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Reading Reactions

Manovich

After chugging down the expansive and detailed article “New Media from Borges to HTML” my trustworthy memory recalled the days of Intro to Communication class from my first year at college for when I attended the lectures and read the texts I thought to myself: I never thought someone would be as so bold to assume they had the capability to summarize the idea of “Communication” into nothing more than a class; that someone could actually wrap their singularly engineered mind around something as infinite as communication, and not just try and understand it, but put it into words and teach it. The worst part of my doubt was that I actually believed it. I was brought back by how structurally these “theories” of communication were established, and how they – well – worked.

I am pleased to announce that I have, yet again, been brought back and stunned by another man, or group of people I should say, who have intuitively looked at the history, present, and future of media; of new media, and broken down into a well structured article (obviously followed by a book, but nevertheless this article seems to summarize the book pretty well).

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the interpretation of Manovich’s breakdown of the “new media” concept, and how it was formed, how it was accepted into various cultures, and where it will take us into the future. As I am in the generation on the borderline of technology’s turning point into our society, I was unaware of this world before it. This article not only provides a beautifully rounded depiction of what our world of art was before it- it invites me to discover for myself more of this time, and allows me to appreciate the change that technology has brought the art world; both good and bad.

Global Warming: the heat is on

When discussing global warming, the remaining issue of a lack of awareness is certainly one of the most dangerous issues, and without the support and understanding of the entire population on this earth we are heading into a dark future.

This article, along with many others that I have read, is contributing to the cry for awareness and for many reasons it has done a great job at it.

The visuals are appealing and effective; from the 3D graphic icons representing the issues of global warming, to the background colors and images; this “brochure” has the ability of catching the attention of anybody and everybody.

The text itself is impressively precise and valuable; keep in mind that it is mentioned even in this article that it is difficult to obtain data to accurately measure the degree to which global warming has affected our planet; yet it has done so with great truth.

The most impressive aspect of this article, in specific, is that it takes a sharp turn in the middle, and begins to breakdown what our country has started to do to save our planet from this problem. It talks about New York City in specific, and describes in detail the extent to which the city has taken the initiative, which is stunningly massive.

Many people claim that the element of fear is the only way that our world can truly face this problem- yet the effectiveness of this article shows that even with a strong sense of hope and trust in our humanity; the same awareness can be achieved.

Susan Sontag on Photography – In Plato’s Cave

The medium of photography presents many ethical, political and moral controversies within itself. It is something that has been both praised and rejected since the beginning of time. Sontag’s interpretation of photography manages to encapsulate the highs and lows of the most important applications of photography in our generation, and the generations before us.

From the first page of this text, I could already tell that I was given a fresh look at photography; a flipped interpretation of the theory behind photography and positive and negative aspects that it has opened into our world.

I like to consider myself an “amateur professional” in photography, and while reading Sontag’s views on the theory behind an image, how it manages to preserve a slice of a moment in time, I must say that I not only agreed on most, but I felt myself in the front row and was able to relate to many of the ideas that she proposed.

As the second half of the document shifted towards the political application, and how photography has been utilized as the drive of facts, I found myself in new waters. I had never known about the significance of photography, most likely because by the time I was old enough to know what it was, it was already a prominent art form, but I was never aware of the implications that it has had on our society. Secondly, the idea of the desensitization of “graphic” material due to photojournalism and pornography, it makes me wonder just how far our countries will go to spark some conversation…

Bio Art in Question

To be frank with those reading my reaction paper, most likely being my TA or professor, I must admit that the article entitled “Bioart in Question” was a tragic attempt to share the high minds of various scientists regarding their ideas of consciousness and the human psyche. Suffice it to say I happen to be a behavioral science buff, which made it a hell of a lot easier to tackle through the brittanica exploited essay; nonetheless I have a few words on just why I feel the way I feel.

The individual essays from each author were, in themselves, sufficiently intriguing; especially those regarding the ideas of reincarnation and human awareness and the biological basis for which awareness is established in the mind. Yet like the expression goes, big things come in small packages; the ideas behind each of the authors are enough for a novel; put many of these ideas together and your mind could fizz into a grey void to the point of no return; something similar to the way I felt.

Some ideas I found relatively impressive was Kathy High on DIY (do-it-yourself), how she swore by the idea of an amateur’s perspective of investigation and questioning.

Jennifer Willet’s idea that our society has been exposed to too much CSI is something that I will agree with on all fronts. Kathy High’s idea for the lack of understanding of auto-immune diseases is also something that has intrigued me for some time now, I could certainly read more on that topic for additional understanding.

Nanotechnology

The Nanomeme Syndrome

As the article mentions that nanotechnology is somewhat of a difficult concept for humans to grasp, I too seem to have a hard time wrapping my mind around the sheer scale of which this new form of research is being performed on. Despite this problem, being a strong supporter in technology myself, I believe that nano-technology is the wave of the future for our world. The applications that nanotechnology apply to are incredible, and just knowing that there are infinite possibilities with what direction this field of research can take, makes me both excited, and quiver with fear. Another interesting aspect about the article is the idea of a human viewing something at a magnified level. One must look at the physical reasons as to why something as simple as color no longer becomes of use at a level of such high magnification due to the fact that you are looking at something which has fewer particle, and therefore fewer surface area to reflect light onto, which means that color and light become two insignificant factors of the object.

One thing that I learned in the article was the history of tactile based microscopic devices. It is amazing to think that one can generate a representational image of an entity by touch; something similar to this is sonic imaging, whereby using a sonic emitter, one can generate a surprisingly accurate representation of an entity or an environment. These microscopes are obviously responsible for the boom in nanotechnology, which is why I feel that it was most certainly worth mentioning.

I must mention at this point that I saw a 30 min video online of a researcher proposing the idea of a highly structured self replicating nanobot system where retail items such as cell phones can be created. This is analogous to the findings of molecular nanobots featured in this article, so it is quite pleasing to see that this idea could in fact potentially be carried out sooner than later. I think that the idea of biological manufacturing of electronics is truly fascinating and I am excited to see where researchers can take it.

From SunTzu to X-box: War and Videogames

If there is one thing that this article satisfied, it was the light that it shed on the just one of the many elements of attention that the US government has, but shouldn’t, on our country.

I had heard before of the video game called America’s Army, and was only slightly opened to the disgust that I could have for what our society’s use of advertisement has become. Upon reading this article, I found that there was still room for more disgust.

What was most fascinating to me was the idea that the newest and most penetrating medium for advertising and marketing was in the form of video games. What added to that was the fact that not only were major corporations, including the military currently using this form of advertising to “bypass the parents”, but there were the individual activists who were already responding by creating their own videogames. This brings me back to the class in Imaging when the Italian videogame developer came in and exhibited some of the “edgy” forms of interactive online games that he had created in response to some of his global concerns (such as multinational fast food chain McDonalds).

In addition to the interactive generation becoming the priority to the government, I was stunned to hear about the marketing stunt the army pulled in California during the convention for the opening of the videogame that they developed. I believe that fear would be the underlying motivational factor within this new generation of people who decide to join the services from playing a videogame.

With the technology of videogames becoming more and more complex, developers are now collaborating with marketing and PR professionals, and they are injecting subtle elements into the games which not only make them that much more enticing to people of all ages, but they are able to send out a very clear message to people whose sole initial intention was just to play a game.

At this point in time, there is only really one question that remains on people’s minds in response to such a desperate act of attention from the army: What next?