New Media Reader Time Line 301-375

1974- Theodore Nelson writes Computer Lib/ Dream Machines
- Sought to clarify computer technology for the masses
- Predicted personal computing
- Imagined how computers could be used to redefine and enhance educational and other non-corporate settings

1974- Augusto Boal writes "Theater of the Oppressed" outlining his revolutionary theater techniques
-created interactive improvisational theater and performance pieces which encouraged discussion of political and social issues
- allowed participants to imagine and therapeutically work through different political or personal problems and solutions

1975- Nicholas Negroponte "Soft Architecture Machine"
-outlined how computers could be used by experts in non computing fields, specifically architecture, to enhance their work
-describes how how software can be as responsive and intuitive as possible to a user's needs

1976- Joseph Weizenbaum "Computer Power and Human Reason"
-Wrote about the controversy surrounding his talking bot "Eliza" and discusses the danger of human-technology empathy and interaction

New Media Reader pages 231-301

Thee texts in this segment discussed the debate over whether technology determines the course of history or if the social situation gives rise to technology. The authors were also debating whether new medias represented a potential mouthpiece for the masses or whether it was merely a tool of corporate control. I agree William's argument that the technologies discussed here, television, radio, etc, rose out of a very specific milieu of social change. These technologies were commissioned and developed in the service of those in power, and it shows. For me the purpose of most entertainment technology is distracting spectacle and the illusion of choice. While media like TV seems like a pro-democracy force that gives everyone regardless of gender, race, or class a common culture, it is also anti-democracy in that it gives consumers an illusion of choice and freedom because they can choose whether to watch American Idol or the Amazing Race. The internet is the receiving/transmitting tool that Enzensberger imagines, and it may challenge a lot of the arguments of these authors. I can see it as a tool of control and as a possible tool of revolution. As a tool of control it furthers the phenomenon that Baudrillard describes of the faits divers. On the internet, we are flooded with information and sensational stories, so that everything is important and nothing is important. There is so much information happening so fast, that nothing can retain enough attention long enough to become more than a symbol of revolt. Despite all the content sharing that happens on the internet, it is owned and controlled by a few corporations, and mostly we just consume their content. Also what Williams says about the TV as an in home device also goes for personal computers. People are isolated and turned inwards through these devices. Although people can talk on message boards or on websites about revolution, this will not scare anyone unless people are gathering in the street and perpetrating actions.
However on the other hand, maybe a revolution of the future will happen through technology, and will not be material. I read about how warfare of the future will target the enemy's communication system. Under this model it is conceivable that a small group could take control of a nation by hacking into its systems of communication. Secondly, if there is one thing the internet is good for, its creating imagined communities, and imagined community is the first step to an imagined future which is the first step towards revolution so who knows....

G.H. Hovagimyan's lecture and demo

I was impressed by the methods that Hovagimyan used for his works. I was especially inspired by the videos that could be played in any order. These were surprisingly effective and it was interesting to see how a linear narrative could be broken down. I also liked learning about situationist performance art, and seeing those historic performances because these is not something that I have looked into a lot. However, I was a little weirded out by the content of some of his performances. They seemed a little elitist. Privately owned public spaces are the least of our problems in the world right now. If you want to be punk rock and start shit with the man, why bother doormen who are just trying to do their job? I felt like the tone was that they were just trying to freak out all these people who could never possibly understand what a art happening is. Why should doormen and passers-by be made to look foolish if the artist's goal is to challenge these big corporations. It made me feel uncomfortable. Similarly were the two women who peed in the barbara kruger retrospective. I'm not a big fan of her work, but if you wanna take on the institution of the art world, she should not be the target. Young women artists need to recognize the rarity and the debt they owe to succesful women artists who came before them, whether they like their work or not. This is something that I feel strongly about.

New Media Reader Time Line 231-301

1968- Doug Englebart and William English demo an interactive computing system.
-set precidents for both the internet and personal computers
-introduces the mouse

1970- "Software- Information Technology" Exhibition at the Jewish Museum
brought new media art and the issues that surround it into the eye of the general public

1970- Hans Magnus Enzensberger writes a Marxist Theory of Media
-suggests a new orginization of media in which the masses can be producers and not just passive receivers of culture and media, and thus create the means for social change

1972- Jean Baudrillard writes "requiem for the Media" in response to Enzensberger
-rejects Enzenbergers' idea of turning the consumer into producers of media
-says media is inherently a tool of bourgeois control, and that all it contains is reduction of what it reproduces to pale models

1972- Raymond Williams writes "Television: technology and cultural form"
-rejects technological determinism
-provides a case study of the causes and effects 0f television

New Media Reader 177-227

I loved Italo Calvino's mathematical crime story. I thought it was ingenious of him to use the genre of the crime story. The actions he uses in his equations (to rape, to murder, etc.) are funny because these are actions that we generally conceive of as being beyond the rational, unpredictable, and unexplainable. But also, he is playing on the crime fiction idea that all crimes can be solved by a hyper-rational computer like mind (McLuhan mentions Edgar Allen Poe's "The Purloined Letter" for example). Finally, I thought it was a good satire of the genre because the plots of these kinds of stories are often formulaic, involving a set number of stock characters doing a set number of actions, as I discovered at my own peril while reading a massive pulp fiction anthology recently. It reminded me of the article we read about how movies of the future might conform themselves to the desires of the viewer, and shows a model of how this might work. It was also interesting showed how cultural or personal biases can subjectify a seemingly objective mathematical process, in showing the actions that Calvino thought each character might be capable of, or which actions could exclude each other. In the real world, by some freak incident maybe one of the eliminated combinations of actions and characters could occur, but not in the rational world of fiction or computing.
McLuhan's articles were so dense with ideas and references that sometimes I had difficulty understanding it all, but several of his ideas stood out to me. His "Gutenberg Galaxy" excerpt resonated with some of my recent preoccupations. I'm taking a class on the history of mass media. and reading a book about Victorian sexuality, most of the sources for which are sensationalist newspapers, pamphlets, and pornography publications. In these contexts, I often think about how the internet is currently considered to be bringing information to the masses as never before, but the wealth of affordable publications that sprang up in the 19th century was a similar paradigm shift, into paradigm that I think is still mostly holding sway today. I was especially compelled by McLuhan's statement that widespread literacy created a shift from the manufacture of art for a patron, into the manufacture of art for mass consumption, and transformed art into a commodity. This also forced the artist to be more aware of the audience and the arts intended effect. This was the first move towards artist/veiwer interaction. I also was interested in his discussion of the individual versus the group experience. While we mostly consume and interpret culture in an individual way, we also have a shared experience in pop culture, a level on which people can communicate across class, race, age and gender.
"The Medium is Message" was interesting because of McLuhan's argument that technologies have a meaning in and of themselves, that they are political and non-neutral. This was different from most articles we have read where technology is only as dangerous as those who wield it.

Ken Perlin's Tour

I really enjoyed touring Ken Perlin's studio. Ken was very charming, interesting, and well-informed. I really appreciated his overarching career goal of trying to make computers more organic and user friendly. it was exciting to see how his groundbreaking inventions were created by himself and a few students out of parts bought on ebay. His laboratory really brought home the democratic aspect of technological development. His invention of the pressure sensitive touch pad has so much potential for computer graphics and design. it brakes down boundaries between technology and the user, and turns the computer screen into a more three demensional space. It reminded me of Douglas Englebart's envisioning of an architect at work in the way a designer could easily move through 3d space in renderings of their design and shape it with their movements.

Timeline page 176-226

1962- Marshall McLuhan writes "The Gutenberg Galaxy"
-used paradigm shifts sparked by the printing press to understand the changes which new media will inspire.

1964- Marshall McLuhan writes "Understanding the Medium"
-he famously writes "the medium is the message" stating that technology is not a tool but has a meaning of its own.
-states that technology should be studied on its own terms.

late 60's early 70's - Billy Kluver and others found E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology) a collective in which artists like Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, and Jean Tinguely experimented with new technologies, performance, and interaction in artworks.

Timeline pg 49-108

1950- Alan Turing invents the "Turing Test"
-tests if computers can fool someone into thinking it's human
-begins human/computer dialog
-moves computers from the realm of the mathematical into the realm of written language

1960-62- Joseph Licklider encourages universities to link computers, sets precedent for the development of the internet

1961- Allan Kaprow and his troupe perform interactive, interdisciplinary 'happenings' in New York.
-Beginning of performance art

1961- William Burroughs describes Brion Gysin's Cut-Up method of writing
-begun by Tristan Tsara
-broke down traditional limits of language and expression

1962- Douglas Englebart (inventor of mouses, windows, word processors) wrote a book "Augmenting Human Intellect" about ho computers will help people deal with the manifold problems of an increasingly complex world

Timeline 109-176

1961- Roy Ascott applies cybernetic concepts to art and art education at the Ealing School of Art.
-in 1964 he publishes the the first essay on new media art which describes his techniques and philosophy

1963- Ivan Sutherland creates the Sketchpad system
-Set the precedents for the interface we know today, i.e. objects on a background.
-Allowed computers to be used for graphic purposes

1965- Ted Nelson outlines concepts of Hypertext and coins the word.

Early '70's- Oulipo (Ouvoir de la litterature Potentille) founded
-a french literary group aimed at investigating our conventional ideas of the structure of language and the form of texts
-they propose new potential ways in which literature can be written

NEW MEDIA READER PG 109-176

These further chapters of the new media reader continued to show how proto new media artists broke down static formal rules within their respective disciplines. I especially enjoyed Roy Ascott's peice on his work at the Ealing School of Art. Not only did the projects of the students sound totally fun, and a great way to force students to think creatively, but he vocalized something that I firmly believe in: that a contemporary artist must be firmly involved in many aspects of culture in order to be relevant. Our culture romanticizes the artist as a solitary introspective creature who is completely removed from society, but this is not viable in reality. I feel endless frustration towards my creative friends who self-consciously reject trash tv, or top forty hits, or celebrity gossip. I don't think this is just me trying to justify my guilty pleasures. These are essential parts of our cultural landscape that should be understood and commented on. Similarly, my anguish is directed towards people who say "I can't do anything with computers." and refuse to learn anything about them. It is such a huge oversight, and artists who ignore advancements in technology are missing the boat on an immense paradigm shift that should be manifest in the avant-garde.
Reading Raymond Queneau's "A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems" (did he do the math?) as a french and english speaker was interesting in thagt the translator of this work appeared to have been subscribing to Oulipo methods himself. The meanings of the lines in translation bore only tangential similarities to the original. Obviously the point was to convey method over meaning. It is interesting to see the way the translator had to strip the text down to the bare minimum of what needed to be communicated in order for the spirit of the original to come through. Also both author and translator were very impressive rhymers.

New Media Reader pages 73-108

Douglas Engelbart writes that augmenting human intellect will require not only new technologies but also the development of new methods of thinking and working. These chapters of the reader continue to outline the paradigm shifts that contributed to the foundations of new media. We see how Allan Kaprow uses Happenings to redefine what theater can be. He and his collaborators created a form with less boundaries between performance, that were unscripted and spontaneous, that stimulated all the senses. He also takes the commercialism of the established art world to task, stating that the happenings are something which are difficult to co-opt. In this essay, we see some embryotic new media art themes: breakdown of boundaries between disciplines, interactivity, and a rejection of established commercial venues. In Burrough's essay on "The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin," he defines a modern conciousness which is able to understand information that is non-linear, fragmented, and contains infinite random exciting combinations. All of these new art forms spring from the same anxiety that spurred Engelbart, the inability of humans to deal with the increasing complex issues that confront them, and a search for an alternative to this.

Helvetica and Obama's typeface

When I was watching the documentary "Helvetica" I was surprised by how instantly the typefaces they showed throughout the decades could immediately call up for me the look of an era, as easily as fashion or hairstyles usually do. The most effective and interesting part of the documentary was the way they tied type styles to all the larger cultural shifts of the last hundred years. In the article "To the Letter Born" Brian Collins says, "Political campaigns are the Brigadoon of branding. There’s a compressed amount of time to tell a candidate’s story before the race is over and the campaign vanishes." This statement shows why type and graphic design are so representative or iconic of historical eras, from art nouveau print ads of the turn of the century , to concert posters of the 60's. These are the disposable ephemera of everyday life. Unlike most other forms of expression, type and graphics surround us everyday, but only need to be relevant for a short period time. Advertisements and branding just needs to be the most appealing to the most people at a certain moment, that's why it's a great way of understanding the spirit of an age, and the Obama Campaign is no exception. The way that many of the type designers talked about their work, they sounded like fanatical wine connaisseurs discussing a fine vintage, but is simply because they have the language to articulate. I think everyone gets a very strong message from type whether they can articulate it or not, as demonstrated by the word "change" in three different fonts. This is why, in our visual age, when people are more likely to be swayed the look of something, rather than actually read or listen to words, the "branding" that Brian Collins is discussing is the most important part of a political campaign.

Chelsea Galleries

I was intrigued by David Fried’s piece with the balls communicating. While I felt aesthetically it was a little corporate art-y, I loved the mysterious alchemical process by which the balls moved. I loved that the artist developed a concept and then found a technology to make it work. In some cases with new media, the technology is the art, but in others, the concept can be invented almost separately from a medium, and then substantiated through technology\

Although some people in class complained that the method of R. Luke Dubois’ work “Hindsight is Always 20/20” was disingenuous and created an expected result, I thought it seemed an incredibly innovative and interesting as a historical document. It showed how computer sciences could be applied to history in an interdisciplinary way to offer a unique perspective. The information presented through his systematic breakdown of state of the union addresses was consistent with my understanding of ideological shifts in American politics. It presented history for a computer generation: non-narrative, data-based, multi-disciplinary, and requiring of a critical thought process.

Michael Zansky’s pieces showed a facet of new media art that is homegrown and low-tech. Entering the gallery felt to me like entering a renaissance cabinet of curiosities, in which disparate objects are juxtaposed to create a sense of wonder and enchantment. Images that recalled the cosmos were combined with precious little objects in a way that emulated the combinations of nature and artifact which occurred in these proto-museums, but the inclusion of whimsical yet somehow terrifying pop-culture tchochkes brought the whole thing up to date. The constant maniacal rotations of the still lives and the distortion of the lenses brought on sensory bewilderment like a bad trip. I loved this art and found the artist’s method inspiring

I also loved Doug Aitken’s video work “Migrations” at 303 gallery, but I couldn’t tell if it was just because of the beautiful cinematography of cute animals. I loved how he used these kind of iconic noir Americana images of anonymous motel rooms. While the animals are just in there doing their natural behavior in an unnatural environment, our imagination creates a narrative and psychology for the creatures based on our association of this cinematic locale with moral transgression and existential crisis.

My favorite piece at eyebeam was the squares of wallpaper that followed your movements. It reminded me of the haunted house portraits whose eyes watch you cross the room, but more subtly ominous. Who knew that some tasteful wallpaper minimally hung could be so scary? The exhibit at eyebeam showcased a broad spectrum of new media themes, from interactivity, to technological innovation, to grassroots organizing. It helped me gain a better understanding of what new media art entails.

Frank Gehry IAC Headquaters

I feel like I always am being really negative on my blog, but Frank Gehry is another irrational prejudice of mine. His work is so gimmicky and kitschy. At least this building was somewhat toned down, perhaps in deference to the fact that it's a corporate headquarter. While researching online, I couldn't find any mention of green design in this building. If this was an aspect of the design, its a shame that it wasn't publicized more, as Gehry is probably one of the more copied architects working today. It would be nice for him to start an appealing trend for once! One sustainable building that I really love is the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It has a living roof that is planted with grass and flowers and regulates heat throughout the building, it runs on solar power and the aquarium runs all over the building. No only does it look lovely, but the building is an exhibit in itself. I'm so excited to see it in person!
http://www.calacademy.org/

The Future of Gaming

hatr The new technologies described in the articles about the virtual reality cocoon, the mind reading headset, and LittleBigPlanet all aim at collapsing the distance between the world of the game and the world of the gamer, with varying methods and focuses. The technology that was the most appealing and accessible to me was LittleBigPlanet. I loved the idea that it was accessible to everyone even non-gamers. It reminded me of what we we talking about in class about how video games are completely elementary and in their infancy. The way that LittleBigPlanet supports the unlimited creativity of the players, rather than confining them to an extremely limited set of choices definitely seems like the logical and feasible next stage of evolution, and definitely changes my conception of gaming from a past time to a medium. The other two technologies seemed a little misguided.
The article about the mind-reading headset seemed a little alarmist. While I recognize that there could easily be a technology that recognizes mental impulses towards emotions or physical movements, this seems a far cry from technology that could read subconcious thoughts or influence our thoughts from afar. However, I found it an interesting sign of the times that the article focused on the gaming potential of this technology, or it's uses for terrorism, or government intrigue, rather than focusing on more practical applications in the medical realm that many people mentioned in class. This demonstrates many people's ambivalence towards new technology.
As someone who is infinitely lazy, I didn't really understand the appeal of the virtual reality cocoon. Well, maybe that's an overstatement. I do understand the appeal of entering a complete 3d recreation of a historical or fictional environment. But for me the internet is great because I don't have to move more than a few fingers to access a universe of information. Wouldn't going to amazon.com and pretending to walk around a book store be kind of like going to a bookstore and walking around it? Naw, I'm just being obtuse. This technology would be insane and completely redefine our understanding of the limits of the human body in ways that are scarcely comprehensible.

TIme Line 1

01.The Garden of Forking Paths,
Jorge Luis Borges, 1941
--Helped develop concept of hypertext
novel (def. Novel can be read in many
different ways)
--greatly influenced the first hypertext
novel Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar,
1963
02.As We May Think,
Vannevar Bush, 1945
--published in Atlantic Monthly, 1945
--Bush main creator behind the US
Military Industrial Complex during
WWII, 1940
--Bush developed first analog computing
projects at MIT
--Bush developed new ideas in
information storage, "MEMEX"
--MEMEX is a mechanized personal library
in the shape of a desk

Borges and the Internet

Although I have read “The Garden of Forking Paths” several times, but I wasn’t sure how it would work as a hypertext fiction. After reading it in this light, I felt that the story worked as an introduction to digital media on two levels. First, the internal story of Ts’ui Pen’s novel, the fictional labyrinth which branches infinitely over time, is a model for the circularity and infinite variety available through computing and the internet. Secondly, the frame story also happens to describe the context of the birth of computing, which Vannevar Bush is writing out of. It describes a situation of World War II intelligence and codes, of increased communication and global contact. It also shows an increasingly complicated world enshrouded in many layers of intellectual ambiguity. All of these themes are the same ones that contributed to the development of the first computers.
In the New York Times article, the author points to several Borges stories as containing prescient metaphors of Internet technologies. But these stories were originally intended as metaphors for ideas much more metaphysical, spiritual, and epistemological. Conversely, its interesting to think of these Internet technologies, like wikipedia or Google, and how they can be theorized as metaphors for these same ideas, as microcosms and models for human existence and thought.

Borges Documentary

Borges has been one of my favorite authors since I was a teenager. In this documentary, I was excited to see how they would adapt some of his more “new media”-y, more theoretical stories to the screen. I was a little disappointed that they stuck to fairly straightforward narratives. I would love to see images of the Library of Babel, for instance. That being said, I was interested to learn more about Borges the man, a subject I had never investigated before. It’s hard to imagine the world view of a man who is capable of coming up with narratives and metaphors that are so all encompassing and microcosmic, so maze-like but so contained. I thought the documentary did a good job of representing his background and influences. I loved seeing what he looked like and hearing him speak about himself. I was also surprised that he was so spiritual, although in retrospective this makes sense, because as disconcerting as they may be, all his stories seem to point to some higher organization and purpose. This insight gave me a new reading of the texts.

Microcosmos DVD

This movie was the perfect example of the synthesis between technology and art. Although to a certain extent this movie was a showcase of the technology, and the images are traditionally scientific in nature, they were presented and choreographed in a way that was aesthetically beautiful, constructed anthropomorphic narrative and evoked emotions. I loved the unexpected visual metaphors and the brilliant colors that were discovered by the microcosmic camera. Who would have guessed the visual similarity between a caterpillar and a Chinese lion? Who knew that a scene of a bee feeding on nectar could be so explicitly pornographic? Even more amazing than the images, which may be familiar to some from other microscopic imagery, were the sounds of the insects, which I would have not even thought of trying to imagine before. The technology seemed especially remarkable after reading Bush’s post WWII hypothesis of what a microcamera might entail, from its use of tiny film, to it’s application in miniaturizing libraries. We realize how many doors digital technology opened that would hardly have been reached from any other route.

The Engine Room

This article demonstrated how the paradigm shift inherent in the internet has been brought into the world of advertising. It reminded me of in the sixties when advertisers began to realize that the new generation didn't want to buy products to fit in but to stand out. Today's generation does not only want to be an individual, they want to interact with the media. It seems that hewlett-packard and MTV were among the first to recognize this. David Roman VP of HP, says: "We don't want it to be advertising, we want it to be real." And in digital media, he found exactly the blurry line needed between fact and fantasy to make this transformation possible.

New Media Reader introduction 2

This essay raised a lot of philosophical questions about what art, and artists are. When the author made statements like the internet is more complex, unpredictable and dynamic than any novel, or hypothesizes about a future when films will be made to tailor to the viewers preference, he ignores the agency of the artist. Although I agree that the lone artist creator may be an ideal of the past, nevertheless I think that an art work is something whose form and content is dictated by who ever created it, in order to convey a certain message or feeling. It is not just a fluid collection of anything and everything. While I also appreciated the insight that new mediums like HCI, finalcut or photoshop will become the lenses through which we view all culture, I was disturbed by his suggestion that the engineers of these technologies are the most famous artists of our times. To use an old media analogy, if you invented a new kind of printing press, you might not necessarily be the person who will use it to make the most beautiful or interesting prints. The skill set needed to develop a technology may not be the same one needed to communicate through it most effectively. But I don't even feel confident making these assertions about new media. They highlight are some of the distinctions that are broken down in Manovich's article, and as we go on, I'm sure these questions about the nature of art and the artist will be brought up again and again.

Time Line 1

01.The Garden of Forking Paths,
Jorge Luis Borges, 1941
--Helped develop concept of hypertext
novel (def. Novel can be read in many
different ways)
--greatly influenced the first hypertext
novel Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar,
1963
02.As We May Think,
Vannevar Bush, 1945
--published in Atlantic Monthly, 1945
--Bush main creator behind the US
Military Industrial Complex during
WWII, 1940
--Bush developed first analog computing
projects at MIT
--Bush developed new ideas in
information storage, "MEMEX"
--MEMEX is a mechanized personal library

in the shape of a desk

The Birth of the Internet

The documentary "Birth of the Internet" underlined a dichotomy of the internet that I often wonder about. Sometimes, for example when watching web series, I get really excited about the internet as a tool which allows every creative voice to be heard. It's the internet as the great leveler. Other times, for example when hearing about censorship of the internet in China and other countries, I get paranoid about the internet as a tool of control and as a propagator of power structures. The documentary offered evidence for both cases. It showed how the internet was developed and given to the public through government intiatives. But it also showed how it was mostly made by innovative individuals working outside the system, and stressed how it was a community of free sharing. The way that the internet can manifest both these roles is shown in the documentary when it discusses how the internet is so new and crazy, that there are relatively few laws governing it. This may allow governments and corporations to engage in activities online that may be unconstitutional or invasive, but it also allows a greater freedom of expression to individual users. Future internet legislation or lack thereof will shape which of these roles the internet will ultimately take on.

Chris Landreth, Ryan, and Bingo

Obviously, I'm a new media affeciando, otherwise I wouldn't be in this class at all, but one thing I just can't get down with is digital animation. I've really tried to love it, and I DO love its application as CGI and special effects in live action films, but as a medium in its own right, I just find its aesthetics to be unsubtle, soulless, and cloying. This especially troubles me as someone from the bay area, where Pixar is a huge and extremely innovative creative industry, as well as one I could definitely see myself being a part of. The methods of animation that Chris Landreth used in "Ryan" were extremely creative and effective in conveying his themes of psychic scars and disentigration. The plays on perspective and 3d effects he used would be difficult if not impossible to do with traditional animation techniques. But when he shows his style side by side with Ryan Larkin's gorgeous, psychadelic, hand painted animations, it just drives home what I perceive to be digital animation's shortcomings. One ray of hope was in the huge refinements in style and technology that separated "Bingo" from more recent "Ryan." Today's digital animation is light years beyond both of these in terms of technologies of representation. Like all new media, this is a medium still in its infancy, and I'm sure future developments will be mind blowingly exciting. Nevertheless, I have a feeling I'll still be the old fogey at the latest critically acclaimed Pixar extravaganza muttering about Felix the Cat while everyone else goes "what the hell is she talking about?"

New Media Reader Introduction and The Guild

1. Technophobia, library versus social space
Both the web series "The Guild" and "The New Media Reader" challenge a common misconception of computers or the internet as isolating devices. The stereotype of the gamer is of a troll-like, Asperger's ridden, thirty year old teenager afraid to leave his parent's basement, and immersing himself instead in a delusional, solitary virtual reality. Apocalyptic visions of a computer dominated future abound, as in the recent film Wall-E, where human beings live in self contained internet pods, unable to see the reality, or the fellow humans, beyond their computer screens. Why so much fear of the internet?
As Janet H. Murray points out in her introduction, "Inventing the Medium," computer programs were initially invented around two themes, archiving information, and promoting social interaction and networking. Even today, the most popular sites, google, and facebook or myspace continue these two first goals. Doesn't the internet promote connections between people rather than isolate. In "The Guild," the protagonists certainly have created fantasy personas to hide from their real lives, but the central conceit and humor of the show derives from the surprising ways in which their online relationships cross over into the real world.
I think the fear of the internet derives from its twin roles. Because of its identity as a carrier of information, people have trouble seeing computers and the internet as a medium for creativity and artistic expression. They feel somehow gypped or cheapened when "virtual reality" does not coincide with "reality reality." This is illustrated by Murray's example of the therapist computer program, which upset people who thought it was supposed to provide real advice, when it was intended as a humorous creative project. It seems as though the interactivity of the medium is what takes it to the next level. Maybe when people have such an intimate relationship and put so much of themselves into the medium, they have have trouble either in accepting that in might be fantasy or untrue, or don't want to take it too seriously.
2. Image versus Text
I was surprised that Murray was focused on the computer as an outgrowth of text or literary traditions, and barely mentioned the role of the image. The development of New Media seems to parallel the development of photography and film a century before. These mediums were initially conceived for documentary and informational purposes, and had trouble gaining recognition as artistic tools. People who are worried about video games making kids violent, or are in an uproar about people's assumed online identities, reminds me of the myth of people running out of the theater when seeing the first moving picture of a train.
Also, the "potato root," non linear thinking that Murray describes as characteristic of new media, seems to stem from the culture of images, which is also intimately connected to the twentieth century war traumas, and Borges' labyrinthine prose. Computer and internet technology seems to me a natural outpouring of the vast, disjointed archive of individual images that form the modern consciousness.
3. Personal Inspiration
Of course, "The Guild" was inspiring in its low budget production and subsequent success. I have always had a secret dream of being a controversial youtube celebrity. All I need is a gimmick and a thick skin. Maybe internet stardom should be my semester goal.
Also as someone who has worked on internet archives, I have been thinking about the artistic possibility of the archive. The thin membrane between information and fantasy on the internet makes this idea more appealing. An archive could be used to tell a fictional narrative, and it's circular, non narrative format could make it more convincing and all encompassing, like a Borges Labyrinth.