Great. I'm a scribe.

Great. I'm a scribe. This weekend I had an "Obsolescence Party" at my house. Guests were invited to play the Atari 2600 and Super Nintendo game systems, drink Tab or Bartles & James wine coolers, and bring obsolete items for show and tell. My items were a slide rule and a Bernoulli disk that holds 90MB of information.
I don't know what a slide rule's for, (Sam Cooke reference) but the disk holds a lot of meaning for me. It stored the first graphic I ever made as a professional broadcast graphic designer. And now its just a piece of plastic, the machine that I trained on for almost a year just to make a simple graphic was replaced over a decade ago by Adobe Photoshop. Instead of computer graphics being an exclusive club with only a few practitioners, kids are taking animation classes in high school. Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody says:

"The spread of cheap and widely available creative tools is sad for people in the advertising business in the same way that movable type was sad for scribes--the loss from this kind of of change is real but limited and is accompanied by a generally beneficial social change." (209)

I agree. It is sad. And sometimes I wonder what's so "beneficial" about the social change? The reading once again reinforces the theme of this class: we are in the midst of revolutionary change and as Shirky points out,

"The comparison with the printing press doesn't suggest that we are entering a bright new future--for a hundred years after it started, the printing press broke more things than it fixed, plunging Europe into a period of intellectual and political chaos that ended only in the 1600's." (73)

Shirky's title Here Comes Everybody is appropriate because it sounds optimistic, but let's face it, we don't like "everybody". Its like public transportation. Convenient, yes. But it loses some of its appeal when a crazy, smelly dude sits by you and wants to strike up a conversation about UFO's. Don't get me wrong. (not a Pretenders reference) There are features of this revolution that are both trivial and wonderful. Never having to decode the "Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature" --awesome. Watching the season premiere of "30 Rock" on Hulu--awesome. But even these little conveniences have a price, some company is probably bankrupt because the "Reader's Guide" was their major client, and Hulu is contributing to the demise of broadcast television and my own career. Beyond these small conveniences, new ways to gather knowledge and express ideas are spreading to millions of people. In his epilogue and in this speech, Shirky explains how, social media tools after the China Sichuan earthquakes challenged the Chinese government's control over information. While they were prepared to filter the major media outlets they failed to realize that ". . . services like QQ and Twitter erode the the distinction between 'media' and 'communication.'"(297) Ordinary citizens now had the tools to "report" and "broadcast" to anyone. The tools are there, and its doesn't matter if I, or governments, or institutions like it. Shirky compares the dramatic improvement in socials tools to steering a kayak "We have a small degree of control, but that control does not extend to being able to reverse, or even radically alter, the direction we're moving in. Our principal challenge is not deciding where we want to go, but rather staying upright as we go there."

I think most of us are in the Emerging Media and Communication program, because we are trying very hard to stay upright. It would be nice if there were some clear answers. Do this, learn this, and you will never be obsolete. But for all of us who were on friendster or had a geocities web site, its pretty apparent that there's no solid way to predict the next "BIG THING" or know if this "BIG THING" has true staying power. Two things from the reading stand out to me. First, Shirky likes to compare elements of social media to barn raising, a group of people can build a barn or open source software in a short time, while individually a farmer or coder might never be able to. Much of the success of social media depends on the participation of the users and their willingness to contribute their work, time, creativity for free. Secondly, failure is tolerated, in fact its expected. Meetup groups fail, but new information about what works and doesn't work is gathered. So what's a 21st Century scribe to do? I think we have to contribute, participate, and can't be afraid to fail.

On that note, I was very intrigued by the social media tool, dodgeball, that Shirky mentions in Chaper 9, so I did a little research. Turns out it was bought by Google and the service was ended. But, the creator has a new service called foursquare. I've joined and even started contributing. Let's see if it fails. (By the way, right now I have 2 friends. It would be great to have more... hint?) Lastly, I recommend A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink if you are creative professional in need of a pep talk.

Fun with Public Spheres

Let's order some coffee, grab a seat, start up a conversation, change the world.

Who would have thought that the importation of coffee from the Ottoman Empire would contribute to transforming the social/political structures of Western Europe. Frequented by both aristocracy and bourgeois society, they were a place to learn the news and exchange ideas. They were the nexus of "the public sphere". Jurgen Habermas defines the public sphere as ". . . a realm of social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed." The public sphere was not the physical coffee house, but the discussion that took place within its walls. It was made up of private individuals who as a public body transmitted the needs of society. The newspaper became a vital element of the public sphere and was no longer just a compilation of notices or recent events, but influenced public opinion. This changed once newspapers became commercialized. (around 1830) Jurgen says, "In the transition from the literary journalism of private individuals to the public services of the mass media, the public sphere was transformed by the influx of private interests, which received special prominence in the mass media."
Peter Boeder sums this up nicely:

"According to Habermas, the emergence of the mass press is based on the commercialisation of the participation of the masses in the public sphere. Consequently, this ‘extended’ public sphere lost much of its original political character in favour of commercialism and entertainment."

The conversations at the coffee houses were silenced by radio and television. The idea of public opinion was transformed into publicity and public relations.

Habermas' ideas have become a source of debate since the digital revolution.
Are internet communities just another form of media commodity controlled by commercial interests? Or are they virtual public spheres?

Pieter Boeder says that "New forms of citizenship and public life are simultaneously enabled by new technology and restricted by market power and surveillance." He quotes Rheingold's argument that "The consumer society, the most powerful vehicle for generating short-term wealth ever invented, ensures economic growth by first promoting the idea that the way to be is to buy." With each new form of social media, commercialization occurs and effects the discourse. Bloggers are now sponsored by companies to write reviews. Facebook removes Scrabulous due to pressure from Hasbro.

Poster says:

"The question of the potential for new forms of social space to empower individuals in new ways is foreclosed in favor of preserving existing relations of force as they are embodied in the state."

Institutions will impose their will. Napster is shut down. YouTube videos blocked due to copyright issues.

Boeder concludes "The public sphere is alive and well, although it will never be quite the same. Habermas' coffeehouse discourse has evolved in the direction of mediated communication within electronic networks: Its future is with the digital media, which offer exciting possibilities as digital networks enhance and change social structures"
Twitter seems to meet that "coffeehouse ideal" because the users have determined much of its language and protocols. And of course its use during the Iraq elections is evidence of its power to spread news and information directly from the user/citizen.

The public sphere as a face-to-face community has been transformed into a form of electronically mediated discourse.
But what sort of discourse? Habermas believed that critical and rational discussion would minimize prejudices and fortify democracy. Looking at online discussions I'm not so sure. Are we debating or hurling insults. Is this really participation? Sometimes I agree with Fernback and Thompson:

"It seems most likely that the virtual public sphere brought about by (computer-mediated communication) will serve a cathartic role, allowing the public to feel involved rather than advance actual participation."

Final Note:
I really liked Poster's idea that the internet is not a tool but a social space. (Hammer vs. Germany) When I think of it in those terms, its potential seems so much broader. Its not just a tool to make money, or communicate, but a place. A place to shop (of course) but also to interact, learn, create, contribute, enjoy. Nice.

Thanks. Must pass out now.

Where's My Decoder Ring?

Stuart Hall in Encoding/Decoding explains the process of mass communication in terms of production, circulation and reception. He describes it as a "continuous circuit". Within the production process a message is created or "encoded". The viewer decodes the message. "Meaningful" discourse occurs at the junction of encoding and decoding. Institutions, personal experience, and ideologies effect both the creation of the message and how the message is received. He says the production process is 

" . . . framed throughout with meanings and ideas: knowledge-in-use concerning the routines of production, historically defined technical skills, professional ideologies, institutional knowledge, definitions and assumptions, assumptions about the audience and so on frame the constitution of the programme through this production structure."

This statement made me think about how production techniques influence the way televisions producers create a message. One thing I thought of was how all television production used to be tape-based. Its obvious that tape carries video and audio information. But it also has other types of information, control track and professional tape has time code. Time code is a data stream laid onto tape that assigns a specific time to each frame of video. This data allows a computer controlled editor to access a specific frame, allowing frame-accurate edit decisions to be made. In other words time code "translates" the information on the tape to a "language" that computers (and people) can understand and implement universally. For videotape editors, time code is the life blood, and tapes with breaks in time code can ruin their day. They may choose to omit a shot or soundbite if it doesn't have time code in favor of one that has. So, from one of the initial moments in the production process, a "code" is required to create the message and can influence the message. The production process constantly influences the content of a local newscast. The availability of a cameraman or reporter, a broken microphone, or fantastic video can all determine whether a story airs on a newscast. All of these factors effect the encoding of the message.

In new media the production process also effects the message and once again a code exists at its genesis. The very choice of a certain code (flash, html, java ...) impacts the message. The content of a web page is often determined by bandwidth, browser compatibility, screen resolution, or the limitations and preferences of the user's computer. A programmer may avoid using a flash animation, or large graphic files so that more internet users can view her page.

Another idea that really stood out for me is Hall's discussion of visual language and code in television. He says "The televisual sign is a complex one. It is itself constituted by the combination of two types of discourse, visual and aural." He adds that it is also iconic since tv uses a two-dimensional screen to translate the three-dimensional world. The newscast seem to be a perfect storm where these three forms meet.  While the anchor or reporter reads a story, there is a constant visual reinforcement with video or graphics. I find the graphics particularly interesting because they are an explicit example of iconic language yet they seem to be invisible to the casual viewer.

Here's an example of a typical OTS (over-the-shoulder). Without text or audio its easy to discern that the story is about school violence.

 

Or that this one is about hospitals. 

Even when using text there is a certain amount of "encoding" to further the meaning.

Programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are like a Russian nesting doll of visual language as they use the overall format of a newscast down to the graphics to create "fake" news. Internet sites like The Onion also use the visual language of a regular news site for comedic effects. These forms assume the receiver of the message is already versed in their particular visual language, and will interpret the message within the "dominant code". 

As the number of media outlets multiplies, and the language becomes more and more complex, its amazing that the viewers still manage to decode the message the encoders are trying to send.  

The Database

Last year while in Los Angeles I visited The Museum of Jurassic Technology. Its an odd place with a strange collection of objects. As I meandered through the museum, I came to realize the museum itself is the exhibit. The collections and information within its wallls are there to serve this purpose. It’s a simulation of a museum experience, with some real and some obviously fabricated exhibits. What was really important in this experience was the interface of the museum. Its presentation of the artifacts.

This experience came to my mind when Lev Manovich in his book “The Language of New Media” talked about the database as a dominant form in new media. Manovich divides what he terms “new media objects” into two forms, database and narrative. He says “ . . . works in new media can be understood as either constructing the right interface to a multimedia database or as defining navigation methods through spatialized representations.” Most often websites are some form of database, they are an interface to a collection of knowledge. Its easy to cite examples of this form, Facebook is a database containing information about people, what they like, the events they attend, the groups they belong to. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, one of the oldest forms of database. For Manovich,

“The database becomes the center of the creative process in the computer age. Historically, the artist made a unique work within a particular medium. Therefore the interface and the work were the same; in other words, the level of an interface did not exist. With new media the content of the work and the interface are separated. It is therefore possible to create different interfaces to the same material.”

In social media, the power of the interface is quite apparent. Why do people choose
Facebook over myspace? The information is essentially the same. Its about the way the information is presented and the ease with which we can access it.
Those examples are quite obviously database forms but Manovich asserts that

“Regardless of whether new media objects present themselves as linear narratives, interactive narratives, databases or something else, underneath, on the level of material organization, they are all databases . . . a database can support narrative, but there is nothing in the logic of the medium itself that would foster its generation.”

The way I understand it is that RPG’s (such as my favorite Final Fantasy VII) have narrative attributes, a storyline, but underneath, there is the database form. Instead of having immediate access to information, the user must perform certain tasks to acquire “skills” or “data”.

Manovich views the database as more than a “structured collection of data” but as a cultural form that is different from reading a story or watching a film. Manovich does not believe the database as cultural form exists solely in new media and cites examples in film such “The Man wth a Movie Camera”. The very structure of the movie is a database of shots arranged in a particular order to become a picture of modern life. Manovich says “. . .we may even call database a new ‘symbolic form’ of the computer age. . . the world appears to us an endless and unstructured collection of images, texts and other data records, it is only appropriate that we will be moved to model it as a database.”

Artists including Lev Manovich are still learning how to merge database and narrative into a new form. Games like The Path and the slow game movement may be the early stages of this new form. Or perhaps the new form will extend into the physical rather than digital world. The and/or Gallery’s YTMND show was a collection of internet memes, images, and animations displayed on video screens. A collection of collections. What is apparent in these exhibits and the Museum of Jurassic technology is that artists are aware of the relationship between interface and database and are using this relationship for expression.

The Language of Change

When Walter Benjamin wrote “The Work of Art in the Mechanical Age of Reproduction” in 1936 the world was in turmoil. Still suffering from the Great Depression and seeing the rise of a new rise of facsism. By this time, photography and film had made a significant impact on culture and the masses. In this frame, Walter Benjamin writes about the influence of all forms of mechanical reproduction on society. He asserts that the new techniques have changed more than just how artists create. They have changed the way the public perceives the world and the individual. Thus changing the political and social structure of Western Europe.

He first refers to paintings and photography. He asserts that a painting has an “aura” a sense of place and time that gives it authenticity. A reproduction lacks this element and its quality is depreciated. The importance of this aura is attached to ritual. Ritual can be attached to sacred or secular functions. For example, the work of Renaissance artists followed the “cult of beauty”. The invention of photography and “mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from it parasitical dependence on ritual… the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.” Once society is able to mechanically reproduce art, there is no point in “authenticity”. A print of a photograph is the same whether it’s the first or the fiftieth. Now art is no longer connected to ritual but to political practice.

In film, he asserts that the camera “is substituted for the public” and the “aura that envelops the actor vanishes”. It is replaced by mystique. Film is essentially based in illusion, the spectacle of production is unseen and increased by the use of editing or “cutting’. Film is an art form that is received in a “state of distraction”.

In order to achieve a “suspension of disbelief” the viewer is distracted by the film techniques themselves. The language Benjamin uses to descibe much of his theories has a violent undertone. There are metaphors to bombs and bullets and violence when describing the impact of mechanical reproduction on mass culture.

“Our taverns and our metropolitan streets, our offices and furnished rooms, our railroad stations and our factories appeared to have us locked up hopelessly. Then came the film and burst this prison world asunder, by the dynamite of the tenth of a second, so that now, in the midst of its far-flung ruins and debris, we calmly and adventurously go travelling.”

Benjamin specifically chooses the language of war and violence as a reaction to the turbulent times. He write that “mass movements, including war, constitute a form of human behavior which particularly favors mechanical equipment.” As art is commoditized it becomes useful to the politician. Perfectly exemplified by the film “Triumph of the Will” and the newsreels of Hollywood. The politician and the movie actor share an unlimited public that is malleable to the new media. Which “results in a new selection, a selection before the equipment (of mechanical reproduction) from which the star and the dictator emerge victoriously.”

Fifty years later Bill Nichols attempts to apply the theories developed by Benjamin about mechanical reproduction and compare them to the computer. He states that “Instead of reproducing, and altering our relation to an original work, cybernetic communication simulates, and alters our relationship to our environment and mind.” Instead of “reproduction” we now “simulate.” Films are about suspending disbelief but computer technology is about absorption. Nichols uses the “Star Wars” defense system initiated by Reagan as an example of computer simulation’s unseemly consequence, but the tone and language of his essay does not contain the violent phrasing that was in Benjamin’s. While mechanical reproduction (film) was delivered to the masses, much of computer technology affects multitudes individually. Instead he explores how technology is changing the definition of self, life and family. “The important issue here is that the power of cybernetic simulation prompts a redefinition of such fundamental terms as life and reality, just as, for Benjamin, mechanical reproduction alters the very conception of art and the standards by which we know it.” The language of war is replaced with the language of psychoanalysis.

Social networking is an excellent example of this altering of the definition of self. Online, individuals are represented with a series of 1’s and 0’s yet somehow transformed to create a personae, an individual, a profile. Working, reading, watching media on a computer are acted singularly, not as a group. Yet, there is a desire to reach out and be part of a community. Privacy is lost in order to engage. While we sit alone in our chair typing we are joined to a massive network of users.

I think this is the very reason social networking is so widespread. As we are absorbed by technology we want to establish some form of individualism. We want to communicate what “we are doing” or “update or status” to remind ourselves that we are, in fact, an original, unduplicated, individual.

Thanks for reading.

I thought this was a cool site for Walter Bejamin fans.

2 Revolutions

We are in the midst of a revolution and it is remarkably similar to one that took place 500 years ago after the invention of the Printing Press.
According to Roget's Dictionary a revolution is a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, especially one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence. While evolution is the gradual development of society and social forms, institutions, etc., usually through a series of peaceful stages. In The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe Elizabeth Eisenstein makes the claim that the printing press became an "agent of change" and brought about a cultural revolution. While historians often point out the impact of literacy on culture, Eisenstein points to the invention of the printing press, not just scribal culture, as a moment of definitive and exponential change.

In an interview, she compares it to the Agricultural revolution saying:

"Chaucer said his clerk needed twenty books to fill his shelf It took ten scribes ... to feed one clerk it's sort of a
little like the agricultural revolution it take ten farmers to feed one city folk after the agricultural revolution it's
one farmer feeds twenty city folk."

After the invention of the printing press, it no longer was an "economy of scarcity" with people "starved" for more books. Instead, books could be easily reproduced, and the number of people who had access to reading materials multiplied. Historians acknowledge that in the sixteenth century there was a huge growth in knowledge, Eisenstein argues that there must be a link between this explosion of learning and printing. How could Marlow and Rabelaise write of the intoxicating pleasure from book reading if they did not have access to books more easily than their predecessors? She explains the scholar no longer had to wander from town to town to look at rare manuscripts, but could stay in one place and consult different books. This allowed more people to take up scholarly pursuits. Access to books created an era of "intense cross referencing between one book and another". The print shop itself became a source of innovative and scholarly work rather than academic institutions alone. Printing encouraged collaborative activities as artists, scholars, practitioners, and theorists worked together and checked each others work. This does not mean that the printing press was used solely for disseminating only scholarly texts, in fact Eisenstein states:


"The new wide-angled, unfocused scholarship went together with a new single-minded, narrowly focused piety.
At the same time, practical guidebooks and manuals also became more abundant, making it easier to lay plans
for getting ahead in this world -- possibly diverting attention away from uncertain futures in this one."


This cultural shift is very similar to what we are experiencing in the digital revolution. Instead of being bound to the printed word we can digitally access limitless amounts of knowledge. Facts can be checked by going to innumerable sites. And the interlinking, and aggregating of information is the standard. Sites like Wikipedia are not unlike the print shop in early modern Europe as people from a variety of specialties are encouraged to contribute and collaborate on entries. Just as learning in that time shifted from the monasteries, academies, to a wider variety of the population, learning today is moving away from the old institutions. Broadcasting ideas is no longer limited to those few scholars, journalists, or politicians with access to old forms of media. Anyone with a computer and the desire to communicate can put their ideas up for the world to see.

I can't help but be reminded of McLuhan's "the medium is the message". Eisenstein acknowledges his book The Gutenberg Galaxy as influencing her thinking. She does not hesitate to assert printings importance to the Reformation and describes it as an "emancipatory force" for the Germans from the papal authority of Rome. Without print, Luther's ideas would not have spread as quickly and garnered the support of a population. Instead Rome not only had to deal with not just one rebel priest, but a group of disenfranchised people. Now world leaders must quell dissension that is spread in seconds across continents. From the election in Iran to our own debate on healthcare, its can't be denied that digital communication is influencing events just by its mere existence.

What informs my thinking as I read more on this subject is that new technologies do change society and culture, but its seems basic human nature stays the same. It seems every age bemoans decline of their society and the evils of (insert medium here). Yet somehow humans adapt, take the things they need and continue to create, learn, and live.

Remediated Beatlemania

Every time I see the Beatles' Ed Sullivan performance I get goosebumps. I completely empathize with the girls screaming and crying for John, (especially John) Paul, George and Ringo. My love for the Beatles is a good example of Bolter and Grusin's remediation. Remediation is a term that captures the constant “oscillation” between “transparent immediacy” and “hypermediacy”.
In Remediation, Bolter and Grusin claim that this desire for immediacy is the creative impulse that is constantly developing new media forms. Transparent immediacy occurs when the user is completely immersed in the media experience, the media attempts to be invisible. In hypermediacy a person is completely aware of the media, they are actually using the media to generate the experience.
I was born after the Beatles broke up. I had no chance to experience them with any sort of immediacy. My encounters were through technology, radio, and the cassettes I patiently taped during an all day marathon of Beatles A to Z on KZPS. I collected pictures, books and calendars, pretty much anything I could get my hands on. Best Christmas ever-I got the all the Beatles albums on vinyl. (Even in 1986 that was a bit retro as I only had a cassette player and had to get a buddy to record them for me) Just as in the wider culture of media, each thing I bought every film I went to promised to "reform its predecessors by offering a more immediate or authentic experience." Watching "A Hard Days Night" is more immediate than just listening to them on your stereo or looking at pictures. In some ways it was even better than seeing them in concert, no screaming girls, and in the dark theater a person could get to know them in a new, intimate way. When the "Beatles Museum" came to Dallas, it was a hypermediated experience. I could sit in a recreation of The Cavern Club and watch the band's performance on a screen. While I was completely aware that it was not The Cavern, but an installation in the West End, and obviously it was a screen not the band in person, it was still a fun experience. In no way was I unaware of the media being used, but I was enjoying my experience because of the media.

When looking at the history of the Beatles they seem to have a uncanny ability to impact and utilize media to its fullest ability. From their early recordings that capture the live energy of their Hamburg and Cavern gigs, history-making performances on television to innovative films that are still admired for their editing and pace, the Beatles were constantly creating new ways for their fans to connect and experience their work. Even over 30 years after their break up and the death of half their members, the Beatles are still evolving and generating new encounters. On 9.9.9 they released remastered versions of their albums and the long-awaited, much anticipated Beatles Rock Band. Seth Schiesel of the New York Times opines:

"The Beatles: Rock Band is nothing less than a cultural watershed, one that may prove only slightly less influential than the band’s famous appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964. By reinterpreting an essential symbol of one generation in the medium and technology of another, The Beatles: Rock Band provides a transformative entertainment experience."

There has been much discussion in the music and gaming industries about the impact of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Both games create a strangely immersive experience. Its hard to explain why pushing buttons on a little plastic guitar while staring at a television screen can be exhilarating. But it is. Part of it is the concentration required to actually play the game and succeed, the reward for success is not only a good score but the roar of the crowd in the game. The better you play, the louder they scream. For me its zen-like, as allowing your mind to wander will surely cause you to miss a note. Conversely while you are playing, the graphics on the screen simulate your band performing at a rock show. Just as a real rock concert is a hypermediated experience, the game creates another hypermediated performance. Its complete remediation. A constant movement between total absorption and awareness of the circumstances creating the experience. The New York Times says:

"It is an imperfect analogy, but listening to a finished song is perhaps like being served a finished recipe: you know it tastes great even if you have no sense of how it was created. By contrast, playing a music game like Rock Band is a bit closer to following a recipe yourself or watching a cooking show on television. Sure, the result won’t be of professional caliber (after all, you didn’t go to cooking school, the equivalent of music lessons), but you may have a greater appreciation for the genius who created the dish than the restaurantgoer, because you have attempted it yourself. "

Of course, there are people who get angry and say "Stop wasting your time with a silly game and learn to play the guitar for real!" I kind of agree with them, but no matter how much I practice I will NEVER be able to play Stevie Ray Vaugh's Texas Flood. (But I did score 90% correct on Guitar Hero and that WAS awesome.) What they are missing is that playing the game creates a new appreciation of the original media. Just as previous released versions of Rock Band, have given new generations an appreciation of classic rock. Beatles Rock Band will create new generations of remediated Beatlemaniacs. I haven't bought my own personal version of the game, there's that whole "graduate school" and "work" thing getting in the way. But eventually it will have to happen and my heart may actually burst with satisfaction when I play the Abbey Road Suite.