Category: Other thoughts

September 25, 2013

Perceived scarcity

I’ve been thinking a lot about the mechanics of scarcity: retail shelf space and the limits of television broadcasting hours, for example. In my contemplations I came across the term ‘perceived scarcity,’ which I think is both an important marketing tool and something to be wary of as a consumer.

Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks

McDonalds McRib

I wonder, how much of value is perceived versus real? Diamonds. Home prices. “Premium” items. Dating. Heck, even in interactions with friends, I sometimes feel like the less available I am (to a point), the more demand there is for my time (or, at least, the higher the perceived value for my time). On a daily basis, I find that many things have mostly implied value, not real value. This is reinforced by something else I often find: demand creates demand. I often (unfortunately) forget how much the concepts of supply and demand factor into many aspects of my daily life — and how much they are shaped by perception. – From thesunRISING

September 24, 2013

Unspun thoughts

A few half-formed thoughts from the last week or two:

Mixing up categories of form and content. Eg, poetic documentary
– I like this idea because I’ve been thinking a lot about contrast, conflict and duality, and how we can make meaning out of deconstruction and appropriation.

Genre – relies on audience formation, so what is interesting about interactive documentary is that its not fixed in terms of audience expectation.

Media literacies around genres and media forms. Are these learnt behaviours? Rap example of “What is this?” and “why would I enjoy this” and “where is the artistry” – the literacies for pleasure and judgement weren’t yet learnt. How can ____ be judged, and why?

Storytelling makes truth claims, either about a world (fiction) or the world (non-fiction)
–> doesn’t all fiction allude to the human condition in some way, hence documentary?

Interactive documentary: Wikipedia = participatory non-fiction

Authorial intention and purpose. Plurality of the ways that texts are engaged with.

Authors can never control the interpretation of their writing
–> books belong to their readers
– eg, example of the Bible, what does it mean!

We can interpret texts, but we can’t have access to the author’s mind. How can we have access to Shakespeare’s mind if he is dead? This is magical thinking. What we interpret is a text, not the author’s mind. Treat the text as the thing with the personality, not the creator.

Author’s cannot control their texts or the interpretations of their texts.

Chop/stop example. We think that reason is in charge of everything that we do, but a trivial childish rhyme can completely subvert what we think is the privilege of reason. If that’s so easy to do, how can we think author’s are in charge of anything, and if we read anything we can get magical access to the author’s mind.

Plot and story. Plot is the order of the things that happen, story is the order in which the things are narrated. Eg, flashbacks, etc.

How does communication work at all if there are no guarantees?

Idea of encoding and decoding – trying to work out the different codes the author/composer may have in the text, they may be thematic, visual, etc, and they use those to construct the story, and the audience can decode that to find meaning in the story.

The difference between understanding the author and the author’s mind, and understanding the author’s composition and strategies.

– Psychoanalytical theory?

The unconscious by definition cannot be known. We analyse the text over the person.

No context can be attached to the text.

Intent cannot survive. We can’t say what we mean because we can’t guarantee the audience will take the meaning away.

We assume there are intentions in the message, but we can’t guarantee we will take the intended message away.

We can’t help but find patterns.

Context cannot survive the text, eg, 1950s film being racist/sexist, or Adrian’s teacher explaining Aboriginals would soon be extinct.

For interactive media, authorial control needs to be surrendered.

September 24, 2013

Other little blobs of clay

Maybe if I post some side projects on here, I’ll feel like I’m being held much more accountable.

Watch this space, etc etc

sexshoesrocknroll.tumblr.com – Sex and the Apple Studios: reappropriating pop culture with the mergence of SATC quotes and classic stills of The Beatles.
Just started crewing for 1700, SYN’s flagship show on Channel 31
graffoodi.wordpress.com – Garnering wisdom from walls and tables

September 24, 2013

The internet of everything

September 24, 2013

Grey water

“There doesn’t have to be a binary choice between hiding networks and revealing networks to be evil and hegemonic. We could decide to materialise technology infrastructure and demonstrate that it is marvellous, powerful and useful. Maybe that would encourage people to try and make their own things with it rather than just run away.”

russell davies: everything visible now

September 24, 2013

Why Today’s Inventors Need to Read More Science Fiction

“Fiction allows you to live more lives in the space-time of one lifetime than you would normally be able to.”

MIT researchers Dan Novy and Sophia Brueckner argue that the mind-bending worlds of authors such as Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke can help us not just come up with ideas for new gadgets, but anticipate their consequences.

How will police use a gun that immobilizes its target but does not kill? What would people do with a device that could provide them with any mood they desire? What are the consequences of a massive, instant global communications network?

Such questions are relevant to many technologies on the market today, but their first iterations appeared not in lab prototypes but in the pages of science fiction.

The Fluid Interfaces group's "Flexpad" (MIT) — The Fluid Interfaces group’s “Flexpad” (MIT)

This fall, MIT Media Lab researchers Dan Novy and Sophia Brueckner are teaching “Science Fiction to Science Fabrication,” aka “Pulp to Prototype,” a course that mines these “fantastic imaginings of the future” for analysis of our very real present.

Ocean Array

The Ocean Array Plan. Devised by 19yo Boyan Slat, this passive system, if installed, could clean up both The Great Pacific Garbage Patch & The North Atlantic Garbage Patch.

Although extensive feasibility studies are currently being conducted, it has been estimated that through the selling of plastic retrieved over the five years, the money would surpass the initial cost to execute the project. In other words, it may even be potentially profitable. Because the main deterrent to implement large scale cleanup projects is due to the financial cost, this solution could perhaps pave ways for future innovations of global cleanup to also be invented.

September 12, 2013

Collaboration and creativity

“Hollywood & Vines” is the first film directed via Twitter and shot entirely on Vine by 100 Viners everywhere from Kansas to Kuwait. This is a great example of when collaboration can result in creativity and innovation.

I have however been reading Susan Cain’s book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, and one particular chapter has had been rethinking group projects at university, particularly when they haven’t gone smoothly. I’ll post a video of this chapter below, but I implore any self-identified introverts to read this book – I’ve learnt an incredible amount about myself and how I learn and think.