Monthly Archives: October 2013

10 Dreams of Technology

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Yes I enjoyed this reading, it was reasonably straightforward and very interesting. Here are my notes, I didn’t want to write about all of them because that would be boring, but these ‘dreams’ were the most stand-out to me.

1. Dream of Symbiosis 

I had to Google this, and it means “Interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.” which in this context is the interaction between the brain or mind and technology. This is relevant to the iOS7 update I blogged about being Apple trying to make you and the iPhone as inseparable as the iPhone and it’s charger. The consumer is Apple’s biggest product. This article discusses how the interaction between humans and machines is believed in technology and scientific studies to allow each to learn from the interaction with the other, resulting in both evolving to higher levels of functioning. This is crazy i, Robot stuff which we should all start getting used to. We can learn so much from technology and it can learn from us; which is essentially the pinpoint of our technologically obsessed society and culture today.

3. Dream of Immersion

Artists since the invention of that particular art have been yearning to create works that will completely and utterly immerse the viewer. Whether it be a game, painting, audio documentary, song, movie, TV show or book, the point is to bring the audience into the world created and keep them there. Virtual reality is a “technological manifestation of this dream.” Meaning that virtuality is constantly striving to immerse the viewer whichever way it can and create a whole new universe for them to dive in and thrive in.

4. Dream of World Peace

This was an interesting one to me because you never picture the internet leading to the end of wars and destruction. This article states that that’s not the point; evil people will continue to live and destroy and kill and start wars, this is in the nature of the human race. What the internet and technology can do is create open communication channels and shared information throughout the entire globe. The net provided channels of exploration between races, religions and nations who were previously unable, due to geographic location, connect with one another. Creating, writing and sharing images or text or videos with someone on the other side of the globe has no doubt brought the world closer together; we’re not connected by land or bridge, we’re connected by the network.

10. Hacking the dream.

To end the article is the break out of the “Dream of…” rhythm with a somewhat humourous way of reminding us that this is the cold world of technology we’re dealing with. When there’s something to be mastered, there will be masters. And these masters may abuse their power and exploit the possibilities of the vast technologies we all have at hand. Hacking is essentially finding alternative purposes for what may be considered mainstream, so hackers are constantly finding harmful, playful, humorous or darkly powerful ways of manipulating the web and technologies.

 

The unattended unlecture.

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Hello, I was unable to make a lot of posts due to a sudden camping extravaganza which I solved by ScHeDuLinG mY PosTs!! (how dedicated am I!!!)

I was unable to attend the unlecture, however by reading through the questions to be asked on the Networked Media blog and also a few other students takings, I feel I should make a post about how I assumed it would go down and what it was about.

There was a lot of talk about whether or not the internet is ‘democratic’ or not. Reading Abby’s takings (I hope you don’t mind me stalking you, your name is conveniently the most alphabetically blessed out of the whole course), I learned that Adrian thinks that because the net was made by the best of the best and it’s more ‘flat’ than democratic, but Eliot believes it is because there’s universal access.

The whole narrative vs database was a bit tricky for me to understand, but Lauren’s post helped me understand; Databases are not particularly narratives; they’re merely lists. She mentioned Cowbird which was apparently used in the lecture, which is essentially just a list of stories that may contain narratives, but the site and database itself is not one. IS THE INTERNET A GIANT DATABASE? Lauren asked, which is very interesting. It’s more than just a list or things, but it’s not quite a narrative. Is the middle ground simply ~thenetwork?~

 

The end XoxoOXOXOoxoxoxoXOoxx

 

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Poor internet explorer!! It’s so lame now. Here’s another example of how a certain technology can seem so new and amazing and fancy and incredible and futuristic and a mere few years later it’s just lame and retro.

The Media’s direct impact on our society and collective psyche.

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There’s no secret that the media has raised the physical expectations of women through the roof to a completely unreachable place. There have been multiple documentaries, thousands  of essasys, scholarly articles or magazine articles, blog posts etc.etc.etc.etc about how the media is responsible for the rapidly dropping self-esteem of girls in society. Everywhere you look there’s half naked size 0 models showing us girls what we’ll constantly fail to strive towards.

But people neglect to remember is that men are affected as well. I mean underwear models with 48-pack and a bulge the size of a forearm are plastered 28 stories high on every second street corner. It’s known that in society, men feel the unwavering pressure to be sexy, muscly, fit and tanned to be considered desirable to women. This is why this article by the UK newspaper The Sun is so relevant, but funny.

It’s similar to the Dove Real Body Campaign (pictured below)

Although my beef with both of them is that they’re all still gorgeous girls (and gorgeous guys in the Sun article). They’re of all different colours and yes some of them are bigger than others but they’re not actually that ‘real’ looking. They’d all be considered the beautiful people of society even if they’re not stick thin.

But I guess they’re trying.

Anyway, enough of a pre-amble, this the Real Guys in Underwear ads series. It’s pretty funny and definitely makes a statement on how photoshopped and unrealistic every ad is, whether they’re of girls or boys. The perfect specimen is the foreground of underwear ads which is physically impossible to attain in real life.

The Government tweets.

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Isn’t that funny? The US Government is sending out very important information to the public via Twitter. At first it sounds kitsch and funny but on the other hand, it just shows how Twitter is far more than a social networking site for stalking your favourite celebrities and telling the world what colour dress you’ll wear today, it’s a public and very open forum where information can be passed to anyone with internet access. You can TWEET THE GOVERNMENT BACK (that’s crazy)! Twitter is like a 24/7 newspaper or public forum for the entire world. Brilliance!

But yeah, the US Government and many other Government institutions tweeted about the Government shutting down for the day. Ha ha ha ha ha but seriously. Future.

BY THE WAY

Thank you so much to Jake Baldwin’s How To about embedding tweets. i literally would have had no idea how the flip to do that. Thank you <3

GOOGLE DOODLES – The .gif

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Apparently this took this poor man over 10 hours. This is crazy. But it’s super interesting and awesome to see just how many bloody google doodles they’ve done. They’ve kept us entertained and informed for years but put all in succession together they’re an absolute work of art!

It’s funny how much they progressed as they started becoming bigger and more popular. The first few hundred are all based around the Google logo; it hardly changes at all, the lettering, font and placement stays the same par like two or three letters here and there. However as it progresses over time (which is why it’s so awesome this guy’s made a GIF out of them) you see just how intense it gets! It actually hurts your eyes a bit and gets pretty violent looking, but the latest ones are more and more abstract and bizarre and picturesque and over the top and not based on the Google letters very much at all. They’re much more artistic and impressive and sometimes you actually have to search for the letters.

Awesome work. It’s FAR too large to try and get the HTML code from (maybe I’m a noob and don’t know how to do it; i just went through Photobucket) seeing as its 1800 frames and over 15MB. WOW.

http://mos.creativebloq.com/features/2013/ibkba1zGNL8gyq.gif

 

Lectureee 1st October! (can’t remember what number we’re up to)

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This lecture was pretty cool as it was a lot about technology and technique which i’m pretty interested by.

Before writing, you had to remember everything, it was up to the elders to remember everything. This is crazy. I remember this point relates to one Adrian made from a while ago; back before writing and reading came about, it was probably possible to know absolutely everything there was to know. These people were the elders in society. Since writing, and definitely these days with the billions of tidbits of information floating around in every field and study, it’s impossible to know everything. BUT the iphone comes pretty close which is why it’s such a success.

Apple is the largest media company , not technology company; they sell entertainment, technology, music, news etc. People who think technology doesn’t matter don’t know how to make anything digitally. This is pretty true seeing as my mum thought Facebook was a flash in the pan until she got one herself. Now she’s liking, sharing and commenting like a 17 year old!

In terms of technique vs. technology: there is a rhetoric about mastery – strange relationship where you think you’re in charge of your computer and technology; it’s a lot more sophisticated.

Does technique drive technology or does technology develop technique?

Technique is required when you have technologies so technology develops technique. For example, when the technology of writing led to the development of handwriting styles and techniques.

The end!! xoxoxoxoxo

 

A few clarifications

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I really enjoy the readings that discuss the concept of ‘networks’. This one did this in quite a bit of depth (and length).

Firstly, it stated that it’s a mistake to give ‘the network’ a common meaning and assimilate it to the network of a train, tram or telephone ‘network’.

“Nothing is more intensely connected, more distant, more compulsory and more strategically organized than a computer network. “

The proximity point was interesting; it essentially said that one advantage with ‘the network’ is that something that is miles and miles away can be right next to you. Geographic location doesn’t even matter! This is true regarding with my post the other night about my friend whose in Paris at the moment! He’s on the other side of the globe but the network allows him to be closer to me than my sister sitting on the couch next to me.

No network is larger than the other, it can simply be longer or more intensely connected. The notion of a network dissolves the small and large scale distinctions. It also allows us to get rid of a ‘third spatial dimension’ –> the inside/outside distinctions.  A network is all boundary without inside and outside.

Those are the main points that I was able to comprehend and really engage with!