Internet Art & Culture – Page 2

Research Critique of Bold3RRR by Jon Cates

Bold3RRR by Jon Cates was an art piece that explores the possibilities of our relationship with technology, of how noises and glitches were the product of our crafting of the digital world. It was a poetic expression of our current expectation of the mechanics, that it was a perfect and clean environment for us to utilize, but Jon Cates thought otherwise. Jon Cates believed that the new media was imperfect, “dirty”. It implies a humanistic side to our media, that we are imperfect, therefore the crafting of our technology should not be perfect either. The art piece further explores the importance and possibility of accepting aberration in our media.

The work brought new perspectives to our society, to how we view our social media or “techno-social”. It was the exploration of how we “contaminate” our “third space” through interactions of our own and making technology humanistic. I was unaware of such interaction or “contamination” until I had read through the interview. I felt strange and could not agree more with Jon Cates. It was such a natural behavior for me to make all my space (for example, social media and my own desktop) my own, it was too subtle for me to realize until the reading. It had opened my eyes to how humans behave and the possibility of how our behavior changes our virtual surrounding.

Bold3RRR and the meaning behind the work were closely related to our next lesson that is Desktop as Mise-en-Scene. If the “third space” is our playground for us to socialize and interact with one another, then I would use the same metaphor and visualize our Desktop as our “house” or “living room”. It was the virtual space that we used as our shelter, for work, play or entertainment. It changes according to how we wanted our “living room” to feel. Therefore, if one would be streaming and using Desktop as a background, it would be the equivalent of inviting the audiences to your virtual home. It should be similar to how the Videofreex broadcast their content, using their house as their mise-en-scene and audiences were able to interact with them through telephones. However, in this case, we would replace the house with our Desktop and the audiences were interacting through Facebook chat instead.

In conclusion, BoldR333 by Jon Cates was an eye-opening read for me. It made me realized my own behavior and how the public interacts with technology.

Virtual Lesson – Adobe Connect

Having a lesson on Adobe Connect was a refreshing experience for me. I would love to attend the lesson on the “third space” again. I find it very fitting in fact for the class to be held in the virtual space as it would further emphasize the importance of the “third space”.

Personally, this is the first time I had a lesson online and I was pretty nervous in fact as I never had the experience before. However, when the lesson was being held, all the doubts and fear that I had was gone and I was enjoying it. I enjoyed the interactivity and how creative each individual classmate was. I enjoyed looking at them through the small window that was their reality and being a part of their everyday life.

One problem that I find quite distracting was the fact that everyone had a problem with the audio, I believed this was also due to the reason that everyone was unprepared when it comes to video streaming. If this problem was solved, the lesson would be much smoother and enjoyable.

In conclusion, if I had to choose between a class being held in the physical world or through the “third space”, I would choose the latter.

“Welcome to Electronic Café International” Research Critic

“Hole in Space” by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz

“Welcome to Electronic Cafe International” was a fascinating piece of reading, documenting the work of Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz and their seminal work, Hole-in-Space from 1980. It discussed greatly on the effects of the artwork on the people that had interacted with it and how their behavior changed after the event.

I found the artwork by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz an inspiration to our current society where social media dominated our daily life. It reminded us that social media could still be used for good. From the reading, it could clearly be seen that Hole-in-Space were one of the few early works(including the Videofreex) that experimented with the virtual space or what we know today as the “third space”.

There’s a quote from the reading that I would like to bring up as it would help with the research.

A virtual space creates social situation without traditional rules of etiquette. The absence of the threat of physical harm makes people braver.

I could not agree more with the reading. As society was often bound by rules and social norms, we could not always act or speak out what was on our mind, because we too were bounded by those restrictions. It acts as an invisible rope binds us to our roles and allowed us to function as a society. However, the “third space” removes all those restrictions and allow us to truly act and experiment. It allows creativity to flourish and interactions from different races to mingles and forge greater social bonds. An example that the reading gave was the Korean and the Black community was used to be each other’s enemy but after the artwork, the relationships between the two community improved greatly. This could never be achieved anywhere but through the “third space”.

The reading was closely related to our next week(week4) lesson on our social engagement with one another and how the “thirds space” invented new ways for us to interact. Hole-in-Space by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz should also be considered as a collective narrative, as it documented how a group of people behavior in front of the “hole”. It made us rediscover ourselves under a different light.

In conclusion, I have learned a great deal about the “third space” and how closely related it is to our behavior. It has proven time and time again that we are still not familiar with ourselves, but only through the “third space” can we safely experiment and understand a little more about us.

Research Critics about Videofreex

Research Critics about Videofreex

“Here Come The Videofreex” was a fascinating documentary about a group of people finding ways to distribute and broadcasting their own video after being fired by CBS for their unique content. I had watched the hour long documentary and I find it extremely inspiring and interested in their journey.

If there was one word that could be used to describe the content that Videofreex were producing, it would be unfiltered. In the older days, films and television programs were often formal and filtered. Films often have the same plot line and bits that were choreographed to have the fine polish the audiences would expect and the news coverage was just a man sitting in front of a camera and reporting about the political tension that was happening at that time. However, the Videofreex bought the Sony Portapak to the street and film the protests and demonstrations at that point of time. It felt real, textured, exciting and unfiltered. It reviewed the real problem the society faced and allowed people on a street to have a voice that would be heard by thousands of viewers. I believed this had sparked a new form of journalism. Everyone with a camera now could report on a major event, everyone is a journalist!

An example that I found similar would be a Youtuber/Journalist called Tim Pool producing videos about today’s political climate. He often filmed down protests or demonstrations and interviewed people that were participating the event. I would say both the Videofreex and Tim Pool had achieved the same goal of shedding light on whats really happened in today’s society. It also had shifted the power of mainstream media to alternate sources such as Youtube and Facebook. People no longer have to get their daily doses of news from big television networks such as CBS or CNN.

Another thing that I found extremely interesting about Videofreex were that the footage they broadcast were often about their daily lives and the event happening in Lanesville. Neither did they have any lavish set to use as a background nor did they have any beautiful costume to doll themselves up in front of the camera. However, people were attracted to their content, people were attracted to them, the Videofreex. They were attracted to the video of their daily lives and happenings! I believed that was also the reason why they were so charismatic because they were capturing life. The life of millions of people that lived like them, that why they were so relatable because the Videofreex remind people of themselves!

The Videofreex had broken the stagnate state of television programs and were the first to have experimented with the third space. The audiences were treated to an idea of having to interact with the people on their television and Videofreex were able to interact back using a telephone. They were interacting in a shared space, the third space. In today’s society, we were able to see such interaction everywhere and everytime someone uses social media to broadcast or every time someone tweet or post about their lives. I would like to quote a sentence from an article about “The Third Space” by Randall Packer as it would properly illustrate the connectivity of our being.

Nowadays, our sense of being and presence is scattered throughout the third space. We are everywhere.

Video Double Assignment

for school assignment

Posted by Goh Chersee on Wednesday, 23 August 2017

I would like to believe that my alter ego is a hoarder, collecting books and hoarding things that I would find important, even if it has no value at all. Though I love to hang out with my friends and enjoy interacting with people, I have to admit that I also love to stay in my comfort zone and immerse into the world I’ve created. This also shows the artist side of me, collecting bits of knowledge and techniques to further improve my skill as an artist, also to increase my visual library through reading and studying all the varies solution to a design problem through all these art books.

Therefore I view all these books as my gold, surrounding myself with all the wonderful treasure as I slumber, portraying myself as a “Dragon”, for dragon is well known for their hoarding behavior.

Real Time Aggregation

Part 1

This is for school.

Posted by Goh Chersee on Thursday, 17 August 2017

Part 2

15 mins of live vid for school

Posted by Goh Chersee on Thursday, 17 August 2017

I will be describing what it feels like to broadcast a Facebook live video, all the decision that I have made in different stages of the broadcasting.

Before broadcasting live video

When I was told to broadcast a Facebook live video, I was nervous, very nervous. Partly because I wasn’t sure of the exact things to do for the live broadcasting and I never had the experiences of broadcasting ever. There were many things that came to my mind as of what to do in the video, but I quickly dismiss all the thoughts of a choreographed video as it would not properly accentuate the main focus of the project. I believed that we were to film objects, locations or scenarios that were interesting to us, that were happening in the natural progression of the environment, rather than a choreographed video that was carefully thought out. So I had decided to follow my guts and do what was right, to film whatever that piqued my interest at that point in time.

Broadcasting live video

I had to admit that it was both fun and embarrassing to be broadcasting with other fellow classmates, but to be able to walk around the school while capturing moments of your life and shared it with your friends on Facebook was kinda refreshing. It couldn’t be expressed with words as I couldn’t really pinpoint my exact emotion at that time.

It is hard to maintain my demeanor and composure in front of a camera, knowing that there were people watching me, even if it was a small audience. Before the broadcasting, it never crossed my mind that the audiences were actually interacting with you! Although they are not physically in the same location as you, they were still interacting with you in the “third space” while commenting and liking your video and as you were reacting to their comment at the same time.

Seeing people reacting to my live video has also made me extremely self-aware. I was afraid of wasting their time on my video and that they might judge me based on the video that I’ve broadcasted.

Conclusion

I am excited to see the end product of the mini project, excited to see what other classmates had captured on their live video. And it was satisfying to see all the live video come together and form the narrative.

The project had also change my perception of broadcasting. I used to think that live video was just the same as any other video. They were just entertainment meant to be consumed by the customer. However, now I had a new-found respect for people that stream live video online. It was not as easy as it seems to be and to be juggling with all the comments and information at the same time could really prove to be too much for some people.