The Social Media Revolution: Expanding Platforms

YouTube video: The Social Media Revolution 2012

 

Even before watching that clip of information, we all know how powerful social media has become. In lecture we discussed the idea of ubiquity as omnipresent, being everywhere all at once. We evaluated the presence of social media and computer-human interaction in our daily lives through the theory of 'ubiquitous computing.'

There is no doubt that humanity is fully integrated into technology and computing, and with that said, Joe Salvo believes the information age to be over. Wesley Dodson (2009) posted Salvo's ideas on Collective Imagination to Science Blogs in his article, "The Dawn of the Systems Age." Dodson references Salvo explaining that the information is, "a period of history [that] can be characterized by the dominant technology that separates the leaders from the followers." Salvo claims that we have a reached the point where that separation no longer exists, which is why he suggests the "systems age" is next. The systems age involves sensing, collecting and manipulating data in real-time with minimal regulation and human supervision. Salvo postulates a bold but noteworthy idea: artificial intelligence will become the keepers of the digital sphere.

So if we are entering the systems age, it is important to consider what we are doing within these systems. The information age might be coming to an end, but it is still information that the systems are distributing and circulating. Hubert Guillard, Truthout blogger, reported ideas about "What is implied by living in a world of flow." Guillard references sociologist Danah Boyd who explains why living in a world of information is a powerful notion. Boyd says this idea suggests that we exist inside the living stream of content: we add to it, we consume it and we redirect it. Essentially, we are the system. Boyd, as cited by Guillard, explained that we have transitioned from broadcast media to networked media, which has fundamentally transformed the way information flows. Guillard supports Boyd's ideas and goes on to explain that internet technologies dismantle and rework the structures of distribution. If distribution changes, information circulates differently. The question everyone is trying to answer, is how.

Personal involvement in the social media craze

Here is a word web of the online platforms and media systems that I currently (or at some time in the past five years) have engaged in:

The mind map illustrated above shows my social media usage in isolation from the network. Once networked together, each individual web would connect and look something like the image displayed below. Imagine an infinite series of these webs, all connected.

Click here for outside image source.

After watching the Social Media Revolution You Tube video and considering the amount of time I spend interacting with each of these platforms, I am reminded that I am just as much a part of those statistics as the person sitting next to me, as the person sitting next to them and so forth. Even in another country, half way around the world, it still does not take many people to find a mutual interest or friend inside the intricate social webs of the internet. 

Sources:
ARTS 2090 lecture slides, see week 10

Dodson, Wes (2009) ‘Dawn of the Systems Age’, Page 3.14

Guillaud, Hubert (2010) (on Danah Boyd) ‘What is implied by living in a world of flow?’, Truthout

Worb-web and mind-map creator, text2mindmap.com

Science of Earth: Visualized

Wired posted an article by David Mosher entitled, "The 16 Best Science Visualizations of 2011," exhibiting the top designs from the 2011 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. One of the competition judges, Thomas Wagner, a cryosphere scientist at NASA, commented on the development of science visualization. He said, "I think because information technology tools and visualization tools have advanced, people have found ever-increasingly clever ways to display difficult scientific concepts."

A similar Wired article, also posted by Dave Mosher, illustrated another example of complex scientific data made visual through, "Video: 10 Years of Fires on Earth Seen from Space." Over the past decade, NASA has recorded tens of millions of fires that burned all over the planet using a pair of earth monitoring satellites. NASA engineers took the ten years of data and created animated visualizations demonstrating the Earth's cycle of vegitation, weather, ocean systems etc. It is through these animated visualizations that this data becomes relevant to the general public. In a sense, accessible visualization tools have given complex scientific topics relevance again in the public sphere.

There is more and more discussion about ways to collaborate these visualizations. So much buzz is generating new projects for collective thinking and creating. The goal of many of these platforms is to archive not only the final presentation but to accurately archive the thought process humans are exhibiting whilst interacting with nonhuman machines. It is through the complexity of visualizations that researchers and theorists can begin to explore the methods of thinking and brainstorming that internalized within each research topic.

The Dynamic Media Network posted an intriguing article: "Assembling Collective Thought," by Anna Munster and Andrew Murphie. Munster and Murphie define the assemblage for collective thought (ACT) as, "an ongoing conceptual and aesthetic collaboration" and further as, "an assemblage of technologies and techniques for collaboration." They assert that ACT enables participants to 'think' collectively and conceptually; ACT considers the type of thought that is produced "in the middle of the very act of collaboration, when DJing, VJing, dancing in front of a camera." Munster and Murphie said that because so much new media composition and production concern itself with technological conduits and infrastructure, ACT fashions a kind of assemblage that explores new media to produce new concepts.

For more information about ACT and its development processes: Check this out!

Sources:
http://dynamicmedianetwork.org/publications/assembling-collective-thought-anna-munster-and-andrew-%20murphie

http://vogmae.net.au/vlog/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/tag/science-visualization/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/wildfires-space-nasa/

Information Graphics: A Vareity of Perspectives

A philosophical introduction: The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord

The idea of the degradation of human life governed much of Guy Debord's writings in, The Society of the Spectacle. According to Wikipedia, Debord argues that social life can be seen as, "the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing." Although very dense and challenging material to navigate, Debord offers a unique perspective on modern society, and his notion of 'the spectacle':

"The spectacle, like modern society itself, is at once united and divided. The unity of each is based on violent divisions. But when this contradiction emerges in the spectacle, it is itself contradicted by a reversal of its meaning: the division it presents is unitary, while the unity it presents is divided." (Chapter 3, Sec. 54)

Throughout the text, when Debord uses the word 'spectacle', he is referring to the mass media, our consumer economy or sometimes our advanced systems of government (Wikipedia). Debord wrote, about the notion of the spectacle stemming of our consumer oriented "economy of abundance." He claimed that products of the over-abundant economy dominate the market, or the spectacle. 

An example of information graphics in publishing:

In the opening of The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft, by Anne Friedberg, she declares:

"As we spend more of our time staring into the frames of movies, television, computers, hand-held displays--"windows" full of moving images, text, icons, and 3D graphics--how the world is framed may be as important as what is contained within that frame."

The Vectors Journal Editorial Staff praise Friedberg's expansive survey of visual culture over the past 500 years and suggest that her work offers an opportunity to think deeply about the entangled forces that contribute to the evolution of technologies of vision. Friedberg collaborated with Erik Loyer to develop an interactive counterpart for her book called, "The Virtual World Interactive." Friedberg, with the help of Loyer, constructed enactments of the critical concepts she discusses in her work. One of the central tenants of the book is the paradigm of the "split optic" which she defines as a form of parallel vision that views the past and present simultaneously. The Vectors Journal writes, "The Virtual World Interactive' invites us to think critically about the past in light of present sensibilities, while using the past as a vehicle for thinking critically about the present." For instance, at one point, a user can watch excerpts from I Love Lucy in the frame of a Renaissance era stained glass window. And that is only one example of Friedberg's eclectic range of sources and ideas. The Vectors Journal concludes that this kind of constantly-shifting and expanding design technique is arguably the most powerful development of digital publishing.

Big ideas about a small design feature: The dashed line in all its glory

Timo (2006) published his ideas about "The dash line in use" to Touch, a research project that investigates specific technologies, namely the technology that enables connections between mobile phones and physical things. Timo expresses his affinity for the dashed line in information graphics and design. He claims there is no tool more effective to illustrate borders or seams. Although it emerged from the designer's shorthand and from the limitations of printing techniques, the dashed line has "a simple visual magic, the ability to express something three- or four-dimensional in two dimensions." The interactive article incorporates examples from over fifty years of information design history. Timo references the dashed line as a hidden geometry, as an expectation, as border or seams, and as used in instructional design. Colin Ware (1999, as cited in Timo, 2006) defined the dashed, dotted or wavy lines as linking lines. He said that linking lines between things indicate a relationship between them. Adjusting the waviness or colors of the line can represent an attribute or type of relationship. The dash line can be seen as movement, indicating temporal positions of things. Similarly, it can be used to represent the path itself (Timo, 2006).

Information graphics in daily life: A personal reflection

Have graphics and design become more important than simple text itself? The internet itself is one large information graphic. Its one giant graphic design project, an infinite work-in-progress of visualization. We are not simply reading black text on white HTML pages. We are digesting the design of the information as well as the presented ideas themselves. Its all about the presentation. 

We are visualizing the information through its design; we do not just read words, we have design-literate as well. In a single skim of a website we see the font, text size, headline, spacing, icons, photographs, and captions. Without it? We would blow it off and move onto the next page. We subconsciously search for information with sophistication. Website credibility is held to a high design standard. In fact, we have become so info-graphic savvy that we respond to icons instantly. We read icons and graphics as if they are words. The iPhone home screen is a platform of icons. We have ascribed names, words and meaning to each app (and thus, icon) downloaded from the Apple AppStore.

What would the Iphone home screen be like if it used words instead of icons or graphics? It wouldn't be half as sleek and appealing. The lack of text adds a level of sophistication to the device. Below is an example of how chaotic my Iphone home screens would appear if they used words rather than information graphics. (Create your own word cloud here!)

Through its use of information graphics, we feel tech savvy by simply using it, navigating the home screen pages and knowing how each icon operates. And that fact that we can personalize these screens to our satisfaction makes us information graphic snobs. And that's not a bad thing. In fact, its respectable.

Click Here for Image Source

That everyone can identify what all of those icons mean? We like that. But no denying that the information graphics/icons that make up the commands of the internet and social media application or website exist because of fundamental words and language. The icon cannot exist without words that give it meaning, otherwise it would just be a "graphic" rather than a graphic with information. 

Designing relevant information graphics for future projects:
Marti Trewe contributed an article on the matter to the AGBeat blog, a site centering on business intelligence content. Trewe reviews and summarizes Piktochart and 16 other do-it-yourself information graphic generators online for the busy business professional. Its a fascinating article documenting why some infographics dazzle the audience and others just flop. Check out the list here and consider them for future presentations in the academic or business world:

 

Image source: see article reference below, screen shot of page

Sources:

Arnell, Timo (2006) ‘the dashed line in use’   

Debord, Guy (n.d.) ‘Unity and Division Within Appearances’, The Society of the Spectacle

'The Society of the Spectacle,' Wikipedia

Editors and Friedberg, Anne (2007) ‘The Virtual Window Interactive’ Vectors, 2(2)

'The Society of the Spectacle,' Wikipedia

Trewe, Marti, 'Piktochart: simple infographic creator online for the busy professional,' AGBeat 

Piracy (vs. Privacy): Part 2 of 2

Privacy vs. Piracy. Both boil down to one concern: regulating the internet. To control or not control the online world. Ideas, research and reflections. 

piracy  |ˈpīrəsē|  noun.
1. File sharing software like BitTorrent and others that enable individuals to download movies, songs, and other creative works without paying for them. Lecture Notes, Week 6
2. The practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea. A similar practice in other contexts, esp. hijacking : air piracy.
3. The unauthorized use, reproduction of, or appropriation of patented and/or copyrighted material : software piracy.
 
SYNONYMS: Freebooting, bootlegging, copying, illegal, plagiarism, infringement, robbery
Other definition information found at Dictionary.com

Well geez, when you put it like that I want to avoid admitting that I've ever downloaded something without authorization... but if everyone is a 'pirate' then what's the big deal?

The ubiquitous nature of piracy: A personal reflection on illegal downloading and other internet crimes we have all committed

I get it. Piracy is bad. It has been equated with the word 'hijacking.' Don't do it to avoid being considered a cyber-terrorist. Blah blah blah. Similar to underage drinking in the United States, can something this ubiquitos truly be a crime? Not only is everyone doing it but society is making it easy. If drinking before the age of 21 really is illegal in the States, then wouldn't there be cops in every college campus bar and strict fake ID scanners at every liquor store/restaurant/club entrance. I know damn well my friends and I looked about 15 when we started using our first fake IDs at the beginning of college. But really, where is the law enforcement? For every minor that gets busted for drinking under the age limit, the other ten thousand high-school kids across the country are not. For ever pirate busted for illegal downloading, the other five billions people on the planet are not.

In effort to make my point, I will rat out two personal favorite pirating websites. They may not be directly in violation of copyright law but they make redistribution of the song/movie doable and therefore they are the platform for the crime. If piracy, bootlegging, creativity-hijacking yadda yadda is so illegal, then explain why these websites have not been shut down... Channel 131 and YouTube video to MP3 File. And those are just two of the millions that exist like it...

If illegal downloading is SO illegal. Then prove it. Control it. Everyone understands the negative implications around it... the artist don't receiving their fair profit, the creators don't obtain the credit they deserve. Valid points, I agree with that. But when I'm downloading Usher's new hit single from YouTube, converting it to an MP3 file and sending it to my iTunes Library... the farthest thing from my mind is the 0.99 cents that I'm depriving Usher, the billionaire rap artist of earning.

But the government is not as concerned with people like me who merely flirt with the legality of piracy but more so with the trained, tech experts who could hijack an entire network within seconds. There is no way to count, let alone monitor, the astronomical number of websites on the internet. And if the sites themselves cannot be regulated than there is no way in hell that the information downloaded from them can be controlled. But there lies the most fundamental tenet of the internet. Its a free domain. The fact that piracy so easily happens is why the internet exists as such a brilliant network of knowledge, ideas, and people. Because its free. Because its completely open as a shared space.

But that's just it. "Almost impossible to control" are the exact words used to define 'bootlegging' (a synonym and close cousin of piracy). So where is the line drawn? How open can copyrighted information be if its on the internet? How limitless can the web become? Perhaps piracy is its border? Maybe we have found it's boundaries, a limit to the infinite online world. Since internet access has become a focal point of human life in developed countries, we cannot simply ignore the implications of piracy any longer. Something has to be done and I have no idea what will happen next.

George Monbiot, published in the Guardian in December 2010, wrote:

"The internet is a remarkable gift, which has granted us one of the greatest democratic opportunities since universal suffrage. We’re in danger of losing this global commons as it comes under assault from an army of trolls and flacks, many of them covertly organised or trained. The question for all of us – the Guardian, other websites, everyone who benefits from this resource – is what we intend to do about it. It’s time we fought back and reclaimed the internet for what it does best: exploring issues, testing ideas, opening the debate."

But if we reclaim the internet, that means rules and regulations. The freedom of the platform will vaporize quickly with each piece of legislation. If legislation can even be approved... United States Representative, Lamar Smith, from Texas, introduced a bill that yielded a multitude of backlash, called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Check this out for more information on SOPA. The future of SOPA is still in progress and will undoubtedly be an issue in the upcoming US presidential election.

Two sides to the SOPA story:
Paulo Coelho, successful author and writer, captured an interesting perspective on the legislation through posting his thoughts to his personal blog. His bottom line: There is real danger backing SOPA; if the act is made into law, it will affect the whole planet. Coelho begins by saying, "From the Gospels to political manifestos, literature has allowed ideas to travel and even change the world." One would assume an author to be in defense of intellectual property but that is not the case for Coelho. He says the more people 'pirate' a book, the better. He compares it to the way we hear songs on a radio; the more we hear the song, the more apt we are to buy the track. Coelho claims that the same goes with literature. He concluded his thoughts in saying, 

"Pirating can act as an introduction to an artist's work. If you like his or her idea, then you will want to have [the real thing] in your house; a good idea doesn't need protection. The rest is either greed or ignorance."

So... can we have the best of both worlds? Can we have a free, unregulated internet with no restrictions of copyright? Is piracy truly impossible to control? It seems that piracy will exist as long as the internet remains a free, open and accessible commons.

It also seems that I am completely torn between the two sides of the issue... 

But then again, who isn't?

Sources:
Coelho, Paulo, "My thoughts on SOPA," Paulo Coelho's blog accessed via http://www.diigo.com/user/andersand/SOPA

Hildyard, Nicholas, Lohmann, Larry, Sexton, Sarah and Fairlie, Simon (1995) ‘Reclaiming the Commons’ The Corner House

Monbiot, George (2010) ‘Reclaim the Cyber-Commons’, Monbiot.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOPA

Privacy (vs. Piracy): Part 1 of 2

Privacy vs. Piracy. Both boil down to one concern: regulating the internet. To control or not control the online world. Ideas, research and reflections.

privacy  |ˈprīvəsē|  noun.
1. The state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people.
2. The state of being free from public attention.
3. The condition of being secret; secrecy.
 
SYNONYMS: seclusion, solitude, isolation, freedom from disturbance, freedom from interference.
Other definition information found at Dictionary.com

When was the last time you checked your privacy settings on Twitter? When was the last time you opted out of tracking? When was the last time you cared? Most people react to these questions with their own confusion... "Am I supposed to care about that?" You decide...

"Every time you visit a site that has a follow button, a 'tweet' button or a hover-card, Twitter is recording your behavior. It is transparently watching your movements and storing them somewhere for later use," explained Dustin Curtis in his blog post about Twitter's sneaky tracking methods.
For the time being, that data is collected for the tweeter's personal benefit; it is used to make more relevant suggestions for other accounts you might want to follow. Curtis wonders what other things that data could be used for. He says, "The privacy implications of such behavior by a company so large are sweeping and absolute."

Curtis urges all of us to ask ourselves the same questions he wonders about:

• If tracking your behavior transparently is acceptable in the pursuit of a better user experience, why isn't it also acceptable in the pursuit of monetization? 
• Is it okay for Twitter to sell your web browsing history to advertisers?
• How many people have access to the data Twitter is collecting? 
• Can any Twitter employee who has production database access look at Mitt Romney's browsing history? Can they look at your browsing history?

Curtis said he is not surprised that Twitter, and almost certainly Facebook, are partaking in this kind of data collection, but doesn't agree with it. Curtis declares that this activity is a violation of privacy and trust. The data is not only being collected but stored and re-distributed. And even though Twitter, and Facebook (and other social media power houses) outline their privacy policies extensively, their word choice is a careful science created to reaffirm your safety but still leave room for transparency.

Earlier this year, Twitter amended its privacy policy, agreeing to abide by its host nation's laws. 
Forbes contributor, Erik Kain, refers to  Jeff Bercovi's insight on the topic. Bercovi said, "Twitter's helping France and Turkey clamp down on free speech without inconveniencing users in other countries."

Kain and Bercovi agree that this form of tailored privacy is not brand new and hardly unprecedented. Google has been blocking search results in China for years. But that's not the real issue of concern. Kain says that the real problem is the implications Twitter's new privacy policies have on governments and countries as a whole. Kain references John Villasenor of UCLA who wrote, "For the first time ever, it will be technologically and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders."

Image Source: Forbes

On one hand, there is safety to consider. Kain cites Villasenor again arguing, "Pervasive monitoring will provide what amounts to a time machine allowing authoritarian government to perform retrospective surveillance." In other words, it will be possible to go back in time to examine phone records, bank statements, online activity etc. to compile a file of all events and transactions leading up to criminal's arrest.


But not everyone is a criminal and shouldn't be "tweeted" as such. Kain reminds us, like any powerful tool that dominates humanity, technology is an especially sharp double-edge sword

Sources: 
Coelho, Paulo, "My thoughts on SOPA," Paulo Coelho's blog accessed via http://www.diigo.com/user/andersand/SOPA

Curtis, Dustin, "Twitter is tracking you on the web" accessed via http://www.diigo.com/user/andersand/privacy
 
Kain, Erik, "Twitter censorship and the future of authoritarianism in a high-tech world," Forbes
accessed via http://www.diigo.com/user/andersand/censorship

Archive Fever (a brief but alarming overview)

Jacques Derrida, author of Archive Fever (1997, Chicago University of Chicago Press) claims that all forms of media exist and extend from archives. He says that archives are always important because they become the basis for what counts within society. He also says it can account for a sense of ourselves.

Derrida says that archives constitute the most fundamental level of social and individual institutions and practices. He explains that archives lay the basis for authority, what is considered "inside" and "outside" the culture, and the history and future of the public. Any arrangement of principles and concepts that arise from different organizations have been drawn from past records which are stored in archives. Thus, it is these archives that dictate the future possibilities and the potentials of us all.

Is it any wonder that the library is the most important building on any given university campus? The library rests as the focal point of knowledge, research and ideas for any research or academic institute. This is where the most historical text is stored but also where the innovative technologies of the computer lab are held. Where does the inspiration come from? What dictates the success of the research?

Derrida focuses his ideas on archive fever. Different forms of publishing form different modes of living, institutions, organizations, etc. These varying forms of publishing all have some kind of archive. And as stated before, these archives dictate the possibilities of the future because they record the significance of the past. We are all struck with "archive fever," according to Derrida because we all have a constant desire to play with archives. (pg 19, course outline).

Aside from Facebook and other mediated networks, we all have constructed our own archive. The farther back we archive, the more of our future can be dictated. That is to say that archive fever might have some kind of 'sling-shot effect.' It will be interesting to see who from our generation will be able to run for a political office without their archive coming back from the past to haunt them. With our lives all perfectly digitized online, we all have a paper trail of our youthful indiscretions. Not just a paper trail, but a tagged picture, blog post, tweet. So many haunting, impulsive moments will follow us into our careers. Will this generation's contagious archive fever be what limits our future?

Personal reflection:
For as long as I can remember I have archived art and graphic design into blank books that can be purchased at any art supply store. What they are actually intended for, I'm not sure. But for me, these black books represent a place for me to store what inspires me, from movie stubs and funny disposable pictures to unique business cards and flyers... these books have no rules. I make them as I see fit in that given moment. I referred to it as my "ARTchive" for years. I use it as my inspiration, a vessel for new ideas. But it is through this old record, this archive I have created, that I generate new ideas and new inspiration. In a sense, I have created a sense of my self (my inspiration) through this archive.

Below is a picture of the mess I create when creating these books. This photograph was taken by me with a disposable camera in October 2011.

Another idea that sparked from this reading is my obsession with photography.
My most recent photography portfolio: http://student.tcu.edu/cratelle/

Aside from my Flickr (which I consider a work in progress photo-blog that I update regularly), I have published a few final versions of photography projects. It is interesting that although I have published a recent version of a final portfolio (as linked above) that I continue to save over 10,000 images on my hard drive. In itself, the folders on my MacBook are an archive--why else would I spend so much time backing them up on external hard drives? Why don't I delete them ever? Why do we save every version of every project?

The fear of "just-in-case." Must be a symptom of archive fever. 

Sources:
ARTS 2090 Course Outline, Week Five

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2003/06/130.ars

http://emn.sharonhoward.org/2007/09/reposted-archive-fever-a-dusty-digression/

Actor Network Theory and the Assemblage of Me

Actor-Network Theory: a brief overview:
According to the Wikipedia article, the actor-netowrk theory (ANT) can be more technically described as a “material-semiotic” method, although it is defined as a theory that maps simultaneous relationships between material things and between semotic things (concepts). Actor-network theory is a way of exploring the relationship ties within a network, developer Bruno Latour explains, it is not a theory 'of' anything but rather a method, or a 'how-to-book.' The method is directly in line with the insights of ethnomethodology, a methodology that studies people and how they interact with objects. It attempts to summarize how material-semiotic networks come together to function as a whole. There are actors within each network that create meaning; those clusters of actors involved in creating meaning are both material and semiotic.

ANT explores explicit methods for relating different elements together into a network so that it forms a cohesive whole. Latour describes the networks as transient, or impermanent. The networks, existing in a constant making and re-making, will dissolve if relations are not repeatedly performed. Once actors engage with an the actor-network, they are caught up in the web of relations, and it all becomes part of the "Entelechy,' which was Aristotle's definition of motion. (Entelechy, Wikipedia).

"Actor-Network Rochambeau," an article posted to Any-Space-Whatever blog, reviewed Bruno Latour's Politics of Nature, with a satirical spin of criticism. Latour's writings remind his audience of the implications of flat ontology, in which all entities receive equal treatment and ontological status, none subordinate to any others. All entities can be defined as animate or inanimate, human or nonhuman. Flat ontology, or the study of essence, implies there is no hierarchy or power relations to take into consideration between entities. This criticism is unique because it highlights a unique perspective: computer are just as influential on humans as humans are on computers. There is controversy over this approach because it postulates that human actors and non-humans actors deserve the same treatment. According to the ANT Wikipedia article, actor-network theory assumes that all entities in a network can and should be described in the same terms. ANT defines this aspect of thinking as the 'principle of generalized symmetry.'

Understanding through examples:
Wikipedia used an effective example of a car to portray the dynamics of the actor network theory. Cars are viewed as a single object, but it serves as an effective example of a complex system in which any actor can be considered a sum of other, smaller actors. A car is an example of a complex system. Many electronic and mechanical systems are built into the car and hidden from the driver's view. When we experience a series of small networks as a whole, we are experiencing that object as punctualized. It is not until the battery dies or the oil needs changing that we experience the object as de-punctualized. De-punctualization occurs when networks become visible as separate systems because of a glitch or failure. Like this car breakdown example, this can occur when any elements of a network act contrarily to the network as a whole.

I created my own example in a mind map to show the assemblage of my own life. This mind map can be understood in thinking of each individual as a network. I exist as a network of people and I am a combination of all these people, places, concepts and things. If something where to shift in one of these areas of life, my life would also change.

This is how I made my mind map!

Sources:
‘Actor Network Theory’, Wikipedia

‘A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity’, Wikipedia

‘Actor Network Rochambeau’, any-space-whatever blog

'Entelechy', Wikipedia