There are certain ways to find things; other ways do not work. The coverpop for finding items on Amazon is one of the ways that doesn’t. For browsing photos or just for browsing randomly, it is a valid search tool. If one was trying to find something specific, it would be maddening if that was the only way possible.
On the other hand, this method of finding images would be valuable were someone to do a collage of some sort. The colrpickr version would also be valuable for a mosaic type of thing also.
(like this)
http://www.aolej.com/mosaic/gallery/colo.jpg
Mostly, I found the coverpop page aggravating and useless because I would never search for something in that manner and when I was trying to see different books, it would continue to show the same cover. Perhaps this was just because the collage repeated books in order to make a better rainbow. The colrpickr was more appealing to me because there seemed to be more of a method to finding the photos. Not only could you decide what color scheme you were looking for the pictures in, but you could narrow it down into categories. Changing the categories was also available in coverpop, but it was still more frustrating for me to navigate.
Of the first four websites given, my favorite was the flickr map search tool. This is mostly because I found it interesting to see what regions of the world were taking pictures of what. The fact that you could see the exact location of where the picture was coming from intrigued me also. (I actually wasn’t sure whether the given location was where the photo was taken or where the photographer was from…)
Of the last three websites, I was able to navigate the first and the last, but not the “don’t shoot the puppy” site. There were only two objects that you were able to click: one didn’t do anything and the other made a screen come up saying “You lost.” I still don’t know how you’re supposed to win. All the websites seem to play with the concept of doing something you’re not supposed to. With the red dot, there is nothing else to click, so the viewer is certainly going to click it. I’m not sure how someone would have found that site if they didn’t have it shown to them, though. No one would search for something like that. The website, dontclick.it was a strange concept. I hadn’t ever questioned having a mouse or the other ways that could be used to navigate the computer. Because I have had my mouse and keyboard broken several times, I have found other ways to execute the same functions.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Blog 12: Museum of Jurassic Technology
The organization of the Museum of Jurassic Technology seemed rather like a maze to me, winding from one room to the next. I sometimes got lost due to the lack of apparent progression between the exhibits. Perhaps if I had read up on the museum before coming, I would have been less confused. I visited the museum’s website and read its page of introduction and realized that it had explained that in one of its exhibits closest to the entrance. But again, because it was not anymore prominently displayed than the photo of Noah’s arc on the other side of the entrance to the main museum, I did not pay the introduction video that much attention. The website eliminates the museum’s purpose:
My favorite part of the museum was the exhibit on the pieces of art made of the scales of butterfly wings (see photo above). Henry Dalton, who lived from 1829-1911, created the pieces of art. Being the son of a physician, his skill with microscopes is not that surprising. After designing a slide, he would collect butterfly wings from all over the world, sort the scales by size, shape and color and then create his works of art. Some of Dalton’s micromosaics would require as many as one thousand individual butterfly scales.
I chose the butterfly wing scale pictures because they demonstrate technology’s ability to make seemingly useless pieces of the world into beautiful, if not useful commodities. While the creation of art from butterfly scales seems a rather useless pastime, the fact that it was possible as early as the mid-19th century is notable. It makes one think about how technology has advanced our society to the point where we have the spare time to muse over butterfly wing art.
“Like a coat of two colors, the Museum serves dual functions. On the one hand the Museum provides the academic community with a specialized repository of relics and artifacts from the Lower Jurassic, with an emphasis on those that demonstrate unusual or curious technological qualities. On the other hand the Museum serves the general public by providing the visitor a hands-on experience of "life in the Jurassic"....I’m still not completely sure how statues made small enough to fit inside the heads of needles are related to medieval paintings of religious figures, other than by allowing a man’s mind to attain a mood of aloofness. Perhaps the reason why it is so hard for me to grasp the concept of the museum is because I was raised in an era where methods of amusing ourselves are increasingly mindless – videogames, movies, television. The concept of the museum seems to be to make one think. Though, I don’t classify myself as one of the mindless followers of the era, the fact that I am more used to those methods of entertainment than museums of seemingly random displays is possibly the explanation for my confusion.
...The public museum as understood today, is a collection of specimens and other objects of interest to the scholar, the man of science as well as the more casual visitor, arranged and displayed in accordance with the scientific method. In its original sense, the term "museum" meant a spot dedicated to the muses - "a place where man's mind could attain a mood of aloofness above everyday affairs."
My favorite part of the museum was the exhibit on the pieces of art made of the scales of butterfly wings (see photo above). Henry Dalton, who lived from 1829-1911, created the pieces of art. Being the son of a physician, his skill with microscopes is not that surprising. After designing a slide, he would collect butterfly wings from all over the world, sort the scales by size, shape and color and then create his works of art. Some of Dalton’s micromosaics would require as many as one thousand individual butterfly scales.
I chose the butterfly wing scale pictures because they demonstrate technology’s ability to make seemingly useless pieces of the world into beautiful, if not useful commodities. While the creation of art from butterfly scales seems a rather useless pastime, the fact that it was possible as early as the mid-19th century is notable. It makes one think about how technology has advanced our society to the point where we have the spare time to muse over butterfly wing art.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Blog 11: Small World
I enjoyed exploring the interactive film, Small World, by Florian Thalhofer, but I have to admit, I was slightly confused by it. I realize what it has to do with the narrative structures we have been talking about, but I can only guess what its relationship to space and postmodernism could be. At first it was difficult to enjoy the abstractness of the photos that were brought up, but after a few of them, I started appreciating them and recognizing their connection to the bits of story being told.
The narrative structure is obvious: once the scene is finished, squares pop up that you are allowed to click on. It seemed to me that the choices narrowed as you progress through the film. The little red box at the top right seemed to keep track of how many slides you had gone through. The narrative wasn’t continuous, because when I had gone through all the scenes, it told me it was “the end.” So rather than being a continuous story, it had one specific ending; how you got to the end was your own choice, though. The links to different pages related to each other. Even though they were on several different pages, I could tell that each grouping followed one another.
The relationship to space might refer to the placement of the boxes that you clicked on once the scene was finished. Something interesting that I noticed was that all of the music, except for one song, was from Americans bands. The one song that wasn’t from an American band was by Belle & Sebastian, a Scottish pop band, who also sings in English. This seemed a little different considering that the main version of the film is in German. When I went back to the site and watched the version in German, the songs were not played for as long as they were in the English version. Perhaps this was a way to make the English speakers feel more connected to the foreign origin of the film?
The narrative structure is obvious: once the scene is finished, squares pop up that you are allowed to click on. It seemed to me that the choices narrowed as you progress through the film. The little red box at the top right seemed to keep track of how many slides you had gone through. The narrative wasn’t continuous, because when I had gone through all the scenes, it told me it was “the end.” So rather than being a continuous story, it had one specific ending; how you got to the end was your own choice, though. The links to different pages related to each other. Even though they were on several different pages, I could tell that each grouping followed one another.
The relationship to space might refer to the placement of the boxes that you clicked on once the scene was finished. Something interesting that I noticed was that all of the music, except for one song, was from Americans bands. The one song that wasn’t from an American band was by Belle & Sebastian, a Scottish pop band, who also sings in English. This seemed a little different considering that the main version of the film is in German. When I went back to the site and watched the version in German, the songs were not played for as long as they were in the English version. Perhaps this was a way to make the English speakers feel more connected to the foreign origin of the film?
Monday, November 10, 2008
Blog 10: Videodrome
Normally, I look forward analyzing videos or text for IML 101, but after seeing Videodrome, I was dreading it. Videodrome could perhaps be viewed as a form of “art,” but to me, it is an unnecessary focus on the perverted underworld of violence and sex. Never in my life would I have chosen to watch something like that. There are many other movies that could have applied to Marshall MacLuhan’s theories. Never will I willingly watch something like that again.
I was disturbed and upset by the film.
Since watching the movie, it has not seemed as bad as I thought at first, simply because my brain has tried to rationalize it. This horrifies me because I do not want to normalize any sort of behavior relating to the sadomasochistic smut that we watched. I have tried to block the movie from my mind.
I hate having to recall the movie, but since my grade depend upon it, I will now relate Cronenberg’s Videodrome to Marshall McLuhan’s theories:
McLuhan’s concept of a global village can be seen in Videodrome in the way that the main character is able to pick up channels being distributed from around the world.
McLuhan’s text states, “all media work us over completely.” This is also apparent in Videodrome in the way that the main character becomes so completely involved with his work that it becomes a part of his life away from work. He is apparently extra-receptive to the hallucinations because of his exposure to violence and sex in the media.
“We are enveloped by sound… We can’t shut out sound automatically.” – McLuhan. A reader can choose to look away from reading a book if it becomes distasteful. A listener cannot choose to close their “earlids” when they hear something they do not like. When the main character is watching Dr. Oblivion’s videos and hallucinating, looking away will not stop him from experiencing the sounds of the recording. He could have shut the TV off (but perhaps the hallucination’s grasp on him were too strong), but otherwise, he was plagued by the sound coming from the television.
“In television, the images are projected at you. You are the screen. The images wrap around you. You are the vanishing point.” – McLuhan. The first part of the quote is relevant to the movie because the main character’s job depends on sampling media for his television channel’s audience. The second part of the quote is relevant in a whole different level because the screen stimulates the hallucinations and they take hold of the audience.
I was disturbed and upset by the film.
Since watching the movie, it has not seemed as bad as I thought at first, simply because my brain has tried to rationalize it. This horrifies me because I do not want to normalize any sort of behavior relating to the sadomasochistic smut that we watched. I have tried to block the movie from my mind.
I hate having to recall the movie, but since my grade depend upon it, I will now relate Cronenberg’s Videodrome to Marshall McLuhan’s theories:
McLuhan’s concept of a global village can be seen in Videodrome in the way that the main character is able to pick up channels being distributed from around the world.
McLuhan’s text states, “all media work us over completely.” This is also apparent in Videodrome in the way that the main character becomes so completely involved with his work that it becomes a part of his life away from work. He is apparently extra-receptive to the hallucinations because of his exposure to violence and sex in the media.
“We are enveloped by sound… We can’t shut out sound automatically.” – McLuhan. A reader can choose to look away from reading a book if it becomes distasteful. A listener cannot choose to close their “earlids” when they hear something they do not like. When the main character is watching Dr. Oblivion’s videos and hallucinating, looking away will not stop him from experiencing the sounds of the recording. He could have shut the TV off (but perhaps the hallucination’s grasp on him were too strong), but otherwise, he was plagued by the sound coming from the television.
“In television, the images are projected at you. You are the screen. The images wrap around you. You are the vanishing point.” – McLuhan. The first part of the quote is relevant to the movie because the main character’s job depends on sampling media for his television channel’s audience. The second part of the quote is relevant in a whole different level because the screen stimulates the hallucinations and they take hold of the audience.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Blog 9: The Postmodern Flâneur
"Flâneur" is a word understood intuitively by the French to mean "stroller, idler, walker." He has been portrayed in the past as a well-dressed man, strolling leisurely through the Parisian arcades of the nineteenth century--a shopper with no intention to buy, an intellectual parasite of the arcade. Traditionally the traits that mark the flâneur are wealth, education, and idleness. He strolls to pass the time that his wealth affords him, treating the people who pass and the objects he sees as texts for his own pleasure.
- http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/flaneur.html
As an extension of this definition, a postmodern flâneur could be defined as the online world – browsing the Internet for information or goods. After going through the online world of Second Life, it is obvious that it can be defined as a “postmodern flâneur” as well.
Once my account was set up, and I had downloaded the program, it took me to a part of the Second Life world for a tutorial. It walked me through the steps of how to control my character’s movements and how to change the looks of my character, or avatar as they were calling it. The funny thing about “avatars” is that in most other cases that I’ve known of or had avatars, they were still, small, square image; not moving, interacting characters. As I was walking and flying around (because in Second Life, that is possible), another character came up to me and started talking. Normally, in a video game, it is only a computer-generated character you are interacting with; in Second Life, you are interacting with any human who has internet capabilities. There are so many warnings out there now about not talking to strangers in the online world, much the same as warning about strangers in the real world. A key difference, though, is that online strangers have the capabilities to hack into your computer, which stores tons of personal information that you might not have in any other location. So, I decided not to “talk with” the person who came up to me.
After walking around for a while, I decided to try and leave this learning stage of the Second Life world. It took me a while to figure out, but I finally “teleported” to another location. There was a lot I wanted to try and do, but because I lacked the knowledge of how to do things, I felt limited. I also didn’t want to get involved in a role-play sort of thing or sent on a mission anywhere. This seems to make it similar to a window-shopping experience in that you do not have to get involved. A user in Second Life can merely be a passive player in the game. It seems like a lot of time has to be invested if you want to accomplish anything in the game.
While the world is quite extensive, there are still glitches in the graphics. When I was trying to get into a place that seemed like a mall, I tried flying in, but then the walls closed in front of me and wouldn’t let me through. And when I was changing the looks of my character, it wouldn’t always do it correctly. I changed the type of shoe my character was wearing and it ended up looking like she had huge holes in her shoes because her feet were sticking out. These sort of things wouldn’t happen in the real world.
One of the major differences between walking though a fake world and through the real one is that there are no smells in the fake world. I remember reading something in a psychology class junior year that our sense of smell is the only one that goes directly to the cortex of the brain, bypassing the thalamus. This allows us to link smells more directly with memories and emotions. Just yesterday as I was walking to the football game, I thought of camping because it smelled like rain and fires. My friends experienced a similar sensation. In the world of Real Life, there aren’t any smells to trigger memories.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Blog 8: Multimedia Genre - Narrative
First of all: when I saw The Way Things Go video, I was immediately reminded of the Honda Accord Commercial that I saw from an email. The text of the email is as follows:
Here’s the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyN9y0BEMqc
I have seen various other movies before in which inanimate objects independently affect each other in order to create another response that repeatedly triggers action, as seen in the Honda Accord commercial and in The Way Things Go. Perhaps it is because I do not know the maker’s intent in The Way Things Go, but the Honda commercial seems to have a greater purpose and limitations that the engineers overcame, making me more in awe of the footage. Perhaps it’s also because I know the other background facts about the Honda commercial (606 takes, 6 million dollars to film, etc). It seems like there is greater creativity in the Honda commercial, because they were limited to using the car they were promoting (similar to the film style in Leth and von Trier’s film, The Five Obstructions). The narrative seemed self-explanatory; the objects were acting upon each other to prompt the motion of the next.
While I didn’t fully understand the narrative in The Way Things Go, Soft Cinema seemed to have more of a point behind it. Practically all cultures have symbols and colors that have specific meanings. Colors, for example, indicate seasons, teams, and even emotions. The combination of colors, images, text, and sound form what seems to be a more realistic representation of how our brains recall memories. Humans don’t have a perfect memory; details are often left out in exchange for emotions. Soft Cinema was confusing to watch at first, but made more sense as I adjusted to watching it. It’s one thing to think of one’s brain processing and recording memories in the manner Soft Cinema does, but it’s another to watch it on a screen. Watching the video seemed to almost require a passive viewer who didn’t concentrate too hard on the separate pieces of the movie, rather digested it as a whole.
If you thought that the people who set up a room full of dominoes to have them knocked over later was amazing, you haven't seen anything yet. There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in these images. Everything that you see happened in real time exactly as you see it.
The recording required 606 takes and in the first 605 takes there always was something, usually of minor importance, that didn't work. It was necessary for the recording team to install the set-up time after time and it took several weeks working day and night to achieve this effect. The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish,
including the engineering design of the sequence. The duration of the video is only 2 minutes, but every time that Honda shows the commercial on British television, they make enough money to support any of us for the rest of our lives. However, this commercial has turned out to be the most displayed in the history of the Internet. Honda execs think that it will pay for itself simply because of the free showings (Honda is not paying one cent for you to see it) When Honda senior execs viewed it, they immediately approved it without hesitation-including costs.
There are only six Honda Accords built by hand in the whole world, and to the horror of Honda engineers, the recording team disassembled two of them for the recording. Everything you see in the sequence (besides the walls, floor, ramp and untouched Honda Accord) is part of those two automobiles. The voice is that of Garrison Keiller. The commercial was so well received by Honda execs when they saw it, that their first comment was how amazing the computer graphics were. They almost fell out of their chairs when told that the recording was real without any graphics manipulation
By the way, about the wind shield wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are sensitive to water and designed to start working as soon as they get wet.
Here’s the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyN9y0BEMqc
I have seen various other movies before in which inanimate objects independently affect each other in order to create another response that repeatedly triggers action, as seen in the Honda Accord commercial and in The Way Things Go. Perhaps it is because I do not know the maker’s intent in The Way Things Go, but the Honda commercial seems to have a greater purpose and limitations that the engineers overcame, making me more in awe of the footage. Perhaps it’s also because I know the other background facts about the Honda commercial (606 takes, 6 million dollars to film, etc). It seems like there is greater creativity in the Honda commercial, because they were limited to using the car they were promoting (similar to the film style in Leth and von Trier’s film, The Five Obstructions). The narrative seemed self-explanatory; the objects were acting upon each other to prompt the motion of the next.
While I didn’t fully understand the narrative in The Way Things Go, Soft Cinema seemed to have more of a point behind it. Practically all cultures have symbols and colors that have specific meanings. Colors, for example, indicate seasons, teams, and even emotions. The combination of colors, images, text, and sound form what seems to be a more realistic representation of how our brains recall memories. Humans don’t have a perfect memory; details are often left out in exchange for emotions. Soft Cinema was confusing to watch at first, but made more sense as I adjusted to watching it. It’s one thing to think of one’s brain processing and recording memories in the manner Soft Cinema does, but it’s another to watch it on a screen. Watching the video seemed to almost require a passive viewer who didn’t concentrate too hard on the separate pieces of the movie, rather digested it as a whole.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Blog 7: Scientific Visual Culture
The goal of each of the “artists” from the Critical Art Ensemble website seems be to generate dialogue about the subject they are discussing. Some of the artists go so far as to create a “cult” as the “Cult of the New Eve” does. They “worship” the New Eve by parodying text from the Bible, using the same font and graphics as medieval versions of the Bible did, etc. They even manipulate actual pictures from the Renaissance and other art periods in order to insert people with their cult’s garb (red cloaks and dark glasses) as seen in this picture:
Flesh Projet by BioCom seems to support biotechnology as it discusses biotechnology as a means to grow new organs and tissues. It also talks about discovering the secrets of the code that programs the DNA – the proteins A, C, T, and G. “This recombinant DNA is essential for the redesign of the body for specific, goal-oriented tasks that better complement its interface with technology within the real space of production. Human characteristics must also be rationally designed and engineered in order to eliminate body functions and psychological characteristics that refuse ideological inscription.” (http://www.critical-art.net/biotech/biocom/biocomWeb/dnatest.html)
While most of the projects seem to have a definite opinion on whether biotechnology is ethical or whether it should be pursued, it seems like that message matters less than the result of getting people to discuss whether it is or not. They just want to bring it into public attention.
Biotechnology and deciphering the human DNA relates to scientific visual culture as we discussed in class because by discovering which parts of the DNA modify our phenotypic traits. These traits include eye color, height, skin color, or the shape of your nose. By completely understanding DNA and genetics, scientists will also be able to decide whether people are defined by “nature” or “nurture.” With this technology, it will also allow us to project what future generations will look like as cultures become more connected and overlapping. In other words, as the world becomes more of a monoculture and interbreeds, scientists will be able to forecast what affects it will have on humans. If scientists know exactly how the DNA correlates to all aspects of the body, they will be able to predict whether an unborn baby will have learning disabilities or exceptional athletic ability. Scientists will be able to catalogue traits before they have been developed as opposed to after they were developed as Eadweard Muybridge found with his Motion Studies in the 1880s.
Flesh Projet by BioCom seems to support biotechnology as it discusses biotechnology as a means to grow new organs and tissues. It also talks about discovering the secrets of the code that programs the DNA – the proteins A, C, T, and G. “This recombinant DNA is essential for the redesign of the body for specific, goal-oriented tasks that better complement its interface with technology within the real space of production. Human characteristics must also be rationally designed and engineered in order to eliminate body functions and psychological characteristics that refuse ideological inscription.” (http://www.critical-art.net/biotech/biocom/biocomWeb/dnatest.html)
While most of the projects seem to have a definite opinion on whether biotechnology is ethical or whether it should be pursued, it seems like that message matters less than the result of getting people to discuss whether it is or not. They just want to bring it into public attention.
Biotechnology and deciphering the human DNA relates to scientific visual culture as we discussed in class because by discovering which parts of the DNA modify our phenotypic traits. These traits include eye color, height, skin color, or the shape of your nose. By completely understanding DNA and genetics, scientists will also be able to decide whether people are defined by “nature” or “nurture.” With this technology, it will also allow us to project what future generations will look like as cultures become more connected and overlapping. In other words, as the world becomes more of a monoculture and interbreeds, scientists will be able to forecast what affects it will have on humans. If scientists know exactly how the DNA correlates to all aspects of the body, they will be able to predict whether an unborn baby will have learning disabilities or exceptional athletic ability. Scientists will be able to catalogue traits before they have been developed as opposed to after they were developed as Eadweard Muybridge found with his Motion Studies in the 1880s.
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