Nebula

cupcakes-are-carrots:

Sharing. We all do it. On Facebook, on Twitter, on Tumblr. All day, every day. Just putting out private lives in the open.

Is this a bad or a good thing? Well, we will leave that to the philisophers.But the platform we also share a lot on is Youtube. Youtube has created its very own culture, with all kinds of people posting and reacting on videos; it is a very interactive medium. It is a perfect medium for the concept: prosumer.

The Porsumer is a consumer, that has a part in the production of a piece of art through interaction with the artist of this piece of art.

Through all the comminucation we have on youtube, we can make our veryown art of something old, which gives existance to a new concept: “remix culture”. Remix culture means that we use old material and make it into new one, for instance: remix a song, as in the example I will post later. Or remix an entire video into a song, as “Autotune the news” does. Or maybe even just take a frame from a youtbe video or just a picture and make it into a meme.  

This notion evokes “Amateurism”. A movement that has already been appointed by some artists as real art. Youtube provides a lot of these art works. 

I think that amateurism on facebook, is not only a way to share its creation or whatever, but it can pass from amateurism to professionalism. There is many artists know from the internet, not only Youtube, but also myspace, at some time.

So for that part of the sharing and amateurism, i think internet allows to people to reach their goal easily, and in the other way, labels, for example, trust the way the artist is supported by an audience. It is positive for everybody in this case. So much, that now it exists some sites where the consumers, the amateur, are the one deciding if someone should have a chance in a professional side.

Internet and the share of creativity make a lot of change in the cultural landscape with this confusion of boundaries.

Eagle

dac-marleen-anne:

Social network is taking over the digital space. New networking sites come up every day, you can think about dating-sites, but more obvious are sites as facebook, hyves (in the Netherlands) and twitter that are all about networking. For the more elite networkers among us, I would like to refer to something as Linkedin. But not only these sites provide one a network to work or even exist in. Sites as deviantart, tumblr and weheartit also make networks out of your provided data and links to work or persons you might like. The very same goes for online shopping stores and warehouses. They bother you with commercials and newsletters which contain stuff that they think you might be interested in. This constant surveillance from above, tracking every single thing you do (or don’t do) on the internet, sure is something that provides us lots of stuff to think about. 

Surveillance is an important aspect of our everyday-life, even if we aren’t always very aware of that. We are constantly watched by the authorities through surveillance cameras and other devices like that. The question remains, however, who is watching our authorities? Who is watching the watchers, basically. That is where one (very) positive aspect of social networking sites comes into perspective; everyone can watch and track down everyone. People can look after other people, keeping their eyes open for things that look weird, suspicious or abnormal. That’s only one part of it though, at the same time people are aware of the fact that it is possible that they are being tracked and watched by everybody. They automatically are going to behave better. (Do I sense or smell a bit of the panopticon theory by Michel Foucault here?)

Social media also makes it easier for us to watch people with a lot of power. News can be provided throughout the world within seconds and everybody has a cellphone with a camera nowadays, so it becomes harder and harder for institutions such as the government or army to keep things quiet for the ‘regular citizen’. That makes the social media such a great example of the interaction between surveillance (top-down) and sousveillance (down-top). It is very important to have that last one in society, because we want to avoid corrupt governments or military supression in the world. The transparancy of the social media helps us seeing things. So social networking isn’t necessarily something bad or threatening our society, it can even make a better society, if we just keep using it very carefully and wisely. 

- Anne
(on the lecture ‘Privacy and surveillance’ - May 29) 

A part of your post makes me react. The one you tell about targeted advertisement, I didn’t think about that before, but it is an important point I guess, for the sharing and surveillance on internet. Nowadays, marketers have found the perfect tool by way of the internet with this new kind of targeting. But it makes me feel paranoid sometimes. If I’m saying in my e-mail that I want to leave for whatever situation, I will end up with a lot of advertisement about low costs, Ryanair or Easy jet, for example. They use some cookies to reach and analyze your preferences. So, without us to know, we are sharing a lot of information about ourselves to companies. The internet is also a tool for this type of economic goal.

It makes me think how much surveillance is everywhere now.

Eagle

Last lecture we talked briefly about the most important concepts (and the people who wrote about them) that we discussed during the course Digital art & Culture. Mcluhan was briefly mentioned. At this point I realised that I hadn’t talked about him yet.. so I will use this last Tumblr post to say something about him. In the lecture we had to say his concept. I immediately thought of ‘the medium is the message’. But that wasn’t the concept the teachers were thinking about. They were thinking about ‘a medium is an extension of the human body’. It didn’t know that that second concept was also Mcluhans. The phrase ‘the medium is the message’ stuck by me during the course because it almost sounds like a mantra. You can also look at it like a slogan. The slogan is direct, expresses it’s meaning clearly and it’s catchy. 

The medium plays a huge part in everyday life, especially if you think about advertisements. An advertising agency does not choose a medium radomly. It carefully thinks about it. If they would choos the wrong medium, the message would come across in a different way or it would not come across at all. An example that uses the medium very well is the example of Old Spice. It’s a bit of an older example (from 2010) but I think it’s a clear example. Old Spice is an American brand. It contains all kinds of male grooming products. ’The man your man could smell like’ commercial was thought of by Wieden + Kennedy. They even received the Emmy for outstanding commercial. This advertisement used the internet as the medium to spread their message. The commercial was watched 42,000,000 times. By using the internet as a medium, a lot of younger people saw the add. And because the add became viral, a lot of people outside of the U.S. saw the video too. 

The way in which the message ‘the man your man could smell like’ was shown is also part of the medium. In advertisement this part of the message is always chosen carefully.The Old Spice commercial also uses the medium and the way the message is shown in a clear and modern way by using a tall handsome and athletic guy. He is shown in places that could be everywhere in the world (where there’s a beach and sea). This also adds to the meaning of the message. If the add campaign works out, your brand will be known everywhere and people will always think of the product and the commercial. In this way, the medium and the message work together to create a positive feeling towards the brand. The Old Spice commercial is an example where this worked well.  

Orion

As we were looking at this video about the one hundred most watched on YouTube, it makes me thought at these other videos for YouTube. Two years ago, Ridley scott and Kevin Mcdonald asked to viewers of youtube to film their day and to say what they have in their pockets, bag, what do scare them, and what do they  love. But basically, they had to film themselves, the entourage or whatever they wanted on a particular day, the 24^th of July 2010.  

Since 80 000 videos received from 197 countries in 47 different languages, film director Kevin Mcdonald and Producer Ridley Scott, made a movie with the partners YouTube and LG. this movie was called Life in a day. They wanted to share the life and thoughts from all over the world to us, viewers present still today, but also to show and keep a testimony of what was the life in 2010.

As we spoke about sharing on the internet through sites as YouTube, I think this reflects very well the point. Everything is about sharing and discovering in this video, and about digital in nowadays. Through new media, random people can witness their daily life in a real movie, produced and directed by famous names. The phrase of Warhol is more true than ever “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minute”. Through the digital media which is YouTube, it was possible to make a movie since other movies directed by random people, and dealing about them, basically. The share of their life is shown internationally, but also presented through the Sundance festival. The concept of this day shared by thousands of people became a big and famous project, even before it was done.

By this example, I would like to highlight that the digital media, here YouTube, was used to create an art. This movie is the artistic result of what internet is: A platform which allows us to share, knowing the consequences beyond this share. It is also a performance which reflects the multicultural landscape which internet allows us to know by the way of sharing.

If you want to watch at this movie it is simply on YouTube.

Eagle

Today’s lecture was about surveillance and privacy. After the lecture I began thinking about a subject for a post. I was just sitting quietly in my room, thinking about surveillance. That, my friends, isn’t a good idea. I started getting a bit paranoid. Why? Because I realized how many of my actions are being registered. Take today for example.. Let’s start with me walking out the door to get to the university. I open the door and my neighbors see me, I walk towards my bicycle and the camera of my landlord sees me standing in front of the house. I take my bike and start cycling to the university. Everywhere I look are people. On the crossing there are cameras who track the traffic. When I arrive at the university, I put my bike away and walk toward the lecture room. There I’m being watched by my fellow students. They see that I came to the class, they see what I’m wearing and in what mood I am. I sit down, listen to the lecture and during the break I use the internet on my phone. My phone communicates with a communication tower so that I can receive text messages and internet. My location is traceable. The break is over and the lecture continues. An attendance list passes around, now the teachers will know whether or not I was there. After the lecture, I go to my second lecture where my presence is also noticed and noted. I will have to eat something, so after the lecture I go to the supermarket. On my way I’m being recorded by other people and cameras everywhere. When I arrive at the supermarket I’m being watched by cameras and other people. I go to the cash register and pay electronically (pin) for my groceries. On the receipt appear the items that I bought, the number of the store, which bank I use, the date and time, my bonus card number and the expiration date of my debit card. The bonus card will store what I bought and combine it with the records that I made available for the store to use. I walk out of the store and ride my bike home. During this I’m caught on at least two cameras (and how many cameras that I haven’t noticed yet?). After this I go up to my room, check Facebook and use my surveillance power on other people.

Orion 

deliodac12:

In class we talked about the notion of ‘absent presence’. Absent presence is the idea that a person is virtually present in the digital realm, but physically absent. Through the principle of absent presence, a person’s identity can be bended: you can be a boy in the physical space, but you can represent yourself as a girl in the virtual space.

We also talked about how this identity bending can be seen as an online therapeutic session. I really liked this idea of identity bending being therapeutic. I see it as the virtual realm providing people a second chance: When you’re not in a good situation in the physical reality, having all sorts of problems or having built up a bad reputation that you just can’t rid off, the virtual platform can give you a clean slate.

When you feel like your identity contains more than you’re showing in your physical reality, you can look for identity freedom in the virtual realm. You can form your own identity the way you want it to be or you can express yourself without anyone recognizing you and judging you. You can be a famous writer on the internet, but maybe a regular bus driver in ‘real life’. At one time, people can see this virtual reality where they can freely express themselves as their new reality. It’s a space in which they can find new satisfactions.

You cannot only use the internet as a liberating platform to express several sides of your own identity or to create a new identity, but you can also use it as a platform to express your real identity. An example we talked about in class is the gay community. There are places in the world or communities where homosexuals are not fully accepted. In some cases it can be very dangerous to come out as homosexual. For those people that can’t fully express their real identity, internet communities can function as a platform to speak your mind without any judgements. It’s a way to say the things you want to say and to feel the things you want to feel when you can’t in your physical reality. Because of this, people with the same problems can connect and stimulate positive responses, helping people virtually with affects in their physical space. People get a feeling of belonging, gaining hope and they can put their physical life into perspective, knowing that there are people with the same problems as they have. In this way I think that ‘absent presence’ has a positive influence on life.

By Délisa

When I read this, I instantly thought of the modernity. This is the period of urbanization, industrialisation, democratization, the rise of the middle class, a changing relation towards God, individualization and the split subject. Urbanization meant that people lived with more people in cities. People didn’t know their neighbors anymore and people had to split. They had to show multiple me’s in order to satisfy the people around them. Nowadays it’s still the same. We are different people when we’re with our friends or with our family. The same applies to the internet. If you have the feeling that the me that you show in your everyday life isn’t the real you, you can create ‘the real you’ online. You can be the person that you actually are, but you’re afraid of showing people in the reality because you’re afraid the won’t accept you. 

Orion

factoryart:

During last lecture Stevens told us the identity before the digital had a root in place. A persons identity is dependent on where (s)he was born and lived at the point in time. During the rise of digital media, however, the identity has shifted towards a virtual space, where a thing as place is partly unimportant. The access to virtual space, however, is still dependent on place and the exact point in the virtual space too.

I do not agree with this vision of the history of identity. I must admit that some philosophers before the digital age have said that identity is dependent from place. John Locke, for example, said that the religion you are taught isn’t necessarily the right religion, because the choice of YOUR religion is dependent on where you are born. Whether you believe the right religion or not is therefore decided by a random occasion. Locke states here that religion is dependent on place and thus, identity is dependent on place.

Other philosophers state something else. As early as the Greek philosopher Plato philosophers have stated that the true origin and identity of a person lies in its soul. The soul is intertwined with the body, but it can be put separated. The soul is independent of a place and exists in a divine world (such as in the myth of Er by Plato) independent of places.

Another philosopher who stated that the mind and body are separated was Descartes. He said that the only origin of existence was in the thinking of the self: I think therefore I am. The identity of a person is not in his actions or his appearance, but in his thought. Descartes thought that this self lived as a soul attached to the body. The soul, however, is still detached from the physical.

These two philosophers have determined centuries of Western philosophy. Still Stevens claimed that the identity was seen in the Western civilizations as dependent on place before the digital era. I do not agree with that at all.

What do you think?

- Simon de Vette.

Identity is who you are and I think that who you are is how you act. People are raised in a certain way and taught differently. But then they built their own personnality, identity. The place might be a part of this construction even if it is erased in the digital identity. Although, I think that the place is virtually unimportant because on the web you are nowhere and everywhere, but it is what built you ina sense. It plays a role.