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| Essay Procrastificationism |
| 10.16.03 (4:25 am) [edit] |
‘Heteroglossic’ What a ridiculous word. I came across it today. This is one of many words which as far as I can ascertain (through, what you may be assured, is comprehensive research…) a completely made up word!
:arrow: Heteroblastic,
:arrow: Heteroplastic,
:arrow: Heterolysis…
All perfectly fine ‘actual’ words – I checked. I don’t have any idea what they mean, and I’m almost certainly not going to use them unless one of them somehow resurface at an opportune moment; say, when I’m trying to wiggle out of being caught in the middle of a DIY full body-wax by my flatmates. Actually this is not at all likely to happen… No really.
:arrow:
Fellow DESI402 scholars, as keen readers of the diatribes of many a verbose cybercomentationist, you will all, I have no doubt, know exactly what I mean. What’s it all about?
Well, it may or may not surprise you to know that I have a theorism.
:arrow:
First of all there is fame. I reckon most of these cyberwritologists are pretty intense about getting published, getting their names and theorisms out there and generally causing a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst peers. At the heart of this is a defining 'creative' word, a dissertation maker, a little bit of identity-morphism all their own. A name making word which will be picked up, quoted, sited and bibliographyed far and wide. I pontificationize that these people live for this shytology.
:arrow:
Second: and I admit that this is a gratuitous attempt to pull a sensible and salient point out of my now hairless #%s: language has a life of it’s own online. Actually, that’s true to say of nearly any specialisation but by way of example, from a MUD with no less than 11 pronouns for establishing gender:
:arrow:
@gender person
resulting pronouns: per,pers,persel f,
Example: Per reads per book perself…
or
@gender spivak
resulting pronouns: eir,eirs,eirsel f,
Example: eir reads eir book eirself…
:arrow:
How about these ones:
jc: just curious
bmf: biting my fingers
brb: be right back
bbl: be back later
btw: by the way
imho: in my humble opinion
lol: laughs out loud
lmao: laughing my ass off
rotflmao: rolling on the floor…
kewl huh?
:arrow:
I need to get back to my essay. Did the point make sense? ‘Heteroblastic’ does have a certain ring to it… also, my humble apologies for any disturbistic imagery in this blog...
[T]
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| a bit of a source... |
| 10.08.03 (7:16 pm) [edit] |
Not all of these are in english and unfortunatly it's not search referenced but you can use 'find' pretty effectively. Get it down yer [T]
:arrow:
http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/sem/pool.htm" title="http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/sem/pool.htm" target="_blank"http://www.netzwissenschaft.d...
:arrow:
[image]desi402_356783334.gif[/image]
Well, I did promise didn't I?
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| deterritorializion/reterritorializion |
| 10.05.03 (7:08 pm) [edit] |
The New Scientist published a survey of the happiest and unhappiest people on Earth. The happiest country is Nigeria followed by Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador and Puerto Rico. Why is this not surprising, even if is counter intuitive to everything the Media tells us?
We New Zealanders should be right there at the top. We have been really ‘good’. We got rid of all our inefficient state owned enterprises, like Telecom. We have embraced ‘The Market’. We are ‘connected’.
When I buy a car, I get the car plus the ownership papers. The ownership papers are not the car, but a symbol of the car- some words on cardboard. It is the actual car that I need and use. If I get offered 'papers' but no car, something is fishy.
A swindle is a transaction in which a person or organization obtains something by deception or fraud. They exchange their ‘nothing’ for your ‘something’.
"There is a two-fold movement of decoding or deterritorializing flows on the one hand, and their violent and artificial reterritorializion on the other." (Deleuze & Guattari) CCRp723
I love the Internet the way I love TV and chocolate. I am not sure if it is good for me. I also suspect that we are being swindled. We are trading something valuable (ordinary human life) for a sack of gilded rocks; digital existence. (marc)
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| The war on media terror |
| 10.05.03 (6:53 pm) [edit] |
I watched John Pilger’s “Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror” on TV One last Friday. I found it to be a comprehensive critique on the American invasion of Iraq this year. Particularly interesting to me, was the overview of the part the media played in the invasion and how the media operates in such situations.
The documentary concentrated on the fact that the war was ‘sold’ to governments and the public through dishonesty. War was described to be the last resort for dispelling an imminent threat – the ‘fact’ that Iraq possessed a massive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. These were never found and it is estimated that up to 10,000 civilians died in the invasion. The documentary showed footage of Colin Powell as well as the US security advisor Rice’s media statements in February and July 2001, where they both unequivocally state that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the US. This is now widely considered to be the truth – a truth that was then covered up and forgotten post September 11. A former CIA official stated that the claim of imminent threat from weapons was “95 Per cent a charade”.
The documentary considers that the media played a vital role in the invasion. This is because instead of challenging the proposal, they “amplified and echoed” it. In fact the doco goes as far as saying that if the media had been more aggressive regarding the proposal, there is a good chance that they would not have gone to war at all. As I discussed in my last blog concerning Paul Holmes, the public's voice can count if everyone speaks up – and it is the same for speaking out against government proposals. Despite this, because the media play such a significant role in society and inform us of what is going on, the public opinion is often shaped around what they say. Subsequently, because the politicians out-manoeuvre the media by feeding them propaganda and because the reporter’s show up and write down what the politicians say, our ‘news’ is not really investigative journalism but spoon-fed propaganda. This is why whenever Bush’s ratings decline, he stirs up fear in the American people, making them paranoid of the consequences of any alternative to what he considers to be right.
As one of the interviewees stated: “fact is fiction, fiction is fact.”
When will we stop allowing the media to dictate via the politicians, what we agree and disagree with? How can our own voices and opinions be heard and how can these be unbiased and not already shaped by what the media tells us? When it gets to the point where 10,000 innocent people are killed in part because of a passive media, we must see that something is wrong. I wonder if alternative media forms such as weblogs could help / are helping to change this. I guess time will tell.
I think it is quite clear to us all who really has the 'weapons of mass destruction'... and who is using them.
(Katie)
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| disembodied identity... |
| 10.05.03 (6:44 pm) [edit] |
"In the discourses on cyberspace and identity...things do not appear so problematic or bad. This is because the technological realm offers precisely a form of psychic protection against the defeating stimulus of reality..." (Robins, pg, 83, CCR)
Perhaps it is the lack of a physical presence in cyberspace that enables the user to exist free from normative forms of surveillance that act upon bodies and identities in physical space. In a physical reality the body and sight are often the first points of identification and interaction between peoples. While in the disembodied space, physical presence is no longer an issue (unless you count avatar description/characters) and so its contribution to an identity is no longer a dominant factor.
Though freedom from the body can simplify the construction of identity (or at least give the appearance of this) other forms of surveillance act upon identities in cyberspace
Whilst a user may feel the freedom of a disembodied identity - free from footprints - their every 'step' could be traced by any number of 'cyber-powers'. These could be in the form of market research databases, which may track a users website interests in order to form a target audience.
In this way rather than being responsible for their own identity - a users identity becomes constructed by another power. With the lack of a body, presence is determined by 'movement' across abstract space. So even though Cyberspace offers protection from bodies of physical reality - other forces act upon the user in the construction of disembodied identities.
(alice)
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| INTERFACE DIRECTION REVISED |
| 10.05.03 (5:35 pm) [edit] |
"...more and more people start to think of themselves in computer terms. this includes not only the use of the computer as a model for the human mind but for one's life as well (one 'programs' ones life for example)." (Escobar, pg. 64, CCR - citing Shelley Turkle)
Think this quote highlights how computers not only employ metaphors from the physical world (like desk-top and mouse) but how our embodied lives become understood in terms of computers. Deborah Lupton agrees...
"the relationship is symbiotic: users invest a certain aspects of themselves and their cultures when 'making sense' of their computers, and their use of computers may be viewed as contributing to individuals' images and experiences of their selves and their bodies." (pg. 478, CCR).
Lupton later goes on to comment...
"A central utopian discourse around computer technology is the potential offered by computers for humans to escape the body." (pg. 479, CCR)
So while using the computer - the tool of escape from the physical - we simultaneously rely on physical metaphors to make sense of the 'haven' we escape to. And on the other-hand, upon leaving the 'haven' we take with us technological metaphors and use them to understand the physical. Perhaps the promise of a disembodied experience is so enticing that when without a computer we feel the need to appropriate certain technological discourse's - as a type of comfort.
Confused...? whatever the reasons we appropriate metaphors, the exchange between both spaces signals the interactive, two-way flow of the HCI (human-computer-interface ).
(alice)
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| Cheeky Darkie and the media machine |
| 10.05.03 (4:54 pm) [edit] |
New Zealand radio and television presenter Paul Holmes called United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan a ‘cheeky darkie’ on nation wide radio. What was he on?
Race and race relations is an issue that is generally quite carefully dealt with by the world and national media, so it is completely understandable that Holmes’ comments created such an uproar – particularly since they were directed at someone with such high political standing worldwide. Ever since the comment was made (three times) on Holmes’ radio programme, the New Zealand public and media have not stopped talking about it. Media organizations from television news to the Critic continue to discuss the topic in some depth. Although he was not censured by the Broadcasting Standards Commission for acting unlawfully, the public response did demonstrate how unacceptable the comments were.
The most significant outfall from this debarkle has been the pulling of sponsorship from his television show by Mitsubishi. However despite the uproar, Newstalk ZB rejected his offer to resign and he still appears on his TVNZ show. It seems that they intend to ride it out until, like all such media stories, it fades into the background and disappears.
The actions of, or more to the point, the non action of Holmes’ employers since the comments, reinforces the point that broadcasting organizations prefer personalities over substance and that as a brand, they have invested too much into him to simply let him go. He is already familiar to audiences and it would take too much time and money to replace him.
Arthur Kroker and Marilouise Kroker’s ‘Code Warriors’ (pg. 96 in reader) talks about ‘a culture that is split between digital and human flesh’. They discuss the abandonment of private identity and they way personality can ‘become media’. I wonder if this is what has happened in this case. Can Paul Holmes be considered as some kind of digital machine who has had too much work put into his creation and maintenance to bother upgrading? Do we now see him as a mere representation on our screens or radio, and is that why when he says something so blatantly racist and opinionated we are reminded that he is a ‘real’ or ‘human’ person?
Either way, I think that the public response to these comments was heartening in that it proves that we take notice of what is going on in the media and that we have power to affect large media corporations and advertisers decisions. In many ways he got away with saying what he did, however at least it reminds us that the media do not necessarily have the final say, and the public do still have some influence.
(Katie)
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| what came first... |
| 10.05.03 (3:47 pm) [edit] |
"It is not clear who makes and who is made in the relation between human and machine." (Harraway, pg. 313, CCR)
In todays society, with the increased popularity of technologies it is becoming less clear as to whom came first the human or the computer. Well obviously humans invented the computer (depending on what Sci-FI movies you believe), though increasingly whilst humans make machines...machines have more and more influence of what humans make.
These ideas come from the class discussion prompted by Katie's seminar, though in looking back through our blog I think the ideas relate well to the past discourse about humans and machines. Computers may not be able to control us yet (lars post 'control') but the more we use them, the more we want he upgrades, and the more our everyday lives become reliant on various technologies. In the same paragraph Harraway goes on to say that...
"there is no fundamental..ontological separation in our formal knowledge of machine and organism..."
For example much of my relationship with my flat-mate's relies on text messaging at the moment, due to our lack of proximity as I live at design. I know how they are and what they are up too only by phone and so my understanding of them is formed in this way. Ok so this may not be the best example, but at the moment the only way I know what's going on is by using technology - my flat-mates are reduced to texts.
(alice)
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| To censor or not to censor... |
| 10.05.03 (3:21 pm) [edit] |
I was reading an article in the Sunday Star Times regarding a Calvin Klein advertisement that has been removed from bus shelters in Auckland for being, as the complainant stated, “too sexualised”. Marketers removed the ads straight away despite the fact that it was approved by the “media people”. It is interesting to me the way in which broadcasting standards are continually being questioned in our society and the way that advertisers continue to push the boundaries and create racier and more provocative advertisements to try and sell their product to the consumer. This also brings into mind the recent anti GE billboard featuring a woman with four breasts crouched on her hands and knees and attached to a milking machine as if she were a cow. These images are intentionally created to stir up debate and provoke responses from the public – and it usually works. The later advertisement was featured on television news as well as Internet sites and newspapers. Dave even had a copy on his desktop. The Calvin Klein ad was shown adjacent to the newspaper article. In both cases it is clear that old saying ‘all publicity is good publicity’ rings true. Both have had far greater exposure and far more coverage than they ever would have if they had not pushed the boundaries.
These examples bring me to question the way in which society is becoming more indifferent to violence and aggression, to the point that news organizations and advertisers have to provoke to even be noticed. I wonder if the proliferation of the Internet has anything to do with this. As the Internet is a ‘free’ media space which can show almost anything – and usually does, we, as a society are becoming indifferent to shocking images, sex and violence. Therefore in many cases, the advertising we see in our physical environment (advertising that is becoming more and more prevalent) also becomes somewhat invisible to us unless there is something different, shocking or provocative about them. New media applications such as Photoshop have also helped in the creation or these images, but as we become more aware of the abilities of digital software to manipulate images and create fake ‘realities’, we become far more pessimistic. I think computer games are much the same. With the ability to create realistic animated worlds, the violence become that much more realistic and we continue to become a ‘dubbed down’ culture.
I wonder if games and images that we see on the Internet are so realistic and shocking, and if we see images of gore and death on our screens each night via the television news, then why is it so bad the Calvin Klein have a steamy poster? Who are we trying to protect? The children who play the games and watch the news? I’m not necessarily saying that they should be allowed, but I am questioning what, if any sort of consistency exists with the censorship today, and wonder how it will continue to change (become more free?) in the future.
Something to think about anyway.
(Katie)
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| story filters... |
| 10.05.03 (2:42 pm) [edit] |
Much like back in the day when people told stories as a way of passing on information - today we rely on the media to find out about and make sense of the world around us. Its just that these days the stories are filtered through a variety of sources before they reach us, even if you hear it from a mate the chances are they 'saw it on telly last night'.
Whilst new technologies allow for greater coverage of news, the mediation that occurs muddles the original message. Also, rather than experiencing things first hand, one nolonger has to go to a primary source or order a book, with the click of a mouse you can find what you're looking for using a search engine. You just have to know what you're looking for.
As much as we rely on the media as technological story telling, the media relies on us to consume the stories. If cyberspace is supposedly a 'free space for all' then it certainly includes the media. Cyberspace is littered with elements of the 'real world' and the media is no exception. Also, Cyberspace as a 'free space for all', a cyber-democracy creates its own kinds of media.
"Apart from promoting community, cyberspace is also projected as a panacea for most of our political problems. All the problems of representative democracy are going to be solved, we are told, when everyone gets online and starts voting on everything. In a cyber-led society, citizens will not only be better informed but will also be able to side-step varieties of pressure groups to participate in decision making." (Sardar, Pg. 745, CCR)
Weblogs can be considered a tool for 'side-stepping' the so called pressure groups - such as the mainstream media - by acting as filters for the huge amounts of information in cyberspace. The frequent updating of these individual and collaborative sites and the linkages between produce a way of ordering common topics and highlighting perhaps little known stories.
(alice)
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| White middle-class European anyone? |
| 10.05.03 (2:18 pm) [edit] |
When I “meet” people online on sites such as LambdaMOO I never really think much about who they really are. To me they are just characters – personas of people being represented in a different world. I never think too much about what they really look like or what sort of lives they live outside the MOO. Dave questions if we presume that users are white unless they state otherwise. I know that I never think about what race the people behind the people are, but I don’t think I necessarily presume that they are white. Ziauddin Sardar, in his article “Alt.Civilisations.FAQ, Cyberspace as the darker side of the West” describes cyberspace as being the “American Dream” and that it “ marks the dawn of a new civilisation”. His argument includes looking at the idea that the white man has “colonised” the Internet like they would conquer a frontier (pg 735 Reader). Despite this, he does not mean that other races are not included in the community of cyberspace at all, but more that they are a minority voice of an Internet dominated by the west, and generally speaking, the west is pretty much white. He states:
“Most of the people on the Internet are white, upper- and middle-class Americans and Europeans, and most of them, are men.”
Therefore, although the Internet can strip people of their race or cultural identity, it is quite probable that most of the culture is probably Caucasian to begin with. This again relates to what Dave was asking, which I think was basically that because we are European and we are the ‘majority’ on the Internet, are we forcing the people ‘other’ than us to define themselves as different from (as Dave stated) the ‘default’. I think that this may be the case, although having not experienced this myself, I can’t really say. Either way, I do believe that a lot of people use and enjoy chat rooms and MOOs because of the sort of ‘absence’ of real identity, and that has probably been one of the reasons they are so popular. So even if you are a ‘minority’ on the net, nobody really needs to know and you do not have to define yourself as such… we are all physically absent and invisible and free to represent ourselves how we like.
(Katie)
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| 'word at a time' blog- A Blog within a Blog |
| 10.04.03 (9:57 pm) [edit] |
We wrote this blog ‘word at a time’; as a collaboration, for a fun experiment and to create a "new (?)" weblog genre.
Synchronous communication causes definitive retrenchments due to the immediacy of the body. Applications, such as Photoshop, exemplify design issues inherent to computer mediation through means and techniques such as subtraction, filters, fakes and cropping.
Donna Harroway talks about Cyborgs because “meat space” is a dying phenomenon. This means that “non-place” (Auge) becomes our sanctuary and synchronous airport terminal. Subconsciously we become binary when super-computers translate our thoughts into raw data.
Race, online, raises issues of communal development within the integrated system of users who interact electronically. Computer game interfaces directly echo the physical environment of our “Prosthetic Memories” (Landsberg- CCR p190). This affects the way we approach our everyday virtual communities, which are related to “global cultural flows” (Statton, CCR p730). Hyper-deterritorializatio n provides no real relief of global Capitalism’s disjuncture. However, a sense pf separation threatens traditional methods of spatial representation in cultures. New Media technologies provide unparalleled opportunities for designers and communities to explore disruptive forms of communication. Amen!
{Marc-Ruben-Alice-Dave}
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| the weather bought to you by the white stripes and mike oldfield... |
| 10.04.03 (6:44 pm) [edit] |
The weather today will be a mixed bag down south with a high level of stress and cat fights likely to develop in the afternoon. The high of P degrees as TVNZ.
Back to you in the studio Marc...
[toni marsh]
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| I figured it out |
| 10.04.03 (6:24 pm) [edit] |
Blogs are millions of individuals around the World with computers and Internet connections. They are pretending that they are CNN
Blogs are a big dress-up fantasy/play-act; like playing with Barbie or Action Man or having a secret hut.
Your sitting there in CNN headquarters studio (your bedroom) waiting for a BIG STORY to break. While you wait, you do HUMAN INTEREST STORIES, like your argument with your wife or what you think about global warming or photographs of your stomach. You have links all over the page, because these are your links to YOUR REPORTERS at the scene or YOUR TEAM OF COMMENTATORS or your EXPERT FOR in-depth analysis. You refer to other Bloggers, because you are all colleagues (one big family of INTERNATIONAL news hounds). You have to periodically take COMMERCIAL BREAKS so you can get some sleep or go to work.
“[We] abandon private identity and actually become media (Cineplex mind, IMAX imagination, MTV chat, CNN nerves)”. Kroker- Code Warrior
That is why blogs went crazy (warblogs) during the recent war. It was the BIG STORY that the "media" (Independent and dependent) has wet dreams about.
“My point [is]…democracy as it exists in the modern state is built on the illusion that freedom exists” Jon Stratton- the CC Reader, p730
We have the illusion of power, yet we are powerless. A huge majority of New Zealanders are opposed to GE organisms. We elected a left wing Labour Government. GE is here regardless. The only thing that seems to change is the length of our tether and the amount of feed we are given.
Well, that’s it from Marc and the team at the Desi 402 Today Show. It’s Sunday, October 5. The weather will follow after this commercial break.
(marc)
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| Online race |
| 10.04.03 (3:20 am) [edit] |
In response to [Daves] blog about identity on the Internet, I wonder if people really care (when first starting out on MOOs) how the other people describe themselves when looking for their first conversation. When I have gone onto lambdaMOO I have never thought about what description the person has given themselves and to be honest don’t really care so long they are interesting to talk to. On lambdaMOO race is not an option to specify when signing on, only gender is because of program code requirements but you have as much space as you want to write a description where race can added. I was surprised to read in Lisa Nakamuras article (Cybercultures reader, p713) that if no race was described then the user was presumed to be white due partially to the demographics of online users at the time being mostly white and the utopian belief system in MOOs (highlighted again on ‘there’ where we saw nearly all characters had white skin). Up until our last lecture, which Tom talked about race in cyberspace, I had never considered the race of a person online nor had I presumed their colour, all I have been interested in is the surroundings and chatting with others. I haven’t come across an online MOO for certain races but presume they are out there, anyway after Tom’ s discussion I realised I hadn’t seen the MOO phenomenon as being a racial space and don’t understand why someone would want to put their race in their description as an online community like lambdaMOO is meant to be a “…free space for play, strive towards policing and regulating racial discourse in the interest of social harmony” (CCR, Nakamura, p713). What are other people’s views on online race?
Ruben
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| word at a time blog- click edit and add a word |
| 10.04.03 (3:18 am) [edit] |
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Post-human cyberpunk discourse suggests that
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| tall and handsome... |
| 10.03.03 (7:38 pm) [edit] |
Do we make assumptions about the people we meet and interact with online? Do users have a default value? When I describe myself online why do I type ‘tall and handsome ; )’ instead of typing ‘tall, handsome and European. Do we (by we I mean me; white, middle class, (semi) educated) presume that users are white unless they implicitly state that they are not? And if so is this because we presume that everyone in this environment that we share is the same? Aside from people who describe themselves as rats, what effect does our portrayal of our identity have on the way we are treated? If I change my gender, race or image will people treat me differently?
“One BBSer from Taiwan even picked ‘Caucasian’, and found out lots more people wanted to chat with him then when he was ‘Chinese’, a recognition that the electronic environment does not screen out racist sentiments.” Daniel Tsang. Pg 434 of reader
I seem to have a lot more questions than answers. But I do think that the removal of visual signifiers means that I forget about race to a degree in online environments. While as Caro said, people like Paul (I’m on P) Homes would enjoy this ‘we’re all the same’ kinda thing, it seems to me that by stripping people of their race or cultural identity I am denying a person the ability to be themselves. Some people probably use online environment for this very reason, and the ability to change what they can’t in the real world. But it seems that by my not stating that I am European, I am forcing people who are different from me (the majority of the world) to actively change from the ‘default’, presenting the idea in some ways (maybe) that they don’t belong or fit in this community.
Am I just making something out of nothing in some overly PC way? I duno, for all I know it may not even be an issue…
Either way I kinda like this idea:
“We exist in a world of pure communication, where looks don’t matter and only the best writers get laid.” (legba, a player on LambdaMOO) Pg 416 reader.
[dave]
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| web chat blog email phone speak... |
| 10.03.03 (12:37 am) [edit] |
In reply to Dave and Ruben’s blogs regarding the formality of blogs as opposed to the mush – I couldn’t agree more. Today has demonstrated to me the way in which real time communication differs from communication that is meant for a wider audience over a longer period of time. Dave, Ruben and I have been using ichat today as we were “working” in the lab. I found that because we were generally using it for humorous effect it was much easier to type obscenities to each other than to say them, especially considering that there were other people in the lab. I cannot imagine that we would have had communication at all like the one we were having if it was going to be “published” on a weblog. I think this is much the same as the text message phenomenon. It is often easier to send short messages to people than it is to talk to them and it also provides the opportunity to avoid intimate interaction. And sometimes it just more fun, it is a freer form of expression and we feel more comfortable when there is less formality.
If I consider the way that I am writing this now, I am thinking about what I am going to say a lot more carefully than I do on instant chat. I often do the same in emails because they do not just go away in the same way that speech and instant chatting do. With particular reference to ichat, the level of privacy is further increased from that of the mush because it is directed specifically at one person at a time. It provides opportunity for a sort of free reign of communication.
I think that the internet and other forms of new media have brought about a massive change in the way that users communicate with each other, and ultimately how the world communicates. With this considerable change in communication methods there must be many wider implications beyond us simply being less formal and less intimate. How for example do these new means of communication change the way that the society interacts and communicates with each other? Do we become more distanced from our friends because we email instead of talk on the phone, or do we stay close because we are able to communicate in a simpler way on a more regular basis? Will people / are people coming to prefer having more superficial contact with others resulting in us becoming hermits who only interact with our computers? I think it will be different for different people, but I have to say that when I was explaining to Amy the way that we were chatting today, I felt like a bit of a geek, but it was still fun… what have I become?!
(Katie)
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| dave is incredible |
| 10.02.03 (7:35 pm) [edit] |
What can I say Dave… that was truly the most interesting, intellectual, provocative blog that I have ever read. I really feel that you engaged with the topic on such a profound level that is difficult for the rest of the class to even comprehend the level of your perspicuity. You put us all to shame.
(Katie)
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| drink |
| 10.02.03 (6:50 pm) [edit] |
drink, all i wanna do is drink, i think i have a problem
i should deal with it...pub anyone?
[dave]
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| Get over it? |
| 10.02.03 (3:02 pm) [edit] |
I saw a section on the Australian news a couple days back about the arrival of Prince Harry for his exchange. He has already complained about the treatment he was receiving from the media over there. In the medias defence the have said for him to get use to it as he is now old enough to handle the amount of media and that it will only get worse later in his life. Apparently after his mum died the media made a deal with the family to keep the press coverage of Harry and William to a minimum till they were 18 when the boys could expect to be in the media more. When the boys were born they were never going to be safe from the media’s watchful eye. Is this an invasion of privacy or should the boys harden up? I think the boys have it rough cause I would hate being hounded by prying cameras but the fact they were born into royalty means that it will be a life where the world knows your every move. I think faces regularly in the media need the publicity for their career/image but expect that it should only be good things written about them and not all the bad crap, however people prefer to know about the bad crap as it makes themselves feel better and it is more interesting.
Ruben
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| The Interface |
| 10.01.03 (9:28 pm) [edit] |
I thought I would write a few words specifically on the user interface with reference to the Manovich reading that we got a few weeks ago. Because I have looked at this quite in depth in my 480 I thought I could share some of the ideas that I got from the reading. You never know, it may be handy for the exam!
As with many elements of new media the computer interface is an example of a new aesthetic form that is constructed within a pre-existing cultural form – the frame. Manovich’s argument considers that any visual medium, exists and operates within the overall logic of representation – it is “framed”. This is why the audience possesses a greater understanding of the computer interface because it has largely evolved from already familiar cultural forms such as cinema and television, and more traditionally the framing of images through traditions of photography and painting. These are examples of media that we as viewers interface with on a regular basis helping to explain why new interfaces such as the computer screen are so widely used and easily learned.
Computers have taken the screen and evolved it beyond any pre-existing example of the frame, with its static or linear moving images, into a world of interactive, ever-changing digital representation. This has dramatically changed the way in which viewers (who now move beyond this passive description to become users) interface, interact with and ultimately understand the technological space represented. Two of the major differences that I found with reference to Flash (which is the new media form that I am relating the theories to) are that of interactivity and temporality. It is this move to non-linearity that has made new media technology so much different from older forms of media such as cinema which were far more linear and did not allow the user to interract or change the pre-determined flow.
So there we have it. It is admittedy a little bit of cut and paste from my 480 essay, but you may find it useful to relate to the Manovich reading all the same.
(Katie)
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| The revolution will be blogged... |
| 10.01.03 (8:58 pm) [edit] |
Is the weblog a fad?
‘Before the world of the weblog was the time of the homepage. Back before we knew any better, it was the homepage that was going to transform the world. Everyone was going to have them. They were going to democratise publishing. Together we thought we were going to change the world. But we didn't..’ Tom Coates - plasticbag.org
In a few years time when some new technology has come along will we look back and wonder what all the fuss was about? In the 90’s everyone was saying how the homepage offered unparalleled options for self publishing, but we didn't all rush out and put together homepages. Weblogs are homepages made easy. They are easier to update and allow a little more interactivity but they are not really a giant leap forward in technology. Even so weblogs provider ’blogger’ claims to have one million users and every teenage girl seems compelled to share who they shagged in the weekend and how her mum’s evil because they she won’t let her smoke up inside. Blogs do seem to have use in their ability to provide a discussion forum for many different topic from politics to religion but does that mean that they will provide the online community with long term use? or will they be relagated to some niche use? Will blogs still be around when the revolution comes?
[dave]
Monteith's anyone?
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| illusion vs reality |
| 10.01.03 (8:29 pm) [edit] |
Hello everybody, long time no blog…
I will begin with a quote from Cheris Kramarae in Ziauddin Sardar's reader article. (pg. 734 of reader)
"...The idea is not to beat the machine but to beat the enemy either individually or in teams. As one report states 'what gives realism and challenge to the Battle Tech experience is the fact that you play against living opponents rather than algorithms of a computer's program."
Anyway, I was just reading what you all had to say regarding the shoot em up games and I thought I would add my opinion. Firstly, whether it be on a computer or with a plastic gun in my hand, I enjoy killing Dave. I don’t know why, it is just an extremely satisfying feeling.
Onto the actual experience. I found the two forms of shooting games feel very different while seeming strangely familiar, if that makes any sense. The computer interface, although giving the user a sense of control and power, is ultimately distanced from us, therefore no matter how realistic it may appear on the screen, we can always look away and find ourselves situated out of the computer game environment and in a computer lab. Therefore as users, we maintain some sort of ultimate power over the interface because we are not actually a physical part of it. In the laser game however, our physical bodies are inside the game and living it in a concrete environment. This is a very different feeling as we do not have the option of turning away, it is our real world and therefore it feels infinitely more realistic.
Despite this, many commonalities do exist between environments. In the computer game and in the ‘real’ game it was satisfying to shoot and kill people, and it was extremely annoying to be shot. I found however, that the computer game environment felt more secure, as we were in the same vicinity as those sooting at us and we were verbally communicating with each other at the same time. The screen also told us who shot and killed us, whereas in the game I was shot multiple times without knowing who or where it came from. Running around the maze and trying to shoot and avoid being shot really got my heart racing, it was much more exhilarating than the alternate experience. It didn’t worry me as much when I was shot on the computer but in the real game I felt like I had a lot less control and quite frankly it was sort of freaky.
I have a quote here from Vivian Sobchack regarding the interface:
“It is by looking at the screen – a flat, rectangular surface positioned at the same distance from the eyes, that the user experiences the illusion of navigation through visual spaces, of being physically present somewhere else or of being hailed by the computer itself.”
Well, sort of, but I think the “illusion” of navigaton is still a long way off the “real” experience.
(Katie)
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| Asynchronous vs Synchronous (2) |
| 10.01.03 (1:06 am) [edit] |
I agree with Ruben’s statements. The discussion on the blogs tends to have a greater formality than discussion in the MUSH particularly the time to which Ruben referred. But I’d also like to suggest the difference in the types of communication were a reflection on its permanence. Do we write the way we do on this blog because we know that it’s going to still be here next week? Where as on the MUSH we know that once it’s scrolled from the top of the screen it’s (most likely) never going to be read again. Even if we were discussing the weather would our discussion be more formal on the blog than on the MUSH? I know that as I’ve been writing this, there are things that I would have written in the MUSH, or would have said in face-to-face conversation. But because I know that this will still be sitting here to be read in a week’s time I thought better of it (Much to Katie’s relief I’m sure). And I guess that if I knew that what I was saying was being recorded I would think twice as well.
[dave]
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