Category Archives: Networked Media

October 16, 2013

Endgame.

As the list of assignments on my to do list dwindles down, it seems we have reached endgame. The uni year is wrapping up, and soon it will be summer holidays, so i guess this is prime reflection time. The time when the semester is basically over, but not so over that I cant be bothered writing about it, because this post will count toward my participation diary.

So, overall, I think semester two was better than semester one, my timetable was better, the content was more interesting, and the workload was better. There was more of it, but it is good to keep busy, plus finishing lots of group and partner assignments is a rewarding experience, and it was all work that i was interested in.

Lets start of with the blogging experience. Much better than i thought it would be, once i figured out the possibilities of what i could use my blog for and how it could assist me i began to embrace the experience. After the semester began and we had our first unlecture, i did give myself 3 goals for this blog that i wanted to achieve and outlined in my mid-semester essay thing (which i did not post here.) They were to create something that had a wealth of my ideas and experiences, something I could build upon, and something I could be proud of. I think it’s fair to say i have achieved these goals, i have been posting regularly enough and including enough personal content for it to be a wealthy blog (or be developing into one.) I can, and most likely will build upon it, as i want to, and the blog is also here for good. And yes, i am proud of this, i am proud that i stuck to my goals and commitments and did all my blog posts when i should, i haven’t back dated anything thus far. Each blog post i have written has been my best efforts, so i feel good about what i have achieved here.

Onto the big events of this semester, our broadcast media TV and radio assignments. Again, i feel good about the effort i put into those. I put in as much effort as i thought was necessary to complete the task to the highest standard i could. Not to mention i impressed myself with my organisation and courage in some parts, it’s scary calling possible interview candidates, particularly when they are best selling authors whom you respect greatly. But i got over that too, which meant the organisation for my radio project was much less scary.

Cinema and comm have both been on par with each other this semester, in my mind anyway. The movies screened were far more interesting this semester, as well as the concepts covered in comm.

So i think overall to describe this semester, i would say it was an interesting, engaging and enlightening experience. We did far more practical work as well as looking at concepts and ideas that were really fun. Honestly it is difficult to reflect on everything from this semester, because it has been an eventful one for me, but in terms of just the classes, overall, i think I’ve summed it up pretty well. I hope second year will be even better, or at least as good as this semester.

But, i must remember this semester is not actually over yet, i still have some assignments to complete… or begin, but it seems doable. I decided a few weeks ago to be more organised and to work on assignments earlier, and oh boy does it feel good. Assignments aren’t piling on top of each other as they normally would.

October 16, 2013

Unlecture 12: Wrapping things up

This was the last unlecture of networked media, and I must say I am relieved that Adrian mentioned we will be using these blogs next year, that pretty much guarantees they wont be deleting them. I have invested too much time and energy into this thing for it to be ripped away! So I’m just going to trust them on this, if it disappears randomly without my consent, angry phone calls will be made.

We were also encouraged to aim high; we know enough about networking and media to be able to get much more exciting jobs than the camera operator, so why not strive for something higher.

I was reminded that we share agency with non-human, non-living things, which is always a refreshing and enlightening idea.

And finally our tutors gave their final remarks, that is, until our tutorials this week…perhaps I should bring lollies or something…

I will probably write another post with my own final thoughts for the subject/ semester, as knowing me, it will turn into a big ramble session, so I’ll just wrap up this post here 🙂

October 13, 2013

Reflecting personal style

Here we go again, Jackie is about to ramble about art and visual diaries…This reading definitely calls for it though, talking about the relationships between artists and technology, and the things technology can offer. One particular quote grabbed me:

“Whoever works with a computer on a daily basis, at least for a few years, will soon realize that his own computer resembles more and more to its owner. You share everything with your computer: your time (often even for 13 hours a day), your space (desktop), your culture (bookmarks), your personal relationships (e-mails), your memories (photo archives), your ideas, your projects, etc. To sum up, a computer, with the passing of time, ends up looking like its owner’s brain.”

This goes for a lot of things I find, not only with a persons computer based on how they use the internet, but I think over time if you spend enough time doing something it will emulate your own personal style. For example, our blogs do this. This also goes for artwork, journals, photo albums, houses, and yes, of course, because I’m Jackie I have to bring this up, visual diaries.

On Friday I attended my former high school’s art exhibition with some friends, to see what our younger friends have been doing, what the year 12 students came up with, and to offer our wisdom as past art students. When I saw the works, before reading the names, I was able to recognise whose work it was, and the style of their visual diaries (which were also on display) really did reflect their own personalities and style. They included things that they were interested in, and arranged things in a style that made sense to them. I can see myself using this same method when using this blog and my computer, it does reflect me (although I cant choose a desktop image at the moment because my computer is being a dope.)

October 11, 2013

Niki: the struggle

The niki experience has been an interesting one. Although the idea is fun, sometimes it is difficult to coordinate what everyone is doing to create something cohesive.
I have found that many times while writing the nikis, I am unable to continue working on it until another person builds on what I have said.
So I think the niki things has been good overall, but a bit awkward to complete. Which is also difficult to decide on, whether something is ‘complete.’ There are many posts that I could keep working on, but I don’t really need to, so how much should I do?
Because I’m not sure whether any of my nikis are finished, I still don’t know which one I am going to write on.
I feel that maybe after some time, it will figure itself out, perhaps over the weekend.

October 10, 2013

ANT

My goodness this reading used a lot of long words.

I pulled up multiple Wikipedia pages and blog posts in an effort to understand, and luckily Memphis had an attached video which cleared some things up and made my brain hurt a little less.

So to begin with, Actor- Netowrks may not have strategically placed nodes and paths, it is not concerned with social networks only related to humans, rather the nature of societies and natures in general, and networks do not have spheres, categories or politics, they are fibrous and capillary-like. In short, Actor Network Theory acknowledges both the technical and social aspects of networks and technologies, and suggests that they do not function independently, basically finding a middle ground in the whole technological determinism arguement.

Connections through networks are stronger than close proximity connections. I could be standing next to a stranger, but my connection to my friend who is kilometers away is stronger, so the connection of proximity is not important in ANT. I thought that was pretty interesting.

Networks cannot be ‘bigger’ than other ones like is suggested in social theory, but they can be more intensely connected.

An actant need not be human, it just must act, or be granted activity by others. So I guess the activity would be granted by the humanistic actants if they are unable to act themselves. But many human actants are unable to be actants on their own, as they require non-humanistic actants to form/ maintain a network… I think.

October 9, 2013

Unlecture 11: record EVERYTHING.

In the lecture, it was mentioned that the internet is a free economy. Adrian also talked about how some bands will allow people to record their concerts and share it online. I remembered last year when Google teamed up with MBC and streamed an entire Kpop Music Festival for free on Youtube, I watched it all live, and it was awesome, but it still couldn’t compare to if I was actually there obviously. The topic of ‘over sharing’ was brought up, and this made me think of one of my pet peeves.

In my experience, I have found it is far more special and rewarding seeing your favourite celebrities in front of you or near you than trying to record them so you can experience it all later. I recently went to two ‘celebrity/ entertainment’ based events, SQ Entertainments K-fest, and Rudimental’s concert, both times when people were on stage, everyone around me was watching them through their phones or cameras. Its almost expected that that is what you do in these situations. When you spend the entire show looking through a phone screen and making sure you are capturing the moment, you are really missing the point of being there. You go to experience the person first hand, if you wanted to watch them on a screen you can just go to Youtube and watch their other live performances. At the K-wave event, two of the special guests, Simon and Martina, walked in front of me on their way to the stage, close enough I could reach out and touch them, and while other people around me scrambled through their bags trying to get out their phones, many of them missed being able to see them up close, and I am happy I made the decision to just experience these things, and not ruin it for myself by trying to capture everything like a reporter.

It actually made me think about the people who will take a photo of a famous monument, but not one with them in front of said monument. I mean, there are plenty of brilliant photos of that monument on Google, if you wanted to prove you were there, or have a memory from there, at least include yourself in the photo as well.

Also the talk of protocol when writing emails made me  chuckle to myself, because I am so particular about  those things. I write an email, and then read it over, and find all these misinterpretations that could be made, and space out my smiley faces as naturally as I can, and just obsessive about it. Not so much because of protocol when writing emails, but I guess I just have my own protocol on these things.

October 3, 2013

Desperate to define.

The talk of collections of things in the Manovich reading reminded me a bit of the concepts of mosaic that i have been pondering as it is one of my niki topics. The idea of a collection of many things building one big thing, like a mosaic or a database was familiar. The reading touches on the experience of video games and how they work using algorithms and create their own logic, I have already talked much about video games before, but it was interesting to have the idea of “What is a Video Game?” revisited in this reading.

The reading then goes on to discuss how new media is redefining basically everything, or at least, forcing us to use word out of context. From creativity to the definition of narrative, apparently we are using the word narrative more loosely, which i can recognise. I found this idea particularly interesting though, that perhaps new media is advancing so quickly that we are struggling to define it or figure it out even as we are creating it. Not to mention the idea that it is so foreign to us we are desperately attempting to classify it using words such as ‘interactive narrative’ inappropriately, just because we need to make sense of what has taken over the world and media these days.

This relates to an idea touched on in the opening of the Seaman reading, that, like databases, humans wish to define, categorise, contextualise, etc. I think these ideas link very nicely.

October 3, 2013

Unlecture 10: Creative freedom and labels.

There were many interesting ideas raised and discussed in this weeks lecture, as well as building upon ideas from previous weeks. for example, the main takeaway idea from the 80/20 reading was that networks do not form randomly, they gradually assume a logical network. Also, the idea that hubs are like those people in friendship groups who seem to know everyone. But although they know everyone, they know most of these people on an acquaintance level, so they have many weak connections, like a hub. When i got home i also had fun with The Oracle of Bacon website which illustrates how Kevin Bacon is a hub in Hollywood. These are the kinds of people that create the ‘small world’ network.

Something i have been pondering a lot since the lecture is the idea of creative freedom. It was suggested that we don’t have creative freedom in many ways as rules and codes have already been decided. The example of somebody wanting to make a sci-fi movie was used; the person wants to have the set up exactly like the lecture room for example, but people say ‘that’s not sci-fi, there’s no sci-fi stuff,’ which means the person would have to conform to the rules and codes of what a sci-fi film is to make this film. Also, there was the example of films being rectangular, why not shoot one that is a circle? And it is viewed on a circular screen.

Now i don’t think this is a question of “why don’t people think for themselves when they create,” i would say it is more of what has been mutually agreed upon over time. People can create circular films if they want to, if there is a specific effect they desire, and they can make a film in the lecture theater if they want to as well, there are no rules stopping them, the film just wont be sci-fi, because ‘sci-fi’ is a classification term. You are only constrained while making that film if you decide initially ‘I want to make a sci-fi film,’ because then, yes, there are certain aspects that make things sci-fi, because sci-fi is a classification system. The first person to ever make a sci-fi film didn’t have constraints, but these films were grouped together and given a name based on similar properties. But if you are  just deciding to make a film, there are no rules and regulations that you must abide by. Also, you can make a circular film if you want to, there is nothing saying you cant, but over time people have found that watching rectangular movies is easier on the eye and mind, because it is similar to the way we see through our eyes. So it depends on what you label your creation as, if you want an easy to watch film, then yes, rectangular has been decided as being best.

So in that way, i didn’t really understand the point Adrian was trying to make, i guess that people should think about possibilities rather than just following the norm without questioning it. But the examples didnt really prove anything for me. If you label something before you create it, then you must create it to fit that label, that is obvious. It is ridiculous to say Titanic could be a sci-fi film because ‘screw constaints!’ because sci-fi is a classification of a genre, and Titanic does not fit the classification, so instead it is classified as something else.

However, if the point was supposed to be about letting your creations have agency, and not to force them to be something, then yes, I agree. I do find this a lot when i am writing essays etc.

September 25, 2013

So much reading.

So, the ‘How Control Exists after Decentralization‘ reading started of quite slow and was difficult to get through. Very dense, very long, and i didn’t engage with it all that much. Much of it continued linking back to the technical aspects of the internet, and while i did learn some things about this, it was a bit dry. I would rather be discussing social implications for the entire reading, which is what the previous reading has set me up for. I hope that is what we discuss in our tute, what is culture? What aspects of culture are affected by technology? Is technology tied to culture at all? The end also didn’t interest me that much. The middle of the reading, they touched on new sets of social practices and relating technology to social aspects, but i didn’t absorb much other than that. The continuous speak of protocol and what relates to protocol didn’t engage me.

I will have another look at this reading tomorrow and see if i can make sense of it then, with a fresh mind. I have been sitting here doing readings for the past 3 hours so that could be why i disliked this reading as soon as it began…

September 25, 2013

Culture and Technology

As soon as I got through he first two pages of the ‘Culture and Technology’ reading and immediately was like, yes, this is interesting, this is going to been a good reading. “…not so interested in how things work technologically, as how they work culturally.” Now that’s always fun to discuss. I like the description of technology as ‘the application of science to production,’ as it really sums it up well. We discover new things and require new things, and design new things, then produce them in new was to create new technologies.

As i progress further into the reading, it is beginning to sound a lot like a reading from ‘communication histories and technologies;’ another subject i am doing at the moment. Particularly what we were discussing in the first few weeks of semester, regarding the difference between techniques and technology, and their relationship to each other. I found it particularly interesting reading about how people interpret the word ‘culture.’ Because cultures can be small, large, based on any demographic collection, and some consider fine arts to be culture, but others consider aspects of working class living culture as well. People use the word culture to describe so many different things, so it is difficult to talk about culture as a thing, we must accept that culture is dynamic and broad.