PAUL VIRILIO'S OPEN SKY

SPEED IS KILLING OUR REALITY


In his book, Open Sky, Paul Virilio gives an often bleak and unflattering commentary on how technology is affecting our social interactions, needs, and even our accidents. on page 2 of the introduction, he makes a statement that serves as a pretty apt summation of the entire book, saying:

M.C. Escher's famous piece, Relativity.

"Preoccupied as we are, at the end of the millennium, with developing the absolute speed of our modern real-time transmission tools, we too often forget the comparable historic importance of this other limit-speed, the one which has enabled us to escape the real space of our planet and so to 'fall upwards'." This concept of falling upwards is one that Virilio creates as a means of explaining the phenomenon of our changing cognitive perspectives. What's caused this change in perspective? Virilio lays the blame squarely at the feet of speed; more precisely, the speed at which information is now transmitted around the globe. This speed of transmissions, according to Virilio, is what has put us in our current situation of having ever-vanishing horizons; it is playing with the very fabric of reality. When we engage in this speed transmission--what Virilio refers to as "immediate teleaction," and "instantaneous telepresence" (10)--we start to misinterpret reality. What we've historically (if unconsciously and silently) agreed on as reality is being threatened by communication technology. In a sense, Virilio is creating a discourse on relativity, or truth. As we all know, truth (reality) is always relative to a particular frame of reference. It seems, then, that Virilio's gripe is that our historical frames of reference are being changed by our ever-evolving technology. 


Virilio speaks of two intervals that have affected humanity's cognitive history, therefore shaping our historical perception of reality. The first of these intervals is time (duration). By observing the flow of time in the natural world--day length, seasonal changes, annual time, etc.--man situates himself as a time-bound being. Our observance of and adherence to time shapes the way we see ourselves as well as the things we do. Likewise with the second interval, space. In the interval of space, man situates and measures himself by a system of geographic relativism. Space (essentially, distance) affects the way we construct physical reality. Virilio proposes a third interval, that of time-light (14). Time-light, what Virilio refers to as the "absolute standard for immediate action, for instantaneous teleaction" (14), is what creates our current world where everything is a general accident.


In a world that habitually celebrates technology and it's proposed benefit to our lives, Paul Virilio serves as a counterbalance, delivering a bleak and sometimes alarmist take on communication technology and the internet. We are a world society obsessed with technology. Except for isolated indigenous people, I think it's impossible to say that there's not a single person on the planet that doesn't use or benefit from technology (and even that's a moot statement when one considers that even the most basic tools used by tribal people are technology). As a species, we humans celebrate our material creations more than any other species on the planet. We're always hearing about, waiting for, and craving the next best thing. One need simply look to the smartphone industry for a perfect example of this insatiable collective obsession with technology. This video clip does a pretty good job of lampooning people's obsession with the iPhone, arguably the single most hyped (and I'm inclined to say over-hyped) piece of communication-technology in the past 5 years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVkH9Hgvda4&feature=share. (I'm fully aware that, as an owner of a Samsung Galaxy S2, I'm every bit as guilty of the the same "crimes" against reality that iPhone users are.) 


Of course, love of technology isn't a crime and I don't think that's what Virilio was trying to say. The main push of the entire book is just a call to wake up and be aware of how ever evolving technology and "real time" is changing our world. By making ourselves aware of this, we will be better able to prevent the shrinking of distances and time that have defined our reality up until this new era. 





questions:
1) How do you think a conversation between Paul Virilio (who warns against our embrace of time-light) and Steve Jobs (who some could consider the "time-light zeitgeist) might play out?


2) Open Sky was originally published in 1995. Do you think it adequately assessed the condition of the world since then?


3) How does Virilio's cautionary tale in Open Sky compare to Turkle's in Alone Together?

Electronic Monuments, Part 4

Ulmer proposes in Chapter 7 that MEmorials be subjected to the Turing Test, saying on page 181 that, "The Turing test is a point of transition from literacy into electracy." The Turing Test is a thought experiment proposed to determine whether or not machines (specifically, computers) can be considered intelligent. In this experiment, a man and woman are hidden from the view of a judge. They can only communicate with the judge by way of text. The man's goal is to convince the judge that he is a woman, while the woman's goal is to convince the judge of the truth. Turing takes the experiment a further step by proposing a switch between either the man or the woman and a computer. The computer has to convince the judge that it is the woman, or even more interesting, it has to play the role of a man who tries to convince the judge that he is a woman. This all reminds me of one of my mother's favorite movies, a Judy Garland musical entitled, "Victor, Victoria." In this movie adaption of a Broadway production, Victoria is a struggling singer in France who can't get any work despite being able to shatter glass with her high notes. She and a friend devise a plan whereby she will pose as a man who cross-dresses and performs songs that are out of the range for male singers; a woman posing as a man posing as a woman.

An artist's interpretation of Miranda Rights

Ulmer refers to Carmen Miranda, as a similar type of hybrid or paradox. In this portion of the book, he is trying to express the need for freedom and fluidity in MEmorials. Carmen Miranda, born Marie do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, was a famous Brazilian Samba dancer. In fact, Ulmer states that, "Carmen Miranda" is a metonym for 'samba'" (197). The samba is a dance of freedom. It is noteworthy that Marie had to change her name to Carmen Miranda in order to hide her dancing profession from her father, who looked down on entertainers and considered them worthy of contempt and the lowest being on the social ladder (198). Miranda is also the name of the famous Venezuelan general and adventurer whose legacy is one of a champion for freedom and resistance of tyranny. Miranda is also the name given to the set of rights that one must be read in America when they are being arrested (You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...). It is paradoxical that the Miranda "Rights" serve the purpose of silencing you, effectively hindering your freedom.

In Chapter 8, Ulmer returns to the 9/11 MEmorials that he mentioned in the beginning of the book. He relates the story of Will Pappenheimer and his "Soft Wishing Y Tour" of New York. His MEmorial was born out of his mystory, wherein he focuses on his love of music and the Y shape, which represents both the musical tuning forks of his childhood and the concept of a wishbone. Pappenheimer's peripheral was a tour of New York City's ground zero. Pappenheirmer planned out a tour that spanned the approximate length of ground zero and was in the shape of his emblem, the Wishing Y, formed by his placement of fluffy pompoms. The Y, which we read about earlier in the book, represents an intersection of ideas and identities, while also focusing on the abjects that allowed 9/11 to happen. What I found



questions:

1) MEmorials require freedom of expression to be fully realized. Do you feel that you've found this freedom of expression in your group MEmorial projects?

2)

3)

photos:
http://www.blogwaybaby.com/2005/01/how-great-was-victorvictoria.shtml
http://frequentcritic.blogspot.com/2011/01/political-miranda-warning-everything.html

Electronic Monuments, Part 3

ERASURE OF DEMARCATIONS

Still Life with Plaster Cupid

On page 117, Ulmer quotes Bois and Krauss as they explain that the demarcation between what we see and what is physically real is erased in Paul Cezanne’s Still Life with Plaster Cupid, saying, "...a crisis, traditionally pin-pointed in the work of Paul Cezanne, shocks the visual arts. It suddenly became clear that the strict demarcation between the realms of the 'purely visible' (the verticality of the visual field) and the carnal (the space that our bodies occupy)--a demarcation theorized since the Renaissance by means of the conception of painting as a 'window opened onto the world'--was a fiction." Since I have a degree in Visual Arts, I was aware of the Renaissance trend of “painting as if looking through a window,” a style employed by many of the great artistic masters like Leonard da Vinci and Raphael. Cezanne bucked that trend, and in his Cupid, he created the image in such a way that it appears to be part of the real, carnal world.

Why did Ulmer highlight this particular piece? I believe it is because he wants to express that there should be a similar erasure of demarcation between MEmorials and reality, or maybe it is to say that, if done properly, there wouldn't be a demarcation in the first place. Prior to introducing us to Cezanne by way of Bois and Krauss, Ulmer seemingly criticizes the Western method of schooling and academic curriculum. Academia as we know and practice it, wants there to be clarity between what is real and what is not. Ulmer says of this, "There is, of course, the illusion of teachability of clarity, within a utilitarian ideology." (116). If I understand this correctly, then it seems that Ulmer is saying that the very concept of purposefully trying to separate the proposed from the real is a hindrance to true understanding. The Internet is the "prosthetic unconscious of a virtual America," (115) and, therefore, as much a part of the "real" America as any of its physical features and citizens. Ulmer is not trying to say, however, that there is no such thing as separation. As he goes on to express later in the chapter, a MEmorial is important partially because it relates to me, the me that is separate from the collective, the me that is the cause and effect of Benjamin Bataille's heterogeneity.

The MEmorial looks at boundaries and degrees of separation by removing the frame by which the egent views the world, tragedy, monument, etc. This concept of "boundlessness," the absence of demarcation between a MEmorial and the thing that it exists as a peripheral of, is one that I was having trouble with in my group project for our MEmorial. How were we going to represent the abject of our monument (the Hollywood sign) and all that it entails? By trying to analyze the abject (an unintended violation of Ulmer's instructions) we were struggling to produce a testimonial before we'd even created our peripheral. We hadn't really found the mood of our MEmorial. Once we stopped trying to approach them as two separate entities, we started heading in the proper direction.




SHAME


Something that I haven't been able to shake since starting Electronic Monuments is that it seems predominantly concerned with shame or tragedy as a means of true collective and individual awareness. Is the abject always necessarily bad? What is it about shame that attracts and repulses us at the same time? Exposing one's self can be a tremendously difficult thing because there is the ever-present fear of rejection. This fear of rejection along with the attraction to other's exposed selves is what leads to the borders and boundaries that are necessary to overcome in creating a MEmorial. Zizek offers us a reason for attraction-repulsion and its role in the creation of boundaries; he does so in an extreme and somewhat perverse way, as he is wont to do, by equating our innermost selves to shit. Shit, Zizek argues, is the externalization of our innermost intimacies (119). So are we displaying who we truly are when we are caught in a circumstance that induces our shame? I'm not sure if this is what Zizek means, and I'm not sure if Ulmer intended for MEmorials' focus on abjects to provoke a shame in those that view them.





questions:


1) Ulmer states that the EmerAgency applies electrate reason to shame. Would a MEmorial that focused on pride, the opposite of shame, be any less authentic or truthful?


2) Zizek states that shit exposes our innermost intimacies and that's why we are ashamed of it. If disposal of shit is then an attempt to hide our innermost intimacies, is Zizek suggesting that we are naturally inclined to hide our true selves?

Electronic Monuments, Part 2

FROM SPECTACLE TO MEMORIAL

Ulmer quotes Walter Benjamin in the beginning of chapter 3 and it made me stop and ponder the simple veracity of the claim, "The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule." (58). I immediately wondered if this was a hyperbole created for the sake of scholarship, but as I read further into the chapter and came across the paradox of compassion fatigue, I began to realize that there is no exaggeration in Benjamin's claim. All one really has to to do is turn on the TV and go to the news channel of his/her choice and you will see this persistent state of emergency. There's always a scandal, or some economic trouble, or a natural disaster, or an example of the depths of human evil and depravity. There seems to be no shortage of Chicken Littles running around the world declaring to us all that the sky is falling. We are surrounded by emergencies. In a way, it could be said that we even thrive on these emergencies, or at least that we use them as a form of entertainment. I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but each morning when I wake up I turn on the TV in order to see what's wrong in the world. As I compose this very blog, I'm watching HLN and find myself bored that there's no new tragedgy, just a rehashing of the current scandal at Penn State involving child molestation. It's not that I want bad things to happen; it's just that bad things are...more interesting. They are a spectacle.

That leads me back to what Ulmer refers to as compassion fatigue, "We know more about worldwide catastrophes than ever before, and care less. Or rather, we are unable to conjoin our intellectual understanding and our emotions, and this disjuction of discursive and pathetic knowledge is systematic, structural, and seemingly irreducible." (61). Because emergencies become a spectacle, and because we are constantly inundated with these tragic spectacles due to their worldwide immediacy (by way of the internet), we become desensitized to human suffering. So how do we reverse this trend? Ulmer proposes that a way to counter this paradox is the creation of MEmorials, and in particular, the MEmorials' testimonial component. By finding what Barthes refers to as the punctum (the obtuse and indirect third meaning of an image that provokes an involuntary memory or association in the viewer), MEmorials create a testimonial that situates us within a tragedy, thereby enhancing its importance and negating its trivialization. As Ulmer says on page 65, "The MEmorial becomes testimonial when the egent designs it as an image, figure, parable, emblem, using some feature of the news event as an objective correlative for the witness's state of mind, mood, attunement to the world."

SPIRITUAL NO-CALL LIST

We've already seen that being heavily inundated with tragedies desensitizes us to them. These tragedies become spectacles that, according to Ulmer, "...name a condition in which actuality and images merge and become indistinguishable, leading, it is argued, to the destruction of civic life and the related benefits and responsibilities of a free, democratic society." (83). Why would we do this? Ulmer says that it is a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from the severity of these tragedies, to protect us from the ugly truth, and the immense amounts of information that we are constantly subjected to. In short, it's too much to deal with and we very much want to be left alone so that we don't have to deal with it. "We want to be on a spiritual no-call list." (84).




photos:
http://www.artizans.com/image/GRA392/chicken-little-claims-sky-is-falling-over-bird-flu/
http://www.kachina.net/~alunajoy/2009nov.html

Electronic Monuments, Part 1

TRAGEDY AND MEMORY

Simonides escaping tragedy.

In the preface to Electronic Monuments, Gregory Ulmer makes the claim that memory and tragedy are linked, saying, "The links between catastrophe and memory are biological, of course, but also cultural." (x). Ulmer then goes on to make direct reference to the myth of Simonides, the ancient Greek poet who is said to have created mnemotechniques as a result of a tragedy wherein everyone perished at a dinner party that the poet attended by being crushed under the very building that housed the party (except for him, of course). Simonides, so the myth goes, was able to remember every single guest of the dinner party by his or her respective locations around the dinner table. Ulmer focuses on the 9/11 terrorist attacks to show how memory is also a collective and cultural event. He features an exert from a tribute from Newsweek Magazine that it published in the fall immediately following the events of 9/11. That day is one that is permanently etched in the minds of not only millions of Americans, but countless other people across the world. It is what Virilio calls a "general accident," that is, an accident that is said to happen everywhere around the world at once due to the immediate spread of information via the Internet.

Tragedy does, indeed, facilitate memory. I, like many others, remember exactly what I was doing on September 11, 2001. Not only was it my 21st birthday, but I was a young corporal in the United States Marine Corps. My battalion was at the rifle range fulfilling our annual requirement for rifle marksmanship. When the cease fire was given, we were instructed to report back to our individual platoon leaders; once we did so, we were informed of the events that had transpired that morning. I remember being told that we'd better perform better than we ever had on the rifle range because we would soon be going to war. You can not know how it feels to be told those words unless you're in the military. The implications of a terrorist attack on American soil are, I'd argue, much more immediately profound for members of the armed forces, who are sworn to defend our country from all threats both foreign and domestic. The feeling across Camp LeJeune in the aftermath of the attacks was one of shock, sadness, and burning indignation. The nation at large came together to mourn, honor our fallen, and to rebuild. Ulmer asked of the tragedy, "Will it provoke a turn to the institution of education as part of its collective response to understanding the 9/11 disaster?" By and large, I would have to say that has not been the case. Even as Ulmer promoted EmerAgency as the "new consultancy," the fifth estate after the three branches of the government and the media, humanities started their decline, a trend which has not improved in the 6 years since Electronic Monuments was published.


ELECTRONIC MONUMENTS




Ulmer covers the 9/11 tragedy, Virilio's concept of the internet as a medium that trivializes tragegies, and MEmorials and (electronic) monuments. It seems that he is saying that a large part of who we are both individually and culturally, is revealed in our processes for mourning and/or guilt. By the very act of building a monument, either physical or electronic, we are in some way mourning--remember that or which is lost to us. Ulmer even says as much when he states that, "A MEmorial witnesses (monitors) a disaster in progress...The MEmorial tests a modality (testimony) that has been heavily theorized in cultural studies." (xxvii). In the opening to chapter 1, he mentions the recent phenomenon of "reality tours," where the tourists visit sites that put them face to face with the harsh realities of our world rather than the traditional purpose of a vacation, which is to get away from reality.


Are electronic monuments and MEmorials just a way of gloryfying/trivialzing tragedy? Ulmer doesn't think so, and I would agree. What sets an electronic monument apart from a physical monument is that the physical monument is static; it does not allow for individual mourning (i.e. expression). Ulmer says of mourning, "In psychoanalytic terms, "mourning" refers to the process by which the person is constituted as a distinctly separate self, yet part of the larger whole of society." (13). Electronic monuments, then, allow individual mourning in the way that traditional monuments can not, however, this individual monument is situated within the larger public sphere of the interenet, therefore, electronic memorials bestow an individual and collective benefit upon those that create them. MEmorials are peripherals that are attached to existing monuments (48), so there is the abilitiy for all pre-exisiting and future monuments to become appropriated for any individual's sake.


So monuments and memorials in general are meant to commemorate and celebrate. However, while the internet facilitates the sharing of said monuments and memorials, it also facilitates a perversion of them. I came across this website,
http://vigilantcitizen.com/sinistersites/top-5-worst-911-memorials/, that exists not to commemorate and honor those physical monuments built in honor of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but to denigrate them for lack of aesthetics and/or consideration. In a way, this site functions as an anti-electronic monument. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since it is still a means of personal expression, but I do think that this is the kind of thing that Virilio would take issue with as it seems to validate his opinion that the internet trivializes tragedies.

 questions:


1) Ulmer said in one of his lectures, "If one does not apply grammatology as one applies sunscreen, one's signifier will undoubtedly get burned. And forget about the signified—that'll be toast, too." While those of us in academia can see the value in this, is this statement true enough to apply to society at large?


2) Ulmer, in his quest to refute the concerns of Virilio, promotes Electronic Monumentality and MEmorials as the means by which the internet becomes a publics sphere to commemorate who we are individually and collectively. Given your experiences with the Internet, would you say you are more inclined to agree with Ulmer or Virilio?


3) How do you think Ulmer would respond to the website that serves as a public denouncement of memorials? Do you think the term I used, anti-electronic monument, is an apt one in regards to the website?












pictures:

http://englishaesop.blogspot.com/2011/01/boothby-simonides-preserved-by-gods.html
http://theurbanaffair.com/2011/09/soldier-sneakerhead-911-tribute/
http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/SwitzLady/Sept11TRIBUTE6YRS.jpg

Nardi, Part 3

PART THREE

Nardi’s focus in the early part of her book was to introduce her readers to World of Warcraft and the inner workings of the game: the importance of raiding, buffs, leveling up and finding better equipment, all in the name of playing the game successfully. In the second part of her book, Active Aesthetic Experience, she talks about the affect of World of Warcraft, that is, the way it feels to play the game and “The Magic Circle” that surrounds WoW players and essentially transports them from one reality (actual reality) to another (the WoW world). In a logical progression, then, the final portion of Nardi’s book focuses on the actual gamers who play WoW.

In the chapter dealing with addiction, Nardi deals with this “perennial favorite of the media” (123). And, indeed, it is a favorite topic of video game naysayers in the media. It seems that there is always some family specialist or conservative politician warning us all about how video games are a threat to our society due to their violence and “addictive properties.”  It seems like any subculture or counter-culture that is a minority is seen as a threat to the larger population. Nardi quotes Cohen who studied mods and rockers in England during the 1960’s, “Societies appear subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person, or group of persons, emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media...Socially accredidted experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions.” (124). Nardi observes that this is exactly how the scene has played out with video games. She is quick to point out, however, that video games like World of Warcraft are no more addictive than any other medium.

Besides that, addiction is in the eye of the beholder. Some people see addiction as a bad thing, but then there are those individuals (gamers, usually) who don’t see the word as a bad thing, but instead a badge of honor that denotes their commitment their hobby. And make no mistake, video gaming is a hobby, one as worthy of pursuit as any other more acceptable hobby like reading, or stamp collecting, or wood carving. Still, I know that there is a problem with video game addiction, and particularly to World of Warcraft. It is a widely studied and documented problem in South Korea, for example, where there have been reports of players who spend so long playing the game that they forget to eat or use the bathroom. There have even been reported deaths from gamers who spent over 24 hours playing WoW without any food or rest. I know these are extreme cases, however, so I’m not terribly concerned with them. However, because of the fact that they are extreme cases, they create a panic in the wider community when they are brought to light.

Nardi goes on in this final section of the book to discuss another popular topic in video games: gender. WoW allows you to be whatever gender you choose. (Well, male or female, at least. There are no hybrid or new genders...yet.) The reasons why someone would choose to play a gender that doesn’t reflect their real one are many and varied. Anyone who has ever played an online shooter could probably tell you that female players often get harassed by male players. Conversely, in an RPG, particularly and MMORPG like WoW, some male players find that it is to their benefit to play female characters because they will then be gifted with objects and help from other male players that might not have been so easily forthcoming if they played a male character. Apparently chivalry isn’t dead, after all. Gender swapping in games is also a valuable means of expression for some people who might not otherwise be able to do so.

As Nardi closes her book, she leaves by pointing out that video games like World of Warcraft are really about creating community. You meet various people in this game and you form real bonds with them, just as you would do with people in real life. Just like Celia Pearce, Nardi’s work and participation in a gaming world proves its validity as a culture.

Nardi, Part 2

IT'S THE AESTHETICS


Nardi opens chapter 3 with a very basic question, "Why do people like [WoW] so much?" By way of an answer, she quotes a study participant who says, "I think what drives the majority of the people is sort of goal orientation. You have goals. And so, there's this very easy goal of leveling, right? It's this numerically-defined kind of thing. You have this target. You get these rewards of experience." (39). This was an interesting answer to read, not because I disagree with it, but because it wasn't the immediate answer that I was expecting, the 'common sense' answer, if you will. First, I do agree with this answer. Having a goal to reach is a very large part of competition, and games are, at their base, a form of competition, whether it be against the game, oneself, or other players. I'm hard pressed to think of a game that isn't a form of competition, and so, the acts of defeating or surpassing or achieving in games are a form of goal acquisition. 

A screenshot of a PS3 gamer's collection of trophies.

Nardi quotes a psychology student who says that the reward of intermittent reinforcement is the driving force behind why people play games like WoW. Randomly generated rewards, he argues, are the proverbial hook in games like WoW. For proof, we need only look to the practice of gambling and how hard of a habit it is for many to quit. It seems that we are hardwired to take chances in the hope of reward, or to play games for seemingly the sole purpose of reaching the next level or attaining some kind of goal. These two answers for why people play WoW apply to why we play any game, really. The practices of working towards goals and intermittent reinforcement makes me think of the method that Sony uses on the PS3 (and Microsoft with the Xbox 360) in order to keep gamers playing videogames for longer periods of time. Trophies are quite literally that, digital trophies awarded to PS3 gamers for achieving any of a variety of special conditions (likewise for Achievements on the 360). I know some people who literally only play games for the purpose of getting every single trophy or achievement. This definitely extends the play life of games, but back to my original point: I don't think leveling up and random awards are the primary reason why people play WoW or other games.

I think the answer to Nardi's question is a lot simpler than what was presented in this chapter: people like WoW so much because it allows them to experience a wonderfully fantastical, exotic, and exciting world, a world that is arguably much more fun to live in than our real lives. Speaking personally, this has always been the biggest appeal of most videogames for me. The chance to become someone “more” than I am in real life--a ninja assassin who can dispose of a number of enemies with ease and finesse, a world renowned fighter who can hurl blue fireballs at my opponents, a master strategist and world leader who can successfully conquer the world with either technology, culture, or military might, a master of the arcane arts who can call forth various elemental effects and spells to decimate evil...videogames allow me to be the the characters that I spent my childhood pretending to be while playing with my younger brother. I’ve ALWAYS been interested in identity and the appropriation of personas. When I was 7 years old and playing Spy vs Spy with my brother, Corey, and when I was 11 years old and pretending I was a Greek god, when I was an insecure teenager who hid behind a carefully constructed facade of intellectual snobbery, and currently when I write creative narratives...I’ve been appropriating personas since I could walk and talk. And videogames are the closest thing to actually being one of the fantastic characters that I’ve often wished I could be. That's why we love videogames like WoW; they allow us to be more amazing than we usually are, they allow us to experience things that we could normally only dream about.

The familiar Xbox 360 achievement notification

When Nardi quotes Dewey, who says that an aesthetic experience is participatory, I immediately thought back to Jenkins and his observation that new media consumers are participatory. We are no longer content to just passively consume media. In the same vein, when we want to participate in our aesthetic pastimes, hence the popularity of WoW and videogames in general. Nardi states that activity is motivated by an object, and that said object is basically the materialized needs and desires of a subject. Combining this with Dewey's concept of the human element in aesthetic experiences, we can see how it is, indeed, the human being (the gamer) who makes the activity (the game) fun. When we play a game, we place certain expectations on it that are either met or not. When those expectations are met, we have fun.

photos:
http://www.vgblogger.com
http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox-achievement-unlocked-sound-almost-never-happened/