Precision + Guided + Seeing
by Jordan Crandall

Through narrative and argumentative writing, Crandall weaves his views on our technology driven lives. Actually, I found it entertaining to read the fictional moments interspersed throughout the paper. I enjoyed the physical expressions of the woman explaining her effective search abilities on her laptop. Observing my surroundings, focusing on amusing events and people, I do these things. But I felt uneasy when he watched for "too long" and I was forced into the position of the voyueor, spying and tracking her, not wanting her to see my gaze. And there was a delightful playfulness about Crandall's finally boarding his plane as he entered his new arena of performance. Entering his new playground.

Main themes here: tracking an object, searching for it, predicting its movements, and finally capturing. Through our new human-machine composites we view 'the real' through fiction and entertainment. Reality is transformed, yet becomes more clear. The idea that we're all selflessly cooperating to co-exist in this world is put down as the topic of conflict and competition enter the scene. That at any moment I could die; that I must protect what I have captured, gathered and I must find more of what I desire. That desire and fear are complete when meeting death. "A world built on desire and the impossibility of its satisfaction."

It's understandable his mathematical, programming views of how things can be observed, tracked, and predicted. But there's a lack of emotion and feeling behind it that makes me wonder if these abilities are less effective than he believes. Sure we can track the surface of the Earth, but we get bored with watching everything. And so as his observations honed in on the people defying the pattern, breaking the flow, this is what we will notice in the trackings. Forget the ones doing as all others do, look closely at the ones who have lost their way. But who is to say these are the objects worth tracking.

I enjoy his pointing out that the entertainment industry is leading the technology construction, even over the military. Perhaps we're most comfortable when seeing it through playful eyes, through the eyes of fiction, and we're able to expand in said arena more quickly. Film, television, books, music, and video games always popular, always looked at and saught after. My purpose, unknown. My drive, to build a life for myself, as I see fit. To experience what is worth experiencing. And I will seek what I desire and admire.