Media Materialism:

Today we unpacked what media materialism is. We looked at cultural aspects of media and how they contribute to the development of texts. Here is a summary of what I took down from the lecture.

The cloud isn’t really in the cloud:

Technology: Compilation of skills and knowledge across different products. Things processes and skills. Ideology, cultural values. Incorporates the skills and processes that are uniquely human. How do humans manipulate language?

Technique: Anything that is both effective but something that is passed down in cultures or traditions. E.g. Walking, talking.

Culture: Identifying subgroups in a larger population (youth culture)

The world as a culture, humankind, man as a whole, and how we operate as a species.

Art theatre, cinema: Creative expression

Culture is multiple, it contains various different ethnicities. It is both messy and confused. Brian Eno, Culture is everything we don’t have to do. These include things that we don’t necessarily need to survive. We all need to eat, but the different types of cuisines and restaurants that we go to is part of a culture. We need shelter and clothing, but having various styles of houses from a small town house to a mansion is part of a culture, much like having expensive clothing labels. These are aspects of life that don’t ‘need’ to have, but these are aspects that contribute to the unique culture of individuals that inhabit this world. Culture is vulnerable to market forces, politics and consumer taste. Culture is not only something that we do, but also something that we are.

Technological determinism, each development has a preconceived course, talk about things like the steam age or the industrial age. Advances in technology change how we live and see the world. E.g the walkman, this was a massive revolution in listening to music, now we were not reserved to the privacy of our home to listen to music, now is was possible to listen to music on the go, wherever you were.

Dziga Vertov:  Is a renowned film maker, known predominantly for his work in documentary film making, said to be the pioneer of this genre. Drawn to to the ability of film to capture human life and tell stories, Vertov has famously said that film is ‘The only way to capture the chaos and complexity of life’.

Key terms that came out of the lecture: Social Constructivism, Cultural materialism.

These are concepts and statements that I am going to be unpacking in the next few blogs, exploring my interpretation of what these mean in our complex life.

• Technological determinism is a valid way of looking at the world
• Humanity is in charge of its own future
• Innovation and progress is hindered by scientific regulation
• Machines are becoming too intuitive/intelligent:
• Kara

Dust has negligible matter, but it has great power: The video game, ‘The Last of us’ was used as an example in order to explore the concept of ‘dust’. Furthermore this text illustrates the large amount of media material that have storylines that revolve around a post-apocalyptic era, where there is a strong sense of survival throughout the narrative.

Notable storylines that incorporate this concept of survival:

• The last of Us
• The Road
• The Walking Dead
• I am Legend
• The Book of Eli
• Resident Evil
• Fall Out

Things that I have to do this week in my Blog:

• What you’ve learn’t
• How you learn
• What you found most challenging in the course
• What you discovered about your own creative process
• Final post that references a selection of 5 posts from throughout the semester that you think best demonstrates your engagement with the course. Links to the posts. Try and illustrate how the posts demonstrate your knowledge of ideas and objectives.
• Include a scanned image of a learning graph
• Write a final reflection (500 words) learning experience of the course
• Reflection in the blog

Key discussion points that have come out of this semester:

• Discussion of media objects in terms of disciplinary frameworks
• Analyse and evaluate your own learning styles
• Explore and use a range of production technologies to make media
• Reflect upon and explain your creative choices in individual and group contexts.
• media is not a thing
• media is a public practise
• media integrates theory and practice
• media collaborate
• media is a form of research

To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now – Samuel Beckett

This idea of mess explores the need develop a balance between all the stuff that feels all over the place and try using all this ‘mess’ to your advantage by making sense of it and make something useful out of it.