Viewing images from briandilg.com and detouch.org I can’t help but to create value categories in my head: this is good image alteration, this is bad image alteration… alteration of this part is an appropriate artistic choice… changing this part changes the content therefore…

The truth is that the field of photography has radically changed since digital imagery became popular. Photography fiercely took away image capturing from the artists and gave it to masses. However photography had been about observation and capturing something worthwhile. The moment where shutter opened was a very special one. One had to prepare for it. For instance an artist who cut the bottom of trash can and installed a camera with the bate in front of it only had a vague idea of the type of image he would be capturing. The picture would be ultimately be shaped by the first animal that happened to be scavenging the trash… a squirrel or maybe a fox… This fine state is something to yearn for, in the previous form of art.

Marshall McLuhan’s in his book, Understanding Media, wrote that “the medium is the message”. And this makes sense in the context of what we are able to say with the new medium, i.e. digital editing. The idea of two dogs holding hands while looking out the porch is one idea that is only interesting within the context of imagery (which happens to be digital now). The idea has no depth in itself and is considered interesting within its mode of presentation.

In the essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reporduction, Walter Benjamin explains how the “aura” of a work of art is lost when it became mass reproducible especially as in photography and film. Aura is a sense of mysticism and uniqueness associated with the work of art that is placed in a space where it is not accessible to the masses. Like in a cave-drawing, (which I would imagine to be a risky and dangerous business) the drawing is for the “spirits” and in a sculpture in a temple where not everyone has access to it the work of art reflects an ideology which makes its aura even stronger. The change of art form is he is attacking is “politics aesthetic” a state of affairs that can be eventually rendered acceptable to the public. This is about the time when the visual arts has moved into appreciate of mechanical forms and movement (e.g. futurism).
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As I did the reading this week I was sure I don’t understand interactivity. The author distinguished “reaction” and “interaction” which in the end still appeared the same to me. “Reaction” would be a case of branch of a tree falling of behind you and “interaction” would be the case communications between two people. The author claims there are degree’s of interactivity like the lamp turning on when opening the fridge is not as interactive as a personal computer would be.

I understand what he is shooting for… That is to say there is a new field of art opening up and we don’t know where it is going. I understand and agree. But his analysis of interactivity is not clear to me. I say a branch of tree is interactive, even more so that a fridge door, even than a computer! Because the physical laws that effect how it bends, how it looks, how much pressure exerted are far more complex than the binary code of the computer that says either “on”, or “off”. Nothing will be as interactive as a man would be I think but I wouldn’t distinguish between the tree branch and the fridge door. I think what he means to say is that the computer is a far more complex tool than the fridge door.

It is true that the computers are becoming more complicated and every now and then computer programs could crash… And we have updates, viruses and bugs… It is almost like computer is taking a life of its own. These are things we all know. One thing I didn’t know and was surprised to hear from a couple of computer whiz was their claim that there is no such a thing as random. For instance take “shuffle” feature in your mp3 player that would randomly play your songs. There is a procedure the program follows to choose the next song. My whiz friend would say that if they have access to the program’s code, they would be able to know what the next song in the shuffle would be. This was shocking for me because I had been in philosophy classes which argued whether random concept exists in the real world, i.e. the process whereby we choose between two things that are similar (like choosing between two cereal boxes). Now I was hearing that this random process doesn’t exist in computers.

I will remain skeptical how much value there is to interactivity as oppose to reactivity. I am still moved more by a powerful play, good movie, beautiful song more so than many things that are considered interactive.

Reflection with God:

“Do you mean that I wasn’t created?”

“In the beginning there was nothing – but volition. Creation shattered the embracing. But now: The created wished to do the same: create. There were two ways to go in this process that ends with you and finds its way back to me: You too can recreate or recollect.

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A question one of my philosophy professors brought up (and has been asked by other philosophers as well) was: “If you were offered a world in which you were happy, successful, and all the things you wanted to be … but all those things were supplied to your brain and were make-believe but were not real – would you do it?”

This question is fundamental to philosophy, because it attempts to distinguish appearance and reality. In the allegory of the cave Plato casts shadows on the walls of a cave to display that we don’t perceive the truth but something like the truth (its shadow). Not even modern philosophers would have imagined that one day we would be able to project not only shadows but a virtual world onto the screen as we are now able to do in video games.

For the most part, in the world my professor imagined we would passively receive data, whereas in video games we are actively involved with the data we receive.

In the question my professor brought up, the decision to move into a world where you are given a happy but unreal life and any knowledge of the past doesn’t exist, you would forget that this world is not reality.

In computer games today we are aware of the fact that whatever is taking place remains virtual and “game over” and “life” do not mean much. Computer games have been moving in a direction where virtual is becoming more real and vivid. I, like my professor have come to think that many gamers have made the decision to embrace this virtual illusion where none of it is real.

Is this just another phase of development in media and I am unable to accept it? Is it like the radio replacing reading and television replacing imaginative play? If so what do I think the games are replacing? I suppose it would be thinking. We are reduced to a virtual world with infinite restriction and little freedom. In the world of gaming the player learns to detect ways in which interaction is possible. The degree of interaction in the non-virtual world is infinitely greater.

The virtual world reduces creative ways to interact and enforces reaction speed. The virtual mind-set that helps one to succeed in the virtual world might prove healthy specially to the young gamers whose minds are under development. virtual reality is so engaging that many gamers are willing to confine themselves whithin its parameters for hours, non-stop.

Now, all this arguments comes from a person who has played Atari, Genesis, Sega, (some Commodore), and lots of PC games. I feel that I have wasted time gaming when I could have been doing other things in the real world. I have decided not to play games quite a few times this past two years, yet the rise of intelligence (in games like Half Life) and reality (like in Doom 3) and artistic debt (in Max Payn) remains as a challenge against my arguments and a temptation to play.

The black piece in the top right corner of the breadboard is the voltage regulator. Just like you wouldn’t plug American electronic stuff (110V) directly to power in Europe and most Asian countries (220V), you wouldn’t just flow power through power through the board without regulating the voltage! You’d kill the LEDs or yourself! Voltage regulators reduces the power to a manageable size (I think about 5 volts) for the LEDs consumption. Look at the beautiful red light emanating from electricity that moves from the adaptor through the regulator, to the bus row (red strip on the board) to the LED and back to the ground.
LED has one leg in the red row (power or positive) and another leg in the blue (ground or negative).
This is a simple circuit consisting of LED (lamp) power and the Breadboard the flows the electron from Hight to low. The switch allows me to intervene the flow.

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(the above should be the html version which refers to the css)

Reflection with God:

“Do you mean that I wasn’t created?”

“In the beginning there was nothing – but volition.
Creation shattered the embracing. But now: The created
wished to do the same: create. There were two ways to go
in this process that ends with you and finds its way back to me:
you too can recreate or recollect.

After I purchased the Physical Computing kit and a AC adaptor I laid them down on the table. There are a lot of tools and gadgets. Some parts needed soldering — like the switches. I have done soldering before when I was a kid without any knowledge of electric stuff I was destroying. So I am very good at soldering. There are many soldering tutorials but it is a very basic concept: you hold the soldering iron close to the solder enough so that it becomes like hershey’s kisses then you pull it out on time. Practice makes perfect. Before you do it on actual kit it is best to do it on other objects… like your cat (i’m just kidding).

Using the bread-board eliminates the need for soldering because it is already wired inside. One needs only to send a current through and out of it — then by inserting LED’s, resistors or wires in the wholes one can take advantage of the firm grip the board has.