“Apple could very easily have forgone forging to create stainless steel cases, just like everyone else”
Its true. They could have. Hardening gold alloy with cold-working could have been eliminated. But that would make them on par with the rest of the industry. Apple wishes to stand out with a perfect product. As an example of their dedication, no one will see or feel the inside pocket for the microphone on the Sport Watch, yet it has been laser finished to perfection. Apple are upping the standard as to compete with companies with many more years experience in the industry.
We were asked to pick any ‘thing’ (object, artefact, tool, event etc.) and draw a map showing all the parts that make up, influence, effect, are influenced by this media thing. I have been unwell and missed the beginning of this task, but it was a learning experience in itself watching my classmates present their maps.
Artefacts that other members of the studio chose included scripts, camera, the human body and more. Many admitted to going to broad with their topic and that was also common in the feedback. Therefore I’ve learnt its important to pick a specific topic and really explore it. According to Adrian we should move away from the generalisations and examine a very specific thing. For instance, choosing ‘magazines’ is too general, however a specific article in a magazine is more appropriate.
Ontograph Example
So what is the difference between what a thing means versus what a thing does?
It’s important to remember that an object ‘exists in their own world’. So what’s important to us isn’t necessarily important to the thing. For instance, light is important for a camera. A camera needs light to function. Furthermore its interesting to note that most of the world doesn’t operate through narrative despite common belief. Humankind is responsibly for narrative. To showcase, the Zebra’s were happy to cross the road whether someone was watching them or not.
So when exploring an artefact one should think to themselves ‘If it made a story about itself, what would it say’?
An interesting idea that I hadn’t really thought of before today is that all our media comes from the ground. Therefore our media has a relationship to the earth. Think about it.
Today we started to establish our studio on Documentary Ontography. We discussed what a studio is and why the studio system exists. A common theme among the many descriptions was that a studio is a space in where people can learn, write and create. Our studio is the environment in which we will learn over the next semester. A studio is not just the physical space, it’s the people within it whom discuss, learn and create.
With the industry rapidly evolving it is imperative to recognize that a lot of what a future media professional learns today may be outdated information within 6 months. As content producers we must practice applied knowing and learn through doing; constantly adapting our skills as technology develops. In the last decade content production and distribution has changed immensely. For instance, we now live in a world where there is instantaneous movement of information, making it readily available to all. This is thanks to networks.
‘Networks have emerged as the dominant organisational structures of our time’ (Pegrum, 2010), for this reason it’s vital to be network literate, especially for media professionals. Retaining network literacy is a continuous process of becoming comfortable with different online tools. By the same token, if I am to be network literate I must constantly adapt and update my online skills in order to contend with the progression of technology and software. Notably, it’s recommended to join an online community in order to learn about accounts, privacy protection, network etiquette, online reputation, protecting intellectual property and communication within the chosen network. Personally, the creation and upkeep of my mediafactory blog has educated me on these points. Provided that I continue to join and operate in online communities, why do I need to gain network literacy? Obtaining such literacy would permit me to operate in professional networks of my interest, gain information quickly, troubleshoot for technical issues, and evaluate the credibility of online sources. Most importantly, I am able to create my own online environment as well as share and teach. ‘Network Literacies are marked by your participation’ (Adrian, 2007) therefore it’s important that I continue to develop my through involvement with online communities.
(Social Business News, 2013)
A recently new element of networked media that is expanding rapidly is the method of collaboratively generating and translating tags to annotate and categorise online content. This folksonomy is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing or social tagging. Tagging services are useful as they allow me to ‘associate freely determined keywords (called tags) with a particular resource’. (Sinclair and Cardew-Hall, 2008). The visual element of such folksonomy is a written tag. I use already use these on a daily basis. For instance, when I upload a photo on Instagram I will tag it appropriately to categorise it, as a result of this users can search for that tag and see my photo. In addition, through RSS tags can have functions as when tag a photo #mediafactory will automatically post to my blog. Identically, I tag the video content I upload to YouTube or Vimeo, assisting users to find my creations. To assist me in tagging my videos efficient I discovered this video on Youtube which discusses how to tag effectively.
It’s important to realise that tagging my content will not directly affect the ranking of my videos.Due to increasing popularity, I will continue to use this social indexing in the future to categorise my uploaded content.
RSS (Rich Site Summary) is not a new technology. However, instead of being replaced by a completely different feed standard it will continue to be built upon. RSS will be ‘the glue to tie together publisher and consumer’. (Moreno, 2013). Simply RSS is a ‘format for delivering regularly changing web content’ (Whatisrss.com, 2014). By using RSS I am easily informed as I automatically retrieve the latest web content from sites I have interest in. Not to mention it saves time which in the industry equals money. Furthermore, I will ensure my own privacy as I will not have to resort to joining sites e-mailing lists. By having RSS on my blog XML code makes it possible for readers to subscribe to my content. That is to say, they do not have to visit the blog itself to receive the content.
Obviously, I would only ever subscribe to sites and information sources that are of value. These are known as trust networks. The architecture of knowledge production and distribution online relies on subscribing to sources that you regard a valid or legitimate (Miles, 2007).
The distribution of media has changed immensely over the last decade with the internet and mobile devices taking over. Does the change of distribution result in change of the media itself? As a result of the modern distribution system, content can be uploaded and readily accessible to all. As a matter of fact, as an aspiring film maker I could create a short video and upload it for all to see on the same day. Having the ability to share my creations online almost instantly is useful for my future career.
Mediums of the media are regularly transforming, with this in mind, does the medium change the message? McLuhan claimed that ‘the medium is the message. It can change the experience of a specific media. To put it another way, a music fan will nearly always prefer to hear their favourite song live rather than on a recording. If it was recording, many prefer to listen to a vinyl LP then a CD. The distribution media affects the listener not only from the recorded content but by ‘the properties of the medium itself’ (Hasson et al., 2008).
Henceforth, when I create films in the future I must consider the form the distributed media will take. It’s important to realise that an increasingly large amount of people watch screen media on their mobile devices. This means that I can reach people all over the world through the internet by sharing my content online. I will continue to upload videos on YouTube and share them on my blog, Facebook and other online mediums. As a result they are not going to get the same experience if they were for instance viewing a film at the cinema. Personally, watching a film at the cinemas nearly always increases my experience. On the other hand, mobile devices, computers and home theatres are increasingly more popular and constantly increasing in video quality. These low cost video players are advantageous for an amateur media creator like myself, as my shared work can be experienced in high quality by a large audience.
(Sharp Sight Centre, 2014)
Interestingly, I would suggest that the re-purposing, reproduction and reuse of content is becoming more common than original content production. One simply has to take a look at content on YouTube. There are millions of video’s which spoof, commentate or remix already uploaded content. This Reuse and re purposing is even more common on social media. For instance, when I could not think of something original to write on my blog I would resort to the reuse of content. I would share a video that I had previously created or expand on a Facebook post I had published. By re-purposing my content through various mediums it allows the audience to see the same things in different ways . By reusing old idea’s I can fuel new ones, with doing less overall. ‘Everyone’s a marketer these days’ (Liendgens, in Outbrain 2014) therefore its important for me to collaborate with re-purposing. On my mediafactory blog I would collaborate with other bloggers with sharing each others work as well as commenting on it. This is a great way to get my work seen by more people.
Throughout the year I have contributed to online communities, specifically my blog, and as a result I have increased my network literacy. I plan to continue my participation in such online activity in the future as to access knowledge, learn through doing and to establish myself as a media professional. I must constantly adapt my skills as new online tools are created. In spite of video production being my main career goal I must continue to work with online networks and social media with the intention of being able to display my content to the public.
How will the online media industry evolve next? I don’t know but I will adapt accordingly.
References
Eves, D. (2014). How to Properly Tag you YouTube Videos. [image] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGZOm_dCgMg [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
Guides, B. and Events, N. (2014). Blogging and RSS — The “What’s It?” and “How To” of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators. [online] Infotoday.com. Available at: http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan04/richardson.shtml [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
Hasson, U., Furman, O., Clark, D., Dudai, Y. and Davachi, L. (2008). Enhanced Intersubject Correlations during Movie Viewing Correlate with Successful Episodic Encoding. Neuron, [online] 57(3), pp.452-462. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2007.12.009 [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
Miles, A. (2007). Network literacy: The new path to knowledge. Screen Education, (45), p.24.
Moreno, J. (2014). The Future of RSS. [Blog] Mea Vita: Carpe Diem. Available at: http://blog.joemoreno.com/2013/03/RSS-Future.html [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
Outbrain, (2014). 23 Tools for Repurposing Content. [online] Available at: http://www.outbrain.com/blog/2014/07/23-tools-for-repurposing-content.html [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
Pegrum, M. (2010). ” I Link, Therefore I Am”: Network Literacy as a Core Digital Literacy. E-learning and Digital Media, 7(4), pp.346–354.
Sharp Sight Centre, (2014). Watching movies on a mobile device. [image] Available at: http://www.sharpsight.in/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/watching-movies-on-mobile-phones.jpg [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
Sinclair, J. and Cardew-Hall, M. (2008). The folksonomy tag cloud: when is it useful?. Journal of Information Science, 34(1), pp.15–29.
Social Business News, (2013). Online Community. [image] Available at: http://www.socialbusinessnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Community.jpg [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
Whatisrss.com, (2014). What Is RSS? RSS Explained – www.WhatIsRSS.com. [online] Available at: http://www.whatisrss.com/ [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
First thing I noticed when I entered the lecture theatre was Elliot’s nice black and white checked button up shirt. Nice purchase. Second thing I noticed was Kenton sporting a pale pink, purple, blue horizontal striped combination shirt. Eye catching and as usual Kenton pulled it off. The third thing I noticed was intense debate between the tutors and Adrian had already begun. There was an Art vs. Science related debate. (Yes, that is a band).
Is art technology? and is technology art? In my opinion the difference between technology and art is not the physical products themselves but the motivation behind them. Non-art is driven by functional requirements established by others. Although technology may make an idea reality, engage participants and make relationships that previously were elusive, their motivation is function. Therefore it can be said that technology is not art. Art results in structures that evoke feeling.
The talk of Ted Nelson interested me greatly. Yes this beautiful man. He founded Project Xanadu which was the first ever hypertext project and the concept behind links on the web. His vision included implementation of a “docuverse”, where all data was stored once, there were no deletions, and all information was accessible by a link from anywhere else. Navigation through the information would be non-linear, depending on each individual’s choice of links. This was more than just text… It was hypertext. See what I did there… That’s the name of the thing. The development continued to what it is today, a high-performance hypertext system that assures the identity of references to objects, and solves the problems of configuration management and copyright control.
Of course not Networked Media symposium would be complete without discussing whether its possible to not have a last paragraph in a book. There IS always a last paragraph in terms of visual order and conventions tell us to read that paragraph last… But we don’t have too.
Yes. Computers have made our lives easier. With the touch of a few buttons I can contact my friends from overseas, check the weather, navigate to desired location and so on. Today’s technology interconnects us all so we may communicate with ease. A common argument is that all this modern technology adds more stress to our lives. Contrastingly, I can handle all my stressful commitments in the palm of my hand or behind a desk. I can pay my bills, manage my finances, book appointments, pay taxes and the most stressful activity at all… shopping, all on my phone or laptop. Computers not only make our lives easier but can decrease risk in dangerous industries. Furthermore, computers in the stream of medicine are constantly advancements resulting in more lives saved. Moreover relevant to me computers allow students to advance their education while at home.
Computers are our friends.
Computer technology not only makes us more efficient and productive, they make our lives easier.
The Peeler. An innovation in food preparation technology that has improved our ability to remove skin of vegetables and fruits. The vegetable peeler is most popularly seen scraping the dirt stained skin off potatoes hence it is often simply referred to as ‘the potato peeler’. Interestingly, the peeler is often used to peel the skin off carrots and even fruits such as apples and pears.
A peeler is an essential to any kitchen draw. Although technically a speciality item it can often been found in the top draw aka. The cutlery draw due to its small size and regular use. Speciality items include mashers, spatulas and whisks and are generally kept second drawer.
Straight Peeler
My favourite and definitely the most used potato peeler is the straight peeler. The straight peeler doesn’t mess around. Its simple design consists of a blade parallel to the handle. The blade may pivot or be fixed. Either way if I was to bet my cats life on a potato peeler I would go all in on the straight peeler.
Y Peeler
The Y Peeler gets its clever name from its Y-like shape. Its more modern design closely resembles a razor we would shave our face or legs with. Don’t try this. With the blade perpendicular to the handle one peels their potato just like they would shave their face. The design allows for care and precision but it will never compare to the classic straight peeler for me.
There are other types of peeler such as the industrial peeler but they make me sick. Putting the traditional handheld potato peeler out of work. They often use steam jets to abuse the vegetable. But that’s enough of that.. I’m getting emotional.
The Potato Peeler, Vincent van Gogh, 1885
1885 was a big year for the potato peeler as it featured in Vincent van Gogh’s oil on canvas painting titled “The Potato Peeler“. The restricted palette of dark tones, coarse facture and blocky drawing really does the straight peeler justice. Since falling for the straight peeler my life ambition is to visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to see this painting up close and immerse myself in my smell of the oil paints.
