The last of the last!!!!

To cramping up 6 blog posts in a night before every due checklist, having sleepless nights, countless laments to the classmates about having “nothing” to blog about anymore, squeezing every ounce of juice left in the brain just to tick off the category ” I wrote at least one blog post that was not specifically about networked media and contributes to my online identity”, getting bombarded with a tremendous amount of insights and philosophical views  about theories of technology, networks, data bases and protocols, participating in symposium topics that I never thought existed, having Elliot baking cupcakes and bringing fudge to class just to make sure we stay awake in class, ping pong sessions at the editing suites, our self proclaim 15 minutes break in between lessons, to Howard Rheingold, to successfully tackling a really technical topic “DNS and IP address” with my group mates, link (Tim) link (Mardy) hahahaha, linking stuff for the sake of linking, and what’s not to forget, the friends I’ve made in summer class, it has certainly beeeeen a blast.

Network Media has been a really enriching journey for me. In terms of career wise, I’d like to set up a clothing line right after I graduate. That’s something rather ambitious, but that’s what I plan to do. ” It’s good to network, go talk to people, find out what they’re doing, at the end of the day, when you need help, those are the people that you can rely on and help you to achieve ur goals” – words of wisdom from my dad. Networking is not about just connecting people. It’s about connecting people with people, people with ideas, and people with opportunities and what comes after network is just being honest and authentic in whtever you do, authenticity is what makes a relatable person believable. It is what makes the relatability sustainable. So, Keep it real.

I’d end off this post with an infographic that I found on the net on how ur brain works on coffee and beer!!! xx

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Ten dreams of technology

In the final reading of Network Media, (whoooo! finally), Steve Dietz talks about the  Ten Dreams of Technology. In this article, Dietz mentions that the “dreams” have been developed overtime and questioned by artists throughout the history of art and technology. There’s just something about a future that these “dreams” hold for the future of technology and art, even if “it’s not yet determined”. The collection of dreams includes: Symbiosis, Emergence, Immersion, World Peace, Transparency, Flows, Open Work, Other, NewArt, and Hacking.

What I found was compelling about the article was the dream of transparency. Dietz refers to transparency as a “corollary to issues of communication” also referring to “Happenings” or “Cinema verite” which breaks down to codes of theater and film, ultimately, to present life as art without any form of camouflaging. In addition, he shared with us about what what life_sharing project was about. Mentioning that life_sharing has little sharing of the idea of exposure, but more about perception. (The best line ever written)- recognizing life as art – as a  spectacle.

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I’d like to share this with u : Marina Abramović is a New York-based Serbian performance artist. Marina’s work are a retrospect of her life in the form of art. The video which you are about to see is about an exhibition that she had done, called the Artist is present. Apparently it was mentioned that it was the most physically and emotionally demanding work she has ever done. The artist is present fulfills what Dietz talks about transparency – about how art becomes life itself (vice versa) in this case, how performance becomes life itself.

“I test the imits of myself in order to transform myself,” she says, “but I also take the energy from the audience and transform it. It goes back to them in a different way. This is why people in the audience often cry or become angry or whatever. A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room.”

Marina’s work of art is a spectacle of it’s own.

The Actor Network Theory

The reading for week 6.1 was a mouthful, it talks about the actor network theory.   On Actor Network Theory: A Few Clarifications 1/2. 11

What I derived from the readings and after watching some youtube videos about the topic, was that we often assume that setting up a network is purely based on the focus of technology or social aspects of our society. Where tecnological determinism is assumed that all outcomes of technological change in this generation are attributed to the technological. Whereas for sociological determinism, it is attributed to the social. With that on hand, the Actor Network Theory (ANT) that was introduced in the readings, is a theory that theories that both technical and social to be flawed. That there is an equal balance of social and technological when it comes to forming networks. An example of this would be talking on our mobiles phones, whereby there is a need for human interaction (us) and technology (the phone) for the entire process to work. Without us using the phone, it is nothing. Without the phone , we are nothing either. In other sense, what seems to be social is partly technical as well.

In the reading, the author uses words like “Actants”, these are relational ties that are set between a network. Such to say that, within a network there must be humanist and non humanistic actors – relating to Jenga without the competitors the blocks can’t build itself shows how essential these actants are.

From what I can apprehend is that there is no distinction of the approach of the social, the natural and technology when it comes to creating networks. There needs to be an equal balance of these actants. If there would be no humanistic actants, such like an operator running the train, a taxi driver driving a car… networks like these would cease to exist.

For a better understanding :

Two cents is better than one.

NIKI

 

I crafted a song to the tune of Boys like Girls, 2 is better than 1, about an artist lamenting on how spotify has affected him for my group’s niki, here’s my take on it:

I remember what you did on our first day
You came into my life
And I thought hey
You know this could be something
Cause everything you do and words you say
You took my tracks and let it play away,
A million hits and it took my breath away
But now I’m left with nothing
So maybe it’s true, that I can’t live without you
And it’s true it’s not enough to pay for my bills
But there’s so much time, to figure out the rest of my life
And you’ve already got me coming undone
And I’m thinking two cents, is better than one

I remember there’s this ongoing debate
over the artists getting paid
You make it hard for breathing
Cause when I close my eyes and drift away
I think of the trickle of funds at the back of my head
The album sales, the financial deals.
And maybe it’s true, that I can’t live without you
Well maybe two cents is better than one

If you’re maybe in love with the artist who makes the records,
That set your life to the rhythms,
Perhaps, you would like to do something
Steer the flow of income generated by recorded music
back toward the artists in a more fair way
than Spotify currently makes possible.

But there’s so much time, to figure out the rest of my life
And you’ve already got me coming undone,
And I’m thinking two cents, is better than one

A democratic anarchy

As a constant gig-goer, I personally love having Spotify around. Napster, 8tracks, Soundcloud, Pandora, have obviously played a big role in music streaming, but Spotify wins all of it hands down. With a database of millions of songs, a radio feature which creates a random playlist of songs chosen based on specified genres and selected artists. This is indeed a dream come true for poor souls like me who can’t afford to buy every album of my favorite artist. (Let’s not even talk about illegal downloading)

Although Spotify seems to be a great promotional tool for unsigned bands and popular bands that are up to date,  I found out that there’s this constant debate about musicians not getting paid enough, rumour has it that they are only paid a penny for a stream. It is also said to benefit the music labels rather than the musicians themselves. What about the musicians themselves? How does Spotify’s expansion affect them?

In this video, Moby describes the digital presence that we live in as a democratic anarchy, he finds it compelling that there is this certain kind of chaos and uncertainty that Spotify has put out for the future of music.

The thing with Spotify, which has maybe already been said and which applies to many other streaming services, is that you get to listen to new music everyday, music that inspires you, that gets you moving. I’ve found a couple of aspiring musicians earlier on and it has certainly got me thinking to get their albums. It’s as simple as that, if you value music, you should just buy them. I don’t see a reason why people should be making such a big controversy about the expansion of spotify. I’d like to agree with what Moby said about moving with the digital presence, and that he’s doing it for the love of music and for people to love his music. If streaming his music on spotify is the way to go to touch a hundred hearts with his songs, then that’s the way to go!!

Young Heart.

How is it that we always have something to write every week when life has been pretty much mundane lately? How do we get creativity/ ideas flowing just for the sake of completing a task before the given date? I dont know how I do it all the time, but I just do. Often I like to question why do we do the things that we do, and why do we allow our minds to cave in to such stuff. oh god. But yeah, 3 years back, I was told by one of my lecturers that I had to compete in a prestigious design competition called The Crowbar Awards. I couldn’t come up with an idea within the designated timeframe, but a day before it was due, I reluctantly got something and submitted it.

What I thought was an honest pursuit of my feelings that was written in a form of  a poem, and reluctantly giving it to the panel of judges to read it actually scored me a bronze medal in the Crowbar Awards under Narrative Photography.  Yes, it’s still embarrassing, but hey. I got myself an award. HAHAHAHAHA

“Young Heart
With every passing moment,
I wished you were here.
Oh how I miss those times where we got lost in each other’s eyes.
You made me feel like I could fly
You would say you loved me ,
a thousand times over the candlelight.
Never knew , our adventures could ever end.
Battle scarred, I’m still reeling for what’s lost.
But an end is an end no matter how much we rewrite it.

Fate will take it from here.”

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The entire concept of this revolves around young love, yknow the typical sh**. But what was interesting about this was that, I decided to cut out silhouettes of people instead of finding real ones “duh, cause it was last minute”. ( Improvise as it’s best!)  Feel that it was something that was honest and something that I actually love doing, even though it was quite tedious cutting up the characters and finding perfect locations to shoot them.  But yeah, do check them out 🙂 I’m still pretty much doubting on the fact that the poem actually played a part in this, but i think the visuals saved me an award 😉 Anyway, my point of this post is that, just do whatever you are told to do, you’ll never know what you’re capable of doing and who knows maybe you’ll be recognized for your hard work and patience one day. So press on, write your blogs even though you feel defeated after reading 5.2’s.

Google Street View

In reference to the readings of Manovich, he talks about databases, not one that is defined as a structure collective of data only in computer science, a storage space for faster retrieval, it could be basically anything but a simple collection of items. He also discusses on the many different models to organise data : hierarchical, network, relational and object- oriented. In addition, he goes on talking about how living in a “computerized society” has affected the way we organise our data.

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The only example that I could find right now while still taking time to digest this entire reading is a service that Google has created over the years – Google Street View.
What this service does is that it allows users to view and navigate a 360 degree street level imagery of a certain place. Images can be viewed on the computer, and can be accessed through the use of the mobile phone as well, it acts like a virtual photo based street guide. This is the best invention ever by far for me! Never a fan of bearings, maps, numbers and directions, I figured having a visual of the particular location that I’m looking out for is so much more convenient.

As I’ve said before in my previous post that the company that I used to work for shared the same office space as Google. I was lucky enough to find myself seated right beside the people working on Google Streetview Singapore. It’s just toooooo much work putting all those photos together! A massive archive of mechanically photographed images, these people have created works of art through selecting, cropping, and adjusting the images.

In Manovich readings, he talks about how layers and layers are placed over one another to create a database of recored materials. Street View photographs are fragments taken out of the virtual world itself constructed by photographs of the real world. A marginalization of human figures, automatic blurring and disfiguring of faces and bodies, pixelation of the surface, and fragmentation of a space-time, all the while maintaining the indexicality of photography, this double nature of the photography as well as the particular operations involved in its two-fold transformation, not only does result in a curious tension between reality and fiction, but also provoke a sense of the uncanny, yet it’s still provides an awesome storage of  location geo-tagged data. While Malovich compares to the entire reading to an hour long movie called the “Man with a movie camera” as a project that is a brave attempt at an empirical epistemology that has only one tool: perception” I’d like to say that Google Street View has successfully achieved what Malovich has been trying to put across in the readings as well.

Anyway, check out Venessa’s blog about how the internet is making us stupid. (haha)

Check out this video.

 

Let’s talk animal.

I don’t know but this might come off rather queer to you but I like associating people with animals. When I’m out alone or just sitting in a quiet place observing people, I like to think that human beings often resemble a certain animal. Sometimes, I’d walk up to my friends and say that they actually look like a rabbit or an elephant or a playtapus. Not something very flattering to say, but I get that visual in my mind all the time. Most of the time, I can’t seem to give an explanation to it. Sometimes I even picture the scene in “Jumanji” where monkeys and elephants will be swamping the streets, creating chaos. Except human form. Okay, I am not crazy.

We’ve heard common phrases such as “sly as a fox” or “brave as a lion”, these are everyday examples of the practice of using animals to represent human qualities already. I guess animals are somehow symbolic of certain characteristics they are believed to represent in myths and legends? Like how the dog often appears a symbol of loyalty, tiger stands for power and vitality, the antelope stands for liberty and freedom. Remember Lily potter who transformed into a Patronus in the form of a doe in Harry Potter? I’ve done some research and found out that animals can also be symbols of the deities above. The Greek goddess of wisdom – Athena? She was often shown with an owl, because people tradtionally saw owls as wise. While dolphins on the other hand indicated the presence of the sea god Poseidon.

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Whether is it, being an antelope who longs for freedom half the time, or having the power to destruct anything that comes in your way just like an angry tiger, I like to believe that I’m just like a mouse hiding in a hole waiting hopelessly and naively for a cheese to appear. (all the time) Yknow, opportunities, procrastination…  Not a good thing though, but…I’d like to think that we’re just like animals of our own kind. Maybe one day in class if you’re bored and you’ve read this and would like to know what animal resembles you, just come up to me. I’ll give you an answer.

Symposium 5.1

What strucked me about today’s symposium was an extract from Galloway’s reading:

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A great example I would use to explain this is the banning of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter in China. (Oh and I found a whole list of websites that got blocked too, click here.) Sad to say that these websites have been blocked by the Chinese government , because Communist Party of China have apparently deem these websites to be detrimental to maintaining social peace and harmony in the country itself. Hence accessing the blocked websites by any means of hacking will be considered a violation of Chinese censorship law. With the pervasiveness of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in our internet driven lives, it’s hard to imagine a country where half a billion internet users don’t have access to these and other websites we take for granted. Yea sure they do have other alternate website such like Renren, (China’s facebook), Sina Weibo (Twitter) but such protocols undertaken by the Chinese government goes to show how culture wins technology hands down.

“Rather than eliminate social media, restrictions on foreign websites and social media have resulted in a flourishing home-grown, state-approved ecosystem in which Chinese-owned properties thrive. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are blocked in China, but their Chinese equivalents are expanding. By some measures, usage of Chinese social media is some of the most intense in the world. A Boston Consulting Group study found that Chinese Internet users are online for an average of 2.7 hours per day, considerably more than other developing countries and more on par with usage patterns in Japan and the United States (see Understand and Tap Into China’s Digital Generations).”

Instead of being oblivious to the rest of the world, China’s reasons for blocking these websites are of a unique one.

In addition, the shifts in our paradigms over the past few years has affected the way we perceive things and deal with technology. Our political, cultural, and ecological world is shifting with such speed that we can scarcely catch our breath, and the shifting can’t be stopped, technology overtime changes with us as well.  The scary truth is that we may not have time to adequately respond should any of these onslaughts escalate into catastrophic proportions. I personally believe that technology doesn’t exist independently on it’s own, but we are co-dependent instead.

Aight, I’ll leave you to a video of Brian David Johnson, futurist at the Intel Corporation. In it he explains the complex ways that technology has worked in human evolution. This symbiotic relationship with tools has influenced culture at every step.

“We build our tools and then we adapt to our tools. And that allows us to build more tools,”

The year of the horse

I had a very different celebration for chinese new year this year. 21 years of my life, it was the first one that did not include red packets. One that did not have my grandma’s curry chicken and juicy braised pork belly, one that did not have annoying chinese new year songs blared over the speakers everywhere I went. No firecrackers and writing names with sparklers, getting probed, having well-meaning but nosey relatives asking me – “Still no boyfriend yet ah?” Scrolling through instagram every minute and seeing an abundance of #ootds of my friends back home donning their chinese new year outfits to #cnyday1 #cnyday2 #cnyday3 … this was seriously a mood killer for me.

Being away from home was already bad enough. I couldn’t miss out on a great communal and social meal during this time of the year, so Venessa and I, invited some friends over (including Bryan and Kim) and had our own cny mini celebration at our apartment!

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We had a hotpot; what we usually call a steamboat… supposedly symbolizing the coming together of family and friends. It was a good night with everyone stuffing themselves silly to fish tofus, crab sticks, a variety of “balls” accompanied with beer and pineapple tarts. Yum!

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Making a mess out of the tossing of the Lo-Hei/Yu Sheng (prosperity salad) while reciting “auspicious sayings” – which clearly wasn’t something that I was really good at due to my bad command of mandarin. Well, I wished for more money though $$ does that count? ahhaah.

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Overall, it was certainly a night with good company and awesome food. Couldn’t ask for more <3

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