Natalie Aarons Blog

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Who is the practitioner? When were they practicing?

Nam June Paik (1932-2006) was a Korean American artist who is considered to be the fore founder of video art. During Paik’s early life he was trained as a classical pianist. Later he moved to Germany to study at Munich University, here he met John cage (American composer, artist and music theorist), and as a result became associated with the with the Neo-Dada art movement, known as Fluxus.

What is the title of the photo or video you have chosen to analyse (can you provide a link?)  

A video by Nam June Paik titled Electric Opera #1.

With the video you are examining, when was it produced (date)?

The Video titled “Electric Opera #1” was produced by Nam June Paik in 1969.

How was the video authored?

This video was authored by Nam June Paik in 1969 by manipulating, altering and saturating the recorded figures of “a topless dancer and three hippies … Richard Nixon and other well-known figures” (New Television Workshop; Medium Is the Medium, The; Nam June Paik’s Electronic Opera #1, 2015). Voice overs issues commands to the audience throughout the clip, such as “This is participation TV”. Paik further instructs viewers to open and close their eyes at particular intervals throughout the clip. At the conclusion of the video a voice instructs viewers to “turn off your TV set”.

How was the video published?

This analogue video was published as an analogue Tv signal. As analogue Tv and videos  “exists as fixed physical objects in the world, their production being dependent upon transcription from one physical state to anther” (Lister, 2009). This includes transcriptions such as cables, aerials, television monitors. Therefore, there are various instances where the signal can be interfered with. Interference became an essential component fo Paik’s work. Paik ensured that the audience questioned whether interferences occurred during the work or they were intentional choices. This video was originally published on an analogue television. further, Paik’s works have been subjects of many exhibitions in museum, for example the Name June Paik Art Center in South Korea.

How was the video distributed?

Till this day Paik’s art works have been distributed and exhibited around art galleries throughout the world. (Guggenheim, 2019). Since the video’s publication in 1969 it has been distributed through various museum sites as well as  online video platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. As a student studying networked media I have also had access to this video through my university, thus it can be concluded that the video is also distributed in an educational way.

References:

Openvault.wgbh.org. 2015. New Television Workshop; Medium Is The Medium, The; Nam June Paik’s Electronic Opera #1. [online] Available at: <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_462A21CAF90A4C5FABE73D9FBCD25BF6> [Accessed 1 May 2020].

Guggenheim 2019, Nam June Paik, viewed 21 April 2018, Guggenheim Collection Online, <https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/nam-june-paik>

Lister, M, Dovey, J, Giddings, S, Grant, I & Kelly, K 2009, New Media: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, New York.

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Who is the practitioner? When were they practicing?

Practitioner Henri Cartier Bresson, is a world renown french photographer. He was considered a master of both candid and street photography. He was also one of the early users of 35mm film. Bresson predominantly practiced photography in the 1930s and 1940s. famously, Bresson viewed photography as a capturing a decisive moment.

What is the title of the photo or video you have chosen to analyse

A documentary titled ‘The decisive moment’, narrated by Henri Cartier Bresson.

With the photo or video, you are examining when was it produced (date)?

The documentary formerly titled “the decisive moments photographs and words” was originally recorded in 1973, it is narrated by Henri Cartier Bresson. However this particular documentary was published in New York, by the International Center of Photography in the year 2007.

How was the photo or video authored?

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in focus, Bresson structured his photos in a way that affects the way the documentary has been authored. “Bresson would often say that his greatest joy was geometry”. In terms of his photographic mise-en-scene, Bresson always took into account the “geometry”  of his photos. This meant that he was “preoccupied with” the “structure” in which each photo was taken. He constantly took photos that were thought out in term of everything within the frame being “in the right place”.

Example photo in the documentary:

This is a perfect example of how Bresson utilised geometry in order to capture the moment. There is different shapes and lines here that compliment each other aesthetically.

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How was the photo or video published?

The documentary was released in 1973, and was published in the form of a short film. This was produced by three different companies;

• Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson
• International Center of Photography
• Scholastic Magazines

The video was published in a way that attracted fans and students to Bresson’s work. As the video features a selection of Bresson’s famous photographs, alongside rare commentary by the photographer himself. The film did not take away from his photographs but in fact gives people insight into Bresson’s mindset.

How was the photo or video distributed?

The video was distributed to those who would take educational value from the contents of the film. It was distributed by being placed in an exhibition at the ICP Museum in New York, where multiple intellectual and culture seeking individuals had access to not only the film but a wide range of publications from Henri Cartier Bresson. Further as a university student studying Networked Media, it is also important to note that I too have had access to this short documentary as a result of my studies. therefore through distribution the film also reached those in fields of study related to photography.

Bibliography:

International Center of Photography. 2020. Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment. [online] Available at: <https://www.icp.org/exhibitions/henri-cartier-bresson-the-decisive-moment> [Accessed 30 April 2020].

International Center of Photography. 2020. Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment. [online] Available at: <https://www.icp.org/exhibitions/henri-cartier-bresson-the-decisive-moment> [Accessed 30 April 2020].

IMDb. 2020. The Decisive Moment (1973) – Imdb. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2071616/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt> [Accessed 30 April 2020].

The Decisive Moment. 1973. [film] Directed by C. Capa. USA: Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson, International Center of Photography, Scholastic Magazines.

When I wake up the first thing I do in the morning is check my phone. After looking at the time and seeing if anyone texted me my thumb autopilots to instagram and will continue to do so throughout the day even if I don’t realise it or consciously go looking to check my instagram feed. Listening to the lecture and doing my readings this week on the topic social media, I began to think about how instagram fit into the concept new media. Elaine my tutor explained “when talking about new media, you are also talking about the existence of social media” to understand this better she gave the class the pot plant metaphor:

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The Pot Plant is a Micro environment. Where the bowl (Pottery) is new media, the roots inside are social media and the leaves are the platform for example; Instagram. This helped me understand that you cant just look at Instagram you have to look beyond the platforms and at the concept of new media to understand how social media and the platforms work.  What intrigued me the most was the concept the people or the users of these platforms and social networks and the impact the users have on the eventual progression of platforms and occurrence of new ones all together.

Another Huge insight I gained from this weeks lecture was the notion that New Media is different to Media in three ways. firstly that new media is digital, its online and its ALWAYS evolving with how society progresses. According to Cambridge Dictionary new media means “using computers or the internet” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2018). I guess thinking about this in more detail or in terms of my course prompt which looks and examines Instagram. The ever evolving platforms looks at the fact that there are new platforms being created all the time. Before Instagram, facebook was the leading social media storm and was the number one platform used to connect online. however due to progression and a shift in the way people digest visual media Instagram was born and quickly become one of the highest rating platforms to date. I guess I found the concept of new media very interesting to me as its broader than just looking at a platform on its own or thinking about social media. New Media according to Eugenia Siapera, author of “Understanding New Media”, is a way to study the link in the way technology interacts with society as a whole.

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readings: Siapera, E. 2013, Understanding New Media. SAGE Publications, London (Section: pp.1-16).

Dictionary.cambridge.org. 2018. Cambridge Dictionary | English Dictionary, Translations & Thesaurus. [online] Available at: <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/> [Accessed 29 March 2020].

This week Networked Media focused on exploring ‘the network’. By looking at the readings and lecture slides I was able to understand some of the key ideas of what the network means in regards to our course prompt; How the affordances of Instagram affect the way photos and videos are authored, published, and distributed in the network.

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One of the readings “New Media: A Critical Introduction”, authored by Martin Lister gave me insight into the notion of User- Generated Content and the way it has affected the way we interact and use the web. Lister suggests that everyone in our modern world no longer needs to know the intricacies of coding in order to share and market on the internet. Lister explained “the increasingly interactive user is constructed as being part of an ever more intimate feedback loop with media producers” (Lister et al 2009,223). This means there has been a large shift in the way people are marketing, advertising and sharing now that platforms are easy to use and user friendly. Instagram is an example of a platform that highlights this concept, the way the platform allows ordinary and everyday users to promote their products and brands is a dramatic juxtaposition to how brand promotion was done in traditionally. Further, content making and distribution as a result has become more equal as people with fewer expertise in digital media softwares are afforded the same access as those who do harness complex software skills.

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My Own example of this is Instagram Influencer Stephanie Claire Smith.

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She is a famous social media influencer on Instagram with 1.6m followers. She started off as just a model posting both about her shoots and outings with friends, however due to her high demand and publicity on social media she was able to start using her platform to promote two business’. Steph constantly posts content on her page for her own fitness brand ‘Keep it Cleaner’ and retail brand ‘Soda Shades’. This works for her as she is both passionate about her brands and fits the part with her sporty physique and summer life style (always wearing sun glasses). She was able to turn her social media account into a business account as she changed the way she was posting and began promoting on her page. This new way of advertising has worked in this instance as the way these two brands attract customers is through her online presence and influence. I believe that this is a great example of Listers concept User- Generated content.

READING: Lister, M et al 2009, New Media: A Critical Introduction. Routledge, 2009. (Sections: Networks, Users and Economics pp 163-169; Wiki Worlds and Web 2.0 pp 204-209; The Long Tail pp 197-200; User-generated content, we are all users now pp 221-232.)

At the beginning of the year I was lucky enough to upgrade from my retro IPhone 8 Plus to the new and improved IPhone 11. There was only one issue… how was I going to adapt to a buttonless iPhone?  for the first few days I tirelessly dragged my thumb across the bottom of my screen forgetting that the task was made redundant by the new face recognition technology. 

Since the beginning of time innovation has caused a common struggle and frustration for people learning how to grasp new technologies and new object functions. In other words, working out the affordances of objects and technologies. Explained during our tutorial we discussed what it means to look at objects or software and determine how we can interact with it and use it.

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According to Donald Norman an affordance “refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used”(Norman, 1998, pg.9). An example of this can be a book. The pages of a book logically are meant to be read, by turning the pages and using our eyes we can digest the words and make sense of them. This is an action. Books however afford many other things that the book designer may not have necessarily have imagined the book could be used for. For example: using the book as a scratcher or as a shield from the rain.

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As the prompt for Networked Media relates directly to the platform Instagram, I thought it would be important to highlight the same frustrations people face when interacting with Instagram software. For someone who is not overly educated on social media and technology it can be hard to grasp Instagram’s many functions, thus becoming one of the constraints associated to affordances.

During the tutorial we identified that constraints can be either physical, semantic, cultural or logical.  Looking directly at Instagram, we can determine some of the constraints that users face while on the platform. For example; A person who has little to know knowledge about social media platforms may have trouble interacting with the platform as they don’t know how to use the software. To like photos on instagram you must double tap the image for it to work, this function is unique to Instagram and thus would make it difficult for non-Instagrammers to use.

So how did they fix this?

Instagram understood that the interface of their software had to be easy to use at the same time as being unique. They decided to make alterations in order to help users understand their actions. For users who couldn’t grasp the double tap motion they added a small heart that would appear as a reaction to your double tap- this was done to show confirmation for users that they had made the ‘like’.

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My example of instagram constraints is comparing my own understanding of Instagram to the way my mother uses the platform. My mother to this day still cant grasp the way the platform works,  countless times she has asked me how to save a photo, how to take a photo and EVEN how to like a photo. It comes down to cultural affordances and logic, I have grown up in the digital native generation where coming across any new software on a platform doesn’t take too long to get the hang of. Personally I find every platform a variation of the  one before. However, my mother didn’t grow up like I have and these things don’t come so easily to her. But you know what I can’t use a VCR.

READING: Core: Norman, D 1998, The design of everyday things , Basic Book, New York (Sections: Preface vii-xv; Chapter one pp 1-13; Chapter 4 (constraints) pp 81-87; (computers) pp 177-186).

As this is my last semester of my Bachelors Degree I wanted to make sure the electives I chose were going to be useful going forwards. I know finishing a degree can be a bit daunting, questions have been bubbling up in my head any minute it gets the chance to… Where do I go from here? Where do I even look for a job? With that I explored my different elective options on enrolment online and came across the course Networked Media- ultimately I chose this course because of the word networked, I know I would like to be as networked as I can to find a job after the next few weeks.

So as I was sitting in my first lecture of Networked Media, honestly I had no idea what to expect. Would it be a group of students just networking and pitching each-other cocktail in hand where they have worked previously sand what skill set is their best? no idea.

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I came to realise that Networked Media would not be about resume conversations and trying to build up personal network’s but rather about exploring the online networking world. Taking Instagram for example, studying it’s software and dissecting its being. We would learn what the software means and how people interact with it whilst even developing our own projects on it to test our theories. This class was definitely not what I expected it to be but I am looking forwards to learning what it has to offer. Further I believe that the skills I’ll learn from this course will definitely aid my career outside of my degree.