Monthly Archives: March 2015

60 Seconds Late – Connection 2

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Imagine this…

You walk into a packed theatre only moments late. Traffic on the bridge and a lack of parking. As you shuffle through the rows of red chairs exchanging nodding apologies you hear something. Rather, you hear nothing. It’s oddly quiet. Not silent but there’s no hyped audience chatter, no band preparation and there certainly isn’t the parading avant garde ruckus you expected.

Reaching your seat you offer an awkward smile to the young bespectacled chap beside you. He offers the same smile back. Uncomfortably you shuffle into your chair and lower your body not to draw further embarrassment. Peering over the balcony you see the full orchestra lead by a solo pianist. They just sit there. Staring. Smiling. Shuffling. Stretching. Don’t they know the curtain is up? Why is the audience so still?

You start to hear your own breathing as it escalates. The young man beside you scratches his head and it echoes strangely through the quiet theatre. Everything in the space stands still. Slowly you become aware of your near surroundings. The soft wisp of the vent overhead. The hum of the street outside. The smell of competing perfumes rise and fall eventually becoming overwhelming as a collective. You reach for your nose and an elderly man three rows back coughs.

Heads turn one by one, unnerved, intrigued or blank to find the source of the impeding sound that cut the tension. It’s been well over a minute now. Car-horns and screeching tyres that were once so distant now seem to rock the room. The few children in the audience are growing uncomfortable, nagging their parents who quickly shhh them and return their blank stare to the stage. The solo pianist unmoved, his orchestra patiently attentive, in waiting.  Is there something wrong?

As you look around your stomach makes an involuntary groan, thankfully it is drowned out by somebody’s unfortunately timed flatulence. This time no-one turns. All eyes are on the stage, but bodies are moving. A few tap their feet to the rhythm of nothing in particular. Some whisper to their other halves. One lady near you even pulls out a mirror and begins to adjust her make-up. A short grey-haired lady in the front stands and turns to exit.

Suddenly with one swift, smooth motion the pianist stands turns to face the audience and stoops into a low bow. Instantly drawn to the onstage movement the audience returns to the ample quiet when you first arrived. Awkward disjointed claps call and respond from around the theatre. The pianist with a flick of his hand in appreciation returns to his seat and counts in the next piece.

You arrived 60 seconds late to a rendition of 4’33” by John Cage.

A piece written with intention to show that there truly is no such thing as silence, Cage instructs the performer, of any instrument or group of instruments, to not play for the duration of the score. Cage’s three movement piece has been at the centre of controversy since it’s conception in 1952. People have continuously questioned if it can be defined as music, offering conservatively that it should be categorised as conceptual art. It draws on the tension between performer and audience and while creating no sound of it’s own still brings to the audiences senses the six top paragraphs of visuals, sounds and even smells.

Listen to the piece below and take note of everyone you hear, see, smell and feel. Is what you’re seeing media? Anti-media? Think of your opinions of the piece.

 

“The Rise Of The Selfie” – Practicle 2

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BBC news published an article in June 2013 discussing “the rise of the selfie” and “the selfie age”, a phenomenon – while only recently globalised thanks to social media – credited to Robert Cornelius as long ago as 1839. Today chances are, if you haven’t taken a selfie you’ve seen your BFF do it, your sister do it and unless you reside in Unit 1 under a rock, in Out of the Loop Province you’ve seen one taken by a complete stranger.

So what has caused this increase in the supply (and importantly demand) of the Selfie?

Selfies can be taking and published by or on behalf of anybody from a toddler on his parent’s iPad to a singer/superstar on their smartphone. It’s a worldwide craze that has brought interest from everyday consumers, producers trying to promote modern features and even behavioural experts such as Dr Pamela Rutledge of Media Psychology Research Centre. Dr Rutledge points that it allows us to create and indulge in an alternative albeit it tangible character and “imagine how we would feel as that part of ourselves”.

Looking further into motives for selfie-taking, you can find what people hope to achieve by publishing their photos online and through social media. By being able to decide which photos you do or don’t publish you are able to screen or filter how the online world sees you. Somebody may publish a flattering photo that will bring compliments, equally they may publish a particularly Unflattering photo in hope that it will create a comedic or relaxed character. Therefore a persons interest in publishing a selfie lies not in “how we would feel as that part of ourselves” but rather in figuring out how people respond to that part of ourselves. A concept greater than this form, understanding audience response and reception of produced material

Comparatively consumers (or viewers) of selfies love to see their friends engaging in an active and experimental lifestyle. Photographs are a much more engaging and inclusive medium as opposed to text, hence the idiom “a picture paints a thousand words.” This allows viewers to instantly take in and understand the scenario, becoming more involved and interactive in the consuming process. As 22 year-old instagrammer Emily Cook proposed “Instead of saying you’re going to work, a photo of you in your uniform does that”. A selfie that shows how good you look in your wonderful new dress can show the viewer much more: where you wore, who you wore it with and if you find the ultimately angle, your lovely heels that match.

Important to my future as a media student and practitioner is this increasing trend to portray information of place, time, character and more through image. It is an effective medium for communication and something that I wish to gain a proficiency in – to not only be able to document my own life through a selfie but to establish an entire scenario, real or fake, and introduce the audience to this world. It brings to mind the old cliche “a picture paints a thousand words”, however I prefer the less metaphorical phrase for simple purposes “never use a large word, when a small one will do” (George Orwell).

To finish, selfies are enjoyed by the producer and the consumer so here are a few tips to get the best out of your selfie experience:

Did You Miss Anything? A discussion of hyper and deep attention- Lectorial 1

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Rumour has it you didn’t make it to the Media Lectorial today. Maybe you got lost. Maybe you slept in. Maybe your cat died. Maybe you thought daylight savings started. Maybe you’re a dyslexic agnostic insomniac and you stayed up all night wondering if there really is a dog. Anyway, after asking the stupid question “did i miss anything?” Here is your stupid answer.

According to poet Tom Wayman you missed everything and nothing:

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours.

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder.

A less sarcastic man would answer quite simply: “we wrote a list of ten things we wanted to achieve from this course and then discussed a paper by N. Katherine Hayles on Hyper and Deep Attention.” You may have no idea what hyper and/or deep attention is, more unfortunately some of you may not know what a paper is. Fortunately though I will discuss the meanings of hyper and deep attention below and include a link to the meaning of paper here courtesy of dictionary.com.

Firstly Hayles proposes that developments in programmed, interactive and mass media are begin to impact on how businesses in developed societies function and how the members of their society communicate, defining their social context. This change in it’s essence can be shown in her study of the correlations between deep attention, hyper attention and their uses for the individual and their community.

Hyper attention is seen as an ability to focus on multiple stimuli, or rather being able to quickly transition from one stimulus to another. It is associated with a desire for interaction and incentive, while also resulting in an intolerance for boredom. Inversely, deep attention steers focus towards one source of information and the ability to immerse oneself in that source, possibly still with multiple lines of thought but all focus on interpretation of one stimulus. Hence, it encourages an eye for detail, unconsciously removes distractions and can detriment multi-tasking.

The transition Hayles identifies as steering away from deep attention towards traits of hyper attention, particularly with the younger demographic. So what effect does this this have on Media?

It would seem that it changes the ways we produce media, we receive it and ultimately how we perceive it. A increased demand from audiences to be stimulated and provided with information in a shorter time frame impacts various sections of the media industry from advertising, to programming to how film and audio are edited. A perfect example of producers responses to this are “Vines” or seven second videos. It’s flexibility to impact through various formats, particularly social media and availability to be created and spread by anyone makes it a successful stimulus in a hyper attentive world.

Now here’s a video insert for no other reason than to stop you getting bored (if you made it this far).

As younger audiences develop this attitude studies have shown that more youths are simultaneously accessing multiple streams of information including hard media. In Hayles’ paper she shares data from the Kaiser Family Foundation that found 30% of children alternate doing homework while accessing external media. This increases the importance of media to constantly provide interesting stimuli, interaction or offer incentives.

As I write this I’m listening to my iPod – a playlist of Childish Gambino, Allday and Seth Sentry – and if a song becomes boring or slows my process on this blog I skip it, simple as that. However, if the song were to be interactive, say like a choose your own adventure and I could choose the verse, chorus or loop that came next I would indulge and involve more with the stimulus. Also if they were to offer incentives, say every time I finished a song to the end my fan rating would go up, while I wouldn’t necessarily be more indulged I would make a habit of seeing a song through to the end, a trait drawn from deep attention.

These weapons of mass production are noticed most in the entertainment and games industries. This desire for multiple streams and types of stimuli means that video games must alternate between and consist of high impact gameplay, stimulating interface and image, intricate and/or interactive storylines and also offer incentives for continued gameplay. Many designers and individual games have managed to adapt efficiently to this style and with success; Steve Johnsons’ research also as part of Hayles paper proposed that video games through their structure of escalating intensity, stimulus and reward encourages gamers to progress, relying on a similar chemical urge to that of gambling.

This understanding of hyper and deep attention will help with my processes of creating and particularly editing material as I’m aware of the relationship and perspective of audiences. As the scope of Hayles’ research incorporated many forms and mediums of media production and consumption it becomes relevant to a various aspects of the industry. However, this analysis is very specific to time, demographic and to a lesser extent place, an investigation of current methods of youth’s interaction with western media.

In conclusion the shift from deep to hyper attention has a correlation with development of media and indeed wider society. However, is this shift the cause for a change in in the media industry? Could it be the vice-versa, that new media, relying on multiple streams of simultaneous stimulus has brought this shift? Are the younger generation the cause, or simply just a cog in the wheel that happens to be spinning in the same direction? I don’t know, so if anyone has anything to suggest/add, please let me know.

 

Self Portraits and Perception – Link 1

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Today was an intriguing day where I learnt that there are distinct differences between self-reflection, self-portraits and selfies. Most people would be more familiar with the latter (myself included), but further study has shown me that the more exciting and intuitive self-portraits and self-reflective art are greatly under appreciated. Their ability to adapt to different mediums and link to “the self” through direct or indirect links provide greater freedom for artistic, creative and outside-the-box ideas.

Bryan Lewis Saunders is an interesting performance artist whose work with self-portraits in his project “Under the Influence” has motivated me. Saunders, who hails from Washington D.C, is renowned as a videographer, poet and author. Found here his self-portrait gallery is an intriguing experiment that deals with perception, focusing however, on the alteration of perception by chemical means. A type of self-inflicted typology of identity which I think would be an interesting way to portray the self. *NB for my first project brief this gallery inspired my section of images YOU(TH) which explored the plurality of young life.

Saunders subjected himself over an ongoing period to various drugs, ranging from over-the-counter pharmaceuticals to concoctions of illegal narcotics. The aim of his work was to draw, sketch, paint or collage how he saw himself after taking each drug. I find it gives an in-depth view as to how drugs affect a persons reality and their perception of reality. It’s a very useful example that will shape my definitions of self-portraits and self-representation through media.

Bryan Lewis Saunders as seen by Bryan Lewis Saunders (On 4mg Risperdol)

Bryan Lewis Saunders as seen by Bryan Lewis Saunders (On 4mg Risperdol)

Saunders Self-Portrait on Mushrooms

Saunders Self-Portrait on Mushrooms

Saunders on Nitrous Oxide

Saunders on Nitrous Oxide

Life as a Post(er) Boy – Practical 1

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As part of our media 1 course we have been requested to start and maintain a blog. I’ve never had a blog before nor have I been a religious follower. Taking a passive approach to social media in general I am an observer who finds it useful to the extent of communicating directly with friends and associates. Never have I considered putting my views and opinions into such an open forum. The main idea of this assignment then, is to get us used to working in public light and developing ways to promote ourselves and colleagues to potential audiences.

Currently my understanding of the purpose of this blog is to introduce us to the process of research, creation, reflection and edit. Having our work published on a public forum also makes us think about how we present ourselves as media producers and prompt us to work under copyright law and media ethics.

Questions that I am pondering:

  • How will I incorporate an “entertainment factor” into what is essentially an academic assignment?
  • How much personality and moral opinion should I include in the entries?Should they be separated from academic entries or interwoven?
  • What other platforms can I use to advertise my material? Links through Facebook, on youtube videos created for this course?
  • How can I motivate myself to remain interested in subjects of prescribed entries?
  • What do I hope to gain as a media practitioner from this experience?

Throughout the term of this program my answers to these questions will no doubt change and adapt to the course requirements but also develop with my approach to media production and promotion. Firstly I hope to learn effective ways of presenting myself to current and future audiences, enjoying myself and thinking critically of my own work in the progress.

 

NOTE: APRIL 13th 2015

One component to our group project is individually compiled 1200 word annotated bibliographies. Having never produced an annotated bibliography before this seemed a daunting and extensive task. However, after researching I was able to find an effective system to approaching my chosen resources that meant I could quite easily summarise the texts purpose and importance into this space (though I could have easily written more). It is asking more than an analysis of the words within the text, and provoking you to ask questions such as:

Who is this text addressing?

How does it effectively use data and research to support its claims?

What are the limitations in the application of its theories?

And many more that I had never considered were crucial for a summary, rather I dismissed them as extra-currical thoughts.

A useful tool I found was UNSW’s walkthrough, designed to give fellow students an introduction and help them map out their annotated bibliographies. They follow an eight step principle:

(1) Citation

(2) Introduction

(3) Aims & Research methods

(4) Scope

(5) Usefulness

(6) Limitations

(7) Conclusions

(8) Reflection

This is a method that I have recently introduced in my blog posts (note from practical 7 onwards) that I feels give them a stronger substance and is a flexible layout that can be applied to films, readings and experiences. This method of thinking has enhanced my approach to many aspects of study, particularly in developing a rhetorical approach to history in my media and politics classes.

This approach has greatly increased my understand of the blog as a critical evaluation and reflection. It has certainly helped me with my process for reading texts and engaging with their content as an audience and a media producer.