Experiments in Communication

Filing out my everyday use of technology chart, I was a bit surprised at he small number of technological devices I use, because I feel like I am always using some form of technology. It turns out that now that I am living as a student in a small apartment, away from home, most of the applications of technology I normally use have been transferred to my computer.
I don't own a tv, a landline, or a stereo (except for my alarm clock, which plays cds, but I have no cds here so I only listen to the radio). I watch tv shows online, talk to my family back home using Skype, and listen to music that is on my iTunes.

I had never really thought much about usability issues before. I can't imagine how someone would use many of the devices that I use if they weren't able to use their hands. For the redesigning of a device, I chose the alarm clock, because in 3 out of 4 cases I gave it a 5 (impossible to use without the ability to hear, see, or use your hands), and it is a rather important device, so I tried to use my imagination. I don't know if my redesigned device should be able to cover all of these disabilities at once, or one at a time. (If someone can't see or hear, and they also can't use their hands, I don't think there can be a way to set the alarm on their own!)

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We decided to pick the soundtrack for our video first, and decide on the content and storyboard based on a piece of music. So we all got together and listened to songs, and decided to use "Laptop A Go-Go" by End. We thought the music sounded a lot like a chase, and were inspired by the title of the song to make the video a satirical commentary on how much we use computers and technology.

Continue reading "Laptop A Go Go" »

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I asked Rona if I could work with her on the assignment, and she agreed, and she said: "I was thinking of making a video for yoga for people staying in front of computer everyday with some funny music by modest mouse." I loved her idea, and we got together and decided we wanted it to be really cute and sort of silly, and decided to make our characters look like the little cartoon character on her laptop case. We worked on the storyboard, deciding to make the animation take place at ITP at first, but then be transported to a magical land while the characters are exercising, and then have it somehow come back to reality.

Continue reading "The Life of Monstar" »

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I was at a bar yesterday and "Promiscuous Girl" by Nelly Furtado came on. I normally would not have even noticed that it was playing, but I recognized it immediately, and got up to dance. I kept waiting to hear the part where Nelly Furtado sings backing vocals, having forgotten that it is actually only for a very small part of the song. This part had gained particular significance (nothing too meaningful, but it is imprinted in my acoustic memory) after Lisa and I looped it and used it as the intro and end to our music piece.

One of the pleasures of working on this assignment was getting to know this song that I otherwise wouldn't have really paid attention to (Lisa was enamored of it because it put her in a good mood), and having fun mixing it up with McLuhan.

I have worked on audio before, and specifically chopping up interview recordings and arranging them into songs (well, I have done this once before). This time I was over the initial enthusiasm of working with the software that allows you to visually arrange sound pieces on a timeline, and of creating a rich (if not overwhelming) soundscape, so I was able to focus on having clear, simple audio, with interesting juxtapositions, and not too many things going on to distract your attention.
Lisa also had experience hearing/directing audio mixes (or so it seemed -- she has a good ear) and her insights were always valuable, and we seemed to understand each other pretty well, in terms of how we wanted the final piece to sound. We worked very well together to make a fun (maybe also a little subversive?) sound piece.

I had forgotten how much fun it can be to work with sound/music, and I would like to work on it more in the future. I was also surprised at how well GarageBand can work as a sound editing environment.

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Scott McCloud and Clay Shirky both make convincing, solid arguments, and I don't think that either of them are wrong. I think they are discussing slightly different aspects of the same issue, and that's why I think they're disagreeing.

When Shirky says that if you have to pay for something and you can get it elsewhere for free, I am not sure if that it refers to something of the same category, of to the specific thing. McCloud seems to think it is the former, in which case he makes a good point that users won't be satisfied with the free items (Donnie Darko vs Dances with Wolves). In reality however, you can probably get the actual thing for free anyway, so then obviously no one would prefer micropayments. I think Clay is assuming that you can find high quality content for free (legally), whereas McCloud isn't really agreeing with this assumption.

I think that Clay is right in that having to pay, even if the amount is microscopic, is a significant barrier to deciding to acquire something through buying it. I think that both of them should take more seriously into account the reality of the situation (McCloud mentions it briefly in the end) that if users can find the exact same thing for free, with the same ease, they will probably get the free version.

I think the one succesful example of micropayments is the itunes music store. I believe it works well because it manages to automate the process so much that you do not feel the "mental transaction costs" of paying. Having itunes on on your computer, you are usually signed in, and it has your credit card info, so whenever you want something you can just click and click to confirm that you want to buy it (i think, to authorize the transaction) and you're done. Very painless, and it doesn't feel like you are spending that much. Interestingly, this example is sort of mentioned by McCloud, who mentions mac users buying many many songs online.

I think users want to take the path of least resistance, and paying (any amount) should defintely be calculated as an instance of resistance. If you can get the exact same thing just as easily, for free, then people will choose that option.

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The Still Life endeavour had a few mishaps -- our tripod was missing the tripod head, and during the very time-consuming photoshop work we did to try to fix the jolting pictures (a consequence of the tripod problem) we lost a lot of work because of a computer failure.

The concept of Still, Life? is a slowly disintegrating still life "painting". The shoot took much longer than we had imagined, and eating all the food was not as pleasant as it seemed. I learned the importance of a sturdy tripod, and that stop-motion animation requires some degree of skill and lots of attention to detail!

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I was interested in the parallels between "cult value" in traditional art, photography, and the film (as Benjamin likes to call it).
Benjamin says that traditionally, the purpose of artworks was to serve a cult need ("artistic production begins with ceremonial objects designed to serve in a cult"). For example, people worship something, they create artworks to represent it and use the (unique) artworks ritually. An artwork with cult value has to be protected, and so cannot be exhibited widely for fear that the object will be damaged. Mechanical reproduction of art allows art to be free "from its parasitical dependence on ritual". Consequently, new forms of art that are mechanically reproduced, "exhibition value begins to displace cult value". He goes on to claim that even so, some cult value is present. Early photography focused on portraiture, and cult value "retires" into the "human countenance".
Then the idea of "cult" returns in the case of the film and the movie star! In film, where the actor and his "aura" is not present (as they are on the stage of the theater), there is instead "the cult of the movie star", an artifice that is created by the movie producers. The cult of the movie star is undisputably a real phenomenon. Why are people willing to buy into such an arbitrary value system? Why are people so enamored of this artificial public persona of the movie star (that is mechanically reproduced through the press and the film)?
So in each of the cases (traditional art, photography, film), the artwork always seems to carry cult value. Is Benjamin saying something about art, or about human nature? About our impulse to make art, or about our need to understand art? It could just be that art always has to have some form of cult value to it (people's motivation in making it is to express this value -- this is probably not the case for movies, where the cult value is more of a consequence than a cause). Or humans might like to ascribe cult value to objects they find important.

Other thoughts:
my younger brother's ideas that mechanically reproduced art is superior to traditional art forms
--After seeing a theater performance with my younger brother (who is 16), I asked him if he liked the play, and he said he thought it was ok, but in general he doesn't think theater can ever be up to par with film. Apparently, the fact that every performance will be a little bit different, and the transience of the performance is a negative thing as far as my brother is concerned (I think he said he feels the same way about music concerts). I was amazed, because I thought that it was so obvious that theater is a more enriching experience than cinema! I wonder if this is a generational thing, or if it is just my brother who is being weird. But also, what would Benjamin think if he heard this?

mechanically reproduced art & psychology of perception -- interesting consequence of mechanically reproducible art. i wonder if that is when visual perception research really started to flourish, and how much these reproducible media were used in actual research.

dada, film, contemplation & distraction -- i thought this part was also really interesting. I don't think the dadaists would really be happy about the comparison, given how mainstream film is today, but I think the parallel is interesting.

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This is a photoshopped photo that was very widely distributed through email (at least I think it's widely distributed because even I received it). The text of the email claimed that a camera was found in the ruins of the Twin Towers, and the film was developed, and this picture came out. Common sense says that it is impossible for something like this to have happened, but I think it looks believable enough to fool people.



This photo is of an ad for an anti-cellulite lotion. I saw this ad in Greece and was very freaked-out by it. Regardless of its freak-factor (or perhaps because of it), it illustrates how photoshop can be used to manipulate images and get across a simple idea, a visual statement, in a very realistic way.

Here are examples of using photoshop to change the female figure for the better



and for the worse

The intentions in this one were probably to criticize models, but it is backfiring -- I am only inclined to criticize the person who would spend time manipulating this image (and other similar ones) and not the models. This also makes me question all of the celebrity-obsessed publications (not that I haven't questioned them before -- it's just never really occured to me to doubt the authenticity of the photos they print until now).

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The process of customizing the blog template stylesheet was a little bit trickier than I had expected, but I learned a bit about what everything means and how different sections of the blog content are formatted. It was a little bit like deciphering a secret code, where you can only check your guess after saving the template and refreshing the page.

The photo I chose is somewhat irrelevant, but I liked it visually. I tried to make a color palette for the rest of the blog based on the photos, and I found that color can be very tricky (and look very different out of context!). I might change the photo and color scheme to something a little more cheerful. I am also still thinking about a better name for the blog.

I played with a few different fonts, but really like the custom font quite a bit. I wonder if it is only because I am used to seeing it a lot. I also liked a font called Andale Mono, but thought it made the text a little too spread-out and harder to read.

I want to learn more about using images or gradients as background, instead of a plain color. I looked at some of the other people's blogs, and one of them had a repeating image as the background (you couldn't really tell it was repeating, it feels like wallpaper), and it made the page more textured and interesting than a plain color would.

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Writing the 55-word story was quite difficult for me. Not so much because of the 55 word limit, but because I am not used to creative writing at all - I don't think my imagination is capable of making up stories (interesting ones at least). Once I had an outline of a story, writing it in 55 words wasn't so bad. Being frugal with words, and giving just enough information to convey to the reader what's going on was a very interesting exercise, and I enjoyed doing it. Trying to make it be funny was also a challenge. I don't think it came out as humorous as I would have liked. Writing a succinct, funny line is definitely a challenge.
Setting up the blog was very easy to do. I would eventually like to learn more about what is behind the movable type program/interface, learn how to make similar programs. I have never kept a blog or a diary, and I think it will be good for me to record my thoughts in writing.
The articles were all very interesting, but it's been so long since I had to write a reading response that I have almost forgotten how to go about doing it! I hope to get better at it as the semester goes by.

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“Ok, try not to screw it up this time.”
“You’re the one who knows how to swim too well.”
“At least I didn’t forget to tie the other end of the rope!”
“One, two three, fire!”
…
“Blanks?!?”
“If we make a mess, our wives will kill us!”
“Ah, good thinking man.”
“Beer?”
“Sure, let’s go.”

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I was truly fascinated by the EverQuest article. I have always been somewhat appalled by the popularity of these online games -- I find it unfortunate that people spend so much time in a virtual world when the real world is here. I understand that the sense of escape these games can offer can be satisfying, or even necessary for some people, but I think that in the long run this kind of escape might be harmful because it presents only a temporary, virtual solution to whatever problems they might have (and distracts them from dealing with the problems they have in the real world and finding a real solution to them).

This article has introduced me to many implications of these virtual worlds that I would never have considered. The interface between the real and virtual worlds and their economies (and people) is where it starts to get interesting. Because these virtual worlds exist in the real world, and connect real people to each other, their interactions and the relationships they build are in some sense real. However, I am worried that people will just get used to interacting with each other through a screen -- this happens more and more each day, not only because of RPGs of course -- and I don't think that's a good thing.

Back to the actual article though! Using these virtual worlds as a way of studying economic systems is a great idea. I wonder if they can be studied for other purposes, such as social psychology. Of course it has to be acknowledged by researchers that the gaming environment is fake, and not a representation of real life, so the behavior of the players isn't necessarily the same as it would be in the real world. For example, in examining the failure of games where no one can amass more wealth that any other players, we should keep in mind that the players enter the virtual world of the game to play and to win, so a game that doesn't allow you to do that will bore you. People don't always have such expectations from the real world though. People in the real world like to be lazy sometimes and don't mind not winning challenges etc.

Thinking about these games in terms of business is interesting to me, as I am beginning to understand how everything works, and all the questions the article the article raised about the legal implications of owning virtual property etc are very informative.

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