ARTIST RESEARCH: PATTY CHANG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cosHkYIJy4

eels in the shirt

fountain

in love

http://vimeo.com/35589517

http://vimeo.com/35598930

http://vimeo.com/35595960

http://vimeo.com/26831124

ARTIST RESEARCH: TONY OURSLER

TONY OURSLER

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Experimental video artist 

It is with great pleasure that Faurschou Beijing presents a solo exhibition by the American video artist Tony Oursler, his first exhibition in China.
Since the mid-1970s Oursler has been a pioneer in New Media Art, and today he is one of the very biggest, most experimental and innovative artists working in the field of the video medium. The exhibition will introduce the Chinese public to a survey of projected pieces from the early 90s to the present that will give a strong impression of this great artist's work.

Unique idiom Tony Oursler has become well known for his unique video and installation works, which combine spoken text, performance, moving images and sculptural objects. Unlike other video artists Oursler does not only project his works on a uniform surface but projects his video images on to dolls, balls, architecture and other surfaces such as treetops and clouds of steam. It has been said that the artist has freed the video image from the "box."

The Human HeadIn this survey of works from the past two decades the curatorial focus is on the head of the human body. All the works in the show are based on the head and the notion of the head as the permeable center of consciousness. The work addresses the ebb and flow of elements such as light, smoke, thoughts, impulses, language, voice, memory, which interact with this central icon.

The Works The viewer is greeted by "Doll", one of Oursler's first breakthrough projections on rag dolls from the early 90s. The classic figurative sculpture is fused with a projected face, forming a hybrid between art and cinema. The little talking figure tests the viewer's empathy by challenging his passive role in art viewing.
Entering the exhibition one has to pass through "Cigarettes" a series of oversized, tubular screens with high-definition projection. The effect is that of a smoldering, virtual forest of various Western brands of cigarettes. The viewer's decision to indulge, or not, in various compulsive activities is called into question. This work also has further philosophical ramifications, including the pros and cons of progress as the columns seem to transform into architecture, or an industrial skyline.
In another installation, "Eyes", large blinking eyeballs are floating like independent planets in the universe. With its point of departure in the history of the camera obscura, first mentioned by the Chinese poet and scientist Shen Kuo (1031-1095), this installation points to the eye as an anatomical analogue of our desire for escapism through technology.
Continuing the exploration of technology, media and the viewer's fantasy, the installation "FX" (the abbreviation for special effects in the movie industry) is a multi-projection of a human head lost in a blaze of flames and explosions. Inspired by blockbuster cinema and terrorist activities, the work begins with an ironic, humorous premise: What would happen if the explosion was extended in time? In this installation something that would take place in a fraction of a second is stretched out in time, and the viewer can enter into a dialogue with an inferno.
Ending the exhibition on a humorous note, Oursler meets the viewer's basic need for companionship with "Classic". A head pieced together as a film collage of eyes and a mouth is uttering absurd sentences and statements. It is very amusing and disturbing too - and points to the way we mould technology to our desires, in the tradition of the "smiley face" and the "avatar" - the 3D representation of the interaction between human and machine.

The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus TwoThe exhibition takes its title from George Miller's classic 1956 paper "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two" - an essay about the limits on the capacity of human cognition. Psychological experiments have shown that people have a hard time remembering more than about seven unrelated pieces of really dull data all at once. The point of Miller's research is that for human beings to remember large quantities of information they have to associate memory fragments with the various data.

Technology and HumanityTony Oursler's video installations are influenced by exactly this: his interest in our information and media society and its effect on mankind. The uncertainty that many people feel in connection with the constantly growing flow of information, the fragmentation of the world and alienation from our own bodies and society is a conspicuous theme in many of his works.
Oursler is fascinated by the enormous potential of new technologies, especially those which, like video and film, can get close to reality. Oursler uses technology to imitate human and emotional features - and by associating speech, moving images and objects Oursler creates video sculptures and installations that exhibit a humanity that can easily engage us. This visually convincing and humorous way of approaching current important social, psychological and existential subjects has made Tony Oursler one of the most important artists in the world today.

ARTIST RESEARCH: Surrealistic Film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpZCMmPW_18

 L'Âge d'Or (The Golden Age) 
1930 surrealist film directed by Luis Buñuel and written by Buñuel and Salvador Dalí.
On 3 December 1930, a group of incensed members of the fascist League of Patriots threw ink at the screen, assaulted members of the audience, and destroyed art works by Dalí, Joan Miró, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy and others on display in the lobby. On 10 December, the Prefect of Police of Paris, Jean Chiappe, arranged to have the film banned after the Board of Censors reviewed the film. A contemporary Spanish newspaper condemned the film as ...the most repulsive corruption of our age... the new poison which judaism, masonry, and rabid, revolutionary sectarianism want to use in order to corrupt the people. The Noailles family pulled the film from distribution for nearly 50 years. In 1933, it was screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, but the film did not have its official United States premiere until 1-15 November 1979 at the Roxie Cinema in San Francisco.

Sometimes watching a movie is a bit like being raped - Luis Buñuel

Co-written by Buñuel and Salvador Dali, The Golden Age can arguably be considered a moving manifesto for the ideals of the surrealist movement. At the first screenings of the film, a written manifesto did, in fact, accompany the programme, espousing the importance of love, liberation and warning against censorship and the “bankruptcy” of emotion. The film itself is composed of a serious of dream-like vignettes that focus on the passionate and unconsummated love between a man (Gaston Modot) and a woman (Lys Lys).

The loose narrative is filled with bizarre hallucinatory sequences that align lust with the flushing of an excrement-filled toilet, that display sexual frustration through the act of throwing a burning tree out of a window and that consistently undercut moments of tenderness with unexpected violence. For a contemporary audience that is accustomed to certain ideas of visual eroticism, Buñuel opens up a space for uninhibited madness. Notably, the structure of the film, while reasonably linear, flows from disparate events and subjectivities and effectively utilises montage to create a dream vision. To this end, the imagery is replete with sexual symbolism and incongruity, capturing the vocabulary of Surrealist reverie and l’amour fou (mad love). However, this is clearly a perspective on the dreams of two very strange and, dare I say, disturbed men that has proved too much for some censorship boards.

Of course, just about everyone has either seen or heard of the fabulously grotesque eyeball scene in Un Chien Andalou (1929), but I actually prefer the eccentric charm of The Golden Age. For all its lofty ambitions to undermine convention and the Church, I love this film because it so ridiculous and perverse. I can almost see Buñuel and Dali cackling away as they were writing the outlandish plot, mischievously rubbing their hands together while concocting scenes involving murder, scorpions and odd fetishes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfaByWWLY4U

"Un Chien Andalou" (1929)
 "An Andalusian Dog"15 mins - short, fantasyDirector: Luis Bunuel

In a dream-like sequence, a woman's eye is slit open--juxtaposed with a similarly shaped cloud obsucuring the moon moving in the same direction as the knife through the eye--to grab the audience's attention. The French phrase "ants in the palms," (which means that someone is "itching" to kill) is shown literally. A man pulls a piano along with the tablets of the Ten Commandments and a dead donkey towards the woman he's itching to kill. A shot of differently striped objects is repeatedly used to connect scenes.

ARTIST RESEARCH:Ann Hamilton Videos

Ann Hamilton overflowing video of body

http://www.annhamiltonstudio.com/videosound/aleph_video.html

CONCEPT RESEARCH: Organism and Mechanism/ Man and Machine in the 1960s

They are found research papers related with man, machine, technology, organism and mechanism.


01. Philosophy in biology
ORGANISM AND MECHANISM
A Critique of Mechanistic Thinking in Biology
Submitted by Daniel James Nicholson to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy In September 2010

ABSTRACT

In this thesis I present a critical examination of the role played by mechanistic ideas in shaping our understanding of living systems. I draw on a combination of historical, philosophical, and scientific resources to uncover a number of problems which I take to result from the adoption of mechanistic thinking in biology.

I provide an analysis of the historical development of the conflict between mechanistic and vitalistic conceptions of life since the seventeenth century, and I argue that the basic terms of this conflict remain central to current disputes over the nature of the organism as well as the question of how far the theories, concepts, and methods of physics, chemistry, and engineering can ultimately take us in the explanation of life.

I offer a detailed critique of the machine conception of the organism, which constitutes the central unifying idea of mechanistic biology. I argue that this notion, despite its undeniable heuristic value, is fundamentally inadequate as a theory of the organism due to a number of basic differences between organisms and machines. Ultimately, I suggest that the neglected vitalistic tradition in biology actually possesses the best conceptual tools for coming to terms with the nature of living systems.

I also undertake a philosophical analysis of the concept of mechanism in biology. I argue that the term ‘mechanism’ is actually an umbrella term for three distinct notions, which are unfortunately conflated in philosophical discussions. I explore the relation between mechanistic biology and the new philosophical interest in the concept of mechanism and I show that these two research programs have little to do with one another because each of them understands the concept of mechanism in a different way.

Finally, I draw on the historical and philosophical foundations of cell theory to propose an epistemological perspective which enables the reductionistic explanation of the organism without having to give up the distinctive features of life in the process. In this way, I show this perspective to have significant advantages over the classic physicochemical reductionism of mechanistic biology. 

02. Man and Machine
Man and Machine in the 1960s by Sungook Hong
“Remember your humanity and forget the rest.”

Introduction

In 1960, the father of cybernetics Norbert Wiener published a short article titled “Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation” in Science. Wiener distinguished here between industrial machines in the time of Samuel Butler (1835-1902, the author of the novel on the dominance of humans by machines, Erehwon) and intelligent machines of his time. Machines circa 1960 had become very effective and even dangerous, Wiener stated, since they possessed “a certain degree of thinking and communication” and transcended the limitations of their designers. Describing in detail game- playing and learning machines, he contemplated a hypothetical situation in which such cybernetic machines were programmed to push a button in a “push-button” nuclear war. Simply by following the programmed rules of the game, Wiener warned, these machines would probably do anything to win a nominal victory even at the cost of human survival. Since machines became so fast, smart, and irrevocable, humans, unlike humans in the industrial age, “may not know, until too late, when to turn it off.” The fictional dominance of humans by machines, which Butler had worried about and vividly depicted in his Ehehwon, had been transformed into a reality (Wiener 1960, 1355- 1358).

Wiener’s essay symbolized the beginning of a new conception of the man- machine relationship in the 1960s. The sixties witnessed the Cuban missile crisis, the Apollo Project, the counter-culture movement, Vietnam and student protests, political assassinations, the civil-rights and feminist movement, the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) and the beginning of the environmental movement. To some the sixties was a Golden Age or “mini-renaissance”; to others it was the age of the disintegration of traditional values.

The sixties was also an age of new science and technology, for which people had high hopes, as well as deepest fears. “Quarks. Quasars. Lasers. Apollo. Heart transplants. Computers. Nylon. Color TV. Pampers. The Pill. LSD. Napalm. DDT. Thalidomide. Mutual Assured Destruction. Star Trek. Dr. Strangelove. The Sixties had them all” (Moy 2001, p. 305). In molecular genetics, the structure and the function of RNA and the mechanism of genetic coding were discovered. In technology, satellite communication became popular, and man landed on the moon in 1969. The introduction of contraceptive pills in the early 1960s helped trigger the sexual revolution, and progress in other medical technologies—the synthesis of insulin, new vaccines, and transplantation of organs (tissue, kidney, heart, lung and larynx)—were notable. Electrical technologies such as color TVs and music players, as well as computers, became more popular. Some technologies, however, were tightly linked to war. Dwight Eisenhower explicitly warned in his farewell address in January 1961 about the dangers of the “military- industrial complex.” The “electronic battlefield” introduced by the US government during the Vietnam War simulated enemy movement electronically. The rapid stockpiling of hydrogen bombs heightened fears of total annihilation (Mendelsohn 1994). Criticizing “man-made pollutants that threaten to destroy life on this earth,” Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring compares nuclear fallout to pesticides like DDT, which was itself a product of America’s “total war against human and insect enemies” during WWII. Films such as Fail-Safe (1964), Dr. Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Colossus (1970) depicted frightening relationships between humans and new technologies such as the control box of the nuclear bombers (fail-safe box), the Doomsday Machine, and intelligent computers.


This paper will discuss new conceptions and ideas about the relationship between man and machine that emerged in the 1960s. Although t h e domination of humans by machines has always been a feature of critical commentaries on technologies, the relationship between man and machines in the 1960s had some unique features. Automation with cybernetic and flexible machines, which had begun in the 1950s, created widespread concerns and debates in the 1960s. Cybernetics, systems theory, and intelligent computers blurred the strict boundary between machine and organism, forcing people to rethink the nature of human intelligence and understanding. Machine and technology became part of what it meant to be a human. However, man-made machines—chemical pollutants and defoliants, the electronic battlefield, and the hydrogen bomb in particular—began to threaten the very existence of humans. In this paradoxical and uncertain context, an alternative essence of humanity was sought to save humans from the threat of automation and total annihilation. I will show that the heart of humanity shifted from the realm of intelligence to that of emotions and feelings. 

CONCEPT RESEARCH: animation, Mickey Mouse, instrumentalization of animals

Steamboat Wille, 1928

American animated short film by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks

What is animation? 

What does it mean to give life to objects? 

What does it mean to create illusion of movement? 

In the Steamboat Wille, I am interested how Mickey Mouse transforms animals as organism into musical instrument as mechanism. In this cartoon animation, the artificially generated movements are rigid, repetitive and mechanical. In the animation, animals become an instrument in order to achieve goal like playing music with exaggerated and violent movements. 

CONCEPT RESEARCH: Eating / Machine in Chaplin's Modern Times

Eating/ Machine: Discipline, Digestion, and Depression-era Gesticulation in Chaplin's Modern Times by Christian Hite
http://cinema.usc.edu/archivedassets/098/15861.pdf

Modern Times - Charlie Chaplin Eating Machine (movie clip)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZlJ0vtUu4w

Modern Times and the Question of Technology

http://www.cartoonresearch.com/gerstein/chaplin/machines.html

Perhaps it was his status as a tramp, but for whatever reason, the icon Charlie represented one important ideological stance above others: a silent protest against advancing technology. Chaplin stated when in the early planning stages of Modern Times that "I am always suspicious of a picture with a message," so Chaplin never made a film in which he verbally indicted machines or automation as intrinsically bad; Robinson pegs Times as "an emotional response, always based on comedy, to the circumstances of the times" (Robinson 1985: 458). Specifically, most reviewers seem to agree that it was angst over the transition to sound -- a technological advancement that brought class to even the cheapest studios that adopted it -- that brought out the more general urge to combat the bogey of 'gizmos in positions of authority'.Chaplin felt deeply that sound would compromise the entertainment ideals toward which he was working with the Tramp -- in fact, with film in general. "If Charlie's universality was not to be compromised with a voice," Wes Gehring put it, "the character itself would need to be retired" (Gehring 1983: 41). Of course, this need not happen, Chaplin figured in the early days of sound, were the new medium only to become one way of making films. "I regard it only as an addition, not as a substitute," he said. "Silent comedy is more satisfactory entertainment for the masses than sound comedy . . . [which] I think is transitional" (Kamin 1984: 100). Chaplin viewed silent film as the art form; now modernity was reaching forward to oust his preeminence as other comedians like the Marx Brothers (whom Chaplin called "frightening") became the new kings of the new art form. It was Chaplin against a world which he viewed increasingly as being made up of novelty-oriented robots.
Thus in Modern Times, a largely silent film Chaplin released as late as 1936, Charlie and his female counterpart, the Gamine, are "the only two live spirits in a world of automatons," as "spiritual escapees from a world in which [Chaplin] saw no other hope" (Robinson 1985: 459). The film's workers are likened to sheep in the opening shot, and in one of the most famous sequences, Charlie himself is caught in the cogs of a vicious machine and, later, feeds a meal to a poor devil caught, perhaps forever, deep in the bowels of another metal monster. Historian Dan Kamin emphasizes how human actors' voices are only heard over loudspeakers in Modern Times; when characters speak to one another, their words occur on printed subtitles in almost every case (a chorus of singing waiters, hardly integral to the plot, excepted). The world of this film thus presents machines as most advanced; yet being advanced in one way (having the power of speech) hardly cancels out the destructive power machinery is given. When brought in for Charlie's slave-driving boss to inspect in the film's opening minutes, a machine meant to feed workers while leaving their hands free announces its functions by an associated LP record. The device's viciously mechanical, repetitive quality, and its urge to present itself as superior, are emphasized by how the recording points out no less than three times that the lunch hour can now be eliminated from the workday.
The power of "progress," its advancement working to the commoners' detriment, and its potential for out-of-control mayhem are all crystalized very nicely. Charlie, the pretentious tramp, is outiconified by an image-breaking machine, more worshipped and more evolved than the highest man (Charlie's nervous, sweating boss) and yet more abusive and vulgar than the lowest ruffian: the device feeds Charlie bolts which have accidentally been left on its tray, thus forcing him to literally ingest progress (my interpretation from summary in Kamin 1984: 114). Machinery devours him by forcing him to devour its own excesses: it is only a short time later that Charlie is, as has been noted, himself devoured by the machine age in the geary maw of a huge construction device (ibid). Later, he is driven completely mad by his job of tightening gears to the point where he becomes a human machine, unable to stop his involuntary tweaking (with pliers) of anything knoblike.
What does all of this have to do with icon theory? The answer, or the means to the answer, can be found in Roland Barthes' analysis of wine. Barthes refers to how wine enobles the French worker by adding ease to drudgery; it also has a sophisticated quality that raises him above (for instance) countries where they "drink to get drunk" (Barthes 1972: 59). Meanwhile, the intellectual finds that the "beaujolais of the writer . . . will deliver him from myths . . . will make him the equal of the proletarian" (1972: 58). In short, wine behaves a double-edged sword, an icon that creates a common ground and shifts the social order. Chaplin's use of machines is, in fact, quite similar in its style and its effects (although, as the film's lumberingly demonic contrivances never reappeared in such capacity as in Times, they did not become recognized icons themselves). Machines may not enoble Charlie, but they bring the boss down to his level (the boss is seen as agitated and exhausted by his mechanized life), they leave no one alone (just as the Tramp is heckled by superiors' voices and images piped into the washroom, the management is heckled by the feeding machine's insistence on its own usefulness). And while machines are ennobling, they cause vulgarity by their malfunctions, masticating on workers. Like Charlie before them, a figure whom varying classes identified with in his mature form, these insidious devices are a great equalizer, but in a bleak manner. Beside them, Charlie the icon seems more satisfying, the alternative and better choice to that which would equalize by giving the rich and poor a diet of grommets, eating the worker and symbolically consuming the freedom of the managerial class, and eliminating the lunch hour, eliminating the lunch hour, eliminating the lunch hour.
Both Charlie and the machines, to paraphrase Barthes again, "give . . . a foundation for a collective morality, within which everything is redeemed" (1972: 59). What choice would an audience take -- redemption as Charlie, a humanistic icon (his creator aside), or as a machine, the demon-Charlie with his bolt-tightening obsession? It is not hard to guess. Wes Gehring calls the scene "a defeat over Charlie to which no other, living antagonism has come close" (Gehring 1983: 43). And yet Charlie, in the end, loses out in the battle between icons. When we next see him in The Great Dictator, it is his last time on the screen: he has refined his ways such that he is no longer officially the Tramp (most texts I follow call the character the Barber, although identifying him as implicitly the same Charlie). More importantly, he speaks -- while not an addition that, like some critics, I view as detrimental or overly alienating to the character, it is a sign that Chaplin could not withstand modernization forever. The difficulty he had in coming to terms with the Machine Age as it most affected him -- challenging his silent film style at the core -- finally fell in technology's favor (a point well-taken by IBM in its Charlie advertising campaign of recent years).
Modern Times, for whatever it's worth, was seen as more political a film than Chaplin's previous efforts; quite frankly, its indictment of a segment of society made it that way. The New York Daily News' Kate Cameron saw the film as straight entertainment, but was of a minority; "more politically and aesthetically . . . conservative" critics, notably, made up that camp (Maland 1989: 155). Liberal commentators, such as the New Theatre's Charmion von Wiegand, were quicker to see the movie as "acutely [aware of] the changes which are occurring in the body of our society . . ." Conservative viewers, stressing the Tramp's humorous aspect, were quite telling in their emphasis on this, for whenThe Great Dictator came about, they would decide that there was more to worry over in Chaplin's ethic than fear of machines. But that is another chapter in the life of the icon.
-- David Gerstein

CONCEPT RESEARCH: The human as a machine/ Mechanism, Organicism, Contextualism

http://gakushuu.org/humans/mechanism

The human as a machine

Mechanism sees humans as machines that passively react to internal and external forces over which they have no control

ARTICLE | JUNE 4, 2011 - 10:40PM

Competing "isms" of human development

The field of human development views the world through scores of philosophical "isms", with each philosophy representing itself as the only correct philosophy, and automatically dismissing all others. While an oversimplification of reality, academics generally classify the competing perspectives under Pepper’s (1970) “reasonably adequate” philosophies of human development: mechanism, organicism, and contextualism. Mechanism sees humans as machines that passively react to internal and external forces over which they have no control. Organicism sees people living organisms that actively make choices about how they will react to and control the internal and external forces of their lives and that have inherent growth potential. Contextualists see people as a product of the continuously changing context of society and history. The article is the first in a series of articles that will compare and analyze these competing philosophies of human development to do the following:

• provide an overview of the historical and emerging state of the field of human development;
• summarize key theories and practices that have emerged from each philosophy, and;
• synthesize disparate perspectives into an integrated approach to personal and collaborative growth.

Mechanism

The mechanistic philosophy attempts to explore questions about what makes people the way they are (Goldhaber, 2000). Those who see through the mechanistic lens see humans as machines (Pepper, 1970) that passively react to internal and external forces over which they have no control (Goldhaber, 2000). Literally, mechanism is "the physics of motion or the study of mechanics", that describes how parts of a system work together to produce phenomena (Hunt & Ellis, 2004, p. 23).

Classical and operant conditioning are the principles that explain the theoretical foundations of mechanism. Classical conditioning explains stimulus-produced responses (S > R), while operant conditioning explains response-produced stimulation (R > S). Mechanists hold that the laws of S > R and R > S are fundamental in the natural world and can explain the behavior and development of all organisms, including humans (Skinner, n.d.). For example, when John drops a coin into the office vending machine and pushes a sequence of buttons for a candy bar, the gears of the machine drop the candy into a receptacle from which John extracts his snack. Applied to human behavior, John habitually visits the office vending machine at 10 a.m., noon, and 2 p.m. each day to purchase a candy bar. Having gained 50 pounds since starting the job 12 months prior, John wants to cut back on his snacking ritual, but just cannot help himself. Every time he walks by the machine, he has to buy a candy bar. Learning to live with his habit, John concludes, "It's just the way I am, I was born this way; besides, the candy bars help me deal with the stressful environment at work."

From the perspective of mechanistic philosophy, human behavior like "John's" is a result of genetics and environment; individuals have no control over their behavior (Lerner, 2002). Mechanists believe that the best strategy for influencing human behavior is to understand efficient and material causes that influence human behavior. Efficient causes are the "nurture" of human behavior, or the environmental factors that make an individual behave a certain way. Material causes are the "nature" of human development, or the biological factors that make an individual behave a certain way (Goldhaber, 2000). Mechanists take a scientific approach to studying human development, believing that gaining enough knowledge of the human machine allows them to predict (Lerner, 2002) and control (Skinner, 1955) human behavior.

The mechanist assumes that universal laws of nature govern all natural events, including human development and behavior. This reductionist view asserts that understanding the parts of a system leads to understanding the entire system. For example, understanding how atoms and molecules function helps the scientist understand chemistry and physics, which explain universal laws that apply to human chemistry, physiology, psychology, and sociology. However, mechanists do not necessarily claim to explain human development, but to "reduce the phenomena of physiological, psychological, and social functioning to the fundamental level of analysis—the laws of chemistry and physics" (Lerner, 2002, p. 51). Therefore, with enough knowledge of chemistry and physics, there would be no need for the sciences of human development physiology, psychology, or sociology (Lerner, 2002). For example, Hunt and Ellis (2004) state that cognitive psychologists can be "thoroughly mechanistic" (p. 12), choosing the computer model to explain how the brain processes information. When looking through the mechanistic lens, cognitive psychologists attempt to explain mental processes by discovering their origins in the brain. In other words, knowing the parts and understanding how those parts work together will help explain the workings of the machine.

Human development theory through a mechanistic lens

Major classical theories through the mechanistic lens include Watson's behaviorism, Skinner's radical behaviorism, and Bandura's social learning theory and social cognitive theory. A brief summary of each of these theories provides a clearer understanding of the view through a mechanistic lens.

Watson's behaviorism

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist in the 1890s, observed that he could cause a dog to salivate by conditioning the dog to associate a ringing bell with food. Pavlov had demonstrated classical conditioning, which is "a basic form of learning in which a stimulus that usually brings forth a given response is repeatedly paired with a neutral stimulus. Eventually the neutral stimulus will bring forth the response when presented by itself" (DuBrin, 2000, p. 33). American Psychologist John B. Watson used Pavlov's work on classical conditioning to pioneer a natural science of psychology called behaviorism in the early 19th century. Watson (1914) asserted that psychology should not focus on subjective and non-measurable mental experiences, like consciousness, but should be a study of objective behavior, like reflex. In his initial salvo to the field of psychology, Watson said: "The time seems to have come when psychology must discard all reference to consciousness; when it need no longer delude itself into thinking that it is making mental states the object of observation" (p. 7). To Watson, human behavior is driven by the same stimulus-response connection that causes a leg to kick when the knee is tapped by a hammer. Thus, psychology should be "a science of behavior" that never uses "the terms consciousness, mental states, mind, content, will, imagery, and the like" (p. 9). In other words, human behavior was no more than stimulus-response connections that Watson could observe, predict, measure, and control.

Goldhaber (2000) calls Watson's S  R psychology pure mechanism in that it does the following:

• Defines behavior as the functional unit of the natural science of psychology;
• Suggests that all complex behaviors can be reduced to the basic functional behavioral units;
• Argues that complex behavior patterns occur through simple associated processes that define classical and operant conditioning;
• Views humans as passive until acted upon by external forces;
• Claims associative processes govern learning of all species, including humans, and;
• States that development is learning (pp. 69-70).

Watson eventually lost his standing in the academic community for using human babies to demonstrate his theories (Harris, 1979), but found success as an advertising executive, conditioning people "to buy all sorts of unnecessary but appropriately associated items" (Goldhaber, 2000), and writing popular books about raising children. Watson had redefined psychology from a study of consciousness to a study of behavior, establishing conditioning as a key strategy for studying behavior and behavior change, and making raising children in 1930s and 1940s a matter of habit training (Goldhaber, 2000).

Skinner's radical behaviorism

Extrapolating from experiments he conducted with pigeons, B.F. Skinner demonstrated how learning occurs as a consequence of behavior. Whereas classical conditioning is learning by association (SR), operant conditioning influences learning and behavior using rewards and punishments (RS). Skinner proposed that a person's behavior is instrumental in determining if learning occurs (Skinner, n.d.). In other words, if a person experiences a pleasant outcome because of their behavior, that person is likely to repeat that behavior. Similarly, if a person's actions results in an unpleasant outcome, the person is less likely to repeat the behavior.

Skinner's work on operant conditioning resulted in the philosophy of radical behaviorism, in which efficient causes drive all behavior. In other words, external events cause all behavior. Skinner did not dismiss internal states, like feelings, emotions, and thoughts; however, he argued that "internal states are not the causes of our behavior but one of its results" (Goldhaber, 2000, p. 77). In short, radical behaviorism held that human thinking processes are not important.

Bandura's social cognitive theory

Albert Bandura (2001) rejected mechanistic input-output models because he thought they limited development to external factors shaping and controlling a mindless human organism. While he noted that the computer metaphor started to recognize the human as a cognitive organism, Bandura felt the computer metaphor "was still devoid of consciousness and agentic capabilities" (p. 2), asserting that "consciousness is the very substance of mental life that not only makes life personally manageable but worth living" (p. 3).

Bandura theorized that cognitive factors accurately predict human behavior. Navigating the challenges of life requires that people "make good judgments about their capabilities, anticipate the probable effects of different events and courses of action, size up socio-structural opportunities and constraints, and regulate their behavior accordingly" (p. 3). This belief system serves as a model of the world that helps the individual work towards desired outcomes while avoiding punishing consequences. Human survival and progress depend on "forethoughtful, generative, and reflective capabilities" (p. 3). Bandura's observations are important because they lead to social cognitive theory, which is a well-supported theory of development within the mechanistic perspective, while focusing on the social context of behavior that is shared by both organicists and contextualists (Goldhaber, 2000).

Social learning theory states that people learn by watching others in a social setting and modeling the behaviors they think will lead to favorable outcomes, while avoiding behaviors they think may lead to punishing consequences. Organicists and contextualists agree with this focus on the social context of development, however, social cognitive theory approaches behavior change from a mechanistic perspective (Goldhaber, 2000).

Bandura (2007) represents behavior as a function of the person and the environment. Called "reciprocal determinism," this interaction among person, behavior, and environment demonstrates how the world and the person cause each other. In contrast, the behaviorist perspective asserts that the environment causes the person's behavior. Bandura focused on the cognitive processes involved in observing, saying the conditions necessary for learning include the processes of attention, retention, motor production, and motivation (Bandura, 2007; Goldhaber, 2000; Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007).

Next in the series: The human as organism

Excerpt: The organismic perspective of human development attempts to explore why people are the way they are (Goldhaber, 2000). Using the organism (Pepper, 1970) or "integrated whole" (Tsoukas, 1994) as its metaphor, organismic theory is an extension of Gestalt psychology, which views the human being as a synergistic organism (Hall & Lindzey, 1959) that is more than just a collection of parts. Those who view human development through the organismic lens see people as living organisms that actively make choices about how they will react to and control the internal and external forces of their lives and that have inherent growth potential.

While acknowledging that humans do react to internal (material) and external (efficient) causes, the organismic lens also recognizes material and final causes of human behavior. Considering material causes, humans are not just a collection of parts, they are complex organisms that are greater than the sum of their parts. Considering final causes, humans have a purpose, there is a direction and a process to development (Goldhaber, 2000; Pepper, 1970). In short, the organismic lens views the human as a purposeful and active participant in constructing and interpreting his or her world (Lerner, 2002)...

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Photo caption: B. F. Skinner's Child Shock Box. With stimulus > response as its foundation, mechanism inspired shock therapy as a child development method.

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