Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/no need to argue/Technology of Useless

Text File | 1994-10-10 | 29KB | 462 lines

                         THE TECHNOLOGY OF USELESSNESS

   Critical Art Ensemble

   I am useless, but God loves me. - Mike Kelly

   The expectation that technology will one day exist as pure utility is
   an assumption that frequently surfaces in collective thought on the
   development of society and social relations. This prospect has
   typically suggested two opposite scenarios of the future. On one hand,
   there is the utopian millenium predicted by modern thinkers who were
   guided by belief in progress; this concept slowly began to supplant
   belief in the concept of providence during the 17th and 18th
   centuries. Both concepts were characterized by belief in the unilinear
   development of the human race, but providence was a force that was
   expected to result in spiritual, rather than in economic autonomy. The
   engine of providence was considered the guiding hand of God (which was
   later amputated and stitched to the cyborg of capitalism by Adam
   Smith). In Early Modernity, when belief in providence began giving way
   to belief in progress, intellectuals and scholars were debating
   whether the social utopia of the future should be based on spiritual
   or on secular principles. Philosophers searched for an independent
   force in the universe that could save the earthly population from its
   economic shortcomings and its spiritual privation. Thomas More
   constructed a rather dubious literary utopia that marked the beginning
   of the shift from God/Christ to science/technology as savior. From
   More's perspective, neither of the two choices seemed particularly
   satisfying. Given the choice between El Dorado and the regime of
   Mahomet the Prophet, Voltaire found the former more tolerable. This
   type of thought which valued secular human advancement and cast doubt
   on spiritual systems began to tip the scales of judgment in favor of
   science and technology, but certainly no celebration accompanied this
   shift. With the coming of the industrial revolution, the scales tipped
   decisively in favor of science and technology once and for all. At
   last, a foreseeable end was imagined to the problem of production -
   soon there would be enough goods for everyone, and with such surplus,
   competition over scarce goods would cease. The idea of progress began
   to flourish from this point on. Both the left (Condorcet and
   Saint-Simon) and the right (Comte and Spencer) shared an optimism
   about the future in spite of the wildly divergent destinies predicted
   by each - for example, council socialism was anticipated by
   Saint-Simon, and the appearance of the bourgeois Ubermensch was
   expected by Spencer.

   Let us not forget Marx in this thumbnail sketch. Although Marx was not
   one to wax utopian very often, he did have his moments. Marx believed
   that the factory system would solve problems of production (i.e.,
   scarcity); however, he foresaw a new problem, that of distribution.
   The crisis in distribution would in turn lead to revolution, by which
   means the victorious workers would restructure the exploitive routes
   of bourgeois distribution. Such speculation has continued to manifest
   itself even later, in utopian visions well exemplified by Rene Clair
   in the film A Nous la Liberte. The film depicts a time after the
   glorious revolution when the workers enjoy the fruits of zero work,
   and live only to celebrate, to drink, and to sing, while the machines
   work dutifully, producing the goods needed to carry this utopia into a
   shining future. One of the main currents in modern art (Futurism,
   Constructivism, and Bauhaus) illustrated this soon-to-come secular
   utopia. All the same, it would be quite unfair to hang the sometimes
   shameful optimism of the 20th century on Marx. Although he
   demonstrated how rationalized capitalist economy would end the problem
   of production, he also realized that people could not be satisfied by
   goods alone. Marx foresaw that in the epoch of capitalism, although
   production rates would rise, so would the degree of alienation from
   our own human nature, from economic process, from economic products,
   and from other social beings. In terms of individuals' psychic
   condition, things would not get better, but would grow tortuously
   worse. For Marx, once other variables besides production were
   examined, unilinear social advancement was not to be found.

   This brings us to the second scenario - the pessimists' dystopia. This
   point of view seems to gain new proponents with each new mechanized
   and/or electronic war. Yet even when the idea of progress was at its
   apex, before the military catastrophes of the 20th century, some
   critics of the idea were already predicting that human 'advancement'
   would end in disaster. First and foremost was Ferdinand Toennies, who
   argued that advanced technology would only serve to increase the
   complexity of the division of labor (society), which in turn would
   strip people of all the institutions that are the basis of human
   community (family, friendship, public space, etc). After World War I,
   Oswald Spengler was among the leaders of this line of thought. To his
   mind, advanced technology and sprawling cities were not indications of
   progress; rather, they were indicators of the final moments of
   civilization - one that has hit critical mass and is about to burn
   itself out. The great sociologist Pitirim Sorokin summed up this
   perspective in The Crisis of Our Age when he stated:

     Neither happiness, nor safety and security, nor even material
     comfort has been realized. In few periods of human history have so
     many millions of persons been so unhappy, so insecure, so hungry and
     destitute, as at the present time, all the way from China to Western
     Europe.



   Here then are the two sides, forever in opposition. Today the two
   antithetical opinions continue to manifest themselves throughout
   culture. Corporate futurologists sing the praises of computerized
   information management, satellite communications, biotechnology, and
   cybernetics; such technological miracles, they assure us, will make
   life easier as new generations of technology are designed and produced
   to meet social and economic needs with ever-greater efficiency. On the
   other hand, the concerns of pessimists, neoluddites, retreatists, and
   technophobes ring out, warning that humanity will not control the
   machines, but that the machines will control humanity. In more
   fanciful (generally Hollywood) moments, the new dystopia is envisioned
   as a world where people are caught in the evil grip of a
   self-conscious intelligent machine, one that either forces them into
   slavery, or even worse, annihilates the human race.

   These are the two most common narratives of social evolution in regard
   to technology. For the utopians, the goal of progress is similar to
   the vision of Rene Clair - technology should become a transparent
   backdrop that will liberate us from the forces of production, so that
   we might engage in free hedonistic pursuits. For the dystopians,
   technology represents a state apparatus that is out of control - the
   war machine has been turned on, no one knows how to turn it off, and
   it is running blindly toward the destruction of humanity.

   Evidence can certainly be found to support both of these visions, but
   a third possibility exists, one that is seldom mentioned because it
   lacks the emotional intensity of the other two. To expand on the
   suggestion of Georges Bataille, could the end of technological
   progress be neither apocalypse nor utopia, but simply uselessness?
   Pure technology in this case would not be an active agent that
   benefits or hurts mankind: it could not be, as it has no function.
   Pure technology, as opposed to pure utility, is never turned on; it
   just sits, existing in and of itself. Unlike the machines of the
   utopians and dystopians, not only is it free of humanity, it is free
   of its own machine function - it serves no practical purpose for
   anyone or anything.

   Where are these machines? They are everywhere - in the home, in the
   workplace, and even in places that can only be imagined. So many
   people have become so invested in seeing technology as a manifestation
   of value or anti-value, that they have failed to see that much of
   technology does nothing at all.

   Recently, there has been considerable fascination with the perception
   that most people cannot learn to operate their video tape decks. As
   one comedian put it, "I just bought a VCR for $400, and can't figure
   out how to work it. $400 is just too much for a clock that only blinks
   12:00." This situation is certainly exaggerated, but there is an
   interesting point of truth in it. To program many of the functions on
   a VCR requires skills beyond those of the average consumer. When video
   first hit the consumer markets, the belief was that everyone would
   soon have a TV studio in his or her house (along with a jet pack). The
   home TV studio would mark the end of progress in video production.
   Instead, VCRs filled with useless computer chips now gather cobwebs in
   home entertainment centers. For example, consider the existence of a
   chip which allows a VCR to be programmed for a month in advance; this
   is actually nothing more than an homage to the useless. It simply
   exists in and of itself, having no real life function. Most
   programming information is not generally available a month in advance,
   and even if it were, why would someone need to tape a month's worth of
   television programs, and who would remember the appropriate times to
   insert new blank tapes?

   Why such a chip was made in the first place falls into a web of
   possibility that is difficult to untangle. First, the perverse desires
   that consumers associate with utility should not be underestimated.
   Driven by spectacularized engines of desire, consumers want more for
   their money - even if what they get is something that will never be
   used. The corporate answer is to meet a cliche with a cliche: Give
   customers what they want. Consequently, the marketing departments of
   corporations, in their struggle for market share in the electronics
   industry, force their engineers and designers to create new products
   laden with extra features. One main selling point: Our machine has the
   most features for the money. The question for the consumer is: "Did I
   get a good deal [i.e., the most for the money]?" The question of "Can
   I actually use what I buy?" is never raised. The corporations know of
   the desire for the useless (a desire that can never be fulfilled), and
   comply by heaping on their products as much useless gadgetry as
   possible in order to seduce the bargain-hungry consumer. And so the
   cycle starts.

   The cycle begins to spiral as new generations of technology are
   introduced - in this case depurified technology. The slogan of one
   electronics company - "so smart, it's simple" - is symbolic of
   depurification. The corporation is, in a sense, announcing that its
   technology actually has a use. Consumers can buy it not just for the
   sake of having it, but because they will be able to make it do
   something. The slogan also signals that consumers are buying the
   privilege of being stupid (the ultimate commodity in the realm of
   conspicuous consumption). There will be no manuals to read, no
   assembly, no understanding required. The manual is the TV commercial
   for the product. Having seen it, consumers can make the product
   function.

   While the buying patterns of those seduced by pure technology are
   guided by a perverse consumer activism, thoroughly corrupted by the
   Veblenesque nightmare of conspicuous consumption, the patterns of
   those buying impure technology are guided by a need to keep the
   apparatus of use as invisible as possible, so as not to interrupt the
   trajectory of one's 'lifestyle.' This attempt to return to impure
   technology eventually backfires, and the spiral becomes a circle
   again. The consumer zeal for simple technology that will not distract
   from daily tasks is too easily rechanneled into specialized products
   that rarely deliver the convenience that is so desperately sought. Two
   types of products emerge from this variety of artificially generated
   desire. First there is the product that is a con, such as an electric
   martini shaker. This is one case where the old fashioned way works
   just as well if not better. The second type is exemplified by a
   consumer-grade pasta making machine. One evening at home with this
   gizmo will quickly teach a person the meaning of labor
   intensification. This is not a technology of convenience. Either way,
   these pieces of bourgeois wonder will take their rightful place in
   upper cabinets and in closets as useless pieces of bric-a- brac that
   did not even serve the function of delivering enriched consumer
   privation. Unlike the VCR chip, these pieces of technology require
   human contact before they achieve purity.

   In all cases, the desire that consumer economy (the economy of
   surplus) has most successfully tapped is the need for excess, that is,
   the need to have so much that it is beyond human use. Pleasure is
   derived through negation - by not using a product. This form of excess
   is the privilege of those who enjoy the surplus of production.
   Although the bourgeoisie has never achieved the purity of uselessness
   of previous leisure classes, they still aspire with great fear, and
   with very little success, to total counterproduction. This class
   typically falls short of the upper level of the hierarchy of master
   and slave so aptly articulated by Hegel. The products which members of
   this class consume transform themselves into stand-ins for the obscene
   debauchery of excess, in which, they, as chieftains, should personally
   participate. The cowardice of the bourgeoisie can never be
   underestimated. Confronted with the opportunity to test the limits of
   the possible, they instead let things take their place in the realm of
   the useless. Within this realm, the products of counterproduction
   acquire a being analogous to that of the sacred in 'primitive'
   cultures, and become the icons of secular transcendentalism,
   accumulating mana by controlling the lives of those around them. The
   uncanny notion that technology which is out of sight and out of mind
   best defines human existence within the economy of desire is one that
   is typically resisted by commonsense thought. As William James and
   Alfred Schutz proposed in their own unique ways, the principle of
   practicality structures everyday life. Objects are perceived first and
   foremost in terms of their instrumental value. In constructing a model
   of individual existence centered around perception, there can be
   little doubt that the visible will be at the center and the invisible
   at the margins. Within the middle ground, utility is the primary
   governing factor. Hence, within this visible realm, the consumption of
   excess and excess consumption maintains an element of practicality.
   For example, a wealthy person buys a luxury car. Although it may have
   many useless elements, the main reason for its purchase is that it is
   a 'nice ride.' The modifying adjective "nice" refers to its useless
   components, while the center component, the noun "ride," refers to the
   product's function. The potential for the car to make an instrumental
   process pleasurable is what relegates it to the realm of desire and
   excess, and therefore makes it suitable as a product for conspicuous
   consumption.

   Another example is the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) device. In
   many cases, the way this diagnostic tool is used in medical
   institutions may actually be abuse. The MRI is a very expensive piece
   of state of the art med-tech, so it is an investment that must be used
   to recoup the initial capital expenditure. The MRI can deliver on its
   corporate promise, as it is the perfect medical sight machine. In a
   manner far beyond any of its predecessors, the MRI can articulate the
   space of the body with such clarity that there can be no place for a
   biological body invader to hide. However, in many cases, the MRI is
   not needed. An X-ray is often all that is required to diagnose an
   illness. Excess enters this equation when the MRI is used abusively on
   the part of the doctor (simply as means to increase profit or to
   protect capital). Much the same can be said even when the machine is
   used as an extra precaution by the doctor or the patient. In any case,
   the MRI, like the luxury car, can only strive toward purity; it will
   never actually reach it. The MRI will always have the practical
   function of vision associated with it. Unlike these aforementioned
   examples, the useless is rarely noticed, because it is not a part of
   limited bourgeois excess. As consumers, we are not trained to witness
   uselessness or consciously value it - its psychic roots are buried
   much deeper in consciousness and in the economy.

   Too often, excessive luxury in the center realm of the visible is
   mistaken for the limits of excess, but the limits of excess go far
   beyond the visible. To comprehend extreme excess, one must go beyond
   conspicuous consumption. Excess will never be seen, only imagined, and
   within this ideal space the margins can at least be understood.
   Whether it is a useless chip in the bowels of a machine, the
   technology that lives in people's closets, or an underground missile
   system, the purity of uselessness, the limits of excess, are not
   visible. The real deployment of power flows in absence, in the
   uncanny, nonrational margins of existence.

   Sacrifices beyond the boundary between the visible and the invisible
   occasionally surface in everyday life. We all know that many people
   die on the roads and highways of the US every year (approximately
   50,000 per year). These people are willingly and uselessly sacrificed
   to show the sincerity of our desire for transportation technology. No
   means to end this sacrifice exists, short of closing the roads, and
   yet no honor is paid to those who give their life for the excess of
   travel - it remains forever hidden. Philosopher and artist Gregory
   Ulmer proposed that an addendum be made to the Viet Nam war memorial
   in which the names of those killed on the highway would be spooled off
   on a printer beside the monument. Needless to say this monument was
   rejected, since such sacrifice and excess must remain hidden in modern
   societies. To monumentalize death and uselessness is simply too
   frightening.

   Monuments to the sacrifices of the state are typical, but are only the
   beginning. Most of these monuments are abstracted bits of concrete,
   marble, bronze, or some other material that will signify the longevity
   of artificially created memory. But there are times when these
   monuments are brutally honest, and useless technology along with its
   slaves is put on public display. The USS Arizona, for example - a half
   sunken ship with the ship's full complement of corpses (officers
   included) rests silently in Pearl Harbor. This national monument, a
   functional item made useless through sacrifice, suggests the
   metaphysical moment of profound loss through its lack of function.
   (Woe to anyone who does not treat this sacred relic with proper
   respect, for it speaks of the will to excess, which is grounded in
   human uselessness in the face of death). But what is even more
   compelling about this monument is that the ship is carried on the
   active duty roster. This necropolis is more a symbol of the absent
   core of the war machine than a monument to the US soldiers who died in
   the battle of Pearl Harbor; it monumentalizes transcendental
   uselessness.

   Utopian technology is that technology which has fallen from grace. It
   has been stripped of its purity and reendowed with utility. The fall
   is necessitated by a return to contact with humanity. Having once left
   the production table, the technology that lives the godly life of
   state-of- the-art uselessness has no further interaction with humans
   as users or as inventors; rather, humans serve only as a means to
   maintain its uselessness. The location of the most complex pure
   technology is of no mystery. Deep in the core of the war machine is
   the missile system. Ultimately, all research is centered around this
   invisible monument to uselessness. The bigger and more powerful it
   becomes, the greater its value. But should it ever be touched by
   utility - that is, should it ever be used - its value becomes naught.
   To be of value, it must be maintained, upgraded, and expanded, but it
   must never actually do anything. This idol of destruction is forever
   hungry, and is willing to eat all resources. In return, however, it
   excretes objects of utility. Consumer communications and
   transportation systems, for example, have dramatically improved due to
   the continuous research aimed at increasing the grandeur of the
   apparatus of uselessness.

   There can be a stopping point to this process - a discovery made by
   the collapsing Soviet Union. For all the 'patriots of democracy' who
   gave a collective sigh of relief and boasted that they were at last
   proven right - "communism doesn't work" - there still may be a need to
   worry. The fall of the USSR had little to do with ideology. The US and
   USSR were competitors in producing the best apparatus of uselessness
   in order to prove its own respective Hegelian mastery of the globe.
   Modern autocrats and oligarchs have long known that a standing army
   puts an undue strain on the economy. To be sure, standing armies were
   early monuments to uselessness, but in terms of both size and cost,
   they are dwarfed by the standing missile system of the electronic age.
   As with all things that are useless, there will be no return on the
   investment in it. The useless represents a 100% loss of capital.
   Although such investment seems to go against the utilitarian grain of
   visible bourgeois culture, whether in socialist or in constitutional
   republics, the compulsive desire for a useless master is much greater
   (Japan is an interesting exception to this rule). Unfortunately for
   the USSR, they were unable to indulge in pure excess expenditure at
   the same rate as the US. The soviet techno-idol was a little more
   constipated, and could not maintain the needed rate of excretion.
   Consequently, once the limits of uselessness were reached, that system
   imploded.

   The US government, on the other hand, has to this day remained
   convinced that further progress can be made. Reagan and his Star Wars
   campaign issued a policy radically expanding the useless. Reagan, of
   course, was the perfect one to make the policy, since he was an idol
   to uselessness himself. He represents one of the few times that
   uselessness has taken an organic form in this century. (This is part
   of the reason he was considered such a bourgeois hero. He was willing
   to personally plunge into uselessness without apology. He did not let
   a thing stand in for him). Playing on yuppie paranoia (the fascists'
   friend), Reagan convinced the public loyal to him that a defensive
   monument (Star Wars) to uselessness was needed, just in case the
   offensive monument (the missile system) was not enough. He was
   successful enough in his plea to guarantee that years of useless
   research will ensue that no one will be able to stop, even if his
   original monumental vision (a net of laser armed satellites) should be
   erased. In this manner, Reagan made sure that the apparatus of
   uselessness would expand even if the cold war ended.

   Indeed, this situation has come to pass. Currently, the US has no
   competitors in the race to uselessness, but the monument continues to
   be maintained and even to grow, which is particularly odd, since even
   the cynical argument of deterrence is now moot. Even though the
   offensive monument to uselessness seems to be shrinking - missiles are
   being defused and cut apart with the care and order of high ritual,
   and technology costing millions of dollars is being laid to rest,
   having never done anything but exist - thanks to Reagan's
   farsightedness, the general system continues to expand. Although many
   are still in denial, the desire of the bourgeois to subordinate
   themselves to the useless has become, for the moment, glaringly
   visible. The research is done; the system is upgraded, but for what
   reason? The missiles are now aimed at the ocean, so that even if they
   are 'used,' they will still be useless. The fragments of Star Wars
   technology have not been released in pure form from the experimental
   labs, and even if they were, no enemy exists against which Star Wars
   technology would protect US citizens. The American system has achieved
   utter transcendental uselessness. This techno-historical moment is the
   highest manifestation of technological purity.

   In his rush to save the apparatus of the useless from stalling, Reagan
   may have made one error. When he put the idea of the defensive
   monument in the minds of Americans, he disrupted the primary sign of
   the war machine - mutually assured destruction. He restored hope in
   American consciousness that perhaps utility could save US citizens
   from the total annihilation certain to destroy the rest of the world.
   The disassociation of death and uselessness took previously sacred
   elements of war-tech out of the privileged realm. When these elements
   became depurified, their value in terms of the satisfaction of
   bourgeois desire plummeted. This is partly why Reagan's original Star
   Wars vision has been dismantled.

   Thus far, however, most war-tech has not been depurified due to this
   ideological slippage, and the purity of offensive weapons of mass
   destruction continues to be enforced. Nations that do not understand
   the code of uselessness but that have state-of-the-art military
   technology are a cause for great concern. Iraq, Libya, and North Korea
   are all good examples. The US government is willing to take hostile
   action based merely on the belief that North Korea and Libya might get
   weapons of mass destruction and actually use them. In the case of
   Iraq, the code was actually broken when that government used chemical
   weapons. Iraq has not done well economically or militarily since that
   time. The lesson to be learned is that nations that do not subordinate
   themselves to the bourgeois idols of uselessness will be sacrificed as
   heretics, and will be denied access to the icons of uselessness.

   In spite of the common wisdom of using the variables of national
   interest and utility to explain the relationship between desire and
   power, it is just as fruitful to do so using the principles of the
   anti-economy-perversity and uselessness. The economy of unchanneled
   desire and perversity, as suggested by Bataille, penetrates the
   surface of utility in a most convincing way. Progress in the 20th
   century has primarily consisted of bourgeois culture looking for a new
   master. In the time of bourgeois revolution, the aristocracy was
   destroyed, as was the church with its spiritual hierarchies, but the
   primordial desire to serve the useless has never been affected. The
   'primitive' ritual of offering goods to an angry or potentially angry
   God in order to appease it into a state of neutrality continues to
   replay itself in complex capitalist economy. All things must be
   subordinated to neutrality - to uselessness. One major difference
   between the age of the virtual and more primitive times is that the
   contemporary idols have no metaphysical referent. The ones that have
   been constructed are not the mediating points between person and
   spirit, or life and afterlife; rather, they are end-points, empty
   signs. To this paper master, sacrifice has no limit. The stairs of the
   temple flow with blood every day. How fitting for progress to come to
   this end in the empire of the useless. As this mythic narrative
   continues to play itself out, the suggestion of Arthur and Marilouise
   Kroker begins to make more and more sense. We are not witnessing the
   decline of late capital, but instead, its recline into its own
   delirious death trance.


     _________________________________________________________________

   The Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) is a collective of six artists of
   different specializations committed to the production of a new genre
   art that explores the intersections among critical theory, art, and
   technology. The Revolution Will Be Televised

   (Up to CTHEORY)