Internet | Art2Act

No, its not porn. No, its not about being a peeping tom. And its definitely not Skype! Whether she is the pioneer of self-ies, we’ll never know. It’s a glimpse into the life of this women and what she does in front of her webcam. And that woman is Jennifer Ringley. In 1998 (when I was just a freaking 8-year-old boy) she most probably kick started the whole concept of reality television. A dozen thousand photos, hundreds of hours of recording and just one main protagonist- herself. Back then in the 1990s, I can imagine with Windows 95 being the ultimate to have OS, this would become a phenomenon like no other. Creepy yet additive, intrusive while juicy – what more action do you need to narrate a box- office hit.

We have all seen Kim Kardashian, Survivor and all the commercially glamour reality Televisions. But they are all decorated with the ideals that society is constantly looking towards, perhaps. Jennifer Ringley is as real as it gets cause initially she just acts and lives the way she is. But notice, as the years pass by, we see certain things like relationship romances etc coming into the screen. Something you don’t usually do infront of your computer but perhaps done for the mere sake of narration and to spice it all up. Perhaps, she got bored but one is sure, reality gets no longer becomes reality when its not spontaneous response or natural in reality. To me, everything changes but its whether we do it because it’s for a natural course for others to stay tuned. Perhaps, I am just being too critical. The whole idea and concept, over the years is something I am very impressed. Memories in virtually. What more can do you to preserve memories then recording them down every moment!

So let’s get down to the details… every single nipple revealing detail. Notice, how she is mostly topless in, I presume, pre-bedtime period for the live stream. She seems to be at her natural state. If we were to observe in detail. Initially, she starts her day at her natural state where she does not care about the camera or anyone viewing, gets to be a little more cautious during the later part of the day and eventually when the battery is running low, she goes back to the natural state. Personally to me, its a very interesting form or rather state of mind that Ringley goes through. Imagine animals in a zoo ( I am not insulting her just a simple analogy for us to understand this better). When visitors are allowed, they might have this unnatural feeling and react differently but once the visitors have left, its back to their own self. Of course, this is only perhaps for the new animals. What happens to animals that have been there for such a long time that they couldn’t be bothered?

As the time flies in years, she gets less and less concerned about the camera. Her photos shows negligence towards the camera. Her angle used to be more cautious so that her viewers can see her. But it got worse along the years. Sometimes. I just see her hips, butt etc. This negligence might be from her side cause I am sure its not the same from the guys viewing her life through the webcam. Hence I think this attitude of not being cautious for the camera creates a more exciting story. She no longer has to create narratives cause it creates itself. People are aware of it and that’s how it gives them the impression that it is no longer staged at all. Every action she does is creates suspense – what is she up to, what is she going to do? She sits on her sofa cutting paper( or whatever it is ) or even sits on her bed watching TV, she tune in to see what is she up to next cause we don’t know when there will be change that might add some twist to the whole process. The suspense starts with nothingness. The nothingness starts with being natural. And here the natural state begins with not giving a shit about who is watching you ( cautiousness)

This is very different from Steve Dixon’s association of webcam pornography where he describes the need for the two to conference through the webcam so that the host will be able to gain loyalty. But question about the tons of pornography material that show you a glimpse into the actor/actress life and whatever biological touching they may be doing to themselves yet its a one sided window. It might be live or recorded but it still captures loyalty. Its the same for Jennicam which he himself has mentioned it as the most publicised live webcam production and it was from an unknown college student. So I ask if Dixon’s stand is still valid in the context. However, he does bring our very valid points with regard to it bringing out a ‘dramatic play – life portrayed’ and how sometimes there was apparently nothing to see cause she either left or switched off her lights. His term of ‘documentary realism’ is very evident in Jennicam when everything and anything is shown to the world through the webcam without any form of censorship or restriction eventually. Dixon even named her ‘Queen of Cyberspace’, implying like she had been inevitably been crowned through mere viewership ( no interactivity).

We dig it – Its all happening in real time and its entertaining. As mentioned earlier, it connects us in a unidirectional manner to her and its performance becomes something that we relate in our everyday life. We become fans, admirers and well-wishers… or do we? What if these fans, admirers and well-wishers grow to be more than that? What if reality is boundless for some. What if they become stalkers, haters and demoralizers? She is American, so its freed of expression and everybody soon gets into the trend. Imagine if she were in India or South America. Is she going to get the same kind of response both in virtually and in reality? I doubt so because she is woman ( I am not being gender bias). Cultures can change but people don’t. We have to understand that the web reality has its pros ( which I am so into) but it’s the cons that scare us once we are aware of them. Web Reality is regional no matter how globalized we are. Forget about interconnectedness because cultures have a defense mechanism that rejects ideologies or inner cultures from different regions. An example would be Singapore. In Singapore, we adapt a lot of Western and European cultural styles but when it boils down to defense, policies and even politics, we aren’t going to allow anyone to inject a dose of Western or European practice other than the idea of democracy itself. These are the pillars that make Jennifer Ringley’s experiment nice to watch but definitely ‘out of bound’ in the Singapore context for people to appropriate this method.

Cheers

Jaysee

“ This installation was developed at the University of Southern California in 1995 under the co-direction of Ken Goldberg and Joseph Santarromana. In 1996 the Telegarden was moved to the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria, where it remained online until August of 2004 [12, 27]. The garden itself is a small plot encircling an industrial robotic arm. A web-based interface allows users to activate the robotic arm, view the garden through a camera mounted on the robotic arm, change the view, plant a seed, water it, and (if one is a successful gardener) water the resulting plant on an on-going basis. Many thousands of remote users have interacted with the Telegarden in such ways.”

Extracted from 2005 IEE International Workshop on Robots and Human Interactive Communication

So this installation seems like a simple project with a robotic arm, which might be the most impressive part. However, after reading through their use of investigation, data collection and coding for interaction, I wouldn’t use the word ‘simple’ too loosely . The 13 weeks they used to consolidate 22 952 posts before it was relocated from Untied States to Austria. The whole model for relationship was based on the previous project by Friedman, Kahm and Hagman who analysing the relationship between humans and Sony’s AIBO robotic dog. The methods for developing systems of interpretation were based largely from the developmental psychology for coding qualitative interview data (P.H Kahn Jr, 1999). Hence if a post included several instances of a single category, that category was coded as used only once, thus accounting for the expression varying in a range of topics and attitudes within one statement (P.H.Kahn Jr, B.Friedman, 2005).

So what are my thoughts about this? The mediated and telerobotic interaction that goes from vitality to time-based reality ( 3 months in short). The point is to create a ecological relationship through interconnected infrastructures, between our natural environment and users of the ‘unnatural’ world ( I think the term ‘unnatural’ is awesome in this context ). Beyond the virtual (cold environment) to physical (warm environment) interaction, there is a form of attachment that creates for users to make sure they water or plant the environment with new seeds etc. I think achieving this attachment as humanly as possible is an achievement itself. It does engage participants toward a betterment of a purpose. Imagine the thousands of facebook users who play the virtual community garden virtual games having a real garden in the process that blossoms as the game progresses.

However, lets be critical about one thing. Interaction. Ken Goldberg wanted to play with the juxtaposition of having a robot do the last thing you could imagine or want a robot to do, which I think he did perfectly. But we beg the question of whether we trying to share some light on how we are able to connect to our environment even behind our keyboard and screens? If yes, it does sound so enriching and positive. But at what cause? Does it sound natural or we trying to redefine what is natural? Have we grown to be so pre-occupied with the world we have created around us that we cannot appreciate the small yet development process of planting? Thus, as an art form, this sounds superb of virtual to ecological systems. But from what I read, people are serious in making this a scientific study that will bridge the gap between the ‘absented’ human and its surroundings. If so, we are at a hopeless end of trying to create the world just for ourselves that things like plants and other living things are perhaps no longer worthy of our physical affection and presence. Imagine nursing a loved one in coma, retrieving him from his critical stage through a recorded voice of yourself everyday and when he finally recovers from his unconscious state to realize it was a recording and not a real person speaking to him and making him come to live, he might not mind it but the recording only serves as a treatment not a test of the relationship you have with your loved ones. Interaction is the word cause through interaction are things like dedication, trust and importantly love can be felt- true love that is, not the ones that cyber criminals imitate and deceive against 16 year old teenage girls. Hence, this is a worrying question. Have we become so cold that we are trying to find ways to balance the socio-ecological environment as we sit behind our (cyber)gated community? Don’t let me get started with the potential commercialization of this that will counteract the efforts of the primary meaning of this installation.

Overall, I think we should leave it as an art form that just tells us that is possible and that we are at the attempt of emerging a cold environment like the web into a warm environment like the ecology that keeps us alive. Its fine the way it is. Some things don’t need to improve or progress- they are good the way they are and best kept as such.

Art2Act

Tag Archives: Internet

Jennifer Ringley’s JenniCam

Research Critique: Ken Goldberg’s TeleGarden

Its time for art to take its place with real time!