Walking home and hearing only sound

Turning off your eyes and really listening to your surroundings for a walk from point A to point B is not something we are used to doing. We are extremely visual creatures.

But staring off into nothing while just focusing on what you hear is an interesting experience. Separating human cause and nature sounds, you find that in places like town sidewalks most of the noise is coming from people. But if you filter that out you can always hear something from nature. The wind in your ears, birds of all type singing, rocks and small pebbles scraping against the sidewalk as you walk across it.

Around 40 different sounds of unique design were heard on about a 15 min timeframe.

Goverment and the Internet

Q:

Discuss issues relating to the regulation of the internet by goverments.


A:
Ai Weiwei is an artist in China who constantly speaks out against the communist party, something not many people are courageous enough to do. Through his blogs he can freely comment about the government and he has a large amount of support. When a town in China suffered an earthquake and poor government buildings collapsed the government refused to release names. Weiwei put together a project to find out the names of the people and children in a school killed. The names were published on the web and ever since Weiwei has been watched very agressivly by the Chinese government. They removed blog posts on his website and eventually shut it down entirely in 2009.

The government was uncomfortable with having a citizen who could freely speak out through the internet about injustice. The government was afraid of what kind of support he could garner. They sought to control and stop him through censoring and controlling his blog. They even demolished his studio recently. In this case the government wants to be able to hide information and control its people. Its all about keeping its hold over its people in order to keep power.

The internet is one of the places almost anybody can go to in order to speak out and use it as a tool. Therefore, if a government were to censor it like in the communication decency act (1996), or the internet kill switch legislation, or allow legislation regarding net neutrality to go through, the internet would start down a slope of becoming more and more controlled and eventually loose all effectiveness and spirit of what it actually is. The government should keep its hands off the internet because it is already a tool for free speech. As soon as the government starts playing with free speech we get into very dangerous territory.

Internet

Q:

Do you feel empowered by the internet?


A:

The internet is one of the most empowering tools that everybody has access to. There are so many ways you can utilize and spread information. Blogs and communities offer information we could never find out alone. The anonymity that the internet provides helps people become more free with their words, opinions and actions. People have comment wars on youtube comment sections where they call each other idiots and morons and constantly flame each other. You don't see people act like that in person.

That can be seen as a bad thing but the fact that you can do those kind of things brings the real power of the First Amendment to light. If you can call someone an idiot 500 times in a day o the internet then there is nothing stopping you from voicing an unpopular opinion about something important.

You can be anything you want on the internet. You can almost do anything as well. Want to play a game? Its a click away. Want to find a Chinese pen pal? A click away. Want to speak out against a corporation? A click away. Want to read the daily headlines? A click away.

Q: 

The internet evolved from what we might "do" to how we live our life.
Comment.

A: 

The internet and social technology is entering our daily life more and more each and everyday. We used to "use" the internet. we would look up information for a paper, or do research. Now we can exist entirely online if we want to. Facebook, online gaming, chat rooms and many more countless ways exist for use to literally live online. People do it every day.

We live our lives with social technology now. Texting and cell phones are a great example. 10 years ago, cell phones were a relatively new and early technology just getting into the hands of average everyday people. Now everyone has them and uses them to great effect. The internet is being used on phones everyday and has become the new norm. You can carry the internet with you literally in your pocket to use whenever you want. Your not tied to a computer at a desk at home. You can take it whoever you go.

This trend will continue to grow more and more. The applications of the internet related technology and this virtual space will continue to enter our lives more and more everyday. It wont stop because people love it and want more of it.

Identity in Cyberspace

Q: 

In what ways has building and communicating through online profiles changed you personally?

Do you think that online communities and role play have helped us more (in terms of self reflection and growing) or hurt us more (in terms of addiction to fantasy and disconnect from reality)?

A: 

When interacting in online communities, people do fragment themselves, or pick and choose what is best needed for the situation. Facebook: time to look pretty, be witty and be friendly. Online gaming: Time to kick ass and show how awesome I am. Posting in a Art Forum: time to show how cultured and smart I am.

Using the theory on these window personalities we really differentiate ourselves much more than people used to. We become specialists in each area trying to portray a relevant side to ourselves and improve/show it to the best of our ability.

I think online personalities have allowed me to really explore any aspect about me I could possibly want to explore. THe freedom and anonymity really helps with the freedom of exploration. Face to face time has been reduced a bit, but not eliminated all together for me.

Online communities have helped us evolve socially with self exploration ad growth. The addiction to fantasy and disconnect from reality are side effects of when these online communities become used exclusively for social interaction. Face to face time is a very important part of communicating and social health. Disconnect from reality should be carefully gauged to keep things from getting out of hand. Enjoying online communities is a great thing, but diving into them and completely forgetting real life is not healthy and really cripples people socially.

How we became Post Human Questions

Q:

What do you think differentiates a human from a machine?
Do you think we will be replaced? Do you think Turing’s test is a good representation of deciding which is which?


A:








Machines are only as good as their makers and programers. Things we have evolved to be good at like social interaction, walking and movement are things computers cannot do very well. However logic, erasing and arithmetic are pretty new inventions and computers have already outstripped us there.

However emulating things like emotion, empathy, and other very social things, even what a soul is. Programmers cannot program a soul. Programmers can try to emulate feelings and empathy but right now its not in a very good place. In the future computers might be able to do things like this.

Will we be replaced? A good example to look at is car manufacturing. Machines completely changed the way that industry works. It replaced many jobs inside those factories. In terms of becoming completely replaced I don't know if we would ever see something like that. Humans might become threatened but then we would probably just put limitations upon robots for as long as we could.

Turing's test is flawed because it does not measure anything scientifically. Deciding which is which is hard to do, but a good point was that when trying not to be tricked sometimes a human would assign one of the humans in the test to be a computer! It was more of a psychological experiment than anything else.

How we became Post Human

 Q:

Humans have limited capabilities. Humans sense the world in a restricted way, vision being the best of the senses. Humans understand the world in only 3 dimensions and communicate in a very slow, serial fashion called speech. But can this be improved on? Can we use technology to upgrade humans? Comment on this statement by Professor Kevin Warwick with reference to the image of the post human in popular culture. 


A: 

As Professor Warwick said, technology has never been rejected by humanity when it is useful. Im sure many people distrusted the telephone when it first arrived (calling it the work of the devil, or saying its not necessary or changes too much about daily life). But it was still embraced eventually and improved the quality of life and the speed at which we can communicate with each other.

However people do fear technology to a point. The Borg, The machines in the Matrix, and Skynet all play upon peoples distrust and fear of technology. when it comes to enhancing ourselves with technology people get nervous and threatened. We are closer to a time when technology will have the potential to change the human condition then ever before. Technology is rapidly improving at speeds we have never seen.

In Futurama in an episode called "Attack of the Killer App" the EyePhone is inserted directly behind your eye and projects a holographic screen in front of you. The characters talk to each other through this means even when sitting next to one another. Its a funny episode, but defiantly relates to this subject.

Technology is changing how we interact socially with Facebook and Twitter. but I don't think people are ready at this point in time to deal with technology changing us as humans biologically. Enhancement and augmentation being mainstream consideration are a far ways off. Right now these things are used in a strictly medical way with advanced Prosthetics, bacteria that can be built to help you, and even nanotechnology. This is the way it will stay for a very long time until social and everyday augmentation is a normal consideration (think strictly visual plastic surgery that is not related to medical emergencies).

Neuromancer

Q:

1. "Case found himself staring through a shop window. The
place sold small bright objects to the sailors. Watches, flick knives, lighters, pocket VTRs, simstim decks, weighted man-riki chains, and shuriken. The shuriken had always fascinated
him, steel stars with knife-sharp points. Some were chromed, others black, others treated with a rainbow surface like oil on water. But the chrome stars held his gaze. They were mounted
against scarlet ultrasuede with nearly invisible loops of nylon fishline, their centers stamped with dragons or ying yang symbols. They caught the street's neon and twisted it, and it came to Case that these were the stars under which he voyaged, his destiny spelled out in a constellation of cheap chrome."

What is the significance of old technology in such an advanced world? As a more specific example, Case carries a shuriken throughout the book, but never uses it. What might this imply?


A:

The reason Neuromancer was such a significant step for Science Fiction was that before the genera was mostly accepted as a fantasy world very apart from our own. Gibson makes a huge effort to create a bridge between the fantastical science fiction worlds and our own to create a dialog between the two. It finally becomes something that can seriously be talked about. What effects does the technology of the future have on our societies and humanity?

The reason Gibson uses old technology in his book is to help bridge the gap between the fantastical science fiction of the future and the world today. Old technology creates a ground in which people can start to finally think about what exactly this future could mean for humans. It makes them start to believe these possibilities Gibson presents in the novel and critique them.

The book won accolades for its push towards a possible future people could believe rather than an escape world people could dive into. He wanted people to connect the two, not separate them.

Robert Brinkerhoff

There was a presentation by Robert Brinkerhoff about him becoming the new director of SOVA. He had alot of really interesting ideas about what kind of experiences should be available to a student when undergoing education.

A lot of his presentation was about enabling unique learning experiences for students and cross disciplinary learning. I thought these techniques were important for students. When you enter the real world you will be learning with people from different educational studies all the time. Being able to get a little of that when your in school would be and important learning experience.

He is the head of the department of Illustration at RISD in Rhode Island. 

Nam June Paik

Q:

Nam June Paik innovated the use of video, should this type of medium (video) be considered art or simply just an advancement in technology? Why?
What influence do you think Nam June Paik's work had on the development of new media art today?

A:

Photography was an advance in technology that made a legitimate transition into art. The only difference between photography and video was that video was used primarily in television as a means to make money. However video make the transition to art as well with people pushing the line between entertainment and proving video could be art.

Something Nam June Paik had an influence on in video was a basic rule. If you want to do something, you can. If you want to use something, you can. Using frames was another large influence on video art. He opened up the doors for video art to be anything it wanted to be.

Artist Inspiration

Tony Oursler in his piece "influence Machine"  is interesting to me because he uses an interesting technique to bridge digital media into the material world. He projects the piece onto fog which is being produced.


This technique really combines digital and material world.

The Garden Party

Q: What right does an artist have to their own artwork? Once an artwork is bought, should the artist have any say to how it should be presented or kept? What legal responsibility does an artist have to society?

A: An artist has every right to his or her own work. No one should be able to take that from them. When an artist chooses to sell his or her work he or she should also be treated fairly. An interesting issue has arisen recently with the subject of musical artists and their songs being downloaded for free without payment to that artist. In this situation however, the artist did not make all the money from the sales of their music, as a recording company got most of the cut. itunes then filled a large gap in the market for songs being only .99 cents and being sold separately. More people started buying the music when it was matching the needs of the customer. This is a much more commercial example however.

The artist can draw up agreements that are not strictly regulated by law to insure that the artwork is kept or presented in the way that they like.

Art is best when it pushes boundaries and treads new ground. one of the natural boundaries that exist in society is law. When is it ok to break a law to pursue art? Banksy is technically defacing public property when you look at a law book but his art is widely loved and revered. An artist should push boundaries, but not endanger people in the process. An artist who pushes the boundaries should be aware of exactly what the implications of breaking these boundaries.

Metropolis

Q: In Fritz Lang’s legendary silent film, Metropolis, the last intertitle (text card) reads
“The mediator between brain and hands must be the heart”.
Discuss the significance of this statement in regards to the film and the wider social implications.


A: The "brain" in the film is the Business/Upper class tier of the city. The "hands" is the working class.

In the film there is a very strong clash between the upper class and the workers. The workers are treated unfairly and taken advantage of while the upper class lives a live of luxury with no worries.

The mediator in the film is the son of the business leader. He represents the compromise between business and the workers. This could be "law" or "humans ability to empathize with one another".

This was a time when social regulations on upcoming industry were very little, so the social commentary is very important. This serves as a distopian story. It is a warning and example of what could be if the balance between these social classes becomes too unbalanced.

Myth of the Artist

Q: NM art is usually made by teams of people, has NM finally destroyed the myth of the artist or has the myth just been changed to accommodate computer programmers and designers?


A: The myth of the artist will always exist, because the title will be given to the "New Thinkers" of each day. New Thinkers are renown and chastised at the same time in this way by being called "brilliant" and "strange" at the same time.

Anything can become an art. A traditional profession which we now associate as being "arty", the Painter, used to be seen as common place craftsman in the Western world of art (Baroque era and before), not creative geniuses and intellectuals. They were only seen as very skilled or gifted at their craft in most cases.

Painters were on the same level as a woodworker, a blacksmith, or a stone worker. They were not intellectuals.

However this eventually changed. The painter become and intellectual and skill based profession. The myth of the artist will always exist, and is capable of change as shown by this example. Computer Programmers and Designers are a more stable and normal profession today. It does not mean that they cannot turn what they do into art.

The myth will continue to change to include professions we previously did not expect. In fact, it will change at a greater pace than ever as more and more technological advances occur.

Tutorial Paper

I am doing "Hypermediating the Game interface: The Alienation Effect in Violent Videogames and the Problem of Serious Play"

Week 14 Due Wednesday April 20, 1011