modulating modulations

How fractal is the structure of new media? Is this really an appropriate way to think or describe the structure and its characteristics. If it really is modular can we imagine what that structure could be and how it really functions? Is this the unknown future of New Media

NEW? OLD? Does it really matter

Stopgap_"instead if enabling us to think...it actively prevents us from thinking"
It seams that the major point in this reading concerns the words New and Media. As words loaded with meaning and assumptions it seams that to use such words prevents creativity or deep understandings of the potential of "new media". If this can be accounted to semantics and translation, what words would better describe "New Media".

Did someone say BCNM?

For Ezawa -

A lot of your techniques of othering media depend on well-known media spectacles with human/physicalized component. Things like the Simpson trial and the Pamela Lee tape originally contained filmed human figures that we recognized and therefore feel some dissonance when we see them animated. But now animations are reaching the same level of viral acceptance as media events. I thinking of things like Creased Comic's Washington, Washington. How do you take the same techniques and thoughts that you apply to film and then apply them to things that are already animated but are no less well known?

For the Class -

Reading both Manovich's semi-positive account of what can and should be included in the definition of new media and its study, and Chun's critical (although ultimately no less expansive) definition of the same makes me wonder where the Berkeley Center for New Media should sit in the debate. That is, as BCNM goes forward as a young "department", even by New Media Standards, what is productive and interesting for it to focus on, and using what approaches? Even without specific examples of creators work, it should be possible to identify fruitful or interesting directions to explore, given that a truly expansive definition of new media might make the department's mission so overwhelming as to be crushing.

I'd start by studying networked community and the creations and artifacts that come from it, I think that's a rich area of study, but I'm curious to hear what others think.

Wonderful Computation (or New Media)

For Manovich:
Steven Wolfram claims in A New Kind of Science that every phenomenon can be reduced to ones and zeros--everything is computation (for example a system of cellular automata with simple rules can describe something as complex as fluid dynamics). How might this operational framework affect a definition of new media as a conduit for interdisciplinary overlap.

For the class:
Does variability or mutability of media cause problems for the discipline beyond self-definition? Can ambiguity be used constructively as is sometime seen in architecture?

Stochiastic Emergence

For Levin:
Because your projects rely on human interaction and input, an inherent randomness is always present. You are generally able to harness this randomness through algorithmic filters to create an effect that is then fed back for interpretation and futher interaction, leading potentially to a sort of stochiastic emergence. What are your higher-order or meta- considerations when designing with this randomness? Are there unproductive limitations you find when working with human input?

For the class:
As a product of human input, does the output that comes from Levin's designs have an automatic connection to us as observers and users?

Question

For class from articles

I remember that I had hard time in communication with the term of ‘media’ my project presentation because I used the term as the intermediate body but others came up with mass media. The notion of ‘New media’ is still a blurring term in my mind.
If New Media is the platform between human recognition and subject whatever the subject is data, technology and different culture as Manovich’s definition, would it be possible to think New Media is a highly artificially defined frame- invention of new eyeview and invention of new tool that make the eyeview possible- to show both certain reality and nonreality to media consummer in a broad way?


For Levin

“Not only they invented new ways to represent any data (and thus, by default, all data which has to do with “culture,” i.e. the human experience in the world and the symbolic representations of this experience) but they have also radically redefined our interactions with all of old culture.”

With this Manovich’s description, I came up with the role of data visualization as different meaning of control. Even though we don’t use dichotomized relation like media professionals and media consumers. Is the ability to visualize data able to be regarded as an authorizing power to articulate complex context in a certain way in terms of not only just representing those data but also clarifying them in specific way and manipulating human experience? Like Levin did emphasize the existence of eye in human body, visualization through media is available to invoke a theme in itself. Then, data visualization has controlling power?

Questions for Golan Levin

For Golan Levin:
You mentioned in your interview by Joanna Heatwole that "In fact, making good art takes as long as it ever has." However, computer and some software indeed shorten the time to produce artworks. Does that contradict your statement?

For the class:
Responsive artworks indeed reflect viewers' subjectivity. However, it's just to certain extent, maybe more that traditional artworks. Those reactive artworks still reflect the authors' opinions or subjectivity, because they might prefer some algorithms or somethings like that.

Golan Levin

To Golan Levin: In your artists statement you end by saying, "anyone with a body,... and anyone with eyes" can access your work, making the point that your work does not discriminate and is open to all, but doesn't the space of the gallery or museum to which it is confined create a certain demographic who has the privilege to access your work? Is being an formal artist inherently restrict your audience, especially when you work primarily in designated spaces of display?

To the Class: Considering such seminal texts as Barthes "Death of the Author" and the structure of wiki, flickr, youtube, and blogs, is the role of the producer changing into a universal producer? There are good wiki entries and bad wiki entries as we can judge people's flickr accounts, youtube videos and blogs, but as these "amateur" artists continue to utilize the infinite space of the internet, at what point is the author completely lost? Do ideas like creative commons which ask for credit where credit is due help combat the copy and paste or drag and drop ability of these shared networks or will copyright need to change its language?

I'm a Mass Communications major looking for ways of increasing the personal agency of the masses in the fight against the Bourgeoisie's domination of our cultural ideologies. I'm looking for a non-violent means of revolution or an evolution per se. I need a new enlightenment. The question of whether this non-violent evolution can be achieved through music and art or new media interactivity is my concern.

My question for Golan Levin is:

Will this continuing expansion of media interactivity lead us to real world insight's, where new possibilities for human interactivity are realized or are the realization of new possibilities being confined to the virtual world of software opportunities expressed as visual images? Will these new images lead to new cultural ideological realizations.

For the class:

Can the every expanding virtual world of media interactivity lead to a realization of new and enlightened ways of human interaction? Will there ever be a revolution through art, music remixed by technology or am I just fiddling while Rome burns?

Golan Levin Readings

Here are the links to the Golan Levin readings.

http://www.flong.com/texts/essays/statement_art_2005/

http://www.flong.com/texts/interviews/interview_heatwole/

http://www.flong.com/texts/interviews/interview_manovich/


There are also some interesting articles about his overhead projector pieces in the peer reviewed articles section.
Check out his artwork here
http://www.flong.com/