This week we discussed synthesis of the arts, which I thought was pretty interesting. The readings for this week were "What is Multimedia?", "The Futurist Manifesto", and "Hypomnemata". The first reading was pretty straight forward. It explained the history, evolution, and definitions of the term "multimedia". The second reading talked about the integration of the arts and creating the "total art work" through drama and specially constructed theater. The third article talked about the origins of the personal notebooks.
We had a interesting debate in class this week on whether Richard Wagoner's theater can be considered the first example of multimedia and his intentions behind creating such a facility to capture the audiences' senses. The definition of virtual reality and the degree of interactiveness was brought up. I think virtual reality implies interaction between the virtual world and the person experiencing the world. The interaction should be in both directions. By allowing a person to change the conditions of his surroundings will confirm his perception of reality.
My interest of the week: Immersion vs. Interaction.
Interactivity: Reciprocal exchange between the viewer and the artwork, the ability to manipulate media and objects intuitively and with immediacy.
"Society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine, are destined to play an ever increasing part." – Norbert Wiener
Jodi looks more like TV with really bad reception. Combinations of black and white lines moving rapidly across the screen with flashing background. The side bar of the browser moves up and down uncontrollably as if a virus had taken over. This piece gets annoying after seconds. What's the point? Another approach to John Cage's 3:16?
Shredder takes a website of the viewer's choice and rearrange the designs and present it in a new way. I used the Shredder to view the UC Berkeley website and it transformed the site into a modern painting by altering the size of fonts and images and rearranging them on the screen. It even incorporated some of the source code. Although it looked nothing like the original website, the idea behind making an artwork that "borrows" content of other sites is a clever one.
I couldn't get Form to load up.
This week we were told a very interesting story about how Steve Jobs acquired the idea of GUI (Graphic User Interface) from Xerox and applied it the Apple Macintosh which became the best selling computer of its time. The executives at Xerox didn't realize the potentials of the GUI, the network of computers, and the idea of object-oriented programming which were all products of their R/D labs. They didn't have the vision to see eye to eye with their scientists to realize the potential impact of these tools in the computer world. It wasn't until Steve Jobs came along and made GUI the foundation of modern computer desktops. Was he just lucky to have stumbled upon this goldmine or does he really have an vision for the future? I think the revival of Apple and the popularity of iMac answers that question.
| My Boyfriend Came Back From the War, Olia Lialina |
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This piece is very sentimental and fragmented. The viewer are only presented with a small piece of information at a time, a few words from a sentence or a small black/white image. Nothing concrete is given but we can put together the puzzle easily and get a sense of the disconnection between the lovers. The piece uses tables to partition out the browser and every section eventually turns to blank. I think it is a more difficult task trying to figure out where to click on the screen than to actually understand the piece.
JennyCam is an interesting piece of net art work. First of all, I am not even sure if it can be classified as an artwork at all. It seems to me to be more of a personal webpage with a twist of sexual implication than actually a piece of art. JennyCam offers people who sign up as members to be able to observe her life through a video camera and pictures she took throughout her life. At first glance JennyCam looks more like a porn site than a piece of "art work". Offering her life for the world to see takes a lot of courage and certain level of exhibitionism, but is this really her life? The viewer only sees what Jenny wants us to see. She has power over what she chooses to present to the world and thus she controls the viewer's perception of her. Is what we see in the site really her or just what she wants us to believe? Does she enjoy having control over viewers perception? Is she trying to send out a message through her site or is this merely gimmick to attract traffic to her site? We may never know.
Lynn Hershman, "The Fantasy Beyond Control," Art and Technology, 1990
"Interactive systems require viewers to react. Choices must be made." Interactivity is about been able to change something and receive a response in return. The best examples of interactivity are usually offered through video games. Sight, sound, and movement changes as we move the joystick or a controller. As the technology advances, higher levels of interaction will appear, such as smell, taste, and even pain. Lorna and Deep Contact are both interactive video fantasy/adventure intended to submerge viewers in a virtual world that responds to the viewer's input. I question if these piece can be viewed as an art form or just a bad variation of video games.
Pavel Curtis, "MUdding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities," 1992
Relating virtual reality induced by MUD to behaviors found in our society is an interesting one. However, it appears to me that the life one leads in virtual reality can be far more ideal and interesting than a life in the normal world. In virtual reality, one carries less obligations and almost no responsibility for their actions. As described in the article, if someone messes up in MUD, he can just assume a new identity and start over, such that "a 'new lease on life' is always an ready option". In virtual reality, every person you meet may or may not be the person you think you are meeting. The identity you chose to live by in virtual world is only limited by you imagination. Race, gender, look, and age no longer play as big a role in MUD as they are in real life because there is no way to check the validity of these things. Instead, everyone starts out as equal in MUD and it is up to the user/player to create the virtual person they want others to see. Is this the perfect world? It certainly seems far more interesting to live in than the real world. It's a world where social interactions take place but without much of the problems that exist in the real world. Is virtual reality the way of the future for human interaction? With the popularity of programs such as icq, instant messenger, and chat rooms, we may no longer have to leave the computer terminal and still have a social life.
