Category Archives: Networked Media

Notes on reading

Reading: Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print. (low rez PDF)

metatext, paratext
‘we must write with an awareness that we are writing in the presence of other texts”
active reader-author
Comments as a form of hypertext – active participation from reader
Blogs: unsettling the borders between private and public spheres
‘borders of any documents on the internet are porous and provisional at best’
links and search tools limit the power of authority
When copying exactly a printed text into virtual space, experience and textuality changes, borders are broken
Endings: ‘there can be no final word, no final version, no last thought…Always a new view, new idea, and reinterpretation.’
Boundaries of open text: it is not a closed, complete, absolute object. Boundaries are blurred, not being what it is. (Derrida)…between absence and presence, inside and outside, self and other.

A rant. A fit – on the symposium

The highlight in this week’s Q&A symposium for me was the debate about whether we need to learn coding to become network literate. As I have mentioned before, it is a choice of words which in turn makes us develop different opinions on the matter. Of course we don’t need to be experts in coding, its not like everyone will get a job or make a living out of it, nor will it harm them to just rely on what is made available to them so far. However, suppose you are aware that there are things about the network/internet, or ways to do things that may benefit you, would you choose to not know? This knowledge may become handy at some point in the future, or it may just add to our experience of the thing itself, to help us make sense of it. In any case, it is only logical to choose to know more – this is a logical preference not a necessity, not knowing should only be applicable when you don’t have choice. When there is choice and one chooses not to know – that is an excuse. History provides a good enough example that the general knowledge of the average person will only continue to grow. Ignorance may be bliss, but that only remains as long as one is also ignorant of their powerlessness. Knowledge will continue to grow and expand, becoming more accessible to the average person. Despite what I just said about ‘choice’, it is kind of inevitable. 10 years from now, coding might be the basic first year component of this course instead of learning about networked media, which might be a secondary/primary school subject!

Which brings me to my second point…

Too bad we didn’t get to discuss the last question during the session. To generations from early 90’s and older, including myself, the idea that primary school kids and toddlers are growing up with the current technologies and networked devices must seem foreign and not such a healthy idea. Since the internet is already what it is and it all happened before the current generation of kids were born, they are already getting used to technology faster than they can learn to pick up a pen and write the alphabet on paper. Therefore, given their early exposure which allows them to know way more than we do in high school about networked literacies, it is fair to say that these subjects will be taught in earlier education. Kids are already taught through doing. Only generations like ours who adapted to such new technologies during our teenage years will probably need formulas or formal training to challenge the heavy conditioning we had growing up before social and networked media became significant.

SIM•ulation ONE

The title of this blog is borrowed from an idea in S1m0ne (2002), a film by Andrew Niccol starring Al Pacino. The story revolves around a computer generated actress who was titled Simulation One. In similar ways, this blog is a simulation of a persona. In a recent tutorial, the notion of an ONLINE PERSONA was briefly mentioned. This inspired the title and direction of my blog. My previous works in photography were mainly concerned with identity and stereotypes and how much or how little we know another person. Following this interest, I plan to use this blog as an experiment to document the manifestation of an online persona.

In chapter 1 of one of this week’s readings Small Pieces Loosely Joined, Weinberger lists many interesting examples of peculiar situations involving uses of an online persona or username. Through these examples, exploring the effects and phenomena that stem from the fundamental questions of identity. Perhaps it is nothing different from our role playing in daily life. At work I perform a sales assistant; within the family I assume the role of daughter, sister; in a relationship I act as a girlfriend; and here, I carry out the role of a blogger.

So what happens when there is no need for resistance anymore, and we can see our virtual persona in the same light as our personas in the real world? At the moment, we are living a dual life in the midst of such a transition between this seemingly real non-virtual world and our online activities. Some are still resisting the new, some choose to be so immersed in it that they have left the past behind completely.

I am blogging about blogging about… …

BLOGGING. This loop of infinity is just about how confused I feel when it comes to blogging! As I take my first few steps into a new routine that involves blogging, I realised I have to forget all the ideas I previously had about it. During tutorial this week, I shared my feelings on this issue. Jason made a very good point that has reminded me of the constantly evolving nature of blogs and the internet in general: blogs are not personal diaries. I am more excited to blog now because as this process take its course, I am also evolving with every post I make.

First Non-lecture

This week we had our first Q&A style symposium, it was an interactive discussion between a panel of teachers and the students. It was quite an effective way to get the specific information you want to know: although there was a general topic, the direction of the symposium was driven by questions from teachers and students. It was organic and non-directional. Its dynamic structure allowed spontaneity and free flow of interaction. It is constantly shaping much like the internet itself. And on many levels resonate with our blogging experience and this week’s reading, Literary Machines by Ted Nelson on hypertext.

However, there are some cons to this ‘interactive lecture’. As there is no specific structure, the information that is generated (half-spontaneously throughout the discussion) may not be as clear as if it were planned and thought out sequentially. After all, it is also important to be able to communicate teachings and ideas in such a way that it is well received and understood by many. Also it would be less messy, if one question or answer were finished before jumping around to another idea or in a different direction. With that said, the benefit of a Q&A session is that it allows a topic to then be explored with more depth if it is done in a slightly more organised fashion.

This week’s session revealed some intriguing and surprising facts: that the millions of Youtube song covers are actually illegal due to the breach of copyrights on lyrics! And that only the copyright owner can prosecute. It was no surprise though that we discovered more grey areas when it comes to policies in the virtual territory. All this makes me feel a little less comfortable than I already was about blogging.

Week 2 in Networked Media

This week in Networked Media, Adrian delivered another fascinating symposium. We were given the challenge to explain and define: What is a book?

Through this thought experiment, conventions and assumptions were once again challenged. Text, pages, words, meanings, beginnings and ends are part of a system we invented and have since been taken for granted as infallible definitions of everything we experience. As we progress in a new world of internet cultures, we are forced to adapt to a world where there is no beginning or end. As we discussed these changes to story organisation, I was reminded of a book I recently came across. In Douglas Rushkoff‘s Present Shock, the media theorist explains the narrative collapse in storytelling in the digital age. He does so focusing not just on the materiality of the traditional and new mediums, but the different temporal experience of the two worlds that affect the way we use them. From reading and watching books and movies that begin and end, we now shift towards a dynamic world of the internet, where we can create our own stories within interactive virtual spaces such as social media and open world RPG games.

If anyone is interested, Rushkoff is on an episode of Joe Rogan Experience.

Creative Commons

I have thought a lot about how Youtube has allowed musicians to collaborate and virtually perform together. I also heard about actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s online collaborative production company hitRECord, it was a concept that was just as foreign to me as when I got my first email account. But this is the first time I have heard about Creative Commons. Where have I been?! And now it all makes sense!

Discovering this is quite a big deal for me. Thinking back to when I watched this BBC documentary, ‘Planet Ants: Life inside the colony’, about ant colonies as super-organisms that share all information in order to achieve outcomes that are impossible for one. It inspired me to think very differently about the way we should view our world and interact with each other. That we should aim to be absolutely selfless (or rather to expand, boundlessly, what we include as self) in sharing and responding creatively in order to produce an outcome that wouldn’t exist if we hold on to the idea of ownership and confine the way we define our ‘self’.

Just imagine if we behaved as a super-organism, instead of fighting and competing against one another, I’m sure space-travel would be a common means of transport by now.

New perspective on media literacy

The first Networked Media lecture was intense and unexpected. It encouraged the questioning of everything including the structure of this empirical system in university. One of the many fascinating points in the lecture was that the reasons to attend university are changing. Adrian Miles points out that last time it was a matter of scarcity of equipment, facilities, knowledge and expertise. These things were inaccessible outside of academic communities. And that, many of us without any reflection upon this, carry on this assumption today at a time where the internet has made these qualities of university education accessible via tools like Google, Wikipedia or Youtube tutorials.

Adrian also encouraged the emphasis of quality over quantity in assessing work and educating. These new ways of thinking about learning are refreshing and mind-opening.

First Blog Entry!

Welcome to my self-explanatory-titled blog! Yes, it is quite an obvious title.

Honestly, I have never been much of a blogger and I don’t use Instagram or Twitter. I have a Facebook account but I tend to be occupied with physical interactions and the tonnes of readings each week so I hardly check Facebook these days. When I do have spare time (or when I procrastinate) I usually play with my dogs or I crush candies on my phone!

After learning about this assessment task last week, it has led me to think about blogging a lot more seriously. During the hours of trying to convince myself to start blogging, I analysed why I was so uncomfortable with the situation in the past and present. I came to a conclusion that I have ‘blog-phobia’:

Although I grew up in the early age of the internet, I didn’t have any access to a computer til I was around 14 (Year 8). There wasn’t much reason to use it initially, but of course we all eventually grow extremely dependent on it. Even right now, I realised I use some of the many functions of the internet only for convenience to share and connect with the people I know in real life. I was also very uncomfortable with the idea of uploading or sharing things that people all over the world can see. Paranoid of this constant idea of ‘the Other’ and the unknown (mainly enhanced by the exaggerated warnings of scams and catfishing from my parents). And so I thought I would never need to share my personal life with this “other” world that I seldomly visit.

So my point is that this is quite a challenge to take on this assignment this semester. However, I am embracing this exciting new process in hopes of becoming a less awkward blogger!