We Are The Public Sphere
Culture Politics Design
Monday, April 30, 2012
Fascination with Celebrity
Friday, April 27, 2012
Skills: Making eye contact
Friday, April 20, 2012
the world of the subway
Riding the subway should be one the one of the few places in New York to experience the actual physical presence of another. Without access to a wireless connection, riders are forced to put their phones down, and interact with another (or at the very least, read a book). The media minded must awkwardly stare blindly at the advertising within the car (and seem much more interested in the “latest miracle weight loss program” or “where to get your next degree”) to avoid eye contact with a stranger. I am one of these people. I hate when someone stands too close to me, or shimmies oneself into the not-big-enough-for four-people-to-sit spot. I get seriously uncomfortable and irritated.
So, thank god for temple run, right? It seems immediate that when a subway rider enters a train, they either pullout the latest smartphone app, or swap from Pandora to Itunes to tune-out the noise of those annoying passengers for some musical bliss.
With each year, it seems that the media-rich environment of the 21st Century is creeping down into the subway tunnels, allowing for less and less physical interaction with strangers. Just recently, the MTA along with T-Mobile and AT&T introduced wireless service in six subway stations (A,C,E,1,2,3, and F,M at 14th st, L at 8th Ave, C,E at 23rd). You can text, email, tweet, and surf the web while waiting for the next train to arrive. And thank god for it, I was really starting to worry that I might have to start talking to that weirdo standing too close next to me.
-Amelia Stein
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Physicality of Performance
The Electric Information Age
The Electric Information Age Book by Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Adam Michaels brings to life the design aspect through editing and production in print form. Most say publication is dying off while the digital and electronic age is beginning to take over slowly. But if we think about it, it is just a new form of interaction with information and print through a new play in technology as a medium instead. This book really allows design to really play its part in print form and giving it life, character and interactivity. It is where the revolution of and practice of graphic designer have more control over the production of work and an efficient workflow and process. It is also much more exciting and it gives designers the ability to experiment and explore style type and layout.
The digital age is here to stay. With the advance technology we have today and the circulation and spread of information and data across the web is accessible through the internet (online) now. Not to say that print has become a dying medium but rather it is not prominent as it used to be since the digital age came into the picture. It is a new form and way of being creative and using what was build as a structure and to build from there a better way of access and becoming innovative. It is a new way of interacting with the media through digital form.
Physical Presence
The idea of physical presence in a space is a concept that is becoming more and more lost as technology and time progress. The value of being in a physical space is also being forgotten. The evolution of the internet and the smartphone have changed the way that people interact. I work with two individuals whom I have seen in-person 2 times in the last 8 months. We communicate via skype, email and phone which basically cancels out any need for being together in the same space. Sadly, new technologies allow this process to perpetuate and become easier as well as more common. I personally don’t mind the lack of physical presence; It is often easier to get the content I want or need to know from an internet source rather than speaking with someone in-person on going somewhere site-specific. Of course, there are so many exceptions. Some experiences cannot be duplicated. Google announced last year that they were starting a new project that basically incorporates the idea of “street-view” inside museums. I love the concept but there is no way a screen can possibly replicate the same sensation of viewing Monet’s Water Lilies in person. It is a great reference tool and wonderful way to look at museums in places people don’t have immediate access to. Overall, the importance of physical presence is being lost but will never be entirely forgotten because so many scenarios cannot be duplicated even with advanced technology.
http://www.googleartproject.com/
Life After Death with Social Networking
I grew up in a town where everywhere you go, someone either knows your name or your parents name. Life is simple, and the public sphere includes everyone within a 50 mile radius. The local morning and evening news is the main source of information for everyone. Life in Lexington truly happens at a slower pace, and it is takes about the same amount of time to get to and from my two homes to adjust to their paces.
I began this class with an examination of life and death in the public eye in New York City, particularly focusing on the traumatic experiences in public transportation and how they are handled. I experienced an event that more or less led to my fascination of their coverage in the media but it wasn’t until last week when I was able to pinpoint why I was so alarmed at the anonymity of deaths in the Subway, and why it didn’t seem to phase others.
I found out that late last Thursday night, a classmate of mine from middle and high school lost her sister in a fatal car accident. A friend sent me a text, and another as well. I spoke about it with my mother on the phone and read about it online at the local paper’s website. Her name was there, her age, her background and details on the funeral and where to contact the family. I looked it up on twitter and sure enough there were messages from friends and reactions. I look at the Gothamist today and see a cyclist had a fatal accident last night in front of the Met. A tweet of his the scene of the accident is visible (later taken down) and I can’t help but wonder who is this person, and do they know their life is being portrayed as an end rather than a journey?
It is as if in areas where social networks move at slower paces, technology helps connect people like myself who are physically distant. But in areas where populations are abundant and social networking is more often than not the main means of fast, instant communication, we use technology as means to disassociate ourselves from emotion, and connect to fact.
Permanence and the Physical World
In the News
Getting Lost In The Digital World
Kiss My Glass
Sleep No More - an performance event that dramatized the experience of presence
IRL
With advances in video technology, people are able to converse and view one another through this medium, however they still will not exist within the same realm of life as the user. Regardless of amount of hours spent speaking, viewing, and listening to one another, there is no amount of technology in which we are able to share our physical experiences. As long as this gap exists, the physical presence is an irreplaceable relationship.
Knowing Someone without Knowing Them
I think the strangest relationship that has come out of the growth of social media is that it has to ability to bring people together without even introducing them. It is easy to broadcast almost everything about your life; work, friends, hobbies, past trips, etc. With a click you can announce your background bio; where you were born, where you went to school, your family dynamics. You can make public whims, passing thoughts and minute details that ordinarily would be kept private. What makes this significant is that there are a whole audience for these updates; and that they actually read and pay attention to them. Facebook is probably the best known outlet for this kind of relationship; but take the uprising Tumblr. Tumblr sets up a relationship between people that may not be physical acquaintances and gives them the publicity for these types of broadcasts. With each picture or quote or gif that a user reblogs, there is the creation of a whole online identity. Anyone can be idolized for their taste in clothes, their taste in hipster pictures and photography. Small comments and responses to questions open up their perceived individuality. Viewer eat this up. On tumblr, people who have not even posted their real name can gain a following of thousands; thousands who read their word and see their reblogs and treat them as celebrities. There are several tumblr personalities that get hundreds of questions and inquiries a day; questions that are usually reserved for fans of famous personalities. There is a voyeuristic quality to this relationship that I can understand, and even sometimes appreciated, but in the end I feel uncomfortable for knowing so much about people I have never encountered in person.
Facebook is marketing your brand preferences - a new form of marketing concept.
Social media – learn it, live it, be careful with it
Online vs. Physical Presence
Is one better than the other? I'm present online in this blog, but do you even know me in class? You tell me, would you rather have online presence, or physical presence?
- Nina
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Hologram Tupac
Technology and media is so advanced now that it definitely blurs the line between tangible space and non-tangible space. One event that really strikes me is the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. It is a 3 day event that features many genres of music, including rock, indie, hip hop and electronic music. The event has several stages/tents set up throughout the grounds, each playing music continuously. It is expected that the biggest name in the game today is being featured such as Prince, Daft Punk, Madonna, Jay Z, The Chemical Brothers, Bjork, Kanye West. However, it is NOT expected that artist such as Tupac, Michael Jackson, Mozart and The Beatles are being featured. We can all agree that the death of a great artist brings forth a strange nostalgia, the death of anything great brings great sadness. When Michael Jackson passed away I was saddened by the fact that I will never be able to see this man perform live, how many of us wish we could bring back the ghost of a artist we admire. Yet this music festival was able to blur the line of real presence and non tangible presence using this new technology hologram that looks almost like a 3D person performing. In the clip of hologram Tupac performing, Snoop Dogg was interacting with the hologram figure and for a moment it looked as if it could be real, atleast closer than any 2D animation could be. It was a really eerie tribute but nonetheless sentimental and touching especially to die hard fans that could never see this man perform live.
Yes, advanced technology may be taking away from many physical spaces but it also creates many new "spaces" and brings forth many new possibilities that were not even imaginable before.
Video Clip of Hologram Tupac at Coachella 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6mL_Jr4Jps&feature=related
Digitization
Thursday, April 12, 2012
The Screen
For many books are not as exciting as a moving 3-D image on a screen, but there are ways to create books that give the viewer something enticing to read. The Electric Information Age Book is not only something very interesting to read, but it also has a great design and keeps the reader guessing what will be on the next page because of the crazy book design. If books like this don't continue to surface to the top and give people reasons to purchase from Barnes and Noble anymore then the day of print will be lost.
The Art of the Book
The process of digitalizing artwork is occurring everywhere. Not only are entire museum archives present online, but I can personally attest to obsessively documenting and backing up my own images to the extent that both two hard drives and two flash drives would have to crash, as well as the original artwork be destroyed in order for the work to disappear. Now, in the case that this great misfortune was to happen, this process is certainly a positive advancement. However, let’s say that only the original work was destroyed. How much have I lost?
The Medium is the M(e)ssages: Information/Data Visualization in the Digital Age
We live in a world where seas of information are available to anyone within a click of a button. So how does information gain hierarchy or presence today, much like that of which Fiore produced?
We can take a look at notable artists such as Nicholas Felton (work below) and see a new take on an old standard that was defined in the Mass Age for how information is presented and represented. In this digital information age in order for information to stand out and be recognized, original graphic renderings of imagery and and no typography take note and stand out in the sea. Artists like Feltron are constantly changing and innovating. How about a mobile app that visualizes your daily activities for a medium?
What We Lose
Experiencing places through the sense of smell
Experiencing places through the sense of smell
Misconceptions of the Information age
-Anvita Dasani