Exploring Digital Cultures

Little Red Riding Hood

2010-10-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

A great animation inspired by Röyksopps 'Remind Me.'  

Röyksopps 'Remind Me.'  

ASL REMIX

2010-10-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

In his 2008 book “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy”, Lawrence Lessig points out the use of the remix done through new media as a new way of communication and production among the masses and as the revival of the RW (Reading Writing) culture. He compares this phenomenon to a written essay when the remix quotes contents from audios, videos or other sources in order to create something new.

He also remarks of the importance of communities, because “remixes happen within a community of remixes. In the digital age, that community can be spread around the world. Members of that community create in part for one another. They are showing one another how they can create. That showing is valuable, even when the stuff produced is not”. (Lessig, 2007:p77)

One of my favourite YouTube videos can be categorized as a remix. It was done by B. Storm, an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter. In this video, he translates to ASL the lyrics of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”. Besides the translation, he also makes his own version of the video creating something new and interesting.

A big variety of ASL music videos can be found on YouTube. Some of them are very good produced and some others are not even well translated. However, they can be seen by a wide range of viewers that comment actively on each video correcting the ASL translation or participating in a constructive and compelling way since they are interested in Sign Language.

Transforming this songs and translating them to Sign Language in order to appropriate them among the Deaf Community (meaning not only Deaf but interpreters as well) is another example of the revival of the RW culture that Lessig talks about (or should i say RS? reading signing?). In this particular case, the remix cannot only create communities, but can enhance pre-existing ones.

REFERENCES

Lessig, Lawrence (2008) Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. New York: Penguin Press. Chapter 4 – RW, Revived, pp.51-83.

WEBSITES

B. Storm personal YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/user/st0rmfx

The Infinite Monkey Theorem in Latin America YouTube singers

2010-10-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

In my last job, my colleagues and I used to watch YouTube videos in order to distract us or simply to waste our time (just like it commonly happens in any other workplace nowadays).

One day one of them told me “you have to see this video, it is a song about Israel, a message of love from Latin America to our brothers in Israel”. That sentence got me a little confused, and not interested at all; but well, it was our lunch break and we had seen enough cute kitten videos.

When I first saw it, I could not believe my eyes. The song is called “En tus tierras bailaré” (I will dance in your land), which describe the singers’ wishes to go to Israel, to dance in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to find an Israeli boyfriend, and to strengthen the relationships between Israel and Latin America.

The video starts with the male singer watching some random interviews of people talking about the violence in Israel. After that, he shouts, “No way, It cannot be! No!” The rest of the video is constituted by bizarre settings and backgrounds while the singers talk about the wonders of Israel.

Now, after more than a million views, these individuals are three of the most famous YouTube singers in Latin America.

La Tigresa del Oriente (The Tigress from East): She is a 65 year old Peruvian woman who dresses and acts like a tiger and claims that Lady Gaga stole her style. She used to be a make up artist for a local channel in Peru until she decided to post videos in YouTube in order to accomplish her dream of becoming a singer. Her first song is called “Un Nuevo Amanecer” (a new break of dawn).

Delfín hasta el fin (Dolphin until the end): He is from Ecuador and his most famous video is called “Torres Gemelas” (Twin Towers), where he talks about the love of her life being trapped in the Twin Towers during 11/09. After seeing the news in the television (just like he does in the Israel video), he shouts the now famous phrase among Latin YouTube viewers “¡NO PUEDE SER!” (No way! It can’t be!).

Wendy Sulca: She is from Peru and is the youngest of them. She started her YouTube music career when she was a girl. Her most famous song is “La Tetita” (the boobie) where she talks about wanting her mother’s breast in order to be fed. The video shows Wendy’s cuddly toys, mothers feeding their babies (including a pig and her piglets) and men trying to grab a woman’s breast.

When I first saw these videos I could not stop laughing, and I must confess that I saw them several times. But after a while, I really started to worry about the user-generated content that is produced in Latin America and that is becoming famous through YouTube.

Why do they sing a song for Israel? Are they familiar with the politic conflicts in that country? Why does Wendy Sulca wants to find an Israeli boyfriend? Why do they sing in a zoo with monkeys, or in a park with camels and llamas? Why do they insert images of an aquarium, of random people or of places that are maybe not even located in Israel? Why does this video has more than 1,500,000 views and their individual videos between 3 and 5 millions? Why is this song played in several discoteques and bars across Latin America? Why do they have fans and followers? WHY?!?!!!

Now, after reading Keen’s (2007) comparison between the infinite monkey theorem from T.H. Huxley and today’s technology among amateurs, everything makes sense. I can see them as “dancing stuffed monkeys” that are also “making monkeys out of us” (Keen, 2007:p.5).

REFERENCES

Keen, A. (2007). The Cult of the Amateur. New York: Doubleday, pp.1-9

WEBSITES

Tigresa del Oriente YouTube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/LaTigresaDelOrienteC

Wendy Sulca YouTube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/WendySulca

Delfin hasta el Fin Website

http://www.delfinecuador.com/

Lamebook and the shameless monkeys

2010-10-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

"We are blogging with monkeylike shamelessness about our private lifes, our sex lives, our dream lives, our lack of lives, our Second Lives" (Keen, A. 2007. "The Cult of the Amateur", p.3)

My life on the screen

2010-10-22T22:39:00.000-07:00

Since the internet came to my life it has played an important role in my relationships.

It all started in the year 2000 when I was a big fan of the Britpop music. None of my friends were fond of it so I started browsing the internet in order to look for people interested in Britpop singers and bands.

I started logging to an English-speaking chat room of the music band "The London Suede". One day I asked if someone was from Latin America. A girl replied “Me! I am from Mexico”. She recommended me a yahoo group constituted by Spanish speaking Suede fans.

I immediately signed up, and started commenting about the songs and the band with people from Spain, Chile, Argentina and México. It was really fun and enriching to find people with my same music preferences.

Two years later, the group migrated to a forum named "El Club de Suede en Español" (The Suede Club in Spanish) where we discussed about other groups, and gradually, about other things too. We talked about our daily activities, our love life, our problems, our looks (since we started uploading our real photos) and other personal matters.

Later on, and with the arrival of MySpace and Facebook and our daily use of IM, the Suede club started to loose its importance until it was finally closed.

Throughout this 10 years the people from the Suede club have become part of my closest friends and I have met face-to-face with almost all of them when we have had the chance. Two guys from Spain came to my country on vacations, and the girls located in different towns nearby have visited my city and stayed at my place several times. I even went with one of them to London for the last concerts of Suede in 2003.

In Turkle (2004) words, I have experienced my sense of self in terms of “multiple windows and parallel lives”. I explored online my particular interest for music bands that were not popular in my offline environment. I expressed my thoughts in bulletin boards and newsrooms while interacting with real people and new ideas. I received and shared not only information about music, but advices, personal histories and happy memories that transformed my social life and my multiple selves.

REFERENCES

Turkle, Sherry. (2004) ‘Wither psychoanalysis in computer culture.’ In Kaplan, D.M. (ed) Readings in the philosophy of technology. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, pp.415-429.

The Friendy Internet

2010-10-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

2010-10-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

Mexico City

2010-09-28T02:10:00.000-07:00

I can feel the power of immediacy causing an effect in me :) hahaha

Remediation in Waltz with Bashir

2010-09-27T08:52:00.000-07:00

After discussing about media change and remediation at class, I remembered one of my favourite movies, “Waltz with Bashir” a 2008 Israeli film, written and directed by Ari Folman.

The movie tells the story of Folman himself, when he was 19 years old and a soldier of the Israel Defence Forces during the Lebanon War of 1982. He tries to reconstruct that period of his life through interviewing some of the friends he had during those years. With their help, he starts to remember his traumatic experiences as a soldier and his most feared memory: the massacre of thousands of Palestinians from the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp.

The film took 4 years to be completed, and it is an animated documentary mostly made by mixing Adobe Flash, classic animation and 3D. Besides animation, it also uses real archive footage of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre. The film is a combination of real and surreal scenes, fictional images and historic events, testimonials and autobiographical memories, music styles, journalism, documentary and innovative computer graphics.

This remediation of media and styles create what immediacy and hypermediacy want to achieve: a feeling of reality. As a viewer, the animation of the movie and the movie itself starts to disappear gradually, creating an emotional inner effect and leaving you simply in the presence of the images portrayed: the horrors of war, the psychological damages of being a soldier, the devastating reality of dehumanization.

Remediation is the perfect medium for representing this painful and devastating real event in a a powerful, artistic, respectful and beautiful way.

REFERENCES

McLuhan, M., &Fiore, Q. (1967) The medium is the massage. New York: Bantam. (Excerpts)

Bolter, J.D. & Grusin, R.A. (1999) Remediation: Understanding New Media, Cambridge, Mass; London: MIT Press, pp.2-15 and 53-62

WEBSITES

http://waltzwithbashir.com/home.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1185616/

Simulacra with Kylie Minogue

2010-09-25T06:16:00.000-07:00

Released in 2002 and directed by Michel Gondry, this video is beautiful and creative. I am sure that you have already seen it but I wanted to post it because I think it is a good example of the constructions of reality and hyperreality.

Kinect

2010-09-25T05:45:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has developed “Kinect”, a motion sensor accessory for Xbox 360 that will be available in Australia in November. “Kinect” is a new software technology that can track your voice and movements without a game controller. It captures 3D motion facial gestures and body movements and it is also capable of voice recognition of some languages.

By remembering Friedberg (1998) and Manovich (2001) works, we can say that Kinect will provide the user (viewer) with a new form of virtual mobility where the construction of a virtual reality and simulation occurs in front of his unmoving-moving body. It requires the user immobility in the sense that he has to be in front of the television screen, but as it releases the user of a hand controller, it provides him with a feeling of true mobility, unifying the virtual and the physical space.

REFERENCES

Friedberg, Anne (1998) `The Mobilized and Virtual Gaze in Modernity: Flâneur/Flâneuse´in Nicholar Mirzoeff (ed.) Visual Culture Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 253-278

Manovich, Lev. (2001) The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Mass; London: MIT Press. (`The screen and the user´)pp.94-115

Thom, Greg (2010). "Out of controls gaming". Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia) 3 September p. 45. http://global.factiva.com (accessed 24 September)

WEB PAGES

http://www.xbox.com/en-AU/kinect/

Star Wars and Simulacra

2010-09-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

In “The precession of Simulacra”, Baudrillard (1994) mentions how the society has constructed an unreal world without the people being able to detect it. The reality has been replaced by Simulacra, therefore, by the hyperreality.

He mentions how Disneyland is a perfect example of Simulacra because it is a constructed World full of illusions: Disney Princess Fantasy Faire, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Mark Twain Riverboat or the Star Tours, an attraction inspired by the science-fiction movie “Star Wars”.

This movie can also be seen as an example of Simulacra. On one hand, it revolutionized the science fiction movies with its realistic special effects. On the other hand, it has surpassed the fiction by becoming a “hyperreality” in the life of a vast number of people and in the futuristic images of technology.

Star Wars in the “real” world

Star Wars has been a repeated theme for parodies and copies in books and all forms of media, but it has also been constructed as “real” by artists like the photographer Cedric Delsaux, who created several photos of how will the Star Wars world would be if it tooked place on Earth.

Another example is the short film of Patrick Bolvin, where we can see how would it be to have an ATAT as a “real” pet.

Jedi Faith as a Religion

In the 2001 ABS census, more than 70,000 Australians declared that their religion was the “Jediism”, meaning that they followed the Jedi Faith. This religion does not has followers only in Australia, but in Canada, New Zealand, United States, England and other countries of the world.

The Jedism follows a philosophy that involves the concept of “The Force”, an energy that everybody posses and that unites everything. It should be used for doing well (for the “Light Side”) and not for doing evil (for the “Dark Side”).

Futuristic Images

Star Wars emblematic lightsabers are not fictional anymore. Today the Defence Department of the U.S. is testing laser weapons that are being developed for a future use. Also, the U.S. Air Force is making plans for developing space weaponry in the following years.

The hologram with which the characters of the movie used to communicate is now a reality with the On-Stage Holographic Video Conferencing done by Cisco Telepresence.

Cisco On-Stage Holographic TelePresence Experience from Musion Systems on Vimeo.

With these examples we see how the fiction in Star Wars can imitate reality or how reality can imitate the fiction in Star Wars. And if this Simulacra can help some people to believe in something or to fulfil their objectives in life, I guess that, as Baudrillard said, the Simulacrum is true.

REFERENCES

Baudrillard, Jean (1994) `The Precession of Simulacra´ from Simulacra and simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press excerpt pp.1-14

Darley, Andrew (2000) A Back Story: Realism, Simulation, Interaction´ in Andrew Darley. Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres, London and New York: Routledge, pp 11-36

WEB PAGES

http://www.jedichurch.org/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2218456.stm

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/71616/Star-Wars-fans-want-Jedi-Rights.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7864521/ns/technology_and_science-science

http://www.thisblogrules.com/2010/02/star-wars-never-looked-so-real.html

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2010-05-14-1Adeathray14_CV_N.htm

http://www.musion.co.uk/Cisco_TelePresence.html

The vigilant eye

2010-09-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

After reading “Panopticism” by Michel Foucalt (1977), I instantly remembered the famous book from George Orwell, “Nineteen Eighty Four”.

This book is about a fictional world in 1984, where the planet is divided in three totalitarian powers and the freedom of expression (and of thought) is seen as a crime.

Winston Smith is a man working in one of the Ministry of the government (The Ministry of Truth, where historical events are eliminated and new ones are created in order to match up their versions). One day, he suddenly sees all the injustices done by the ruling party, and tries to rebel against it. The book shows in an astonishing narrative how the system works and how difficult is to escape from it because they know everything you do. It is a system represented by “Big Brother” an omnipresent figure that can see all your movements and is everywhere.

…” On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters and on the wrapping of a cigarette packet-everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed-no escape “…(Orwell, 1949 p.29).

From this book comes the famous reality show and the universally known phrase: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.

Orwell’s Big Brother and Bentham’s Panopticon share similar principles. The Panopticon was an architectural structure thought for prisoners trapped in jails and in constant visibility, just like Big Brother traps the citizens through his watchful eye.

With the Panopticon, the objective was to cause in the convicts a state of mind that could ensure an acceptance of being observed, therefore enabling the operation of power, just like the omnipresence power of Big Brother does.

For Bentham, the power should be visible and unverifiable just like Big Brother, who is always looking, but you never know when is he looking at you.

With the progress in technology, this schema of the “vigilant eye” spread in the entire society. Panoptic systems and video surveillance are not only used in jails, hospitals or schools. They have been used for several decades in every country, where “free” people walking on the street are being observed.

And we are used to it, we even act in consequence keeping watch on ourselves through digital technologies that enable new modes of self-surveillance (uploading your life on YouTube or writing your status on Twitter).

It does not end in social networking or video surveillance. The government can have access to your bank account or your email, even the CIA knows who you are through Facebook. I think we should put more attention to this matters because with digital technologies, panoptical mechanisms are being more elusive, more ample and more controlling than ever.

REFERENCES

Foucalt, Michel. (1977) `Panopticism´. In Kaplan, D.M. (ed.) Readings in the philosophy of technology. (2004) Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, pp. 359-372.

Greenop, Matt. (2008). Facebook- The CIA Conspiracy. Retrieved September 7, 2010 from http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12685

Orwell, George.(1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. (Reprinted in 2000) London, Penguin Books p.29

Digital Manipulation and Photojournalism

2010-09-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

In our daily life, the visual overcomes the verbal. Everywhere we go, we see a huge amount of images making our experiences more visual than ever. With digital photography, media, government and every person gets an opportunity to reflect their vision of the world in any way they want to.

But we have to be careful with these visions, especially if we are talking of photojournalism. With the new technologies, this practice has been permeated more with digital manipulation than with evidence of truth.

With the common and open use of digital programs that allow manipulation of images, the idea that a photo shows the truth, vanishes. To this matter, photojournalists and media try to maintain the credibility of the images.

Through history, we can see that manipulation is not an exclusive of digital photography. In developing a black and white film, one could manipulate the light, contrast and exposition. Even editing them was possible because one could modify them by including or excluding elements. The difference is that manipulation was difficult to do since it was used and controlled by oppressive governments.

Nowadays, photojournalism involves a constant fight between photographers and editors fighting to get the best photo and the best economic profit, turning this into an unethical practice. Besides, with Photoshop or other editing programs being accessible to anyone, manipulation is more obvious. With digital media, one has the weird feeling of not being able to believe.

But this distrust could also serve as a positive thing. Making people more aware of this manipulation can lead to a more decent and truthful practice. Yet the question remains ¿does anyone still believes in the veracity of photojournalism? People working in this field should stand guard on this matter. It is their credibility and therefore, their future, at risk.

REFERENCES

Batchen, Geoffrey. (1997). ‘Epitaph’ in Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography , Cambridge, MA: MIT press, pp206-216.

Tagg, John.(1988) ‘Evidence, Truth and Order: Photographic Records and the Growth of the State’ in John Tagg. (1993) The Burden of Representation: Essays onPhotographies and Histories , Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress, pp. 60-65.

Ricchiardi, Sherry. 2007. "DISTORTED PICTURE." American Journalism Review 29, no. 4: 36-43. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 6, 2010).

It's all about the aura

2010-09-04T04:35:00.000-07:00

In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Benjamin Walter talks about how the “aura”, uniqueness or originality of an artwork is diminished or lost by multiple reproductions of it.

This made me think about the aura in new theatre productions and the importance of technology within them.

Theatre has its origins in religious and magic rituals of diverse civilizations that worshipped their gods through ceremonials where music, dance and drama played a central role.

Nowadays a “ritual” still happens between the actors and the audience, both engaged in a face-to-face relationship. It occurs in a specific moment in time and space, and it never occurs again in the same way (maybe an actor improvises or forgets his lines, or maybe he can not go to the performance and somebody else replaces him).

Theatre not only involves a connection between audience and actors, but between actors and technicians. In this common place the aura is a shared aura: created by the actors, the audience and the technicians.

Theatre and technology have always been together. Lightning, scenery and props, music, and now video projections or 3D visual effects, are constantly used in big theatre productions, strengthening the artistic experience and creating a new way of interacting with the audience. Still, one will always prefer to go to the theatre rather than seeing a play on a blu ray or through Internet. It is all about the aura.

REFERENCES
- Benjamin, Walter (1935) “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. In Benjamin, W. Illuminations. London: Fontana Press, pp. 211-244

The Digital Divide Experience

2010-08-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

“Digital Divide” is a term relating to the accessibility that a group or a person has to Internet and the information technologies (Flew 2008). When the accessibility is limited, inequalities arise in a global or local scale. It is important to remember that these inequalities are not to blame directly on the access to the Internet or IT, but to social and economic issues already surrounding each person or community.

As I first heard this term at class, I immediately remembered my bachelor experience back in my country and my first days at USYD.

I studied in a public university in México City six years ago. We had a student email account by default that we never used, a scarce lab computer where two of my friends use to be all day long until they were able to afford a computer or internet at home, and a basic library where we had to look for sources in a filing cabinet.

Before entering to USYD, I have never used platforms such as MyUni or WebCT before. I told my highschool friends (who by the way, studied in private universities) about this, and they reply to me “We did had those platforms, we used to communicate with some teachers through Moodle or Blackboard”. That was the first moment that I felt genuinely digital divide. Not only in a global, but in a local scale.

A lot of things have changed and others have remained the same since I studied my bachelor degree. On one hand, all my friends have computers and almost all of them have internet access at their home, and gradually Mexico has enlarge the percentage of people and public schools accessing to the internet through the expansion of optic fibre, payment facilities for buying computers and equipping public schools with computers. On the other hand, this growth is small compared to the total population of México[i], and it mostly occurs in the developed cities, while leaving behind a vast majority of people and public schools still limited throughout the country or maybe with access but with a vague idea on how to use it as an effective resource.

While broadening Internet access is a notorious achievement, one cannot forget that the digital divide effects are a caption of bigger social, politic and economic problems. Poor people or public schools with access to Internet remain the same if there is not social and educative engagement from the government beyond just building infrastructure or selling cheap computers.

[i] According to COFETEL, in 2008 just 22% of the population had access to internet. Out of this percentage, 8.6% access it at home, 4.4% do not have access at home but have a computer and 9% have neither access to internet nor computer at home. I A census of the population is being made this year and it would be until they make the data public that we can have more exact numbers.

REFERENCES

FLEW, TERRY (2008) New Media, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 25-26

WEB PAGES

http://data.worldbank.org/

http://www.cft.gob.mx