1. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute An Obscure Knot: Technology, Labor, Globalization Today 1.Overview of Sleep Dealer (handout) 2.Discussion of Sleep Dealer 3.Seminaring: Analysis possibilities

2. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Discussing Hot Media: Sleep Dealer Technique: McLuhan’s “Cooling” 1.How can I think about “high-definition,” electronic media? 2.Seeing the WHOLE – diagramming, schematizing; looking for patterns and structure 3.Analyzing the PARTS – context and purposiveness; looking for framing, pointing EXAMPLE: Event List (handout), Screenshot Sequence (zip file)

3. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Sleep Dealer Memory and having a future Memo: “Why are we still here?” Father: “Is our future a thing of the past? No. We had a future. You’re standing on it. When they dammed up the river they cut off our future.” What is Memo’s initial view about his future? What is the problem of memory presented in the opening scenes of the film?

4. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Sleep Dealer Machines, agency, and systems Luz: “Sometimes you control the machine. And sometimes the machine controls you” Memo: “I could connect my nervous system to the other system. The global economy.” How does the film construct a view of our agency in this imagined future? (You must think beyond what the characters actually say to get much out of this inquiry)

5. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Sleep Dealer Connectivity, Citizenship, Community Luz: “The only thing nodes are good for is to destroy that distance… to connect us, to let us see.” Does the film confirm Luz’s statement? In what sense is the communication technology effective in building community? Thinking of Hartley p.257+: How does this film modify the significance of “citizen”?

6. CUSP134: Icarus’s Parachute Technology and Speed Recap: Philosophies of Technology 1.Nye – Approaches to Tech 1.Externalist, [Internalist, Contextualist] 2.Errors: Social & Technical Determinisms 3.mechanization, soft determinism, naturalization 2.McLuhan – Tech as Mediation 1.Pay attention to: medium, sense experience, information flow, media forms/structures 2.Cultural habits and dominant media forms; visual/aural 3.Hartley, Bertman – SPEED