Little bit of housekeeping

I realise that I did not announce my office hours in Wednesday's lecture as promised - my apologies: Monday 1-3pm is the time when you can just drop in to talk to me (Room 518, Arts 1 Building). If you need to speak to me outside of these times (e.g. there's something so urgent it can't wait until Monday, or you have a timetable commitment that prevents you from coming in those hours) then please email me [l dot goode at auckland dot ac dot nz] and we can arrange an alternative appointment time. I guess Kevin will also publish his office hours here too - then I will put this info up on CECIL as well.

As for the course outlines, I know many of you have collected them from the FTVMS office but quite a number still haven't. Please pick one up next time you're passing by the office. Alternatively, it's available in PDF form on CECIL. Remember too, that you will need to invest in a course reader ($5)... oh, and we strongly advise you to read it as well!

Finally, I'd just like to outline a few guidelines for using the blog so that it works smoothly. I won't bother with the obvious (no porn, no links to illegal sites etc. etc.) But in terms of the less obvious, here are a few pointers (and no, Sam, I'm not going to ban magenta text because I don't want to look like a fascist - but let's hope you come to your senses and begin to opt for clean modernism over psychedelic vomitus!):

- Remember to sign your posts if your blogger name does not clearly identify you.

- Whilst we (staff and other students in the group) need to know who you are, you are advised not to reveal personal information that will identify you to the public at large (this blog is public domain). For instance, if you decide to set up a blogger profile, be careful about the information you choose to include. Don't give out cell phone numbers or other contact details on the blog. If you really want to give your email address out on the blog for some reason, then use a format like the one I've used above for mine, rather than the actual address otherwise you are laying yourself open to even more spam in your inbox.

- Comments on other people's posts are a great idea and contribute to the spririt of dialogue that we want to encourage on this blog. But please keep comments constructive, even when you wish to express your disagreement with something that has been said.

- Links to anything that could potentially offend should be clearly labelled as such so that people are warned before they click and can choose whether or not to pursue it.

- Don't plagiarise! Your contributions should be your own. Don't paste long articles into the blog - just provide a link together with your own comments. If it's really necessary to paste some external content into your post, you should check out its copyright status and always give the source.

- Finally, avoid uploading images, animations, audio or video files with huge file sizes. What that does is to slow down the load-in time when someone visits the blog (especially for dial-up users), and users who may be using metered network access (e.g. NetAccount) end up paying for that file every time they visit the blog, so long as that post stays on the homepage. Wherever possible, use links to point to these things. If someone posts something with an impractical file size, Kevin or myself may well remove it (if it's relevant, interesting and not too enormous we may leave it up for a few days before taking it down).

So, having extolled the virtues of economy, I've ended up with a much larger post than I intended. (Have I forgotten anything?)

Children and Technoculture

When I was a child I had to go out and knock on my friends doors to ask if they wanted to come out and play. My little brother (he’s 7 years old) laughed at me when I suggested he do this (he was bored and wanted something to do). “No, I can’t do that! I have to call my friend first to check if he’s home, and I can’t be bothered. I’ll go play on the computer instead”.

I think it’s interesting how children see the virtual world, like in Sherry Turkles article where the children she interviewed see the computer as having a psychology, and attributing it qualities witch undermine the machine/person distinction.

I wonder if it really is very good for children to be living in this virtual world? One advantage may be that if a child doesn’t have many friends, they can get online friends. But then again, these friends might not be the people they give the impression of being. Can they then be counted as true friends? Another disadvantage may be that the virtual world takes over for the real world, and children lose friends because they spend too much time on the computer/PS etc… I know this will probably be a big concern for me regarding my own children one day.

Any other thoughts on this subject?

-Emily

Manovich and Barthes and screens

Apologies, but I'm going to get academic on yo asses. I was pondering Manovich's assertion that the advent of the WWW and the windows aesthetic engenders a potential (inavoidable?) move away from traditional linear narrative formations into something which is more open and subjective. His belief that a partnership is formed between the screen and the user resembles closely Barthes' 'On CinemaScope' for mine.
Barthes insists that with the broadening of the screen in CinemaScope, the viewer is freed from the screen's power, where previously viewers had received 'cinematic nourishment' as if through a drip feeder. For Barthes', a relationship of mutual dependency is formed as the viewer now has an 'arm's length' distance from the screen, meaning that they have a certain power of creation over the text - that is, the power to fashion their own subjective experience of the text by picking out from the vast screen what they see. I guess this ties in very much with Barthes' 'Death of the Author' idea, empowering audiences in their subjective interpretations.
Surely this process is carried on through the creation of the GUI, and Manovich's belief in a new cinematic aesthetic for the digital age which resembles that of the GUI. The power of the user/viewer is certainly greater than ever before in the communicative exchange, especially with their direct influence over the narrative they experience in using the WWW. Barthes' claim always seemed pretty extreme in response to something as simple as making the cinema screen a bit wider, but could it be said that the digital era allows the realisation of his claims? Does the windows aesthetic attribute even greater power to the user than Barthes' might have imagined? Do filmmakers need to go as far as Manovich claims in not prescribing meaning, as the very process of reception now gives the viewer so much power?
I'm sure that the power relations have changed in favour of the viewer, but since both Barthes and Manovich claim a partnership (equality impled), who is right? haha, right.
Questions, comments? or am I being a dork?
Sam

Cellphones and the, er, opposite of early adopter ism

I’m terribly impressed with Hayden’s technology-literate post, and I think the idea of posting pxts is a great one. I don’t have a pxt-capable phone, myself. I’m wondering if this makes me part of a minority – or is Hayden in the minority? Among my peers I’ve noticed that if cellphones are discussed, it’s usually to commend someone on their Nokia from 1999. Maybe that’s just because hardly anyone I know has much of a disposable income, but for me, having a basic phone is a deliberate aesthetic choice. Or maybe I just think it’s a deliberate aesthetic choice but deep down I’m a luddite in denial.

Last year, I finally mislaid my own chunky old reminder of the past and was forced to upgrade. I had an argument/conversation with a sales guy in the Telecom shop on Queen Street for at least half an hour. We were talking at cross-purposes. I was trying to explain my desire for simplicity, and the reason for a nostalgia for pixels you can see. The guy thought I was crazy. He lived in a version of reality where More Features = Better, a reality where I might actually want my cellphone to be able to clumsily emulate a song, furthermore, a reality where I would consider it necessary to have the ability to choose from a range of bad emulations of songs. Ditto screens that move and have colour. Okay, I can see where having a pxt function could be useful, as well as being able to connect to the Internet. But I was sitting in this shop, trying to explain minimalism, Modernism (in the aesthetic sense), the form/function dichotomy to this guy with an earring whose form of response was to keep repeating the same sales lingo. "But you can customise, with a choice of seven different wallpapers! And don't you want bluetooth technology? And what about these thirty four new ringtones? The ability to download more ringtones?" I don't know. I'm making a caricature out of this guy. You get the idea. He had an earring.

Anyway. I won, because he agreed to go out back and check to see if there were any out of date models available. He came back out with this thing that had little metal screws holding the front casing on. Great, I said, I’ll take it.

So we went up to the counter and he was like, okay, that’ll be $599, sorry, old model, old price tag, you understand.

So instead I bought a phone with Internet access and a choice of seven different animated wallpapers and a cornucopia of stupid ringtones.

Back and forth. Forever.

First Day Back

The awesome weather sure made the first day back at uni much more pleasant.

Anyway, I guess I'm the geeky guy who gets to break the ice and make the first post, so here goes...

Since this is a techno-culture paper, I propose a pxt of the week post from whoever can be bothered, perhaps highlighting just how dodgy and voyeuristic we can be with a camera always with us. So here's mine.



Neither dodgy nor voyeuristic, sorry, but taken just after Italy won the world cup last Monday. This is Symonds Street, outside Gina's pizza and pasta place where it seemed every Italian in Auckland was inside watching the game. After Italy's win over France everyone who was inside spewed out onto the street and blocked traffic, waving Italian flags and showering champagne over the road. Quite a sight, and a celebration only Italians are capable of.

Here's an audio grab from the 95bFM breakfast show that morning (live from Gina's) showing just how crazy it was. Apologies for the dodgy quality and my novice broadcasting skills.

Tinkering

Good to see people signing up in their "droves" (almost). You might notice things changing a little as I tinker around with the settings to get it (hopefully) ship-shape. Please do let me know if you notice anything odd or ungainly that I should try and fix up. (Unless you want it to work on the Mac version of Internet Explorer, to which I would have to say "life's too short" and "why on earth are you using Explorer on a Mac?") Do feel free to start posting - you don't have to wait until the class.