The features associate with a smartphone camera are generally given in tech-speak to which most of us have little access. In this article, I want to unwrap some of that peculiar language to give you a look into the smartphone camera. Smart technology can be smart because of the concept of embeddedness. When we talk about embeddedness, we are saying that machines are put inside other machines. How can that be possible? To answer that question, we must talk about the obvious.
The obvious fact is that the camera is digital. That means that a machine is a sequence of logical statements in a software program. The sequence of statements comprising Machine B can be interspersed within the sequence of statements comprising machine A. Sequence A becomes a new sequence and, hence, a new machine. Now, machine A can take advantage of the capabilities of machine B. Or if necessary, the two machines A and B, can be embedded in a third machine C, and simultaneously run independently doing work for machine C.
In the digital world, machines can interpenetrate one another. This creates possibilities that can’t exist in the plastic and steel world. With this model of embeddedness in mind, let’s unpack some prominent features of the smartphone.
The Magic of Synchronization
The smartphone has four features that work well with the concept of embeddedness giving the phone’s camera the amazing features we have come to expect from such a camera. One of these features is the phone’s ability to wirelessly synchronize with other devices, such as laptops and desktop computers. Synchronization, the coordination of machines to operate the camera in unison, is a capability that has become prominent in the 21st century. Synchronization is the ideal of working together to accomplish a task. The remarkable result is that this coordination achieves much more than simply getting the original job of taking photos done faster. In previous times, people learned to work together, to coordinate their efforts, because this coordination accomplished the job faster and easier. In the 21st century, coordination goes far beyond that. Coordination opens new possibilities. For example, what if we coordinate two features: internet access, the ability to download applications and run them independently, and the ability to run multiple applications concurrently. What if these capabilities, or machines, are embedded in your camera? Your camera can go on the internet, locate software that adjusts color in photographs or adds color designs to the photograph, and use software to adjust the lighting in the photo or to crop it. The photographer can do these tasks without downloading the photo and uploading it into a second machine that does one task, then downloading the photo and uploading it into a second machine that accomplishes a second task, etc. We can say these tasks are done seamlessly. The seamless nature of the tasks creates new possibilities for the photographer. It changes the photographer’s way of thinking, even subconsciously. Before the digital camera, photographers looked at nature with the idea of “reproducing” it on film. Their minds assessed nature in terms of the capabilities of film. This assessment produced photographs. The quality of the photographs were due partly to the capabilities of film, but more significantly, by the thoughts of the photographer.
Synchronizing the Most Incredible Machine
In a previous article, I identified 16 features possessed by the smartphone. We have been examining how these features have changed cameras. These features are based on digital machines embedded in the smartphone. These machines provide the smart camera different functions never before seen in cameras. These embedded machines have varying capabilities, but we did not mention the most powerful and capable embedded machine. This machine is the human mind. We forget that our minds act upon the physical world. They change that world in significant ways. Yes, our minds are, themselves, embedded in the smartphone. Because of the concept of digital embeddedness, we have to change our thinking about ourselves and our environment. Before digital technology, we lived in a much simpler world. What I identified as “me” was somewhere inside my brain, and what I identified as “environment” was somewhere outside my brain. Part of my environment was even inside my body. I could take an x-ray of my arm and see the bone structure of my arm. That picture made the skeleton of my arm part of my environment. With medical technology, much of it digital, increasingly larger parts of my body became part of my environment. Parts of my body that previously belonged to “me,” became part of something other than “me.” People began to be alarmed, because technology appeared to be reducing what had always been experienced as very personal and part of our identify. But this feeling of alarm was based upon the failure to notice that extraordinary part of ourselves, our thoughts, our ideas. Our brains function enough like a digital machine that our brains become synchronized with other machines through the processes of our thoughts. With the increase in sophistication of digital technology, this synchronization is increasing. INCREDABLE!!!
Emerging Outside Ourselves
I will never forget my first day of graduate school. Classes hadn’t begun yet and I decided to explore the main library, as the library is a major tool in education. I walked into the library and after familiarizing myself with the layout of the building, I began looking for the card catalog. I had finished my master’s degree a couple of years before and had taken a break from education. I hadn’t been in a university library in two years. When I had last been in a library, there were card catalogs. If you don’t know what a card catalog is, it is system of little drawers that hold 3×5 cards. On these little cards are printed information about books one can find in that particular library. The cards are in alphabetical order according to book titles. At least, that is my memory of card catalogs. For research purposes, card catalogs require the skill of generating references. This is a very important skill, although it was not one that was ever taught. I walked around the part of the library where the card catalog was generally found but found no card catalog. I asked the librarian where the card catalogs were. I was informed that there were no card catalogs; the library had just gone digital!! She showed me the computer screen where book references could now be found. I was given a short training on using the new system and turned loose to explore it. I put in a keyword and instantly received fifty thousand references. The references listed all the books in the present library on the subject plus all those in every other library in the state university system.
In one month, I would be entering a graduate program, and I realized I no longer know how to find a book in the library! Instead of expanding references, I now needed to learn how to limit references, a totally different skill. Since then, our society’s move toward digital has progressed and that move has brought, not only a new set of skills, but a new set of possibilities. The capabilities of smart cameras to interact with the internet in simultaneous coordination with other features turns the smartphone camera into a machine sensitive to the human, creative mind. The smartphone camera is a creative tool. It is something that must work in synchronicity with other digital technologies in exploration of the camera’s possibilities. One does not learn to use a smartphone cameras. One gets to know it. To use it, the photographer must allow the camera to become embedded in her mind.
Smartphone Cameras as Extensions of Our CNS
In the twentieth century the idea that our machines were extensions of our brain was a hypothesis for science fiction writers. Computer software was not sufficiently developed to support embeddedness to any extent. In the twentieth century, digital machine A was still a machine operating outside of digital machine B. Our machines, such as television and the movies, were just beginning to make contact with our minds and our brain; we didn’t yet understand what was happening. Marshall McLuhan gave us a hint, but we didn’t understand what he was saying. Looking back from just the first quarter of the twenty-first century, I don’t think he even realized what he had said. Our brains are moving outside of us into our machines, and our machines are moving into our brains. Who could have envisioned that this concept of embeddedness could lead to such changes in us and our environment? Life in the twenty-first century is embedded.
Conclusion
We change and quickly feel like we have always been the way we are now. We forget how the world used to look to us. I thank that ability to conceptually change is a coping mechanism. We adapt. That is an interesting point in development. The point where our minds let go of the old models and embrace the new. This is the point where creativity happens. The new smartphone cameras are an invitation to experience yourself differently. I love to look at amateur photographs. Their interest transcends the people and places they represent. The unconventional angles, the unexpected compositions, the absence of professional intention: all these characteristics create unexpected insights and pleasures. The portability of the smartphone camera and the embedded machines that support it has created a new type of art never seen before. It’s a type of folk art of unexpected finesse.
