Archive of ‘Readings’ category
YouTube represents and organizes the past by uploading videos. In February 2005, three PayPal employees launched the test vision of YouTube. They created this web site for people to upload and share video with the rest of the world. It became very popular immediately. Several organizations and companies invested for it. At the beginning, YouTube was just a simple platform for people to upload some interesting video showing some crazy things like interesting location, crazy stunts and hilarious pranks and so on. With time going by, YouTube has gradually developed into a multiple media platform with completed system. For instance, nowadays you can even see some political debates, formal musical and dancing performances, tutorial video, war footages without prescreening, etc. In 2007, YouTube even provided a chance for members to communicate with potential United States presidential candidates by uploading video questions.
YouTube has been developing into a multi-function web site with very large ranges of sources. However it also has come into some controversies itself. The first one is copyright infringement. Thousands of members upload plenty of video onto YouTube, these videos usually just come out without prescreening. In addition, sometimes members upload some clips from television show and films. If they don’t own the copyright to the material, they will be in trouble.
Copyright infringement-doesn’t prescreen, uploading television show and film clips without copyright. The second one was the battle between the online community and corporations. As YouTube was turning into bigger organization, it started to ask some cooperator like some celebrities and television studios to join them. Nevertheless, some of the YouTube members are not happy about this, they feel worried about being squeezed out by these powerful cooperators. Also they think that these cooperators will make their video appear at the top in some potential ways.
In conclusion, YouTube here represents the past of video. It appeared in a very new and special way. Here you can upload and share with others, once your video gets very popular, you can get thousands of hits of your video and lots and lots of comments. After the emerging of VCR, the big and new step in video area is the launch of YouTube. People used to use video camera to record their daily lives, funny stuff, etc; People used to buy or rent DVD from the store to watch the television or movie or review their favorite parts. Now people can have a whole new experience about video. If they want to share their stories, they can just upload onto YouTube, the world can see it and can talk to them about it by leaving comments. What’s more, now if you want to watch a movie or television, you can just search on YouTube and rent or buy it if it’s not free. You can just sit at home and watch it anytime.
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This week’s reading is generally about the relationship among a diagram, technology and management style.
the diagram-the distributed network-more like a web or meshwork
the technology-the digital computer-an abstract machine which can do the work of any other machine provided
the management style-protocol-the principle of organization native to computers in distributed work
all of them coming together has achieved a new start.
Rick Altman’s theory about the American film musical is that in the musical, the couple is the plot. Usually the character and the plot have the relationship of parallelism. This is a key formula in Blake Edward’s film, darling Lili. The dynamic of the relationship between Major Larabie and Lili make the film dualistic, the characters changes and the plot development. Lili as an actress and a Germany spy, she has a double life. She is very tender and warm and sometimes gets jealous when going out with the Major and very calm and cynicism when she battle with Major. And sometimes the two sides of her have some coincides, so as the plot. The submerged parallelism is the basis of the structure of the film in Altman’s theory. An interesting point made by Altman is that in musical we can forgo the rules of traditional narrative analysis. We can rely less on the chronology as causality because of the dual-focus on the film. In the film Darling Lili, the development of the relationship between Lilia and Major and the happy ending between is because that the musical genre allows this to happen.
There are few songs which are repeated in the film. One of them is ‘it’s a long way to Tipperay’. First time is that Lili is trying to calm down the audience during a bombing rid on the city. Secondly, it is sung at the can-can bar by the drunken soldiers on leave. Lastly it appears when Major Larabie stealing the plane of the Red Baron and proceeding to shoot and killing the unarmed Luftwaffe scrambling to their planes. Another one is ‘i will give you three guesses’. It is first sang by Lili on the stage in a very classical way. Because of the suspicions of Suzette and witness of the dance by the stripper, she sang it in a more lyric way later. The repeating of the songs promotes the development of narrative and shows the changes of characters.
This week’s reading is about database. Firstly, Manovich explained the basic notion and concept of database in science way. The author also talked about the ways of collecting data.What’s more, the author addressed the advantages of database applying in new form of media like the advantages in Internet. Database refers to collect data in a structured way. Basically database is like a big store full of data. These data can be searched and retrieved by a computer very quickly and effectively. There are also different types of data like hierarchical, network, relational, and object-oriented data. Reference
Reference: Manovich, Lev. “Database as Symbolic Form”. Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow. Vesna, Victoria, ed. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 2007. Print. 39-60.
This week’s reading is about 80/20 rule. 80/20 rule has several important features. These features play a key role in understanding complex networks well. ‘Our measurement indicated that the distribution of incoming links on Webpages followed a power law with a unique and well-defined degree exponent.’ It is usually protected by powerful laws and It does not apply to everything. In this random universe, plenty of webpage creator work together to generate the complex network environment.
Reference: Barabási, Albert-László 2002,“The 80/30 Rule”. Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge (MA): Perseus, Print..
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According to Samson Raphaelson’s words, comparing to a playwrights, he is a better craftsman. He is self-administered, wiry and tough-minded. He never sentimentalizes himself. He also never wrote things that matter most to him because of the lack of instincts and emotional richness. He never talked profoundly and with authority about what he knows.
He is right and wrong about his evaluation of his work. He is wrong about that he didn’t give himself his due. One of the most different points between O’Neill or Williams and Raphaelson is that in their film, the audience cannot feel nostalgic or see a theatrical style of ‘civilized’ or as soigne charmers. The films Raphaelson wrote for Lubitsch are more preserved iridescent. Differ from the films Lubitsch made with other writers, the ones wrote by Raphaelson are more puckish, full of texture, fullness and surprise. They play naughtiness very well. For Raphaelson, screen writing is more like writing down what he wants to say, what he has called ‘wild doodles’. So he could try out some ‘crazy’ ideas come into him mind without much responsibilities. ‘He could trust his impulses, his instinct.’ Raphaelson is good at keeping in reserve, however audience know that there will be tensions and the elegance of feelings.
‘Artists are better off when they’re not worrying about greatness and posterity; when they take off their frock coat they stand a better chance of being themselves. Raphaelson knows that.’ However when he starts writing seriously, his article published in The New Yorker is actually very good and doesn’t lack profundity and authority. His emotion and his control are put together very well and in a complete harmony way.
Reference: ‘Introduction’ in Three Screen Comedies by Samson Raphaelson. University of Wisconsin Press. Madison. 1983. pp. 13-19
Blake Edwards is a well-remembered name in Hollywood. He is a famous comedy director who starts writing films since 1947 and directing them since 1955. The releasing of his two comedies, S.O.B and Victor/Victoria is the mark of his oeuvre keeping almost the longest balance on the shaky treadmill of popular cinema.
In the early seventies, Edwards found that his film, a large part of Darling Lili was cut without his permission. He felt betrayed by Hollywood, so he went to England. Later the success of three pink panther films made him feel better. Then he came back to Hollywood to make film, 10. He had written the script in 1971, but the film then could not be sold to any studio. Finally, 10 turns out to be a big success and brought him good luck again. After that, Edwards got four winners in a row, and S.O.B was like a farcical fist in the face of Hollywood, waiting to see if Edwards can make it number five.
Edwards claimed that 10 and S.O.B were both a kind of representation of himself in his fortyish and male menopause. S.O.B was also a reflection of his career crisis. What’s more, in these two films there are the themes of death and recognition of one’s own mortality. In S.O.B, it appeared in the form of madness. However for Edwards, madness represented psychological madness. So S.O.B was inspired by the anger of Hollywood.
From the Edward’s opinion, the good points about comedy is that it can subliminally attack your prejudices, undermine your defense in a very relaxing way. Unlike tragedy, you are prepared for the pain. ‘So the things the author or the director wants to say he can smuggle in, under cover of laughter, much more easily.’
Reference: ‘Blake Edwards: Life After 10’. in American Film. Vol. 6. No. 9, July-August 1981. pp. 24-28.
I read the reading by Murphie, Andrew and John Potts, Culture and Technology. It generally described technological determinism and how it has become a promotion of social change. however the opinion about technological determinism is quite different. Some people like McLuhan believes that it is just an extensive way of human capabilities. So do we create technology or technology shapes our lives?
By enhancing the human capacity for social organization, writing has become the preserver and extender of other technologies. Writing is always associated with technology, we need skill to learn how to read and write, the effects of new writing skills would improve and invent some aspects of literacy technology. In the fifteenth century, the printing press appears and begins the mechanization of writing, the first technology of writing.
The Internet is a whole new technology which has changed our life forever. The space of the web is infinite. For instance, eBay is a website which everyone is familiar with. It provides service based on the customers’ interests. Everyone wants different stuff. There are thousands and thousands of thoughts which makes it unpredictable. When we look over the space of eBay, we can see a vast landscape.On the Internet, we can always choose the time suits us most to do our work. The web is made up by hundreds of millions of threads. However we never can do the same thing in reality. On the web, selves is not the real selves, we all have a name, a identity which is written. We will never know the true identity of others on the Internet. On the Internet we can use the search tool to get as much information as we want about the subject we wanted. There is a vast range of information and knowledge about it. Maybe some of them is unsystematic and uncertified knowledge, but it is presented in a human voice way and it is richer and in some level more reliable.
Everyone is an author on the internet, everyone is a participator and they make contributions to this great community.We don’t get our authority from degree here, but from what we are writing. The Web is a voice with affect and passion. We listen, write, discuss and evaluate and create the Web!
