What Would They Have Thought?

The articles looked at for last week in The New Media Reader, all dealt, more or less, with the concept of how society is effected by technology.  The readings, all dated to some extent, offer up theories of how technology has effected society, and how it will effect our future.  I wonder what Williams or Enzensberger would have thought of technology today -- whether or not they would have seen their theorize legitimized or not.

An episode of Oprah last week focused on The Kindle, amazon.com's Wireless Reading Device.  This is not the first of its kind to come out, but seems to be the most technologically advanced, and of course, the fact that Oprah endorsed it as her "favorite new gadget," has gained a lot of attention.

Enzensberger believed that it would be unlikely for a world to exist without the printed book.  In a society where magazine sales are increasingly declining, and where newspapers are having to cut down on staff size because of poor sales -- in a world where a Kindle can be purchased instead of a book -- where bookstores and libraries are becoming more and more obsolete -- where does Enzensberger's claims lie?

20. The Technology and Society, Raymond Williams, 1972

• Williams introduced "the flow" - a way to organize t.v. analysis - "the fluid combination of program segments, commercials, and other material that makes up the experience of watching television." 
• Williams looks at how technology is affecting culture - a "technological determinist" view
• Has television altered our world?
• Is a "new" world being created as a result of all the new technology?
• It is important to look at both the causes and the effects of new technology, not just the effects
• Williams will "analyze television as a particular cultural technology, and to look at its development, its institutions, its forms and its effects..."
• T.V. was created through science
• T.V. altered preceding forms of media
• T.V. altered communications, and thus relationships
• T.V. changed the way we look at/what we view as "reality"
• T.V. has consequences on culture/the family/society
• T.V. is profitable - an investment - a money maker
• T.V.'s invention resulted from major developments in "electricity, telegraphy, photograph and motion pictures, and radio'

19. Requiem for the Media, Baudrillard, 1972

• Media is inherently structured
• Media serves a social function
• Author does a re-analysis of McLuhan's "Medium is the Message"
• Everyone should not be able to create/produce, as they are able to do so in the electronic new media age
• The above will NEGATIVELY affect our communications structure

18. Constituents of a Theory of Media, Enzensberger, 1974

• New media makes encourages us to act, not to think, or even to think about acting
• There is no sense of a stop - time.  Time = "eternity'
• Enzensberger employed Marxist theories of "base" and "superstructure"
• Base = "forces and relations of production"
• Superstructure = All the things that are created by the base relationships (i.e. media, social conventions, governments, etc)
• Enz.  looks at media business - he believes it supports an unjust system and convinces us to accept unjust society
• His essay is, in part, a proposal of a new way of thinking about the organization media
• Media is "the pacemaker for the social and economic developments of societies..."
• New types of technology are always interacting with one and other as well as with past technologies
• Media has a "mobilizing power" - the ability to get people to act
• Media like T.V. and film, during the time of the article, limit feedback - there is no way for the creator and the viewer to interact with one another - "no action between the transmitter and receiver."  This is not because it is technologically unable to occur, but because it is purposely not being done for political reasons 
• Social divisions - ruling class vs. the subordinate class, consumer vs. manufacturer
• George Orwell - media is "undialectical" and "obsolete"
• electronic media has allowed for a larger spread of information
  
• issues of censorship become very different in this new electronically oriented media world.
• Leftist Theory of "Manipulation"
• The New Left views new media as a manipulation device -- a defensive view
  
• Electronic media is seen as "dirty"
  
• Who is doing the manipulating?  
• Anyone can be part of new media -- anyone can create/edit/alter/add
• New Media does away with the concept of "intellectual property"
• "None of the characteristics that distinguish written and printed literature apply to the electronic media"
• It is not likely, according to the author, that writing or the printed book, will disappear 
  

17. From Software-Information Technology: It's New Meaning for Art, 1970

• 1970 - exhibition "Software" organized by Jack Burnham
• Viewers were asked to interact with computers
• In many ways the exhibit failed - many of the works did not work correctly, it was financially unsuccessful, director of exhibit (Karl Katz) was fired because of it.
• Regardless of these issues, it still was extremely influential for artists, technologies, theories, and viewers of the exhibit
• Catalog for the exhibit was created by Ted Nelson:  "Labyrinth," which was the first accessibly hypertext
• Examples of works:  constant poetry playing on AM radio, glass windows being made into low-power speakers, data stream access, computer programs, as well as conceptual art
• "Software's" goal was not to the same "The Pavilions"...it wasn't to get tech. and art to collaborate, but rather to use technology to create art, for artistic purpose.

16. A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect, by Engelbart and English, 1968

• Piece documents the "mother of all demos" 
• 1968 - Fall joint Computer Conference in S.F.
• Englebart and English, with a projection screen behind them gave a live and public demo of interactive computing that had been done by the Augmentation Research Center from the start of its creation
• Highly risky because it had never been done before, but they felt as though it would prove the importance in continuing similar research
• Introduced new interfaces, many of which still exist, many of which (the mouse) have the same name.

15. Cybernated Art, Nam June Paik, 1966

• Video art has always attempted to be cybernetic, to be interactive and to be part of the new media world
• Nam June Paik - one of the first video artists
• He used one of the first Sony portable video cams - recorded Fluxus performances and the Pope's first visit to N.Y.  He combined video and live performance 
• Coined the term"information superhighway"
• Created "novel satellite broadcast artworks"

14. "Four Selections by Experiments in Art and Technology"

Introduction

• Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) - looks at technologies affects on art since the 1960's
• Brought together artists and engineers (at one point membership of 4000)
• E.A.T. spread their mission through newsletters, exhibits, competitions, discussions
• 1966- Founded by Billy Kluver, Rauschenberg, Whitman, Waldhauer
• 1967 - Announced to the press by a chapter
• 1960- Experiment created by Kluver, engineer, who aided in the creation of a sculpture by Tinguely -- the experiment personified the concept, the core of E.A.T., that the artist and the engineer can be collaborators, not assistants to one another, but equal players in their respective endeavors.

"The Garden Party,"  by Billy Kluver - 1967

• Experimentation in art can never be wrong or right - He was referring to Jean's experimental, self-destructive sculpture 
• "The machine was not a functional object and was never treated like one..."
• "This art then becomes part of our inherited language, and thus has a relation to our world different than the reality of the immediate now..."
• JOHN CAGE:  - piece of music that was not permanent in either "form or detail.."  The only sounds were those that were naturally occurring (nature, telephone lines, etc) during the time of the performance 
• LUCINDA CHILDS:  used different vehicle related devices in different circumstances to look at what they could or not could aid in the completion of anything.  
• YVONNE RANIER:  A dance performance of two "separate but parallel...continuities and two separate (but equal) control systems...(1) Dancer continuity controlled by artist from a system where actions are chosen (2)  Event continuity controlled by "theatre electronic environment modular system" using memory capability
• RAUSCHENBERG:  A tennis game is staged where the rackets are wired to be capable of sound transmission.  The sounds that come from the racket control the lights in the audience area.  The game is over when the area is completely dark (or gives the illusion of darkness)...much like improvisational dance performance 

The Pavilion

• The artists creating "the pavilion" designed it to be an "open-ended" experience.  The viewer was encouraged to explore as an independent, and to "compose his own experience," not that of the artists' wish.
• Goal: to create a highly participatory technologic environment 
• 19th century World exhibitions allowed people to consider the idea of participatory new technologies/machines.
• 20th century new technologies  steered away from concerns about the actual new object or new technology, and more about the way it was being used
• E.A.T.'s goal in The Pavilion:  "to demonstrate physically the variety and multiplicity of experience that the new technology can provide for the individual..."
• The Pavilion responded to weather conditions, sun movement, and physical contact
• Such highly participatory art work raised questions:  artist in relation to industry, legality in art and with the artists

13. "The Galazy Reconfigured" and "The Medium is the Message", by Marshal McLuhan, 1962, 1964, respectively

Introduction

• McL. created concepts that are thought of as second nature now.  "The Medium is the Message" refers to the idea that media itself trumps the content that the media sets forth (1960's)
• Difference between "hot" and "cold" media
• Culture is moving back to a more tribal nature because of the media
• McL. was one of the first "academic celebrities"  
• He combined a mockery of sorts, "irreverence," with seriousness
• McL. believed that new technologies and new ways of thinking should be celebrated and explored, and that people would be doing themselves a disservice by ignoring new technologies and keeping to old ways.

The Galaxy Reconfigured (1962)

• References last chapter of The Gutenberg Galaxy
• Changes in typography technology shifted Western ways of thinking
• As our world became more consumer-marketing oriented, so too did literature morph into the role of a "consumer commodity..." something to be "packaged'
• Things created without work - because of automation - because of the assembly line, create "uncertainties"

The Medium Is the Message (1964)

• "...the personal and social consequences of any medium... result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology..."
• Is it the machine, or the what the user does with the machine?  The medium?  or the message?
• "content" is always another medium in addition to whatever medium is being used to display the message

Prose and Anticombinatorics by Italo Calvino

• Computers as aids to literary creation
• The computer realizes the endless possibilities a literary text can take on, but selects specific situations, specific parts, depending on certain constraints.  
• Calvino gives an account from a short story, or perhaps a beginning to a novel to prove the above theory.

Computer and Writer: The Centre Pompidou Experiment, by Paul Fournel

• Desire was to establish an "agreement" between computer science and literature
• Paul Braffort's Goal:  teach the public/writers about above issue
• Aided Reading:  some works of literature are easier read/dealt with with the use of a computer - the computer can select and edit.  For example:  Combinatory Literature - manipulation of different strips in "Cent Mill Milliards de Poemes" is difficult to do by hand.  Algorithmic Literature- Episodic series are easily dealt with, with the help of a computer
• Aided Creation: computer helps in drafting process

For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature by Claude Berge

• Leibniz claimed to come up with a new branch of math with developments in "logic, history, ethics, and metaphysics"
• 1961- Francois Le Lionnais - used "combinatory litearture"
• Issues of math are translatable to issues of language/literature
• First use of "combinatory literature" was Cent Mille Milliards de Poemes 
• Oulipian concepts:
• A desire to use new structures in their work, new constraints
  
• Research of "methods of automatic transformation of texts"
  
• "Transposition of concepts existing in difference branches of math... into the realm of words...
  
• 1967- Saporta publishes a "factorial" novel.  Factorial poetry:  text is able to be permeated in different ways-the meaning changes
• Fibonaccian poetry:  "a text which has been split into elements...and recited using only elements that were not juxtaposed in the original text..."
• 1966-dual form poem, the antipode 
• Episodic Stories - embedded stories 

Helvetica Documentary

Being, by nature, an artistic person, I have always been attracted to typeface -- especially that on my records and on the covers of books.  I recently started looking into begin a first edition book collection and have been looking at the differences between first edition covers and newer editions, noting especially the differences in the type face.  Most notably Truman Capote's first edition of "In Cold Blood" is drastically different from the current edition.  

The great thing about the documentary is the same thing that was so fun about going to Ken Perlin's lab.  It's always really fun to listen to people who are passionate and incredibly well-educated and knowledgeable about a field that is not often looked at.  The people in the Helvetica documentary was so passionate about something that most people never think about.  It gave so much more meaning to a font than most people would think about:  political meaning (as we saw from the article about Obama's use of Helvetic), tone meaning, message meaning, etc.  

The amount of emotion that the font caused people to have -- the graphic designers who held to the font as the "ultimate," the "ideal," or those that passionately hated it, feeling as though it was boring, horribly designed -- was fascinating to watch.

Ken Perlin Tour and Inventions

As a child, I always appreciated a hands-on museum going experience.  Growing up in Manhattan, I was always exposed to the "no touch" museums - the Met, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, etc.  But I always loved going to the Museum of Natural History the most because I was able to touch things and experience them for myself.  Going to Ken Perlin's lab reminded me of the excitement that I had when going to interactive museums as a child.  Not only was it fascinating to hear about his new inventions, which I knew would be interesting, but being able to see them in use, and even more fascinating, see them in development, was a lot of fun for me.

I was especially interested in the mouse-pad, touch-pad interface that could create texture on the computer, as well as be used with other programs, utilizing not only a left and right click, but one's entire hand.  When Ken and the students helping him mentioned that it could be altered to be the size of a full desk, or be used by feet instead of one's hands.  The great thing about Perlin's tour was that he was dealing with very technological stuff -- computer interfaces, all of these big words that I couldn't understand -- but discussed it in a really creative way that was accessible to me.  

The New Media Reader - Chapters 9-12

The three articles read for this week all deal with a developing relationship between author and reader, creator and user, artist and viewer.  Chapter 9 discussed the Sketchpad, which allowed users to think about their computer screens in a different way, a more interactive way, that allowed space to be unlimited to them.  It also created new tools for computer drawing.  But in addition, it forced a discussion of a change in human communication, now that man and machine are better able to communicate.

Chapter 10 dealt with cybernetics, the inclusion of the sciences in arts education, and the importance of opening a dialogue between the two disciplines.  The artist is encouraged to share both his or her own work as well as experiences to students, in order to extend their knowledge.  And most significantly, the chapter recognizes the importance of the relationship between the artist, the artwork, and the viewer - all of whom are interconnected, all of whom lend themselves to the art piece.

Most interestingly to me was the chapter on the Oulipo.  I remember growing up having loved the books that allowed the reader to choose the book's outcome.  I remember always wanting to know what my potentials were, so I would read the books until I was able to have read every possible outcome.  The Oulipo's use of forcing themselves to constrain their work - leaving out a letter, using some sort of literary device - allows for a more in depth analysis of the work and its' potential use by the reader.  The author is not thinking about the work in terms of what they want the reader to read necessarily as much as it is about the possibilities of such readership.

12. Six Selections by the Oulipo

• Oulipo:  Workshop for Potential Literature
• Potential lit. uses "constraints" - not allowing oneself to use a specific letter when they write (Lipogram), etc. 
• It's an "algorithmic" view of the narrative form
• Group's founding piece: "Cent Mille Milliards de poemes," Quenea - concept:  You can cut along the dotted lines in the poem and put them in different places throughout the poem and the line with fit rhythmically, syntactically, and metrically
• Oulipo created a new form of "computer-mediated textuality"
• This changes the relationship btw the reader, the author, and the text.  The author is now a lot more involved as are the readers, who become active agents in creating the text
• Founded by Francois Le Lionnais, co-founded by Queneau
• Asked themselves at meetings "what can we expect for our work," what's the purpose, what's the outcome?

11. A File Structure for The Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate, Theodor H. Nelson, 1965

• Nelson created the word and concept of "hypertext"
• Hypertext combines "multimedia computing, electronic literature, and the World Wide Web."
• Hypertext:  "a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper." 
• This is not the only way Nelson was thinking about hypertext
• Hypertext can also be seen as a "complex, reconfigurable, linked [structure] of information..."

10. The Construction of Change, Roy Ascott, 1964

• Ascott wanted to rethink art and art education 
• He wanted to connect cybernetics and art
• Cybernetics:  combines different areas of interest, integrating, bringing difference sciences together, environmental behavior,  
• Telematic art:  artists creates a communication system in collaboration with dispersed ppl- dematerialized art
• Artists should be conscience of the viewers' role.
• The viewer has a responsibility to extend/articulate/react (emotionally/physically) to the piece.  But the artists defines his boundaries
• Art is didactic - artists want to teach - to push
• "Acceptance can only lead to a 'murderous easy-goingness," you must be challenged and the artists must be the challenger
• To become one with the modern world, artists must reference science - look @ cybernetics
• Cybernetics makes an individual more the "controller"
• It is essential to lay a "groundwork for creative activity" - an artists' work can be helpful to students, but art isn't enough - the student also needs science to co-exist with the arts

09. Sketchpad, Ivan Sutherland, 1963

• Built for military radar
• Allowed people to draw on a computer screen
• Looked at a computer screen as more than a second form of paper
• Sketchpad paved the way for today's "object-oriented" programming/graphics
• Opens up a new form of communication btw man and computer

R. Luke DuBois "Hindsight Is Always 20/20" @ the bitforms Gallery

Using an algorithm, DuBois calculated various presidents' most said words in their State of the Union addresses.  Shown as an eye-chart, each print displays each president's most said word at the top, in large print, followed accordingly by the other words said, getting smaller and smaller toward the bottom of the print.  Each print gives a look into what was going on at the time of each president's term -- what words were said clues the viewer in to what was important, what issues were being spoken about.  While I was too young to have witnessed most of the State of the Union addresses looked at in the exhibit, I could tell, through what I have learned in my high school history classes, how the prints really exemplified each presidency.  

It is interesting to think about how to define or bundle up a person's "term," be it presidential or any other important period of one's life.  For instance, I would be interested in seeing what my most said words throughout high school were, or even more interestingly, what my mother, father, or stepfather's most said words in high school were. 

The New Media Reader - Chapters 5-8

The organization of this group of articles was striking to me.  Chapters 5 and 8, chapters that I found particularly difficult to get through, were very technology driven.  Both articles were trying to show or prove how man and machine should or could be joined in order to solve complex problems more effectively and more efficiently.  In between these chapters were three chapters that focused on creativity, both how it is amplified, or depleted, by new technologies.

The chapters raised a big question for me, one that we have touched on in class, and one that I think chapters 5-8 struggled with, against one another, and at times, with one another.  What does technology, in all of its many forms, do to our creativity?  Does it enhance it, helping us to do things that we once were not able to do -- an example of this would be the LittleBigPlanet game-creator (see below), which allows gamers to create what they were only once able to dream-up.  Or does it threaten our ability to be unabashedly free and creative-- as the "Happenings" article implied, rarely do works of art maintain such raw creativity anymore in a world were fame is more important than what an artist can produce.

08. Augmenting Human Intellect by Douglas Engelbart, 1962

• Engelbart invented much of the computer interfaces we depend on:  mouse, window, word processor, helped to create the Internet, videoconferencing, hyperlink, etc.  He remains largely unrecognized for his developments.
• Engelbart's main goal was not, as most would assume, to develop interfaces such as the window or the mouse, but rather, to "augment the human intellect" (93).
• Augmenting human intellect means to increase the ability for a human to deal with and create solutions for a problem.  This includes:  faster and better understanding, as well as faster and better solutions
• Goal of Engelbart's study:  to create a program that would establish the issues that hold a person back from being able to deal with the problems of society and to develop new methods that would solve this problems

07. The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin by Willian S. Burroughs, 1978

• Burroughs describes a technique used by Surrealists of the past that copies and pastes to create poetry
• There have been web-based "surrealist" poetry creators which generate texts by computerized randomizing of words = not what Burroughs intended.  Rather, he wanted such random selection to be used as a step in creating a text
• Cut-up method for writers is the same as collage for artists.
• "You cannot will spontaneity.  But you can introduce the unpredictable spontaneous factor with a pair of scissors" (90).   

06. "Happenings" in the New York Scene by Allan Kaprow, 1993.

• "Happening" describes different performances in the 50's and 60's created by Allan Kaprow (author of article) and others which urged viewers to deconstruct the barriers btw. the audience and the creators.
• Is the audience only there to observe?  Or do they have a responsibility?  
• Kaprow's group, all painters, all came from American painter backgrounds
• Performances are seemingly goal-less, they "go nowhere," they are not structured, they are "open-ended and fluid" (85).  
• Differences btw. "happenings" and other theatre:  context - lofts, basements, nature = no distinction btw. audience and performance.  "Happenings" disregard the "proper" and get down to the natural, organicity of art.  plot - there's no plot line in a "happening," and you never know what will occur next.  There is no "sense" in the traditional meaning.  chance ("risk"/"fear," "willingness to fail" 86) is very important to "happenings," something that is not usually present in most theatrical performances.  reproduction is not doable with "happenings" - performances cannot be recreated in their original form.
• Leading artists are praised too often instead of being left to explore or use their resources = creativity dies = they reach fame

05. Man-Computer Symbiosis by J.C.R. Licklider, 1960.

• Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created to lead the military's space programs
  
• Lick promoted computer science education, time-sharing systems, interactive computing, and comp. networks all in hopes giving attention to the new media that could come from computers (73).
• Lick urged colleges to link comps. together to create an online network = Internet
• Man-Computer symbiosis = cooperation btw. men and comps.
• AIMS:  Allow computers to "facilitate formulative thinking" (74) and use both comps and humans to make faster and more educated decisions.
• Lick looked @ a research study he had done in the past and realized that 85% of his time was spent doing things that comps. could do extremely quickly if they were programmed correctly (76).  Tasks include:  "searching, calculating, plotting..." (74).

"To the Letter Born:" Thoughts on NYT Opinon Piece

Steven Heller's article focuses on an interview had between Steven Heller and Brian Collins, a branding expert who discuss Barack Obama's use of a specific typography that can be seen throughout his campaign.  Collins describes fonts as a powerful tool that has the power to make "language visible," and help bring Obama's messages and words to life.

The idea that a font would be a powerful tool in a campaign seems fairly obvious to me.  Rarely do I stop and read exactly what is said on posters, election-related or not.  Instead, I look at the shapes, the graphics, whatever strikes me in the moment at which I'm seeing the poster or advertisement.  For this reason, everything on the piece must be easily relatable, or strike some kind of emotion within the viewer.  As Collins describes, the font used throughout Obama's campaign, is inviting and friendly.  I'd even go as far as to say it sort of evokes feelings of change, but without being erratic - it's serious, but not cold.  It's strange, reading back that sentence, that you could attribute physical characteristics to typography.  But after reading the article and looking at Obama's typeface against other typefaces on my computer and in other advertisements or campaigns, it really is obvious how important the way what is being said looks, not only what it actually says.

Nicholas Robinson Gallery: Michael Zansky Exhibit

When we walked into the Nicholas Robinson Gallery, I was immediately taken aback by the set of objects by the entrance.  Next to one another, with the lenses strategically placed over the sculpture-worlds, the scene looked almost like a collection of little worlds placed within one bigger context.

The piece that I chose to look closely at was on the main gallery floor.  The following is a list I wrote of the recognizable objects in the photograph:

Pink Tutu Skirt

Sphinx like/Gnome Figure

Planet/Marble

Gauze

Tree Stump

Sky Background

Grecian Sculpture (Pathos shown)

Apparent background explosion

While Egypt and Greece, historically, could be seen in a similar context, none of the other objects that I recognized go obviously hand in hand with one another.  Rather, they seem more like a random collection of objects placed next to one another for no apparent reason.  Still, the piece was able to evoke some sort of emotion in me, amidst my confusion.  While I wasn't sure why I liked Zansky's work, there was something that I found dark and humorous about it.

The Gehry Building

As a native-Manhattanite, I have very mixed feelings about new, modern-looking architecture that seems to continue to pop up around the city.  When the new designs for the Museum of Modern Art were released, I mourned the loss of the Sculpture Garden that I remembered playing in when I was little.  When the Rose Planetarium was built at the Museum of Natural History, I felt as though some strange object was being dropped down in the middle of a place that had once been so familiar to me.

On the other hand, things like the High Line Park being built, or the environmentally friendly Hearst Building on eighth avenue, excite me.  Just as sad as it is to see things from my childhood being transformed, these changes can also create new opportunities for me to relearn a city that I feel like I know so well.

The Gehry Building, aesthetically does not particularly appeal to me.  The ultra-modern, high-tech look never has really excited me, and the frosted windows feel uninviting and, somewhat creepy.  However there is something very cool, almost humorous, seeing the Gehry building juxtaposed against the background of a more rugged Chelsea.  In between the galleries and car dealerships on the West Side Highway sits this outer-space-looking building, mysteriously.

Building Your Own Virtual Reality: "LittleBigPlanet Turns Gamers Into Creators" by Reuters

This Reuters' article looks at "LittleBigPlanet," a program that was created by the maker of The Sims and Spore, that allows gamers to create their own virtual realities -- their own designs for games that, previously, were only able to exist in a gamer's mind.

Not a gamer myself, I have never really been able to grasp how such games are created.  I understand the animation aspect, but the idea of pressing a button, a button not even connected necessarily to a machine, but is wireless, having an instantaneous effect on what goes on on the screen seems to overwhelming to really understand.  The idea that an average gamer, not even a person necessarily expert in computer science or animation, could create their own games really interests me, especially because it adds an entire new element to video games -- one that is more interactive and creative. 

On the game's official website (http://littlebigplanet.com/en_US/) you can really see how LittleBigPlanet is incorporating creativity, visual aesthetic, and computer-technology, and putting into one program that seems to be innovative, even for the world of gaming, which is constantly updating and utilizing new technologies.