NMR: Chapters 41-54: The Kindle

As an avid Oprah show viewer, I am always interested in the things she dubs as her "new favorite product."  This year, Oprah excitedly introduced the Kindle, Amazon.com's "revolutionary wireless reading device," which allows you to purchase books digitally and read them on a small six inch screen.  It is said to "look and read like real paper," whatever that may mean, and is being used by authors like Toni Morrison and Anita Diamant among others.  

This seemed very relevant to the chapter in the text regarding the end of books, the death of one of the oldest forms of media:  the printed word.  To me, the Kindle does not offer a user-friendly, more efficient way to read, but a move to destroy books as we know them today.  What does it say about our culture when we have to have everything digitalized and why do so many people consider things easier, or more efficient simply because it is computerized, or smaller?

NMR: Chapters 35 - 40

A lot of these chapters had to deal with, either directly or indirectly and more abstractly, how our general sense of communication is not necessarily challenged, but arguably altered as a result of digital new media.  In Chapter 39, "Towards a New Classification of Tele-Information Services," by Jan L. Bordewijk and Ben ban Kaam, the authors look at the different social roles and how they each interact with one another in the varied world of digital new media.  Having grown up, for the most part and at least during my formative years, in a highly technology based world full of instant messaging and email, it is difficult for me to step back and observe exactly how technology has negatively or positively affected the way humans communicate with one another. One thing I found interesting was to consider how different this same article would sound if it were written now, by someone in my generation.  Would the new communication forms seem beneficial, offering new ways to communicate, or would it be seen as dumbing down the way we talk and interact with one another?

54. The World-Wide-Web, Berners-Lee, Cailliau, Luotonen, Nielsen, Secret, 1994

• "Pool of human knowledge"
• The World Wide Web (W3) was created to allow people in remote locations to share ideas on a common project in a common space
• This extends both professionally in business and also domestically, by enabling personal information to be organized and distributed
• URI - address system
• HTTP - Network protocol
• HTML - network markup language 
• URI - Universal Resource Identifiers - "strings used to as addresses of objects on the Web"

53. Nomadic Power and Cultural Resistance, Critical Art Ensemble, 1994

• This school of thought sees the powerful elite as the "primary beneficiaries of network technologies"
• The elite are now "fully cyber spacial"
• How can you act out/speak out in this new space?  What are its benefits?  What doesn't work with it?
• There is a large, underlying question as to "how, or whether, to use new media technologies for taking (virtual) action, rather than organizing and reporting (physical) action
• Virtual Sit Ins, "hacktivists," and "cyberhippies"
• Cyber activism allows for large numbers of people to be part of something that they may not e able to be physically part of
• There is significant questions to whether or not it is at all affective.

52. Nonlinearity and Literary Theory, Aarseth, 1994

• Obvious characteristics of electronic literature - issue of linearity.
• "this quality of nonlinearity is neither insisted upon by the computer nor precluded by print."
• Screens, by nature, create a sort of an "allure" that forced people to automatically put computer literature in its own category
• In reality, there are few differences between new media art and non-digital work
• "today's electronic textual systems are not so new when systems like the telegraph are considered."

51. Surveillance and Capture, Agre, 1994.

• Especially in our world today, issues of surveillance are heavily discussed.  The concept of TOTAL surveillance has always seemed somewhat unrealistic and science-fiction-esque
• In the panopticon (Jeremy Bentham) prisoners are watched from a tower and aware that they are perpetually watched and act accordingly.
• Agre thinking about the questions that surveillance brings forth (issues of privacy) and theorizes the capture model, which is "drawn from an awareness of the current methods of computer systems design."
• The capture model is integrated in every part of our lives through various masked objects (the web, ID cards, tracking devices, etc).  The computer knows, but you don't
• 1997 - collection edited by Agre and Rotenberg discusses where privacy is moving toward in the Web 2.0 world

50. Time Frames, McCloud, 1993

• McCloud showed "the way for contemporary thinkers who would seek to...[look at new media]" and is considered to be the "Aristotle of comics"
• He saw how the comic format worked
• Comics, he believed, were "sequencial art" 

49. The End of Books, Robert Coover, 1992

• By teaching a course in "hypertext writing," the author discovered that by students being able to write on the computer, they were being part of the move to the end of physical, tangible books.
• "High quality and copious literary output" came out of students being able to utilize hypertext and other computer/literary tools.

48. You Say You Want a Revolution: Hypertext and the Laws of Media, Moulthrop, 1991

• Hypertext - "a technology for creating electronic documents in which the user's access to information is not constrained, as in books, by linear or hierarchical arrangements of discourse."
• 1945 - Bush creates Hypertext to build the Memex machine in hopes to organize large amounts of knowledge
• AI researches made the first hypertext narrative, a computer game called Adventure
• Print favors site of auditory interaction.  Hypertext does not utilize one sense, rather, it is more cognitive.  It is all about "connection, linkage, and affiliation"

47. Seeing and Writing, Bolter, 1991

• Author looks at how the history of typography and printing relates to the way in which we think about the way writing on computer screens moves around/is altered.  
• How are changes in new media influencing the way we thing about and experience reading and writing
• "Remediation"

46. The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat, 1991.

• 1997- Ultima Online launches (a graphic, virtual environment/role playing)
• People looking at the site were fascinated by why users enjoyed killing one another so much
• How do computer-mediate communications effect our environments, both virtual and physical
• How far are these/should these worlds be extended?

45. Cardboard Computers, Ehn and Kyng, 1991

• What happens when everyday computer users can no longer create or use their own created tools and designs?
• The design process must keep the user in mind at all times
• These authors are known as the heads of "the Utopia project,"  which has decided to work with users from the start of designing
• Utopia was started in the early 1980's and the project believed that "new media tools shoudl be designed for the quality of work they produce"

44. The Fantasy Beyond Control, Hershman, 1990.

• 1979-1983 Hershman's Lorna is thought to be the first interactive video art installation
• The piece was a a woman, Lorna, sitting at home watching television.  The person looking at this had a remote, as did Lorna, and operate the remote to make choices (mock survey, selectable objects) all of which could branch out into more general narratives of the piece.
• Her work was both installation and performance
• Language of video and film was reintroduced and situated for a more interactive world

43. The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems, Nichols, 1988

• Those working in digital new media fields often "borrow insights and tropes from other forms," "discourses and examples."
• Nichols was attempting to rewrite Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," but write it for the digital age.
• 1936 - Benjamin's text
• 1988 - Nichols text
• Benjamin was speaking at the age in which video was rising, and Nichols during the age in which video games and simulation media were starting
• Nichols examined why such interactivity was popular:  freedom, pleasure, etc.
• What are the effects of simulation?  Good?  Bad?

42. Siren Shapes, Joyce, 1995

• Web-version of "hypertext" is much more limited then Nelson or Engelbart's ideas of hypertext were
• There is still a lot of potential for what hypertext can do, will be used to do, in the future
• Joyce thought of hypertext in two different environments:  "exploratory" and "constructive"
• Constructive hypertext are "flexible representations of thoughts, stories, arguments, and everything else for which we use media."
• Exploratory hypertexts are "former constructive hypertexts, now being experienced by a user/reader who is not an author of the work."  In other words, it is what the constructive is created for.

41. Plans and Situated Actions, Suchman, 1987.

• Author looked at how people attempt to accomplish their goals
• Her theories led to changed in the way people thought about and discussed artificial intelligence
• She believed that the way we've approached thinking about AI is "misguided" because we think of it in human-terms, in other words, instead of thinking of AI as a separate entity, we are theorizing about it naturally in relation to how our own, real-life brains work/act.
• Navigation looks at the difference between "the planning and situated action perspectives"
• Interactive Artifacts looks at what interactivity means and who AI can be looked at historically
• People and machines have to be seen as separate entities

40. Mythinformation, Winner, 1986

• Positive social change does not naturally come about solely because of a computer's availability
• Author asks "what the social goals of..." the computer revolution will be?
• He gets rid of the common myths that 
• "People are bereft of information"
  
• "information in knowledge"
  
• "knowledge is power"
  
• "increased access to information diminishes unnecessary social hierarchy and increases democracy
  
• "The transitions accompanying computer technologies may have some democratizing potential--but this potential must be identified and worked toward."  This is not something that will happen naturally as a result of the technology simply being present
• Three major concerns:  The surveillance issue, the chance in human sociability, and the 'rhizomatic' nature of computers.

39. Towards a New Classification of Tele-Information Services, Bordewijk and Kaam, 1986

• Authors considered the social role of new types of digital media
• Tele-information systems are based on both digital telecommunication and computer technology and effect interpersonal human communication
• What are the power positions of human communication?  How can we classify information by their social roles? 
• Four information passages:   Allocution, Conversation, Consultation, and Registration

38. Two Selections by Brenda Laurel, 1986

• Author takes a more classical approach to computing 
• She thought of computers in theatrical terms and believed that The Poetics offered insight to understanding computers
• She believed computers should be examined from a humanistic perspective 
• Author believes, "technologies offer new opportunities or creative, interactive experiences, and in particular, for new forms of drama"
• How can drama be helpful in understanding and examining computing

37. Using Computers, Windograd and Flores, 1986

• Chapter comes from Understanding Computers and Cognition 
• Winograd heads the Human-Computer Interaction program at Stanford University
• Authors offer a critique of artificial intelligence and how it is affecting the way that humans naturally, without the computer technology, think.
• They use German philosopher Heidegger's approaches to "uncover a rigidity within analytic computational models"
• The authors believe that "the essence of intelligence is to act appropriately when there is no simple pre-definition of the problem or the space of states in which to search for a solution."
• We should think of computers as tools
• What have we gained from computers culturally?  How can we create a positive direction for new media development
• Ontological Design - looks at human interaction and communication in specific situations

36. The GNU Manifesto, Stallman, 1985

• Free software - enabling users to access/use software tools
• When companies decided to charge for software, people backlashed and people were suddenly living in a "less free environment"
• It appeared that more and more computer users were unable to use the software tools that they used, even created, and unable to change them unless the companies lifted licensing restrictions.
• Author created the MIT AI Lab in response to this issue and created a "new free community" called GNU
• Brought into question licensing issues, intellectual property issues, copyright issues and "copy-left"

35. A Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway, 1985

• Author's text looks at imagined personalities 
• "Haraway's cyborg is a socialist-feminist mythology that is not founded on belief in an idyllic past or overarching unity"
• The cyborg is progressive and exists solely in the present "the here and now"

34. Video Games and Computer Holding Power, Turkle, 1984

• 1980's - video games became a major fixture in popular culture 
• Turkle's The Second Self looked at how video games were an effective way of examining how different groups of people interacted with a computer
• Author thought about computing and its effects from a psychological standpoint:  how computers allow people to create personalities that are different from their real-life personalities 
• Games play both a social and psychological role and how we interact with games, and computers in general, influence the way we see and think about the world around us

33. Direct Manipulation, Shneiderman, 1983

• Direct Manipulation:  "instead of employing a command language to instruct the computer, the data being processed is exposed and accessed in a more graphically representational way" -- instantaneous graphic/visual feedback is given for every action 
• These concepts informed visual programming, notably video/arcade games 
• Examples of direct manipulation systems:  Display Editors (non-linear editing systems), VisiCalc (financial forecasing program which enables you to do multiple calculations in one worksheet), Spacial Data Managements, Video Games (Pong), 
• Using graphic representation does not always improve efficiency

32. The Endless Chain, Bagdikian, 1983

• Author was thinking about the obvious ways new media was trumping (and even somewhat replacing) the old media
• "We should be entering an era of dissolving hierarchies and empowered individuals"
• Old media and new media are "increasingly compatible and comparable," and often times are quite similar to one another.  The author considered the idea of the two media forms (old and new) morphing and created one singular system, rather than existing as two separate entities
• Author released The Media Monopoly (1983) which predicted issues of "media concentration" (as a side note, such predictions having become quite true -- note the conglomerations that own news - there are only 6 companies that own over 95% of all our news sources)
• Six firms dominate all of America's U.S. mass media - AOL Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, News Corp, Bertelsmann, and General Electric 
• "There is an urgent need for broader and more diverse sources of public information.  But the reverse is happening"

31. Will There be Condominiums in Data Space, Viola, 1982

• Video artists like Viola have enabled people to think about digital new media in broader terms
• In the 1960's artists began thinking about the specific attributes of video, thinking about cameras, editing programs, image synthesis interfaces, screens, projectors, etc. All of these things, which seem inherent to thinking about videography, have been changed as a result of digital new media and videography combining
• Viola is one of the most famous video artists.  His fame allowed him to create what many have termed "70-millimeter video art," in which video's cheapness is not a concern and rough production quality is not part of the finished product

30. Literary Machines, Nelson, 1981

• Nelson believed that, eventually (and quite soon after the publication of the article), people would be reading and writing almost everything "from and to" and "world-spanning computer network" (precursor to the world wide web)
• This network would allow users to create their own documents and connect them to other public documents published on the network
• Storage capabilities would allow for users to visit any version of one document from multiple points in time in the network's history
• Xanadu:  the ultimate archive, combining "the benefits of anarchy with a strength derived from an initial, powerful central design"
• It would be a "vast free sharing of information" - a "digital library," a "new public commons"

29. Put-That-There, Bolt, 1980

• Focuses on multimedia computer interfaces which combine both speech and gesture
• Put-That-There also threw in the idea of more spoken conversational techniques
• Bolt used 2-dimensional screens to offer a new view into a 3-dimensional space
• He did not focus solely on one area of communication 
• His ideas challenged previously held notions of computer-human interaction "in which these two types of space are experienced by the user as one"
• These interfaces let a personal communicate/interact with a computer by using "speech, gesture, gaze...and facial expression"

28. Mindstorms, Papert, 1980

• 1980's were considered to be "the home computer era," where computers were finally part of an "average" families everyday life in the home, not only the office
• Having computers in the home prompted the children in the households to become active participants in the technology, leading to home video game consoles
• Computers were both productive and instruments for learning
• Papert was working to try and create ways for children to learn by programming
• LOGO (1967) :  children can take complete control of their home computers and learn about "mathematics through the experience of mathematical concepts"

27. A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuz and Guattari, 1980

• Author's "literary machine" incorporated essays written from a specific perspective of "if I were using these terms, this is what I would mean"
• Rhizomatic writing- often used to describe hypertext
• Authors' work challenges readers to "reconsider dualisms" 

(I had a lot of difficulty getting through/understanding this article)

26. Personal Dynamic Machine, Kay and Goldberg, 1977

• Authors predicted the power of the personal computing notebook -- what it would do for the world and its users
• Ideas for the computer notebook were developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) which was led by Kay
• The original concept was that the personal computer notebook would be a "general purpose device, with educators and business people and poets all using the same type of Dynabook" - a multi-disciplinary system
• The authors believed that computers could be (and should be) used by all different groups of people (even children) regardless of one's interests or computer skill level

25. Responsive Environments, Krueger, 1977

• Considered "the father of virtual reality" 
• 1976- created a new computer interface:  a glove that monitored hand movements (created at the Electronic Visualization Lab @ the University of Illinois
• He had both aesthetic and technical concerns throughout his career
• Thought about art and computer science in similar disciplines 
• Steered away from traditional ideas of "content"
• Critical technical practices - a practice that makes technological artifact with arts and culture in mind

24. Computer Power and Human Reason, Weizenbaum, 1976

• Author programmed Eliza, the first and most famous chatterbot
• Eliza brought into question a lot of issues of ethics regarding technology and the possible dangers of what he himself had created
• Author was a huge proponent of inventors/technology experts taking on responsibilities for the potential dangers their creations may have on the larger world
• Eliza (1964-1966) ran a series of scripts which impersonated a psychologist 

23. Soft Architecture Machines, Negroponte, 1975

• Developed new ideas for the digital world where the user was thought of as being "empowered," not hindered by technology
• 1985- opened the MIT Media Lab (looks at future media/computer applications that aim at many fields of study
• 1967- author founded the Architecture Machine Group @ MIT
• The group aimed to create new ways of managing data and large amounts of information spatially instead of numerically or alphabetically (in a list-form)
• Intentionalities - author puts forth 3 levels of consciousness that a computer system should try to have 
• He did not believe in the classic idea that many hold regarding computers; that they are "experts" with "spacial knowledge"

22. Theater of the Oppressed, Boal, 1974

• Author was jailed for his beliefs/work he put forward
• Boal's goal:  to create situations which would involve interaction around every day people's every day problems
• He focused on many oppressed people in South America (Brazil, at first)
• Fled to Argentina and later was forced into exile in Europe where he began to think of his new ideas/concepts as "taking on not only the 'cop on the street,' but also the 'cop in the head'"
• His techniques had obvious therapeutic goals (The Rainbow Desire)
• 1992- Boal ran for office in Brazil and won 
• Boal took his theatre troop with him and began to create political action/new proposals using his own performance techniques aimed at helping the normally ignored
• Reminiscent of "Happenings"

21. Computer Lib/Dream Machine, Nelson, 1974

• Article is considered "the most important book in the history of new media"
• often referred to as the "first personal computer book"
• Book is a combo of two separate books bound in the middle - there was the "computer lib" side and the "dream machine" side
• "Computer Lib" questioned/"challenged" what computers were being used for/what they could be used for
• "dream Machines" focused on "media and design" (the author believed this section to be more significant than the "computer lib" section
• Nelson believed that "computer experiences were media to be designed" and should be thought of as actively engaged in thinking about the user - the "human-computer interaction"
• Nelson believed that all types of new media "experiences" should be placed in a "radical, open publishing network" (precursor the world wide web)

NMR: Chapters 30 - 34

"The Endless Chain" was the article I was most fascinated by.  Having studied media and journalism throughout college, I am constantly reminded of the fact that much of today's media is concentrated, owned by big business conglomerations which are then subject to the wants and needs of that corporation rather than in the interest of the viewers and the population at large.  Thus far, our text book has looked at the various potentials/uses of computers and other forms of new media.  It is assumed, and many of the authors prove, how the increase of knowledge of technology leads to amazing advancements that only further a human being's abilities.  Many of the delicious articles that we've posted deal with technologies that allow the disabled to become enabled again with the help of a machine.  So how is it possible that in a world where technology has granted so many abilities, does such a narrow scope exist for the news?  There seem to be endless possibilities to create alternative news sources, however it still has been difficult for such institutions (i.e. alternative new blogs, websites) to gain attention, to gain a large target audience.  There is an extreme sense of irony in the fact that with technology, we have been granted a wide scope of possibilities, but with that same technology, many important institutions, such as the distribution of news, has become narrowed.

NMR: Chapters 25 - 29

The majority of these chapters dealt with how everyday people, the average American of almost any age group, is able to benefit from the use of computers.  When Alan Kay's group developed the computer notebook, the creators were thinking directly about how the computer notebook, the Dynabook, could be used by people everywhere, not only by experts.  Paper's article came about in the era of the home computer, and at a time when people were thinking about the power a computer has in terms of a child's learning tendencies. 

The power of a computer as a learning tool seems almost limitless to me.  I remember one of the first times in elementary school when I had to go to a computer class.  It was experimental, meaning that parents had the option to omit their children from the program.  I was excited about it -- eager to learn about computers, aware of how much easier things could be done.  I remember what I loved most was the responsibility using a computer inherently instilled in me.  As a child, rarely are you given anything of such monetary value to call your own.  In the computer lab, each student got his or her own computer station, your own work area.  Having the machine to call your own, even if only for 45 minutes, gave me more of a desire to learn.  Because the machine seems more fun by nature, even if it is indeed giving off the same amount, same type of information, students are more apt to be excited about learning, just as I was during the first days of computer classes in lower schools.

NMR: Chapters 21-24: Eliza

The power of Eliza, discussed in chapter 24, really compelled me to the potential danger of technology.  In 1966 when Eliza was first introduced, people were able to "communicate" with a "chatterbot," encoded with various scripts and posing as a psychotherapist.  Joseph Weizenbaum questioned what technology like Eliza was doing not only to our world but in terms of what it was doing to our minds.  There must be boundaries developed, the author believed, in order to prevent technology from running wild.  While Negroponte talked about how technology was empower its users, just as Boal examined ways in which technology could help create circumstances that helped to deal with everyday problems for the oppressed, the advent of Eliza puts a lot of the positives of technology into question.

The power of technology has always fascinated me and the chapters in the NMR (21-24) gave me more to ponder.  I, myself, am constantly struggling with which world I prefer:  that of the technologically savvy versus the nostalgia of old media.  I love blogs, but fear for newspapers.  I collect vinyls, but love finding new, underground artists that I would never be able to find without the Internet.  

McLuhan Documentary: McLuhan's Wake

McLuhan's "Medium is the Message" is an article that has been relative to many of my courses throughout college and will definitely be a huge reference for me during my colloqium.  I've always been a fan of his work, finding it very relative to a lot of the issues that technology is bringing up, decades after the work was written.

However I found myself frustrated by "McLuhan's Wake," the documentary we watched in class that was created by his son.  The documentary only slightly discusses McLuhan's life and instead, very abstractly, looks at McLuhan's theories, almost too abstractly in my opinion.  I spend a lot of the film trying to figure out what everything meant and less about McLuhan as a person or about his concepts.  What I would have really liked to see was a discussion of McLuhan's ideas in a more concrete, direct manner -- more biographical information that would clue the viewer in more to who McLuhan was and how his persona relates to his philosophies.   

G.H. Hovagimyan's Lecture/Demo

I missed out on most of G.H.'s lecture, unfortunately.  I did, however, get the chance to explain his discussion of youtube and the concept of the "youtube slam," which I was really fascinated by.

Youtube is something that is an everyday tool that I use.  There's almost always at least one youtube clip that is forwarded to me by a friend, either a serious one, an interesting one, more likely a funny one.  My friends have started a blog that consists of youtube clips they find funny.  And often, for at least an hour before my friends and I go out, we compete (unofficially) for who has the best youtube clip to show.  

Most of the videos we watch aren't exactly what I would call deep.  Most of them are humorous, and not interesting like many of the performance art clips that G.H. showed during his lecture.  However G.H.'s discussion of the "youtube slam" that is reminiscent of what my friends and I do when we hang out, but on a larger, more organized fashion.  It excited to me that there was a way to make something like youtube, which can easily be criticized for a considerable amount of trash that is posted, is also be able to be used constructively, even artistically.

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.  

PSFK Trends

It's always interesting to enter into a community of people that you do not necessarily consider yourself a part of, and find, upon entering, that you really fit in; that your interested in the things that they are interested in, that you have something relavent to say.

The trends on PSFK are incredibly fascinating to me. Sometimes the posts are almost humorous, for instance, there is a new luggage trend that Samsonite is creating that makes a suitcase into a wheel instead of a rectangular object. But the great part about the site is that there really is something for everybody.

There was some music-related trends that were really interesting to me. One dealt with a music site that had been shut down that had once allowed users to make their own mix tapes and have their own sites where the tapes could be listened to. The other was a post about a group of kids making musical instruments out of household products.

The fact that there could be a post about "iNap," an application that one can download on their iPhone to make sure they don't nap through their subway stop (something that I think would be very helpful for a lot people I know), next to an article about a man who has created and flown with man-made wings, next to a really interesting photography exhibit, proves how vast this community is; how there is a place for all interests.

Stepping In

In CNN.com's article, "Designers developing virtual-reality 'Cocoon,'" readers are introduced to the "Cocoon," a mechanism that allows users to literally step into another world, virtually at least. The machine would recognize the users' movements and accordingly, operate to move around with the users' motions. For the gaming world, this would mean being able to incorporate one's entire body into playing video games. The Cocoon could also be used to create virtual museums that one could literally walk through a museum instead of simply looking at pictures online when you were unable to go to a real museum. In terms of shopping, it would literally allow shoppers to walk around shops, pick up books from shelves, etc.

But this leads to the question of where this leaves the real world. If you can step into a bubble and be virtually anywhere you want, who is to say that you will ever really need to leave your house? Social networking can be done, shopping can be done, even cultural outings can be had, by simply inputting where you wish to go or what you wish to do. Would a machine like this, like the mind-reading headset, destroy human interaction and life in the real world?

Mind Reading

"So add that up: a wireless, remote, brain reading/writing device that can scan, interpret, and communicate with someone across the room, without them even knowing it. Connect that to the Internet... and talk about brainwashing possibilities. What if some hacker could figure out how to write viruses to people's brains? It's actually a little scary." - quote from the Article on CNN.com "The Future of Gaming is All in the Mind."

This may be the most unsetteling article I have read in a while. It sounds as though this electronic company's creation of a brain wave-reading machine that will ultimately allow gamers to play with their minds, not only their hands, is a little too Orson Welles for my taste. What does it say about our culture that this type of machine is being created -- a machine that can read people's minds and then direct virtual actions?

While it sounds intriguing in a science fiction project, Matrix-movie, time-traveling, kind of way, the implications of such a machine seem hard to ignore. While it may free up the hands of gamers and create a new way of looking at the gaming world, it would almost unarguably end up in the hands of dangerous people with dangerous ideas who would use such a machine to propogandize, or "brainwash" as the article notes.

Where is the line drawn between amazing technological advancement and disturbing, robotic-like, tools?

Issuu.com

As the Fashion Director of NYU's fashion magazine, NYCHIC, and as a magazine journalism concentration in Gallatin, I am always interested in seeing where the world of magazines, in light of major sales decline, is adjusting to a new, web-obsessed/dependent culture.  

This semester, after having a lot of financial problems with our last issue, I hesitantly suggested to the editorial board of NYChic that we start doing a website instead of a tangible publication.  I say hesitantly because I personally love magazines -- holding them in my hand, being able to rip things out, etc.  For some reason, I have always looked at the "Webzine" as a destroyer of journalism as we know it.

What's so great about issuu.com is that the magazines on the site were created solely for the internet, and this is where my train of thought changed.  Prior to knowing about this site, I had thought of online magazines as the final stages of a publication's fall.  Elle Girl couldn't cut it on the newsstands so they became a website. Teen Magazine, YM, etc., all faced the same crisis.  It just seemed like a lesser version of something that was not bringing in enough revenue for survival.

Looking at the various online magazines on the site, however, proved to me that, if you go into creating an online magazine knowing that it is for a specific audience, in a specific space, you aren't "giving up," rather you are thinking about magazines and journalism in a different way.  In a way, it's kind of a rebirthing of the way we are thinking about writing/magazines/etc.  

David Fried piece at the Sarah Tecchia Gallery

I absolutely adored this piece.  Aesthetically, the piece was very appealing to me.  As a highly organized person, I am instantly attracted to organized, clean things.  The balls that move around the square or rectangular block were very geometrical and very orderly.  Each of the balls, as Sarah Tecchia explained in her office, had a personality of its own, and this also was very appealing to me.  Especially in the piece in the gallery owner's office, which she said reminded her of "Skittles," really seemed almost pet-like.  Because of their vibrant colors, they really seemed to have their own personalities - some more sensitive than others, some drawn to other balls, some shier.  

Of course, there was the other layer of fascination regarding the technology that goes into the "kinetic interactive" piece.  Interestingly enough, there are no messy wires inside, which goes along perfectly with the exterior of the piece.  I'm sure a lot of people who see the piece want to know how it works -- how a collection of balls can just move around based on sound, without messy wires or having to be plugged into anything.  I, on the other hand, think part of the beauty of the piece, is that we don't know how it works.  It adds a level of mystery to the highly interesting piece of work.

Doug Aitken's "Migration" exhibit at 303 Gallery

I have never really been able to understand or enjoy video instillation.  I remember when the new MOMA opened a few years ago there was this whole video instillation exhibit in the back of one of the floors where a lot of the Warhol's hang.  I tried to sit and watch and get it, and I really didn't -- I couldn't get into it.  

After seeing the exhibit at 303 Gallery, my relationship with video instillation changed.  I found myself fascinated mostly by the format of the piece.  Seeing something on a screen that large and that close up had a huge effect on me.  I was able to really see the textures of the animals that were on the screen.  The "plot" of the video also fascinated me.  The concept of an animal as large as a moose could be in a hotel room, walking around, was truly absurd -- much in the same way that any Absurdist or Surrealist painter would include a strange object in an ordinary scene.

"Untethered" Exhibit at Eyebeam Gallery

I was extremely taken aback by the artist that showed us around Eyebeam.  Most significant out of the two works she had done in the exhibit, I was extremely interested in the "Gentrify" tape that was intended to be used to "rope off" areas that were being gentrified, in hopes of de-gentrifying them.  The artist, Geraldine Juarez, allows the tape to be distributed by anyone, virtually, in any amount.

As a New Yorker my entire life, issues of gentrification and urban planning have always fascinated me.  The idea of performing acts of social commentary through art in such a public space really interested me and sparked my curiosity.  

Aesthetically, it is a very catchy piece.  One is frequently drawn to "Caution" tape, aware that something had occurred in the space that is being roped off and wanting to know "why"?  The fact that there is a parallel being made by "cautioning" and "gentrifying" is a really important and interesting concept to ponder.

I also found that it went along very nicely with the entire aura of Eyebeam which really excited me.  Everything had an important meaning behind it:  Juarez's other piece that we saw, a money-donation machine instillation, was taking a look at issues of philanthropy and what it means to give to the arts without "getting" anything out of it.  The t-shirt design center was not only a chance for gallery goers to interact with art, but also helped AIDS research.  And this idea of the art being meaningful is also seen in the space itself, very communal and innovative.

The New Media Reader - Chapters 2-4

What struck me most about these chapters was the underlying theme of how far a computer can really go.  It is something that my father is always concerned about -- if you can talk to your friends on your blackberry, instantaneously, without actually having to hear their voice, what is happening to communication?  It goes back to the old argument about whether or not my middle school allowed spell check to be used on the school computers -- was it destroying our ability to learn how to spell?  And why, if I could use a calculator at any given time easily, do I have to learn math at this point in technological history?

In Bush's article, he claims that "[t]he world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it."  And this was said in 1945.  I wonder what Bush would have thought about the ease at which people can communicate, in a completely non face-to-face manner through text-messaging.  Would these technology proponents support a "memex" that valued the least amount of human interaction possible; like a blackberry, that not only allows an "encyclopedia" of information to be recorded in one place, but for that encyclopedia to be able to be held in our pockets?

.04 Men, Machines, and the World About - Norbert Wiener, 1954

-Wiener wanted to devise a science that dealt with the consequences of scientific work, cybernetic science -- this came after the war.  He was a strong proponent of social justice

-Wiener introduced the use of the prefix "cyber" into common use, not only highly technical

-Cybernetics studies "communication and control in the animal and the machine"

-While at war, the question came up as to how to make a machine simulate a gun pointer, and what the potential outcomes of this occurring may be.

-Negative feedback

-Machine can learn

03. Computing Machinery and Intelligence - Alan Turing, 1950

-Computers were initially viewed as "number-crunchers" before people realized that computer technology could incorporate language

-Alan Turing attempted to "decrypt encoded language"

-Turing asked:  Can a computer make a human believe that the computer is human.  

-Anticipated A.I.

-He describes the computer as a verbal device that could "operate on language"

-"Can a computer think?"

-Digital computers are consisted of: storing of information, executive unit, which carries out an array of operations, and control

Arguments against computers being able to think that interested me:

-"The Theological Objection" - since God did not create machines, they cannot think.

-"The Heads in the Sand Objection" - It is too scary to think about machines having the ability to think, so we should disregard the idea.

-"The Mathematical Objection" - Math proves that machines are limited

-"The Argument from Consciousness" - Machines cannot feel - so they can not think

-"Lady Lovelace Objection" - the machine cannot create anything of its own, on its own.

 

02. As We May Think - Vannevar Bush, 1945

-Bush was organizer of the Manhattan Project that created the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

-Worked with President Eisenhower to create the "iron triangle" or the "military-industrial complex"

-Article was published in the Atlantic and Life after the attacks on Japan

-He asks: "What should scientists who have been working for the war do now that it is over?"

-Science has increased our control of the "material" world through communication, security, etc.  We have become reliant on these technologies.

-Bush described a "memex," a computer like futuristic instrument - something that would change "information" into "knowledge" -- one would easily be able to access information/records instantaneously.  This, in affect, anticipates the modern computer.

-He stresses his hope that advances in technology should help the world, not hurt it

Borges Documentary

I found the Borges Documentary to be a bit difficult to get through.  Had I had a better background of his life, or had read more of the stories that he wrote, which were referenced throughout the documentary, I think I would have gotten a lot more out of it.

Most interesting in the documentary to me was the way the director dealt with issues of space and time.  Usually, when one thinks of a documentary, especially about such a historical figure as Borges, it is assumed that the story will be told linearly.  In other words, I am used to viewing a person's history starting with their birth and eventually ending in their death, or if the figure is still living, his or her most recent accomplishments.

The director of the Borges documentary did not do this.  Rather, the documentary is sprinkled with various vignettes from Borges' childhood, adulthood, pieces of his stories, his thoughs, etc.  Instead of just learning about Borges, the viewer is able to imagine what it may have been like to live inside of his head.

Microcosmos

Ever since I was little I have been fascinated by the idea of other life-forms.  I was always reading about conspiracy theories about life on other planets, UFOs, information about foreign species that was being hidden from the public by the government.  Along with this came a fascination with the lives of those who were not able to verbalize their experiences.  I was always wondering what was going on that was unseen by the eye or unheard by the ear.  Did my dog communicate with the neighborhood canines when she barked?  What was the day in the life of the pigeon on the sidewalk of Broadway and 92nd Street?

What I loved about the Microcosmos video was two-fold.  The most obvious attraction to the video was aesthetic.  The vivid colors and textures that the camera was able to capture was so intensely interesting to look at that I felt I could pause the video at any given point and stare at a still for hours, and still not really see every detail.  It was beautifully edited, even down to the sometimes humorous background music that helped tell the stories of these strange and beautiful creatures.  

But what caught my attention that drew me back to my childhood fantasies of other "things'" lives, was the fact that the technology used to shoot the video literally showed a world that was never able to be seen before.  All of these creatures existed before the camera did.  Their everyday activities, like carrying food, reproducing, socializing -- all of this went on without humans knowing, without humans seeing.   The video showed what could be interpreted as their emotions, their eyes, we could see the way they interact with other insects and with their surroundings. This technology has allowed us to view an entire other world--the world of the minute insects, that have always, at least in my mind, been looked at as completely un-human-like.

Documentary on Internet History

If I had to picture in my mind the type of people that I could imagine "invented" the Internet and the tools that go along with it (email, etc.), previously to watching this documentary, I would have pictured scientific-looking people -- equipped with round glasses and perfectly pressed suits.  

If I were to describe these type of people, previous to watching the documentary, I probably could have guessed they would be entrepreneur types -- money obsessed and ultra competitive, boasting about their many accomplishments that have advanced almost every aspect of life.

What fascinating me most about the documentary was not necessarily the actual history of the Internet, which I did find interesting.  Rather, the way these brilliant inventors looks and acted -- their responses, or rather lack their of, to their major accomplishments.  For the most part, these men were laid back, taking little responsibility personally for the creation of the Internet.  Rather, each of them felt part of a major collaboration -- everyone was part of a group and no one individual was praised for anything specific.  

The reason, the documentary implied, that the Internet became so important was because it was opened up for anyone to use, regardless of computer expertise.  Virtually, anyone can buy a domain, create a website, and post basically anything they like.  The very core of the creation of the Internet is, too, deeply embedded with this sharing of information -- the idea that in order for something to be whole/successful, it needs to be a project of collaboration, full of a multitude of different ideas.

"Ryan" animation and "Bingo" animation

When "Ryan" and "Bingo" were first put on in class, I was amazed by the artwork.  The intricacy that was given to even the most seemingly minute detail caught my attention - the hairs on Ryan's head, the makeup on one of the clowns.  I wondered how the artists could possibly have remembered to put all of those details in -- how long it took them to do it -- and how many different times they had to go over and over again to make sure everything looked absolutely perfect.

While attention to detail occupied my mind for much of the viewing, what really stuck with me was the emotional attachment that both "Ryan" and "Bingo" gave off.  After watching "Bingo" much of the class, as well as myself, remarked how creepy it was.  There was fear in the eyes of the man who is being called Bingo -- the eyes of the little clown-girl are still vivid in my mind days later.  In "Ryan" especially, there was an enormous amount of a emotionality.  The animation left me feeling attached to Ryan's character, feeling bad for him -- something that I would not necessarily have considered feeling toward a cartoon. 

Engine Room and T.V. Web Serials

In her article on web serials, Virginia Heffernan discusses the rising trend of web-based shorts that seem to keep appearing.  She discusses these low-budget, often humorous series, some of which have cult-like followings reminiscent of the gamers love for The Guild in the series discussed last week.  

Most interesting to me in this article was Heffernan's idea of what exactly causes these low-budget serials to attract such a following.  Many of these popular web serials seem effortlessly made -- all one needs is a web-cab, something to say, and a few hits on a site.  Heffernan's explanation made a lot of sense to me, and really resinated with why I think I was so hooked after watching a few of the episodes of The Guild in class.  There is a constant level of not knowing if another one is going to be made -- there is little reliability in the web-based world and such anonymity that a fan of a web serial can never really know if another episode will be made.  If a site goes down, there is little a fan can really do.  If a site goes down, there is a little a fan can really do -- there is no powerful television network to contact, sometimes the creators are not known by anything more than a screen name or email address.  What keeps you hooked is not necessarily the content, but thew ay the content is delivered -- in short spurts that keep you wanting more.

"Engine Room" is a web-based reality competition created by MTV and Hewlett-Packard.  The series follows four teams of four people (each representing their prospective parts of the world) for seven weeks as they create various works of digital art using Hewlett-Packard products.  Each episode, according the the New York Times article, will last about seven minutes.  

There's a ton of stuff that interests me about this series.  Going back to the second introduction in the text, the whole idea of new media art really fascinates me.  I'm really interested to see what these teams are creating.  But in relation to Heffernan's idea of the "keep you wanting more" approach to these web-serials, "Engine Room" fits nicely into her train of thought.  MTV has been producing tons of reality based competitions stemming directly from the first real reality show -- The Real World.  As ratings drop for shows like The Challenge, a guilty pleasure I personally once engaged in, MTV is trying a new outlet, an outlet that caters towards a generation of instant gratification.  Instead of having to wait an hour, through tedious amounts of commercials, all of the product placement-inspired competition is condensed into seven minutes -- only a few hundreds of seconds.

The first episode was constructed in the same style as many of MTV's other reality/competition shows -- there is already a possible love interest, a party girl, etc.  Each contestant seems to have his or her own character -- each team their own drive.  The attributes that draw the public to reality television -- the idea that you get to watch people like yourself on television -- apply to Engine Room.  But while I look forward to seeing how they do on their HP commercial (the first challenge of the series), I find myself finding the whole thing a little less legitimate than I would a longer series.  Maybe because it is on the web, maybe because it is so short, maybe because my Internet has been spotty so I had to restart the webisode a few times, maybe because the host's voice cuts out half a second too early -- I worry that I may not feel as invested in these "characters" had the series been televised.