Looking back at the ‘Carpark Scene New’ shoot, after it has been edited, it is clear that I have missed a lot. It is only when I got to the editing stage where I found out what I did wrong. Starting with the first shot, Paul said to me after I filmed it that if I am going to film feet, I need to be down at feet level, otherwise it looks strange and it doesn’t work. Where the feet end from one shot and start in the next, they are not in the same position, leading to continuity issues, resulting in jumpy edits. When the camera is tracking up in shot 2, it is too slow. The audience will be bored before the face is revealed. In this shot I made sure the solid object of the pillar was used. I had to make the most of my surroundings. While the conversation between the two characters is happening the shots are jumpy, caused from the editing, due to the continuity issues. From this conversation however, I was trying to practice framing through external composition, which is my main investigation for my Method of Working. This worked well and suggested to the audience that there is a second character offscreen. After this conversation the actor turns to walk away and I cut it to another foot shot, tilting the camera up to follow the actor. This shot I am still unsure about, because I don’t think it worked out as well as I had hoped. Again, the tracking movement was too slow, and the audience already saw where the actor was heading in the previous shot, so the ‘suspense’ wasn’t necessary. Having the same movement twice in one scene doesn’t work, as the second time it just becomes annoying. However I only think this now about the scene after seeing the final product. I didn’t notice while filming; as well as I didn’t notice the actor saying the wrong lines.
Category Archives: Networked Media
Mixed Media Creative Essay
Social memory is an underlying topic that network Literacy positively influences. To begin with, the past can exist as personal memories and as a social construction, and conveys a connective structure to societies, groups and individuals socially. Jan Assmann the author of Communicative and Cultural Memory, states that, “Memory is what allows us to construe an image or narrative of the past and, by the same process, to develop an image and narrative of ourselves. It is here that allows human beings to orient themselves personally and collectively in terms of the future, the past, or both”. Following on from this, Adrian Miles states “Networked Literacies are marked by your participation as a peer in these flows and networks – you contribute to them and in turn can share what others provide”. This quote connects to the statement of social memory, which will be explored throughout this piece.
Memory is about communication and social interaction. It was Maurice Halbwach’s (sociologist and philosopher) great discovery that our memory depends on socialisation and communication, and that it can be analysed as a function of social life. It is known that the further one moves into the past, information becomes knowingly scarce and vague. This is how networked literacy helps this issue, as everything is recorded on the web. Social Memory is a “concept used by historians and others to explore the connection between social identity and historical memory. It asks how and why diverse people come to think of themselves as members of a group with a shared past” (Scott A. French). It puts emphasis on the social contexts where people have group identities and conflict perceptions on their past. “Social memory is the result of a blend between public and personal memorisation” (University Leiden). Individual lives are both from personal and social identity, where memories define us as individuals and collectives. “The individual consciousness by which we recognise ourselves as persons, and the collective consciousness by which groups identify and organise themselves and act with agency, arise from and are sustained by memory. Individual relationships to time and memory are highly subjective and individual. They are social, for the exercise of memory very often involves others” (Anthropological perspectives, 2002). An example of this is where, memories shared with others enables those who did not experience the events to include them among their memories.
For those who may ask what the connection between social memory and network literacy is, and how it relates to today’s society, you must first understand network literacy. Adrian Miles states that “Network literacy is, in a nutshell, being able to participate as a peer within the emerging knowledge networks that are now the product of the Internet, and to have as ‘deep’ an understanding of the logics or protocols of these networks as we do of print” (2007). The internet is a way for everyone to connect, for people to read, write and develop online relationships through the use of literacy. To be network literate, you need to be able to connect with individuals through the use of online resources, that all connect to one another. This relates back to tags and links. Everything joins up, links out to external sources, however everything is accessible and allows for interaction between online users. It is a way to connect to the past and future, a way to create memories, and we rely on the internet to discover information. Networking and the Internet is the way of the future, and people need to know what to use and how to use it. In class we all contribute to a blog. We post photos, videos, stories, and information on the web that allows the human memory to activate. Without us contributing there would not be as much emphasis around network literacy. We blog, we share , and we contribute to the online world and the internet and society rely on this for a coherent space that allows people to interact, communicate, share and learn. Social Memory in network literacy, would affect how we make media, because however long society keeps changing so does the Internet. We create and provide what we need, and because of networking, social memories will benefit, as it has been recorded and documented. Social Memory influences the future of media, as we rely on memories for everyday practices. Below is an example of social memory from the television show ‘The Big Bang Theory’.
Museums and libraries are also now going online and this shows just how significant the change in media has become to create ways of being connected. An article called Information Literacy: The Changing Library by guest author Cushla Kapitzke, outlining how print literacy is the way of the past, everything is heading towards the online area of networked literacy. An example of this is Australia’s largest online Library that is now open for business from the 27th February. Developed by the National Library of Australia is ‘Libraries Australia’, a service that allows anyone with internet access to select from over 40million items from over 800 libraries across the nation. Jan Fullerton (National Library Director-General) says that “Libraries Australia changes the dynamics of the way people use libraries. Libraries have continually been at the forefront of technology to improve the way people find the information they need”. An example within this that relates to networking and a database is the way the technology and data is contributed from across multiple libraries, making it easy to search for information from the collections of public, research, government, arts and health. For examples on these, click on the follow images below.
A feature called “Social Cyborg” is a term that is used for people that have integrated social networks and information technology through the way they learn. It takes advantage of networked people and information systems. You need to think of the “Social Cyborg” as a human-computer that belongs to a social network. It is constantly connected to information, and memories, and has access to hundreds of documents that are in constant communication globally. To go back in history briefly the 1990‘s introduced the networked desktop that had the World Wide Web, where E-mail became a form of communication. It was here that the internet became a base for shared information globally. My generation is known as the ‘digital natives’, as we don’t know what it is like with no internet. In 2004 Facebook was created, and has millions of users. From the article ‘Dawn of the Social Cyborg’ by Joe Campell and William Finegan states, “As these technologies spread, people with access to them started spending increasing amounts of their time on computers and online—playing games, doing work, communicating with friends and colleagues via e-mail and text, and surfing the Internet. Experience of the world increasingly was mediated through technology. People with access to this technology, in particular those who grew up using it, were adapting their behaviour to take advantage of the new technologies and networks”. Social Cyborgs research problems through the social networks and information resources available to them. They filter through information with knowledge systems such as Wikipedia, and is distributed through technology and people.
It is all about the ability to connect with people, places, and organisations globally, to make communication easier, and information more accessible. Going into the future of media, it is important to have a way to communicate, and interact with the people around us. Through social memory, we contribute and share information that helps reinforce the notion that networking is the future and we rely on it everyday. Through networking it is important to share and contribute online, because without it, social memory would not be an easily accessible source. We post photos, videos, text, and so do other people. We are then able to share this, creating a web of links connecting various sources together. Having these webs is what enables us to trigger our memories whether communicative or collective.
Duncan J. Watts in his book ‘Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age’, reinforces the idea that everything and everyone is connected. An example that was used was a spider’s web. We all weave into each other, whether it be through friends or internationally. This reading started off with electric power. This is a highly important source that the world relies on, it is how we live. It is the backbone of the economy and of civilised life. It is the most essential feature of the modern world. From what we consume to what we do as a society, power is needed to function. Networks are continuously evolving and is a self-constituting system. There is a set of relationships between individuals, leading into the six degrees of separation. We all know someone who will know another person that will know someone else.
A statement from Ted Nelson reads as follows, “The Future is not what it used to be”. We are entering into a new age, where everything is online. The written word has changed dramatically, and society will change alongside this. It is said that offices will be paperless, and that the world is advancing into a place where hypertext and hypermedia are taking over. There will be no more print literacy. We are leading an open hypertext network. To sit back and think about what the future is going to be like, no one can tell exactly. Due to society being such a connected place, it is easy to see how network literacy greatly influences social memory, and allows us humans to revisit the past, and see into the future.
-Amy Ryan
WORD COUNT: 1665
Bibliography:
Campbell, J and Finegan, W 2011, “Dawn of the Social Cyborg”, Training Magazine, September/October Issue.
French, S 1995, “What is Social Memory?”, Southern Cultures, Project Muse, Vol.2 No.1, The University of North Carolina Press.
Kapitzke, C 2001, “Information Literacy: The Changing Library”, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, International reading Association.
Miles, A 2007, “Networked Literacy: The Path to Knowledge”, Screen Australia, Autumn 45.
Olick, J and Robbins, J 1998, “From Collective Memory to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices”, Social Memory Studies, Columbia University, New York.
University Leiden, 2014, ‘The Tales of the Revolt’, last accessed 16th October 2014, (http://www.hum.leiden.edu/history/talesoftherevolt/approach/approach-1.html)
Watts, D 2003, “The Science of a Connected Age”, Six Degrees, W.W Norton & Company, New York.
Symposium WK 11
This symposium I found was different to all of the rest, the tutors did a lot of talking as well as Adrian. I appreciated how Adrian related everything that we learnt back in with Networked Media, and explained that everything is constantly changing. This is why the course changes and why they don’t know what they will be covering. he said the 8 years ago there was no such thing as a video blog, now all of a sudden look where we are in terms of technology and the Internet. Imagine in another 8 years time. He says that for someone who is a camera operator, all they will be doing is working from a joystick. Maybe there will be cars that need no driver, they are capable of doing it themselves. It would be more beneficial to have had this talk at the beginning as well as the end of the course, because it puts in perspective what we have learnt and why. Why is everything important that we have studied and why the subject keeps changing. Another example was how an app will come out and by the next week there will already be an update. From this point of view I can see how the course has been designed the way it has, however sometimes it was not so clear cut.
Introduction: Media as Historical Subjects
This reading focuses on the historical subjects of the Web and how it relates to Networking and media. The Web is a core instance or application of what are today are referred to as new media. All media is widely shared by others, by looking into the novelty years, transitional states, and identity crises of different media stands. This reading is about the ways that people experience meaning, how they perceive the world and communicate with each other, and how they distinguish the past and identify culture. A question that is asked: Is the history of media better understood as the story of modern ideas of communication? Some accounts of media history have inventors and machines, while others track the development of ideas and combine elements.
History is about the meanings of media, qualities of human communication and causal mechanisms that account for a historical change. There shared perceptions that todays news and entertainment outlets together are a unified institution. Media are frequently identified with technologies, and the burdens of modernity, which seem to be surrounded by technology. Media seems to be harder to talk or write about. The authors purpose in this reading is to be clear in challenging the ways that today’s new media tend to casually to be conceived of as the end of media history.
Digital media are all converging toward some perfect reconciliation of man and machine. Distributed digital networks have been described as the ultimate medium. It focuses on the notion that modernism is now complete and familiar temporal sensibilities are at an end. According to Peter Lunenfeld, the digital media dissolves into a stream of bits and bytes. Suggesting an end to the end games of the postmodern era. Media are disappearing subjects in the history they motivate. New media provides new sites for the ongoing experience of representation.
The author defines media as socially realised structures of communication, where structures include both technological forms and their associated protocols, and where communication is a cultural practice, a ritualised collocation of different people on the same mental map, sharing or engaged with popular representations. Media is unique and complicated historical subjects, with their histories being social and cultural.
Every society has its diagram
This reading talks about diagrams and networking through computers and the Internet. Here are my notes that I got out of this one.
- A diagram is the distributed network, a structure formed without a center that resembles a web. The management style is protocol, and the principle of organisation is linked to computers in these networks. Gilles’ book focuses on the controlling computer technologies. Before computerised information management, the heart of institutional command and control was easy to locate. The power was used to maintain hegemony. Power no longer permanently resides, and command and control now move about as desire.
- The most extensive computerised information management system today is the Internet, which is a global distributed computer network. It was independent of centralised command and control. At the core of networked computing is the concept of protocol. This is a set of recommendations and rules that outline specific technical standards. Protocols refer specifically to standards governing the implementation of specific technologies.
- It is common for critics to describe the Internet as an unpredictable mass of data. It is stated that since new communication technologies are based on the elimination of centralised command and hierarchical control, it is clear that the world is witnessing a general disappearance of control.
- DNS: Is a large decentralised database that amps network addresses to network names.
- The inventor of the WWW describes the DNS system as one centralised Archilles hell by which the Web can all be brought down and controlled.
- A distributed network is different from centralised and decentralised networks, by its arrangement of its internal structure. The reading says that A centralised network consists of a single power point, from which are attached radial nodes, and the central point is connected to all of the satellite nodes, which are themselves connected only to the central host. A decentralised network, on the other hand, has multiple central hosts, each with its own set of satellite nodes.
Symposium Week 10
This week I did not attend this weeks symposium, however I read through the blog post that Adrian sent out and made a couple of notes.
Barabasi:
- It started off talking about the power laws and how nature normally hates them., because ordinary systems follow bell curves, however this changes if it has to undergo a phase transition. The theory of phase transitions is that the path from disorder to order is determined by the powerful forces of self-organization and power laws. Power laws are the major factor of self-organization in complex systems.
- The power law makes us abandon the idea of scale, as there is no intrinsic scale in these networks.
- This first part is all about how the power law transitions from disorder to order.
‘Database as symbolic form’ by Lev Manovich.
There were multiple sections to the week 10 reading, and the one that will be focused on is the database logic. A database, as said by Lev Manovich, “is defined as a structural collection of data”, which is organized for fast searches; it is anything but a simple collection of items. The computer age introduces databases. New media objects do not tell stories – and they don’t have a beginning or end – relating back to Adrian and his many book examples. There are different types of databases, those being, hierarchical, network, relational, and object-oriented. We call databases a new symbolic form of a computer age. It is a way to set a structure for ourselves for our experience and the worlds. Due to the open nature of the web, this means that websites never have to be complete. New links are always being added to what is already there, and if new elements are being added over time, the result is a collection, not a story. This also relates back to previous weeks when talking about networking and hyperlinking being a web, that connects everything and everybody.
Blogs ‘R’ Us
Here is a few of my colleagues pages, and me talking about how great these people are!
Kenton gets straight to the point about the 80/20 rule. He says that nodes in a network can have varying number of links to and from it. He points out that a trend will often occur, which is then represented in a bell curve, however Kenton still doesn’t know how this is useful.
Kiralee covers points from the symposium however talks about how it was disengaging, and I tend to agree. However saying that, she goes on to discuss the transit system in Melbourne that Elliot covers, relating to connections. She states that connections are not always so straight forward.
Nethaniel uses a photo from his traveling last year to show and angle of a network, and demonstrating te connections through a variety of components that connect to a centre, which is seen as one particular node.
The 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 Rule. I still don’t understand the term completely, however when it is put with statistics I start to know it a bit better. I took some notes from this reading, that I thought are important and will put them up, because I’m not too sure what to say about this reading, just that there were a lot of examples and the explanations to me, were not clear enough.
To begin:
-The 80/20 Rule does not apply to everything and it would be a gross overstatement if it was inferred.
-The features that will be covered soon play a key role in understanding complex networks well.
-Webpages are connected to each other randomly.
POWER LAWS:
-Does not have a peak
-Each one is characterised by a unique exponent. An example the reading gives is “How many popular webpages are out there relative to the less popular ones?”
-Exponent is called the degree exponent.
-This reading states, “Our measurement indicated that the distribution of incoming links on Webpages followed a power law with a unique and well-defined degree exponent.
-Millions of Webpage creators work together in a way that generates a complex web that defies the random universe.
-Power laws mathematically formulate the fact that in most real networks the majority of nodes have only a few links and that these numerous tiny nodes coexist with a few big hubs, nodes with an anomalously high number of links. – This function is the reasons that keep networks from falling apart.
-Every time the 80/20 rule applies, there will be a power law behind it.
-There is no intrinsic scale in these networks.
-Power Laws formulate in mathematical terms the notion that a few large events carry most of the action.
These notes were taken from the reading ‘The Sixth Link’.
Blogs ‘R’ Us
This week in the land of my colleagues..
Brady talks about internet speed, and how moving community television to the internet is not ideal.
Kiralee goes into a detailed description about this weeks lecture. She talks about the statement ‘plots are for dead people’, and explains what Murphie and Potts identify some technologies as ‘neutral’.
Sam talks about Form vs Content on the subject of storytelling. He feels that the idea of form and content complement each other and is best demonstrated through Video Games.