. The original printed version of a book, photograph, newspaper or magazine which someone can buy at the newsstand, currently, are physicals adaptation of an immaterial digital original. In one level, a person should meet the desirable material. In another level, the material (and many others) meets the person. However, the meet of the second is possible through an artificial intelligence mean, by machine learning about user personal preferences.
In the post-digital, among a sea of copies, user is the differentiating element. It is an unique entity which generates content, manages data, generates apprenticeship and, at the end, runs away with content. Each user is unique and its singularity cannot be reproduced, nevertheless, the content is influenced through mass media. As individuals we are unique, but in the cloud we are sorted in tags. We are known by our browsing history, by the content we share, by the likes we give to the things. At the end, who are we in this post-digital era? What is the self-knowledge level we must have?
In April 2018, Mark Zuckenberg, Facebook’s CEO, was taken to