In reference to 5.1’s reading of Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology (PDF) It discusses on the idea of culture and technology, how technology in the 21st century must be able to adjust to changing social circumstances, and that new media in particular requires creative engagement with rapidly developing technologies.

While I’ve learnt from my previous modules that Techno-determinism itself is solely the cause of everything, the belief is that people actually depend on technology to shape our social structures and society… Machines have finally won the battle and taken a toll on us. I’d like to believe so and it might be true to a certain extent but I choose not to bend to that side. Instead, I feel that even though the  system of technology  has become vital in our everyday lives, it’s not just a physical thing, not just a technical invention, but it any inclusion of  how people use it, the body of knowledge that exists within it, and most of all it involves techniques.

Aside from all the technicalities, I’d like to relate it to how technology affects the music culture. Back in 2012, I was working at a mens fashion label brand called sifr back in singapore. As it was a small company, we shared an office together with Syndicate (a company famous for deconstructing and reassembling sound concepts and visual ideas with live performances and installations set in various spaces and contexts) and other smaller companies like Google street snap and other media companies. Whilst working on my media campaigns and design work, I found out that Syndicate was working with Monster Cat, ( an alternative folk-rock band in Singapore) on their latest music video, Underwater.

What amazed me was that, it wasn’t a typical MTV you’ll see on tv, but syndicate x monster cat brought this entire video to a whole new level with a play of  technology. Just watch it, it’s so warped, so morbid.

Mask projections with the play of paper? Technology is really frightening, it amplifies our human behaviour and moral judgement, yet it spreads beauty and brillant ideas just like how it is in the video. There’s just no stopping in progress in the world today, all we can do is to stay ahead. From everything to emotional solace, to motivation, enlightenment, the used of technology and the values and heritage we take from this are all a collective of our growing culture experience, which has proved itself to be valuable. To me I feel that, music is just like technology, a vessel through which you can channel and amplify your own ideas and prejudices.

“If we do not maintain the relevance of our work to the culture we exist in – if we rarify and exult bits of musical culture for no truly logical reason – and if we do not understand how profoundly and how rapidly technology is changing that culture, then we cannot begin to adapt that which is musically most precious to us to the demands of an ever-evolving world.” 

Remember the times where we used to get so stoked writing “testimonials” to our peers, your wall on Friendster was filled with “testimonials” about you from your friends about how awesome you were, or memories they had of you? logging into the site every night just to fill our profiles with our personal details, photos and interests? And to be honest, getting your friend count as high as possible? Well, your friendly friendster is now gone. Pretty much like everyone else, I was first introduced to it at the age of 12. It was an introduction to the whole social networking platform and it definitely made an impact in all aspects of my social/love life. (haha, yes, i found my first love through friendster – facepalm ) Well least I never jumped into the bandwagon of dating sites. hhahah

Out of curiosity, I decided to dig out my old friendster profile one day (hoping to reminisce and laugh at old photos) BUT, NO. Friendster called it quits in 2011, purged all remaining profiles, including MINE >:( What used to be a “platform for networking” has now transformed into a game-oriented social networking site. My first thought – what the heck?

“What they found was that by 2009, Friendster still had tens of millions of users, but the bonds linking the network weren’t particularly strong. Many of the users weren’t connected to a lot of other members, and the people they had befriended came with just a handful of their own connections. So they ended up being so loosely affiliated with the network, that the burden of dealing with a new user interface just wasn’t worth it” – The Friendster Autopsy 

With the rise of Facebook and Twitter over the years, I guess what led to the death of friendster was that the service didn’t offer anything substantial that went beyond merely just beautifying our profiles. The core idea of social media platforms is networking, and what I got out of Wednesday’s symposium was that , networks are always learning and are that both preferential attachment and growth exists in real networks. I was introduced to a new concept in Barabási, Albert-László. “Rich Get Richer” ‘s reading abut the the Barabási–Albert model. It is one of several proposed models that generates scale-free networks whilst incorporating 2 important general concepts: growth and preferential attachment. Growth meaning that the number of nodes in the network increases over time and preferential attachment meaning that the more connected a node is, the more likely it is to receive new links. Intuitively, the preferential attachment can be understood if we think in terms of social networks connecting people.

Gone were the days where traditionally we have certain power companies dictating what people should be reading, and that distributiion was centered around specific points, now that we have internet people from anywhere get anything.  Facebook allows you to share posts, videos, create groups, upload pictures, meet new people, that’s a social phenomenon right there in the 21st century! In comparison to Friendster, it didn’t understand the basic tenets of social media. Friendster put way too much emphasis on the media, and not enough on the social. I’ve learnt that for a social network to be successful, the focus needs to be interactive. Posting up a status on your Facebook account encourages reaching out to people, putting yourself out there. Friendster didn’t stand a chance once facebook actually made the new feed its focus, even if they did, it was far too late. Facebook was skyrocketting while Friendster was just like waving through glue. Particularly, the reason why it also failed was that it did not fully understand the subtleties of social media when it mattered most to its own existence. It didn’t realize that user profiles were the only one element of the experience, and not even the most important one at that. What was genius about Facebook was that it first lured us into the games, and creating of profiles, now sharing and uploading of pictures by everyone, we don’t turn to MSN or ICQ anymore, but Facebook chat, and ultimately the news feed function.

Taken  from the link above, you can see the hollowing out of Friendster in this diagram:

 

Ultimately, Crafting a great profile can be fun, even satisfying, but it’s really just another game. And like all games, eventually it bores you.
My final testimonial to Friendster :

 

 

 
xx, Dana.

Most writers who choose to write in the form of hyperfiction describes some sort of epiphany. Knowing that some some plots/narratives/ characters of what they have been hoping to write seems to be a chore to represent on paper. They are thrilled at the way they can share their personal associations in the form of links. The challenge of hyperfiction for authors is not about getting your work distributed or respected but  it challenges almost every notion about what fiction is, or should be. The hyperfiction author must have a strong understanding of what the traditional genre entails so that they can go beyond what is expected. In the extract from Douglas, J. Yellowlees. The End of Books — Or Books Without End?: Reading Interactive Narratives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Print. (PDF) It says :

Writing hypertext fiction and poetry, by all the accounts, raises the author’s consciousness about the elements and relationships that structure a conventional linear text: “what are ‘plot’ and ‘character,’ and how does one create them in the absence of linear telling?

In the story of Midsummer’s Night Dream, 4 lovers are caught in a love triangle, Lysander loves Hermia, and Hermia loves Lysander. Helena loves Demetrius; Demetrius used to love Helena but now loves Hermia. In the midst of the story, they are caught in chaos. However at the end of the play, Puck (the fairy) “restores amends” and suggests to the audience that what they just experienced might be nothing but a dream (hence the name of the play). I feel that mid summer night’s dream is just another play that Shakespeare wrote to tell the readers that even though there is chaos that erupts between the world of man (order) and the world of magic/nature in the story,  there is always a light at the end of the tunnel?

Endings define stories. A great ending can make everything that’s come before seem retroactively great. A weak ending can ruin everything. But why do they have to be so impossible to write? And is there any trick for crafting a strong ending that doesn’t involve endless misery?  What about happy endings ? Are these stories destructive to our culture in any way? Certainly it does creates unrealistic expectations.

Got our new Niki topic for the week and it’s related to DNS & IP Address. Nothing foreign about IP addresses, but what caught me off guard was DNS. What in the world is DNS you might ask? Well, DNS stands for Domain Name System.

DNS is an internet service that translates domain names/hostnames to IP addresses. This is one of the crucial services on the Internet, greatly facilitating the access of users to websites, by helping each visitor refer to the desired website by typing its alpha-numeric name in the browser instead of its real numeric system name which is called the IP address. Basically it acts just like a phonebook for the cyberspace. While the people at Howstuffworks termed it as a GPS for the internet, I’ll make things simpler, the DNS acts like a phonebook, and the IP addresses are just like the phone numbers. It makes searching for websites so much easier.

With so much to handle, DNS servers rely on network efficiency and Internet protocols. IP addresses do for computer networks what phone numbers do for people’s telephones. With tens of millions of computers connected to the internet, having these IP addresses sorted out is essential to keep things straight.

Here’s a video that I found in the net that shows how the internet works:

Hmm, i’m stuffed, still thinking of what I can expand on this subject.
Relating IP addresses and DNS to the GPS and the phonebook sounds like a fun thing to work on though! Look out for more ideas soon. – Brainstorming in process.

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown. Tokyo, the metropolitan city that is brimming with so much life and rich cultural, has always been one of my favorite cities to visit.

Mount Fuji

My brother and I right smacked at Tokyo’s Harajuku District. This place is known for it’s avenue of upscale boutiques, cafes and several leading designer brand shops. My bro and I are avid fans of Japanese street brands, like Mastermind, Porter Tokyo, Neighbourhood etc ++ WHOOOOO spell heaven.

This is the world famous Shibuya crossing! Found myself hurling into the incoming horde of people, people inseparable at first glance judging from the close proximity at which they walk, yet, thronging among the crowds, under the rain, it was clear everyone was different and distinct.

Got inspired by the shibuya crossing and made an illustration at the end of my trip.

Check out Mardi’s heartwarming post about the kids she met in India 🙂

I remembered when I was young, I used to be scampering up and down like a daredevil in my pink ranger mask,seeking for evil ‘forces” and people to fight with, down my old grandma’s place at Faber drive. Back then , we were fearless, undaunted and we knew we had each other, and there was nothing in the world that we had to fret upon other than defeating “Lord Zedd” – our uncle. (haha.)
 

I’ve always favored the notion of make believe.

To me, it’s me forgetting the world, forgetting where and what we ever were, it’s reassurance, loving and hating people of the same calibre, starting over with no regrets, re-introducing everyone all over again, righting the wrongs,building sandcastles in the skies, fortresses with our minds, walls that seem impermeable to the ocean’s tired tide… And even when someone gets hurt, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
–
Let’s play make believe again,
As though,
I still belong.

When you talk about six degrees of separation, I think of The Script. The irish rock band of Dublin that came up with a song to the words of that. In it the lyrics of the song orbits around the whole idea of a theory “Six degrees of separation” that was introduced  in the video Six degrees.

“First, you think the worst is a broken heart
What’s gonna kill you is the second part
And the third, Is when your world splits down the middle
And fourth, you’re gonna think that you fixed yourself
Fifth, you see them out with someone else
And the sixth, is when you admit that you may have messed up a little.

No there’s no starting over,
Without finding closure,
You’d take them back,
No hesitation,
That’s when you know you’ve reached the sixth degree of separation”

Even though this might come off as a sappy emo love song, but, the idea of it is there. I see this as different phases or degrees you go through in a real separation. Whether is it separation by marriage, a relationship, emotional, mental, physical, the song is a  journey from the starting point of the separation and the degree(s) that it will take you to.  Similar to the experiment that was shown in the video, no matter our big our world is, the theory of “six degrees” is evident that our world is connected in just six handshakes. or maybe lesser.

While it is known that six degrees of separation could be a chain, or a circle- always bringing you back to a person, bumping into a certain person that you once loved or knew…, somehow you’re still bound and unable to completely detach yourself from that “chain” of network ( friends to lovers to strangers? Technically, that’s never the case. you’re never strangers with your ex lover. why? Because being a stranger means being unaccustomed to or unacquainted with something specified but no, you have mutual friends!)

In the readings of Watts, Duncan J. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. London: Vintage, 2003. Print. (Extract, PDF), he talks about how being too connected could be either good news or bad news to us.  Mentioning about the use of electricity to hubs within the human cell.. I’d like to put things simpler, it just like having too many friends. Sometimes having too many connections isn’t a good thing, it causes drama if you can’t keep up with ur “connections”

 

I was thinking while reading up and watching the video. What are things that make the world “smaller” and connected? My first thought was music. Without the treble clef … would we be able to make music? Lyrics, tunes, instruments, the singers, studio works and all the different components that make up a song, these are essential and the fundamentals of making a song. Music acts like a main hub of connection.

With that, through music, people can experience different cultures and different emotions. The world is also linked together through music because people can all relate to the emotions and stories told in songs. Furthermore, when people find similarities in musical tastes, they tend to become friends too!!!


Read more about Venessa’s take on six degrees of separation here!

In the previous class, Elliot introduced to us to the 6 thinking hat process to critique our Niki entries. It was sort of a guideline to recognize if there was anything missing in our entry that prevented it from being an interesting article. It provided us with a new approach of problem solving with the use of certain categories, thus allowing us to rectify whatever that needs to be touch up.

I figured that this process could be applied to anything, especially for designers. We are so used to doing the things that we are so comfortable with that we develop our own habits unconsciously, hence, our perception on things/ideas can get obscured.

Initially, our Niki article was just a plain wordy mock up interview with Howard Rheingold. Kimberly and I came up with possible strategies that we thought could make the article more interesting, however we realised that time wasn’t on our side. So we ditched the idea. It strucked us that we were “dealing” with a social media addict just right before the presentation. So tadaaaa! We made our interview into a facebook conversation with Howard Rheingold, felt that with the use of facebook conversations makes everything more casual and informal, on the other hand showing some traits of his outgoing personality! What do you think of it!?

Oh btw, if you’re wondering how to embed pictures to your Niki page, just upload your picture onto ur Facebook group or an album. Copy the URL of the image itself, and insert this html code into the “Text tab – coding page” of the entry.

<img src=”paste url here“>

And you’re good to go!

Again. Wasted pictures. I  dont know what to do with these set of pictures. That hobby of mine turned out into something that was part of my career again. I’ve always wondered what makes a good photographer? Yeah, everyone can claim that they’re a photographer as long as they have a hold on a DSLR. What makes a photographer unique? Well, my experience in Singapore, if your expertise is in photography, then you’ve got to fight for that attention.

How to survive in Singapore if you’re planning to get your works out there:
(Disclaimer : please sense my sarcasm, whatever that I wrote here is based on experiences from friends & what I got out of living in sg for 21 years of my life)

1. Hang with people who are in the social scene
Why? You might be surprise, because they are the ones with plenty of connections.

2. Take Tumblr like, pixie kind of pictures. That’s the trend right now yeah ain’t it?

3. Be superficial. Take pictures of pretty and popular girls only. U know girls who are of a hybrid of dutch/british/malay/scottish/ chinese/ american blood etc? Oh and once they actually thank you as a photographer and post up their pictures on facebook, you’ll probably get that 15 minutes of fame on facebook. Yeah, it’s funny because the links on your model’s facebook goes over to 134 ++ etc likes, where it comes down to a miserable 30 likes on your album. See where i’m going? (as long as they don’t look asian, that’s the way to go)

4. Make sure you have good works too, yknow. It’s embarrassing to claim that you’re a photographer and produce work that can be taken using instagram.

5. Send all your entries to whatever contest there is, go for whatever events there is. Fashion events/ clubbing events / launch of some brand just go. You need to socialise to get your name out there.

6. Bring your namecard wherever you go. You want people to remember you? Hell yeah, here’s my name and my contact number please call me back if u need me or when you actually remember me.

7. Get into a fun photography agency with popular photographers.

8. Keep posting your work everywhere. Till your friends get sick of it.

9. Dress like a photographer or a hipster MAN. really, you’ll totally fit in.

No offence to anything, but i’m just saying this is how it works. How it works for struggling “photographers” who are in their 20s and who have no direction in their life in singapore. Sad, but true. Anyhow, I hope you liked what I’ve got. I never got to publish these pictures, always thought they were just a load full of pictures without meaning. This is just a set of photos that somehow complied to whatever that I’ve just said. Except, it never got anywhere.

 How has it worked out for you as an artist/designer/media student ? What are the trends and patterns have you picked out in your creative industry? Are you willing to comform? Is this just a way of life?

This post is very much like the reading done by Paul Graham about the “The Age of the Essay” . In it we all spoke about how ironic his entire article was because it was just basically bemoaning structures in an essay, yet still comforming to the conventional sort of writing while coming up with the article. I guess it goes for the same for this, here I am trying to critique every thing that is flawed about the scene of being a photographer in Singapore, but somehow or another my pictures that I’ve shown you are just basically proof of certain topics that I’ve touched on.

Symposium on monday was based on the 3.1 readings,  Landow, George. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization, Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing, and Graham, Paul. “The Age of the Essay.”

Here are some key points I got off from Monday’s symposium:

1. Different points come back to the same thing
The way we sort of look at text that isn’t linear all these different problems and issues keeping coming in with realation to hypertext text and conventional written text

2. Writing with the awareness with a part of discourse (check out my previous post on it)

3. Hypertext – Most of the time, the evidence can be provided in between the links instead of the texts itself. During the discussion, Elliot mentioned about one of the readings by Landow that when you are looking at a hypertext environment, it more or less imitates the way you think and act. It reflects how our brain works, how you would like to associate and shape yourself with  experiences and contextual knowledge of the particular subject. Examples would be search engines & online stores.

4.This is the natural way we work, we network in our everyday life, since the virtual world is taking up a form, we find ourselves constantly networking our way through technology. Then again, it makes us think what we can do with technology other than just links creating links and hypertext.

5. Bolter’s reading talks about writing as a state of mind than technology, most of the time we dont think of writing a certain way, words wise, not structure wise, it comes natural to us, it is something that is ingrained in us. So when we write something we are not consciously writing just because of the technology given. He also stated that writing is something that is interiorized, so it makes us difficult to recognize writing as a technology.  When we write, it give us thoughts to weigh our words, it gives us some sort of discipline, reproduce in such a way where it is less restricted, we can somehow move back and forth from different topics and conversations.

6. Linear structures in technology – moving away from it, and welcoming this new network approach and technological era, in order to allow the reader to get optimum experience from whatever you are trying to put across in your writings

7. In Graham’s reading, he discusses the issue on how writing is a mixed up with literature, how history and composition has something to do with literature and that what we learnt in school is more of applying the skill to write and not knowing what to write.

8. One good point that was brought up was that, even though Graham was being critical about how students have been taught on how to write essays, and  how traditional it was… yet the article that he wrote came as a huge paradox to whatever that he was trying to bring across, being a conventional writer with structure.

9. How much respect is given to the person and judge based on the quality of writing?
I guess this is what I’ve discussed in my previous post about “structure of discourse and power”  “Who can say or write what to whom in what situations? Who has access to the various forms or genres of discourse or to the means of its reproduction? Who am I to think out loudly? Is it true that the less powerful people are, the less they have access to various forms of text or talk? ”

10.The type of sources valuable in an structured essay are usually the evidence that are provided with analytic view rather than journalistic.

Aight I’ll leave you with methods which Incidental Comics posted. It’s  just what we all need to get those creative juices flowing ^^ Although, I wouldn’t recommend you taking drugs, only if you must… hahahhaha

“The symposium then took a bit of a random tangent off in the direction of web search engines.” – Click here to find out more about what Tim had to say about this!