Responsive Environments Group

I read in one of those links that the point of making such machines is to make every day objects more than what they already are. For instance shoes aren’t just shoes anymore, they’re gait measures. Flash lights are object finders. It’s pretty interesting how these inventions are coming to life. It reminds me of the discussion we had in class about how humans and machines are becoming one. I think the more dependent we become on machines, we do become more machine-like.  It doesn’t seem that scary to me. Because I think at this point it’s inevitable. I’m just gonna try and accept it and think of it as a part of our evolution process. Just as long as our emotions don’t disappear. Emotions and instinct are the two things that separate us from machines I think. I guess one can program a machine to perform/output such a way so its showing the right emotion, but it wouldn’t be able to do that w/o the programing. We, on the other hand don’t need the programing to know happy from sad.

I think we’re far from becoming machines. So, no worries.

|Moitri|

Audio Art in the Deaf Century – Douglas Khan

Douglas Khan says that there are two sources of sound: noises and instruments.  Noises are produced by objects in our environment while sounds are produced by instruments. He’s more interested in noises and the compromise between noises and instrumental sounds. I would have never thought of every-day noises as music or art. This is because I hear it everyday–a door slamming or tires squeeling or twigs cracking under my feet. It’s not ‘music’ to my ears. Also I don’t consider it ‘music’ yet is because these noises come automatically. They already exist. But sounds don’t just naturally exist. Someone has to play the instrument to produce some kind of sound. And that takes effort, and I think that’s why I appreciate that more than naturally existing noises. However, I will make it a point to listen to nature a little bit more closely.

You know what I like most? I used to play percussion in high school and at Smith for wind ensemble & orchestra, and I really liked it when we would use additional “instruments” to enhance  the piece that we were playing. For instance, we played a piece about slavery and I got to play an anvil with a hammer and use chains to add to the slavery piece. And at other times we would use a ‘rain stick’  to add a rain effect to the piece.

I can appreciate that. Using two types of art…noises and instrumental sounds to create something more unique and enhanced.

|Moitri|

More on Film vs. Video and Video Art

With regard to what Moitri said,

“So I guess I sort of have the out with the old, in with the new idea going on here. Yes, it’s a loss, but this new thing will one day become old and will be a loss in its self,”

I would argue that newer technologies don’t necessarily have to replace older technologies; many times, I think the new and old are able to coexist and even complement each other.  This is not always the case, I suppose, since the example of VHS to LaserDisc to DVDs has shown the near wipe-out of the former two, but in this case it’s a matter of quality rather than style, I think.  VHS technology is clearly inferior to that of DVDs, but it’s not the same case with film versus video.  They each have distinct characteristics and are of more use in some instances and not in others.  One of the main differences between the two seems to be how instantaneous video is over film.  With film, you have to cut the tape to edit pieces together whereas with video, it is easily digitized if not already in digital form.  The process of editing a digital video is less of a manual process and more accessible to the everyday user, which may very well be the reason it is not on top of film in the “media technology pecking order,” as outlined by Rush.  He says that “cinema is still on top, followed by television, then video, and now computer-transmitted images; all of which, arguably, derived from theater, which has suffered the most from loss of audiences and loss of artists to the other media.”  I think it’s exceptionally hard to rank these different forms of media, and I imagine it’s a very personal process for most.  From my own experiences, I still prefer film to digital video on the whole, but I certainly know that film is not suited to the types of interactivity that digital video – specifically video art – is capable of.  With film, I think the process is almost as important (if not as important) as the final product, whereas the emphasis with video art is generally on the outcome.  There are so many differences between the two that I don’t think of one as having to replace the other.

On somewhat of a related note, I disagreed with Paul’s assessment about the future of film.  She says that the historical notion of film that is grounded in the concept of “recording reality” is now somewhat extinct.  While the cinema is increasingly becoming a more hybrid medium, I know of numerous examples where it is still being used for the exact purpose Paul is dismissing in the present.  Film has that unique quality of appearing more grainy and life-like than digital video, and true films are not altered in terms of color, which can be a huge advantage for the video artist.

Additionally, an area of concern for video artists is certainly the transmisson of their work, which is much less of an issue for film.  Video art and video art installations are showcased in a select few venues, and it is nearly impossible to archive them, especially when they have an interactive component.  They are also not very profitable, so the issue of preserving them so that they can be bought and sold is infinitely more complex.  It will be very interesting to see what the future will bring for this dilemma.

-Jennifer

Wikipedia – Digital Photography

Thoughts on this article:

• While the article starts out incredibly simple, explaining the most simple basics of digital photography, later, the technical part was slightly hard for me to follow. I had trouble understanding the different angles of sensors and their relation to pixels and general quality.
• I thought the article brought up some interesting points concerning the practicality of digital photography. I think the issue of image authenticity is very interesting and important in our world today. It is incredibly easy to edit/change images and if it is done well it would be very hard to prove it. This could for example be used in court cases, etc. A further disadvantage brought up in the article is that digital cameras always need regular access to electrical outlets and are also much more sensitve to cold and moisture. This makes them less practical for people photographing in nature. I think these are interesting points, since I think that today most of us think that digital camaras are fully more practical than the ‘old-fashioned’ kind. Digital things always seem ‘better’ to us. This is one point in which a digital device has not been developed far enough yet to be able to completely compete with the older version.

-Clara

10/3 Dubitative Images – Snap to Grid (Lunenfeld)

I liked the comparison that was made between how reliable a representation of a digital image is versus a digital piece of text. Athough they both come from the same binary source, the results differ from each other greatly. When an image of an object is used to document that certain object, a lot of information is lost simply by the fact that what’s been documented is not the real object but just a picture of it. It is unfortunate that the real object, or work of art, cannot be stored in its original self. But instead of looking at this situation as an unfortunate one, we can simple see it as a great opportunity to at least have something to remember the original object by. In the article the author mentions that photography has its flaws: any reproduction of a photograph would lose some of its quality. It would be a little bit more blury, less bright and colorful, etc. And it’s the same with digital photography where we are sometimes forced to compress digital images to make file transfer or storage easier. And with each compression the digital image loses some of its information, even if it is decompressed later. As I said we can either feel sad about the original quality lost, or we can find it amazing that this one particular image has been shared, stored, transfered by multiple viewers who were able to enjoy the piece regardless of its compression and decompression. And I think that sooner or later there will be more space available for everybody, and faster file transferring speeds where we won’t need to compress image files.

net.art in eastern europe

What I found one of the most interesting parts of Greene’s article is that a noticebly large number of the artists mentioned come from eastern european countries. One reason for this could be that for these artists, this new medium was doubly exciting. With all the political changes at that time there were a lot of hot topics/inspiration for projects to grow from. Also though, eastern europe had not had freedom of speech. The internet, especially at that time, did not have any boundaries of this sort, and on top of it one could broadcast one’s ideas across the whole world. I have travelled to some of the slavic and balkan countries and always feel like even today there is a feeling of excitement in the cities that is due to the constant change which is still occurring. I think this environment is perfect for art and it does not surprise me that net.art found response and was experimented with here. -clara

9/26 Net Art by Rachael Greene

I definitely liked this article better. Other than being factual it had many URLs within it that I checked out. Many of them weren’t working anymore. I was interested in seeing the one called Brandon–about which the movie Boys Don’t Cry was based on. Unfortunately that URL wasn’t working either. However, my one of my favorite pieces was My Boyfriend Came back from the War created by Olia Lialina. You can find her work at http://www.teleportacia.org/war I love the break down of the screen into multiple different boxes or frames.  Although she only gives us bits and pieces of text here and there, you can pretty much tell what type of conversation or thought those bits and pieces emerged from.  It gives us insight on what type of person she might have been, and what kind of person her boyfriend was and became. She doesn’t have too many graphics in her piece, but I like that it’s limited. It puts more emphasis on the few images that she does have.

I would consider this piece quite balanced in the sense that it’s not too obscure in the way some art can be and its purpose isn’t too obvious given the amount of text she uses to convey her thoughts / message. What I mean is that if she used only images then we would have to interpret her reasons of putting up those pictures. And if she used only chunks and chunks of text then her message would be conveyed too strongly (if that makes sense).  So I find that this is a very nice balance between being too obscure and too obvious.

[excuse any spelling mistakes]

|Moitri|

On Interactive Fiction

I checked out an interactive fiction (‘Death Reckoning’) online, and it was pretty neat. I did not realize this, but I have created an interactive fiction before—it was about my high school friends and I trying to find our way around our school, and the main character (who the user selects) would run into all our teachers and friends and could choose to have conversations with them. My original mentality was that it would be a fun and interactive way to cherish our high school memories. I don’t think I ever finished, however, because the story got really long and drawn out (too many options for the users!) and I didn’t really know how to end it…. -_-

Montfort’s discussion on interactive fiction was very provocative. I read it three times and I am still struggling with precisely what he is getting at, but I feel that the gist of it is summarized very well by Brenda Laurel’s response—“Nick Monfort’s most important observation is that computer games are a new kind of animal that comes in lots of different sizes, colors, and subspecies.” While narratives and story are essential parts of IF, IF could also contain game elements. The author comes to the conclusion that IF is a “world” rather than a story or a game. In “Death Reckoning,” for instance, the adventure starts with the user not knowing where he/she is and what he/she was doing there. As the user proceeds, he/she comes across a bunch of people waiting in line. All the user could talk to was a woman who didn’t know who the user was or why he/she was there—when I (the user) talked to her, she told me to be patient and wait. Well, I was stuck waiting in line for so long that I lost interest and left the site…. But the amazing part was that although there were no graphics, the (admittedly brief) experience made a rather strong impression on me. The ability to imagine myself (rather than controlling a little cartoon character with a joystick) in the role of the main character and having the power to explore on my own (as in a role-playing computer game) made an impact. The concept that IF is a world makes sense intuitively, because the user can explore (within certain constraints); the experience is unique to the individual user. Overall, Montfort’s analyses of story, game, storygame, novel, world, literature, puzzle, problem, riddle, and machine were all very interesting.

I am rather confused about Brenda Laurel’s mention of the importance of narrative for action games. I think she tries to make the point that Montfort was too overreaching in his assumption that for action games, the storyline is not crucial. She uses the example that in her own research, “narrative construction is a key element of pleasure for girls in the playing of action games.” Well, it is obvious that games such as Ms. Pacman (as mentioned by Montfort) and Mortal Kombat (as Laurel herself mentioned) were popular although they didn’t have very strong storylines. I just don’t really understand what the point of that part of her argument is (perhaps I am missing the point?). Essentially, we have seen that the story can be pulled out of an action game. On a sidenote, unless I am very obsessed and I have too much time on my hands, I wouldn’t read several books on the main narrative and backstory of a computer game before I play it, but I suppose I am just an arbitrary datum.

june

hypertext – text adjusting to our needs

Traditionally, the role of the reader was fairly clear cut. One would pick a book appealing to one’s current mood and then dive into the world created by the author. Then one could discuss how one liked the setting, the plot, the characters, etc. Hypertext, however, creates a plethora of new possibilities. With an actual book, everyone reads the same story. The discussion would most likely be about the different interpretations of the story. In hypertext, on the other hand, it is not only “the reader’s interpretation of the text which changes but the text itself” (Paul, 190). This means that a piece by one author could be read in many different ways. The discussion could not as much be about the interpretation of the story, but rather about the experience. Hypertext is very flexible. It not only allows more space for creativity, but also provokes the reader to be creative. The reader therefore not only dives into a world created by the author, but can also express himself to a certain extent. The reader can find in the text, what he is in the mood for. He can ‘bend’ the story in the way he likes. This range of choice does not only apply to fictional texts. Hypertext can also make it much easier to find the facts one is looking for in a non-fictional book. At the same time, the author can have a larger effect on the reader than in traditional books. The author could for example add sound and graphics.
I think that this form of text is much more suitable in our times today. We have gotten accustomed to things going quickly and to things being flexible to our needs. Hypertext fits these expectations much more than a big and heavy, many-paged book. -clara

queneau and le lionnais are whack

“The combinatorial and strict rule-based processes of Dadaist poetry also resurfaced in the works of OULIPO (ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle), the French literary and artistic association founded in 1960 by Ramond Queneau and Francois Le Lionnais, who argued that all creative inspiration should be subject to calculation and become an intellectual game and whose experimental concepts of combination compared to the reconfiguration of media elements in many later computer-generated environments.”

what!? this kind of made me mad. you can’t possibly subject everything to calculation. it simply won’t work. some things are too ephemeral; some things are too tied to your heart and gutteral reactions, you know those damn feelings, to possibly try to turn it into a computational game. a lot of this is probably just my own personal beliefs, but i even read about this in my computer science textbook. there are a lot of phenomena in the world that behave chaotically. these cannot be subject to calculation accurately, because they are too volatile, changing, and sensitive to be computed. this is the reason why we can only forecast the weather accurately a few days in advance, etc. since not all of nature can be computed, it makes sense that not all creative endeavors can be subject to computing as well.

i was wondering what other people thought . . .