internet of things

The contrast between the conceptual and material realities of data harvesting and of digital interfaces is a captivating subject matter I will tap into to make visible the physicality of the internet and to subvert destructive dominant, colonial narratives with respect to the natural environment and climate. This intervention will use poetry and photography/video as electronic literature to shed light on the conceptual language used online (e.g., on social media, corporate websites, online magazines, etc.) to discuss datasets in relationship to digital interfaces. Furthermore, it will address an identifiable gap within this language, which can be viewed in the production of massive amounts of electronic waste. A recent report by Greenpeace illustrates that companies like Amazon, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo use cloud computing (Cook and Pomerantz) to provide data and e-mail storage, file transfer sites, audio and video streaming, video games, and the “internet of things.” Individuals are encouraged to replace devices often. Built-in obsolescence and the production of e-waste “is mostly produced in the developed West and disposed of in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and China (Mosco). The marketing language related to data harvesting and online surveillance masks physical realities of cloud computing and of the internet, which is rooted in a global network of hardware and cables and requires substantial physical infrastructure and energy in service to giant computer server farms. Despite notions of the internet reflecting a “world wide” web, the internet represents the flow of capital and the interests of developed nations (Starosielski.)

(Source: ELO 2018 Conference: Lightning Talks: Probing the gaps between datasets and interfaces in electronic literature)

This essay argues that the sensing activities of smart objects and infrastructures for device-to-device communication need to be understood as a fundamental aspect of the rhetorical situation, even in the absence of human agents. Using the concept of exigence, most famously developed by Lloyd Bitzer, this essay analyzes the asymmetrical rhetorical dynamics of human-computer interaction and suggests new rhetorical roles for reading machines. It asserts that rhetorical studies has yet to catch up with electronic literature and other digital art forms when it comes to matters of the interface and the sensorium of the machine. It also claims that the work of Carolyn Miller epitomizes the conservative tendencies of rhetorical study when it comes to ubiquitous computing, even as she acknowledges a desire among some parties to grant smart objects rhetorical agency. Furthermore, when traditionally trained rhetoricians undertake the analysis of new media objects of study, far too much attention is devoted to the screen. In the logic of rhetorical theory, cameras are privileged over scanners, optics are privileged over sensors, and representation is privileged over registration. However, new forms of rhetorical performance by computational components may be going on independent of human-centered display. By interpreting works of electronic literature by Amaranth Borsuk, Caitlin Fisher, and Judd Morrissey, it posits a possible framework of sensing exigence.