Check out this new media technology: BubbleGuru, which is a website that--if you sign up by May 1st, it's free--allows you to make video blurbs that you can then embed into emails or your website, and they don't take up any more space on your website. Hmmm. What do you guys think?

If nothing else, I think the name, BubbleGuru, is really cool!

I feel like this is a really good example of how the Critical Art Ensemble's 'sight machine' still controls a lot of our motivations. We like to see what's going on, who is talking to us, and what the face behind the voice we're hearing online looks like.

All of the cyborg readings we've done really sparks my interest in studying more about whatever field it is where you consider really big things to be machines. It's really interesting to me to put together these really huge and abstract chains of causality and ascribe them agency, almost as if they were some kind of living thing. Reading the Critical Art Ensemble piece, one word immediately came to mind: Paranoia. Initially in the "those whackos" sense, but then as I'd seen it in Gravity's Rainbow, where it sort of blurs into more of a general "everything is connected" that I read as having implications about causality in general.

Similar to ColoradoGirl's blog, I initially thought of Google Earth when they mentioned satellite imaging technologies that stores all of this visual information (apparently Gmap is also powered by Google). So if something like this is then made available to any person with access to the internet, what do you think is the utility of these accessible satellite images?

The Critical Art Ensemble argues that the technology that collects visual information has a purpose of perpetuating the war machine in order for one to maintain power and place in the world. We can see that satellite technology has been used for military purposes. And for weather purposes. Then, it was accessible to the everyday consumer for navigational reasons. Now, if Google Earth suggests to the user to search for your house, buildings, and 3D terrain, are there other reasons why this is made for online access?

When reading the Critical Art Ensemble's Flesh Machine, I thought of a perfect embodiment of the sight machine . . . one that I've become creepily addicted to: the Gmap pedometer. True, this is a really scary example of how you can chart out ANY place (at least in the States) . . . but I really love seeing satellite images of familiar places, kind of in a weird voyeuristic way! (I don't know if I should admit this).
Do you guys think a tool like this invades our privacy too much? Or is it ok to have this level of visibility via the sight machine described by the Critical Art Ensemble? Type in your address and zoom in . . . maybe I'm not the only weirdo who likes/is scared by looking at my car parked in front of my house.