Knowlege is Power. No wait a minute, It's Aesthetics!

Okay, So I have been thinking about to what extent is aesthetics power and It is totally evident in virtual communities, such as myspace!

I joined myspace because a friend set up a profile for me so that he could add me as a friend and have a bigger friend ratting. (Lame I know!) Anyway since that day I have barely touched my profile, I have filled in my interests and added one lame photo which features 4 people so you can’t even tell which one is me, if you didn’t know me. So my profile is pretty pathetic – I have no you tube videos, no custom background, no music and as a result I have had no one add me to myspace. No random person wanting to be my virtual friend and no "real friends/acquaintances" adding me… If I want a "real friend/acquaintance" to be my myspace friend, I have to add them… Even my good friend who set up a profile for me to add to his friends doesn’t have me in his ‘top 8’ friends (and I think he even extended it to top 12 and I still didn’t make the cut!) – but he has some random acquaintances in his top friends list. The people in his top friends list are the people with the wicked profiles and heaps of "friends"… I’m a myspace looser! Haha

It’s evident also by other people’s comment about how they joined myspace and got addicted that they spent a fair bit of time on their profile…

Maybe I’m the virtual equivalent of being an ugly person… My profile is not pretty enough for people to add me. My real friends are embarrassed to be my myspace friends… and random people write me off as a boring person because I have no flash gadgets. Aesthetics seems like a superficial kind of thing – hence the saying, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, it should be function and not form that should matter… But really, appearances are everything!
So in a virtual world where we can choose to be what ever we want, play with our identities and be celebrities and super models, why am I the boring/ugly profile girl…Well firstly, I can’t really be bothered figuring out how to add videos and music to my profile.. I tried it once and they said to download an upgrade of flash and I was like… nah… Maybe the future of the virtual is going to be that the cleverest with technology (the computer geeks) are going to be the most popular, beautiful and powerful people and the people like me who can’t be bothered and can’t afford the upgrades become the geeks…

forward: cc: reply etc

Most of my friends have left university and are finding their feet in mind numbing 40 hour week desk jobs. However one thing really intrigues me is to what they do in this time. Sitting in front of a computer for hours on end can lead to recalcitranct behaviour and this is showcased in my excessively overloaded email account!. No i dont want to forward on your chain letter which will result in all my wishes coming true, Its not funny to hassle the hoff! (hes an icon of a generation y'know) I dont want to hear some witty quip about some all black and his drinking habits and no I definitly dont want to see anything relating to the untimely death of Steve Irwin! ITS TOO SOON!

This kind of office behaviour has actually been analysed by a sociological scholar called Du Gay. In his 1996 work 'Consuming Organisation' he talks about this thing called 'La Perruque'. Basically this is the workers own work however disguised as work for his employer. Now this seriously leads me to wonder how much time is wasted at work since the arrival of email. Say everyone checks their email six times a day for ten minutes, thats an hour of skyving off. The email check is the new smoko! And who makes these things? its probably some bored advertising/graohic design junior who in between checking his emails makes quirky powerpoint presentations of ten reasons women cant drive(cue crazy car positons) or sports greatest injuries caught on camera.

This kind of carry on isnt gonna stop anytime soon, but to be completly honest, when I'm out their doing the 9-5 their better be something remotely funny in my inbox or im gonna throw the fax machine.
c.

p.s: funniest email will win a mystery prize! cdow028@ec.auckland.ac.nz
yeh i know, im slightly hypocritical

MY Space!!

To follow on from 'Andrews' post regarding the addictive nature of My Space..

I wouldn't yet say that I am a My Space 'addict' at this stage as I'm not totally obsessed with the thing yet. However since getting my profile up off the ground since Monday and spending quite a bit of time setting up all the nifty features etc, I can see how my friend ends up staying up til the rather early hours of the morning playing on the site. A quite a few of my friends are REALLY into My Space and after months of just ignoring it and thinking it wasn't really my thing - including during the time of the lecture regarding blogs etc - I finally loaded everything on to my profile! Now I guess along with the other billion people, it is my thing in a way?

I find it very interesting though that some people get SO invloved that they think celebrities etc do to! I know one girl who supposedly got a My Space message from one of the girls on E! channel's Playboy Mansion and she actually believes that it is in fact the girl from the show looking at her profile etc - crazy!

The reason I am posting a blog about this is that today i got a message from a little brother of a friend of mine that I have known for years (since we were about six years old) and haven't seen since about 1998. I think it is crazy that something so simple like a site such as My Space could get people back in touch after such a long time, perhaps longer!

I have mixed views on this. I do have my suspicions about the security/privacy of some of these things but perhaps getting in touch with people from your past makes that risk that much more worth it? Depends who it is contacting you I suppose!

I have posted up the URL of my profile, but not because I want everyone to browse around it necessarily. I don't think I have put anything on there that could ruin my chances of future employment or anything of the like.. Have I?!!

Lydia

Universal Music 'Spiral Frog' = Free Downloads!

Hi 203,

For anybody interested in news articles about ‘Spiral Frog’ the Universal Music in a free download deal, here are some links:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5294842.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/business/
29cnd-music.html?ex=1157688000&en=9a03873e373eaca0&ei=5070


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2006/08/29/AR2006082900280.html


bests,
Andrea

Blogging in Mid-Semester Break / Essay Question references

Blogging in Mid-Semester Break.... and some Essay Question references


(If it isn’t the ‘flu that can get you down, then assignments can keep you away form accessing the 203 blogspot...and, so can trying to log into the wrong website!)

Well, it turns out Luke Goode’s article, ‘Digital’ (2006) available on Cecil was a good reference to use for my FTVMS 312 Essay assignment on ‘being digital’ (cf- Negroponte and beyond!). I cited it in my WORKS CITED notes as:

Goode, L. (2006). ‘Digital’. Forthcoming article in Encyclopaedia of Sociology, General ed. G. Ritzer. Blackwell Publishing (2006, in press). (Available online as a University of Auckland Cecil e-resource to UOA students for citation purposes)

As essay Question No. 1 for 203 is again on ‘digital vs. analogue’.... I think I’m going with the ‘Music / File-sharing’ topic (Question No. 8)!


* A possible resource for anybody wanting a great resource link for the ‘Cinema’ topic, see:

Martin Lister, et al
‘2.8 Digital Cinema’ in New Media: A Critical Introduction (Routledge, 2003)


* A possible resource for anybody wanting a great resource link for the ‘Noise’ topic, see:

Prof. Blair Ligon
‘The Symbolism and Iconography of Noise in Digital Media’, 2003
Available as an online resource from: e3motion.com/chaos/noise7N.pdf


bests,
Andrea
FTVMS 203

Immerse Yourself!

Immersion is the most amazing experience that all of us enjoy, most likely in movies. But I think the closest to real immersion that is currently possible for consumers is in gaming. Though not perfect YET, gaming offers more immersion by way of interaction, but currently hasn't beat the immersion of narrative in film.

Steven Spielberg has made many points about this. "Is the player in charge of the story, or is the programmer in control of the story?" Spielberg asked. "How do you make those two things reconcile with each other? Audiences often don't want to be in control of a story. They want to be lost in your story. They come to hear you be the storyteller, but in gaming it's going to have to be a little bit of both, a little bit of give and take."

The pinnacle of gaming overtaking film narrative immersion is as Spielberg says "when games can make people cry".

Single person gaming is the book of today for allot of the new generation of boys and men. Though it still hasn't quite achieved full immersion, it is nearly there with first person games like Half Life 2 and Halo.

"The next big emotional breakthrough in gaming is being able to tell a story that is consistent throughout the narrative. If the game is 15 levels, it's just like 15 chapters in a story," Spielberg

Half Life 2 and Halo are first person shooter games that have strong narrative that players get immersed in and take to heart. Halo was the first game that I can remember where narrative is a driving force and that gamers felt truly involved in. Then Half Life 2 came along being the most immersive and critically acclaimed games of all time for this reason.

While neither game made anyone cry I'm sure, both mesmerized gamers and created their addiction for sequels and for the story to never end. This was clearly shown by the amazing Halo following which broke entertainment history records. For the Halo Sequel (Halo 2) a record 1.5 million units where pre-ordered, in the first 24 hours of its release it sold 2.4million units and grossed 125million, making it the highest grossing entertainment release in history. One Year after release it had sold more than 7 million copies and another year later sales figures are unclear but surely still rising with the advent of XBOX Live and Halo 2 being the most played game online. More still it is being released for PC with Windows Vista in 2007.

With the huge following of Halo 2, Halo 3 is set to be just as big with the slogan "Finish the fight - 2007". Putting influence on the narrative, the fight between humanity and the evil covenant in the single player mode.

Half Life 2 is another similar game but more realistic to life on earth and a story that is science fiction but thoroughly believable. It is the pinnacle of gaming immersion at this current time. With a strong narrative and great balance of interaction and objective. Half Life 2 and its episodic continuation (being released in parts like a TV show) does encourage an important and powerful emotion into the players, this is the emotion of growing uncertain love. This comes from the partnering with the other main character called Alyx, a woman you fight with, help personally and go through experiences with for the entire game. However, throughout the whole game the players character (Gordon) is completely silent, the emotion comes through the narrative and the words of Alyx. In Half Life 2: Episode 1 this growing love on Alyx's behalf continues with more flirtatious remarks from her.

Half Life 2 instils this bond with the player, she is someone you spend the entire time ingame with. Many players online have speculated and talked about this important bond in the game, hoping it continues and turns into love in the following episodes. There is even nude fantasy art and other erotic items of fan art.

Half Life's production studio, Valve, has been successful in communicating a real emotion through their video game, one that creates a bond with the player. This keeps the player coming back and eventually maybe Valve will confirm this love from Alyx and perhaps through the bond created in previous Half Life games some emotion maybe shown from the player, as Spielberg wants.

Digital Music next week

Hi y'all

this is Nabeel (Zuberi). I'm the guest lecturer, pencilled in for next week's class on 'digital music'. I'm still busy marking assignments for another FTVMS course so I haven't figured out exactly what I'm going to talk about in its finer details. However, I thought I'd give you a heads-up. I can also collect my thoughts in preparation for next week.

I'll be talking a lot from my experience as a massive music fan/junkie, writer about music (formerly journalism now the academy), and last but not least as a radio DJ on Base FM 107.3.

I'm interested in music and technology quite broadly, and want to temper the 'cyberbole' by considering the range of technologies involved in production, distribution and consumption. That means 'old' and 'new' technologies, though I don't really buy into these terms. There are many continuities and discontinuities. Along with web-based formats and platforms, that means everything else like CDs, turntables, vinyl, cassettes, phones etc.

Most of what I will say comes out of my own practice as a music freak and two pieces of writing I've recently finished:

A book chapter on the digital sampling of South Asian music by hip hop and R & B artists over the last five or six years. From Missy Elliot's Get Ur Freak On onwards really; all that Bollywood and Bhangra stuff in black or 'urban' music, and what it says about black/Asian 'crossover', sex and love and more generally about globalization and those ethnic/national categorizations for music. What are 'black macks' communicating by using 'Indian chicks' on their tunes? What happens to notions of cultural authenticity? Who's ripping off whom? Anyhow, this will be published in an anthology called South Asian Networks. I was trying to think about how digital sounds travel in networks very rapidly and mutate and the implications of that. I try and use the 'mash up' as a theoretical tool, if you can believe that. So expect to hear some Missy on Wednesday. Missy be puttin' it down...

The other piece--I've just finished the first draft--is for an issue of the journal Science Fiction studies devoted to Afrofuturism. That's futurism that deals with the African diaspora. In music it often refers to black artists who have deployed themes of outer space, aliens, cyborgs and futuristic landscapes in their work e.g. George Clinton, Sun Ra, Detroit techno artists,Dr Octagon, Missy Elliot, Labelle, Betty Davis, basically loads of people. It also refers to a wider concern with notions of blackness and technology. One reason I'm interested in this, apart from the wicked music, is that white boys tend to think they rule the tech roost. And it's important to keep the race issue upfront in studies of technology which tend to be largely white and masculinist or think of technology as colour-blind. Anyhow, I was trying to understand the work of a bunch of music writers--particularly Kodwo Eshun, Alexander Weheliye, Paul Gilroy, Paul D Miller AKA DJ Spooky, Carolyn Cooper, Greg Tate, Angela McRobbie--who focus on hip hop, dancehall, techno and the whole funk rhythm call and response thang and see how their discussions might be fruitful for media studies. Media studies which is at this point looking to the future but also looking backwards.

This all started when I read a few blog entries referring to 'hauntology' in a lot of contemporary music of many genres. The ghosts in the machine as it were. This got me thinking about the ghostly presence of old media in our new mediascapes. As a vinyl junkie and hip hop fan, I love the sound of scratchy vinyl for example. Anyway, the point is that the future is also the past. No I'm not on drugs. That's one of the lessons of science fiction and of black history. Looking at this stuff helps us think through what is involved in the changes associated with the 'information' or 'network society'. Don't believe the hype, that it's all new.

Finally, another thing that has been preoccupying me is the emergent music mediascape of social networks such as MySpace etc., as well as blogs, and the "illegal" sharing of music. I've only just got involved in lastfm (my graduate music media course has a few pages on it) and I don't really yet know much about the lived reality of MySpace so I'm looking forward to hearing and reading your views on these spaces/communities. I've become an addict of audioblogs though.

I'm not going to go into copyright in much detail, particularly because it's so difficult to navigate and I'm still trying to come to grips with it. I know you've already read some Lessig on that and Luke's talked about the creative commons etc. But I will say that the current copyright regime is bullshit and needs to be changed. All that mash-up stuff and sample-based music just reminds us how much of our listening and creativity is based on 'phonographic orality'. The digital work of art confounds the distinction between reception/consumption and production.

The media corporations just want us to pay for every bit or byte of information they can get their greedy fingers on. Privatize everything. That's their desire. Make the customer always pay for music, if not air. We're paying for bottles of water, after all. Even Universal's recent 'it's all free' move is a sleight of hand. They want it locked down.

I hate the rip off merchants of the RIAA and the transnational music/media corporations. Decentralize culture! Like many of you I'm piratical in my music consumption. Embrace criminality when the law is bollocks. I download loadsa tunes each week. I do none of this on any University of Auckland equipment or time, so you can't dob me in :-). Of course, this is just a rhetorical paragraph for polemical purposes and does not actually condone you going out and performing illegal acts. If you get my drift.

I also buy records and CDs and pay for a few of the MP3s, but in the main I believe anything that deprives the big capitalists of profit and power is a good thing. Free Culture rocks,that's my anarcho-socialist utopianism. I wish it helped to bring the majors down but I think piracy actually ends up doing many services for the industry, giving them models from which they end up eventually making money. There's a quite complicated and at times symbiotic relationship between legal and illegal practices.

Let's have a more direct relationship between those who make music and those who consume music because that is a boundary that needs to be broken, so that we can all be 'musicking' in some way or another and create a vibrant sonic culture through our various efforts.

Fundamentally I think we need to reassess the value of music as a commodity when its social use is so out of step with the regulatory mechanisms of capitalism. Those mechanisms are themselves having to change. Copy. It's a gift.

Geez, I've blathered on more than I'd wanted to. That's a taster. Back to marking. Enjoy the rest of your holz.

Peace
Nabeel

The Basement (Radio)
Topical Ointment (Blog)

Oh no! Not another MySpace post!!

Thanks a lot FTVMS 203, thanks to you I have become addicted to myspace. I didn't want to, it just sort of happened, after hearing about myspace in class I decided to check it out. I made up a basic profile and started looking around. Now, arrogantly thought that because I didn't know about myspace then nobody else would. Within a few days a lot of my existing "real world" friends added me as Myspace friends (don't ask me how they found me but they did).

Then people were posting on this very blog questions like "how many of your myspace friends are your real world friends?" and I thought...Gee, like, all of them! So I decided to branch out and as a result have made virtual friends with people I wouldn't otherwise have met.

So that's my myspace story, but it got me thinking. I have made more friends on myspace then I have in the 203 class. Why?

Well I put it down to the fact that Myspace is a virtual ice breaker. Say for example somebody set up a 203 myspace page and everyone in the class was added as a "friend". People would then be able to surf through their classmates pages and instantly learn their interests, hobbies, music taste, film taste, TV taste....And the list goes on. Folks could then find people with similar interests and become their real life friends all because of myspace.

Would that be a good or bad thing? Do people want their classmates to know their interests? Do people want to make friends with people in their class?

I reckon most people at one or other stage in their uni life have been in a class with a hot guy or girl that they would really like to know better and then done nothing about it.

Wow that took more space than I thought.

I'd love to hear peoples opinions on the whole personality on display / virtual icebreaker thing.

Andrew S.

We are not tools of the government...

Ho hum,

So I might possibly be the last person in class to post their first blog but I'm not very good at it and haven't had very good experience with it in the past.

Why haven't I had good experience with blogging you might ask? It's an interesting story. At the beginning of this year I was persuaded by a friend to begin my very own Weblog. At first I was hesitant because I had no reason to have a weblog but she convinced me it would be a good hub for my friends to check into and see what was going on in my life when they were too busy to see me. I considered this and in February I started one.

Things went well at first. I posted the happenings of my life and my friends left me comments and the like. It all went wrong when later in the year before mid-year break I had started dating this girl I was interested in. Things were fine until unexpectedly she ended things and we haven't been on speaking terms since. Later I found out she had read my blog and there was an entry that referred to her as an "Ice Queen" and someone who lacked compassion that most human beings were capable of and that I was glad I wasn't friends with her.

Haha, ok now before you judge me, please consider the context. At the time I wrote this, she and I were not dating, we were fighting all the time and we hated each others guts. I was communicating to my friends how I felt about her and never intended for her to read it months later. So I discontinued my blog, angry at myself and angry at blogging.

But this raises an interesting question: "How has technology and the digitisation of information changed our culture and sense of truth?"

Digital vs Analogue? Because I had recorded my feelings in my blog not only were my friends able to access my personal accounts but so was the rest of the "connected" world. Had I written my entries into a journal it is unlikely she would ever have read those comments. Over time the journal would have been stored away or even discarded and forgotten. In its digital form it was preserved and she was able to access it. The worst thing is on screen it appears fresh as if I had written it yesterday. Had she opened the dusty journal years from now yellowed with age and smelling of mothballs she might have laughed at what I thought way back when. Instead she criticized me for saying those things. I tried to explain that at the time I didn't understand her like I did now and I didn't feel like that anymore, but my pleas fell on deaf ears.

What I want to consider is the effect of technology on our lives in this regard. Without Photography and Video Recording technology, could a widow move on easier without having to see the face of her husband regularly? That entry of mine was obsolete and irrelevant and I wish it had been erased or forgotten, but it was preserved in all its digital glory. "Digital" opens up many possibilities but it also has its side-effects. "Digital" allows us to store unbelievable amounts of information but it doesn't determine the value or relevancy of that information. Librarians have a good sense of what books are worth storing in their libraries. Print publishing also requires more effort than writing in ones diary about "the cute boy at school". I understand that digital gives those without a voice a forum to be heard, but without barriers and "gatekeepers" there will be incomprehensible amounts of irrelevant information.

Consider the idea that people and artefacts are supposed to disappear and be forgotten in time. Isn't that the natural order of things? Should we continue to record everything until the end of time especially when there is so much unecessary information. What will determine what is important and what is not? Human memory is not perfect and in some cases it works to our benefit. With everything so neatly archived how will we remember what is important? How will we determine what is valuable? How will a nation ever consolidate a national identity?

"Digital" allows for society to be easily recorded and regulated up to the point where you have to apply for dispensation from a council before you can cut down that annoying tree in your back yard. "Digital" has made administration and regulation much easier. Our existence is now documented in hard drives in offices you will never see; birth records; ird numbers; criminal convictions; debt; marriage; liscences and permits. Does that information accurately describe who you are? Will your interviewer judge you based on your sunny disposition or the One's and Zero's on his screen? Will the next guy get the job because he knew how to manipulate the One's and Zero's?

I guess I'm starting to wander with this now (as I tend to do) but I wanna bring it back to the beginning. That blog entry, that bunch of One's and Zero's was more representative of me than the real thing. That "digital" testimonial seemed to hold more "truth value" than my word. What does this tell you about the effect of "Digital" on our culture and our sense of truth?

[Of course I believe that digital information, U.S. government, and the media, are all regulated and mediated by the "la-li-lu-le-lo" otherwise known as The Patriots (U.S. contingent of The Philosophers). But everyone is entitled to believe what they will]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Patriots

maybe this post is too long?
Well I'm of to work now, replies criticism are welcome.

Caleb =)

(hehe, see Kevin, some people laugh in the face of anonymity)

Popping my blog cherry with some socialising

My angst over not having posted on this blog yet has become ridiculous, as my resistance to putting my thoughts out there for all to see has continued to grow! Someone posted a while ago that had this blog been anonymous, they would have posted sooner and I’m in that boat too. But before I get into a subjective analysis about what it feels like to blog I’ll move on….

Nightline did a story a few weeks ago about a new virtual community called “socialise” which I thought I’d check out. Started by a couple in Wellington who wanted to create something in between online interactivity such as myspace and real life meetings, on Socialise you are represented by an “avatar”; a cartoon-like image of yourself. Once your avatar is created (you can make basic clothing and hair decisions etc), you have the choice of 4 rooms in which you can go and meet others – a beach, a boat, a nightclub, or a café. You can also make a date to go on a private ‘virtual outing’ with another avatar, where you will have virtual money to play games with and maybe even buy your date a drink! After an outing you have the option to rate the ‘performance’ of your date so future suitors can avoid bad dates. The website claims that “socialise members can go on a virtual outing with other members and behave and interact almost as you would on a real life outing”. In the main chatrooms the interactive options are ‘sit’, ‘blow a kiss’, ‘drink’, ‘dance’, ‘give rose’ or ‘lay down’ as well as entering text which appears in a speech bubble above your avatar’s head. Looking for a virtual date? Registration gives you 21 days of free ‘socialising’, after which you’ll need to fork out $35 a month if you still want access to all areas… www.socialise.co.nz

Question: Isn't it just a pixil anyway?

All right, I need a favour. I've been running through this pixels and vectors thing in my head and I just can't manage to wrap my brain around a vector. Can anyone give me layman's terms of what this is, because I can understand how a computer can see and grid and go "Square A11 = Bright Yellow" but I don't quite get the idea of a block of colour or shape in a spatial context. Does it have co-ordinates? And if we view it on a screen isn't it a pixel image anyway? So if there's no way to encounter it in its pure form then can it really be said to be an alternative to a pixel-based image? In short: Help!

RSS: new way to read the news

When we open the MSN blogs, we may find a new link to RSS news. It is a news publication, which has no advertising and subscription fees. RSS news is along with free daily e-mail headline summaries (30,000 subscribers), electronic PDF files of the print edition, mobile news feeds, and 400 yearly appearances by Monitor staffers on TV and radio stations. It is a new technology to help people to get the information, which they want, much more convenient. For instance, Ehud Lamm, a professor at the Open University of Israel, “subscribes to 120 feeds and checks his news aggregator three to five times a day”. The RSS news is not only a convenient way to read the news, but also a good solution to protect our computer from the heck.