Week 5: Thoughts on Lundby's "Digital Storytelling..." p. 145-301

"Profiles are digital bodies, public displays of identity where people can explore impression management. Because the digital world requires people to write themselves into being, profiles provide an opportunity to craft the intended expression through language, imagery and media."

"Creating a text like an SNS profile is necessarily a self-reflexive act to some degree since it involves the choice and assembly of self-related episodes and attributes..." (p. 286)

In one of my classes in high school, we had a discussion about our Facebook pages in relation to upcoming college applications. Around that time, it made the news that colleges, especially prestigious universities, that were going through applications and/or starting the interview processes would take a look at a potential student's Facebook profile. Our teacher asked us then how we felt about that, was it fair, do we agree with this practice, etc. The general consensus was yes, absolutely it was fair for an institution to make a judgement about you, based on information that you put out on the internet in a public privatized space. This then led into a discussion about representation - how accurate can a Facebook profile be, if we are controlling it. 

In this social media age, everyone is their own manager and publicist - online, we all must manage our own image. We are all manicuring and fashioning our profile to some extent in order to project a certain image or representation of ourselves, regardless of how well that virtual image lines up with the "real" us. We paint that picture with every single choice we make in our profile: name (real, silly, fake, middle name included?), education and work (to include or not to include?), politics and religion (potentially step on some toes? stay true to who you are? or stay non-controversial?), and statuses (funny, witty, political, newsy, quotidian, passive agressive, poetic, journal-like?). 

And of course, a picture says a thousand words. A Facebook profile picture is the first thing that anyone will see. A great amount of thought and judgment are put into a profile picture, but there is a tension straddling two sides - what you want and who you are, and what others will think when they see it. What do I like v. How do I want to be seen? I think this is what Lundby means by saying that it is a self-reflexive act - we look at not just our profile pictures, but our entire page through our own eyes, and then through (what we think are) the eyes of someone else. Then we edit according to these 2 judgements. The following is a popular guide to understanding what your profile picture says about you.

I think it is important to remember that a great deal of this self-image manipulation comes not only from the type of things you do post, but also in large part from the things you choose to keep off: filtering. Not only editing, but deleting and actively deciding not to post something speak volumes. This could be statuses, comments, relationship status and especially photos. Whereas it was once considered "authentic" or "genuine" to not fiddle with your page in a sort of laissez-faire, hands-off approach, it's now seen as downright stupid. This shift from image management from being seen as shady, paranoid or superficial to now seen as the prudent and responsible thing to do. The days of a 100% unmanaged profile are over. No longer does anyone let their page take on a life of their own. If necessary, people will untag photos and delete statuses or friends' wall posts to shape their identity, and opt for a private message or chat in lieu of a public wall post.

Of course, this is in response to a widening circle of friends. Whereas a LinkedIn profile is for the professional world and an online dating profile is for the personal world, Facebook is increasingly all-encompassing. For example, on Facebook I have added not only friends, but family, co-workers, teachers, and bosses. Accordingly, I have to watch what I say, what my friends say (something much harder to control), and what photos I am tagged in. "How to Suck at Facebook" is a web comic describing the "types" of friends we all have seen on Facebook; most detrimental to themselves are the Filterless, the Passive Aggressor and the Horrible Photo Tagger.

It's not at all unusual to go to a party and have some type of ban on photos: either none at all, none posted on Facebook, or none posted with tags. Or someone will simply say, "Hey, don't post that one okay, I have family and my boss added on Facebook." If I had a bad day at work, Facebook is not the place to complain, because I'm friends with my manager. And in this day, more and more people are. 

Some people are still learning how to filter themselves, and the results can be disastrous: 

Managing your own image is not only for the employed. As the recession hit and competition for a limited number of jobs increased, companies taking a look at an online profile before application review, interviewing or hiring became the norm. It was the natural, Darwinian response to the bad economy - weeding out the careless people who put out this information about themselves in the first place. Before, it seemed invasive and excessive - now it was fair game, and it has become an unofficial staple of the employment process. But recently, colleges, potential employers, government agencies and scholarship providers are taking more than just the cursory glance at a Facebook profile: "forced friending" to gain access to friends-only posts, and "shoulder surfing" or asking applicant to hand over their passwords. Reacting against this, states hurried to pass legislation banning employers from asking for SMS passwords. 

http://business.time.com/2012/03/06/background-check-for-the-digital-age-employers-colleges-ask-for-facebook-passwords/ 

http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/09/states-rush-to-ban-employers-from-asking-for-social-media-passwords/ 

http://business.time.com/2012/03/23/facebook-weighs-in-and-blasts-shoulder-surfing-by-employers/ 

http://business.time.com/2012/03/20/lawmakers-try-to-ban-facebook-shoulder-surfing-by-employers/ 

Week 4: Thoughts on Lundby's "Digital Storytelling..." p. 1-145

"Digital storytelling is perhaps particularly important as a practice because it operates outside the boundaries of mainstream media institutions although it can also work on the margins of such institutions.... In that sense digital storytelling contributes to a democratisation of media resources and widening the conditions of democracy itself. Digital storytelling vastly extends the number of people who at least in principle can be registered as contributing to the public sphere...." (p. 54)

When I read this, I couldn't help but think of the Big Three of social media: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These three start-up websites began as nothing, but launched into media powerhouses because of the intensity of users sharing content. All three of these sites began as the brainchild of young independent founders - they are not affiliated with any giant media network, agency or outlet. The content that they host and distribute was originally (and still is, for the most part) by the people and for the people. And while these three sites can and do run as their own singular platform (i.e. "on the margins of such institutions") big companies like Time, CNN or the New York Times can get in on the fun too- they have a Facebook page, Twitter account, and YouTube channel. Such things even can operate within their site, so that you can comment on an article via your Facebook, or watch a video embedded in the article, and then decide to follow them on Twitter. Such sites are increasingly important in our age of concentrated media ownership, where it seems like every type of media we see or hear is owned by a large conglomerate:

All of this makes for multiple platforms that people can use for their own purposes. This means that people can become journalists themselves, just by writing on the internet what is happening to them. This was the case in June 2009 during the post-election riots in Tehran. With no foreign journalists on the ground in Iran, average witnesses on the street began their own news coverage of the events- via cell phones and camcorders. The amount of raw footage that flooded YouTube during the riots has been described as “unprecedented,” where recent, uncensored and user-generated news “convey[ed] some of the immediacy of what is happening every day on the streets of Iran” (Tweeting). YouTube administrators even created a section for the riot videos and linked it to the front page, encouraging visitors to watch and put up more. More recently, Reddit made headlines as a powerful news source to be reckoned with when a user put up the breaking news and photos of a shooting in a movie theatre showing The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado, long before any official news network had gotten wind of the situation. This kind of digital storytelling is beginning to make traditional and official news sources obsolete, in favor of the immediacy of citizen journalism. link: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/denver-resident-here-reddit-im-doing-my-best-to-update-this/260115/

Not only can people use digital means to share the news, but it democratizes in that it helps decide what becomes the news - it helps people get together and bring about change. Facebook is the organizer. Twitter is the rallying cry. And YouTube is the proof. Two good examples of this are the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the protests of the Arab Spring, both of which got their organizational start on Facebook and Twitter, with the shocking and graphic outcomes in the videos posted on YouTube. Major news outlets took note, at times calling them "Twitter revolutions" because of their origins. 

TIME pdf infographic: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/pdf/20110321_1848vs2011.pdf

"The aim of digital storytelling is not to produce media for broadcast but to produce 'conversational media': 'much of what we help people create would not easily stand alone as broadcast media, but, in the context of conversation, it can be extraordinarily powerful'."

Media has become intensely conversational - watch the news, and at the bottom there is a scroll of tweets. Senior correspondents and experts respond to questions taken from Facebook or Twitter. Watch a tv show, and there is a hashtag inviting you to live tweet with the cast and crew and fellow fans. Entire sections of talk shows are devoted to answering Tweets or responding to Facebook comments. All articles online have a comment section. Or they want a thumbs up or down, upvote or downvote, like or dislike, make a video response, they want you to choose your reaction from an assortment of smiley faces or tags, or to like or share or Google plus or digg or tweet it. I have even seen a section where you can respond to an article by choosing a song. It seems like everything on the internet or television or radio is a part of conversation - everything you see or hear wants you to say something back. Whether a comment, a yay or nay, or to answer or ask a question, media has become so conversational and interactive that sometimes it can be overwhelming, and make you wish for the days when you can just read or listen to something passively and in peace, without being asked to do anything in return.

Week 3: Thoughts on Shaw's "Modalities of Interactivity and Virtuality"

In Shaw's essay, he begins by talking about space in art in general: "The research and development of various mechanisms and codes of spatial representation has been a basic preoccupation throughout the history of western art." He goes on: "And not just in terms of the structure of the image itself, but also in terms of a space of interaction between the image and the spectator." 

What Shaw is basically saying is that man has always been preoccupied with accurately portraying three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface, with the final goal of involving the spectator in the work of art; i.e. making them feel like what they are seeing is real, that they are "in" the world of the image.

These two ideas come together to form a concluding point at the end of his essay: “The activity of Art has always been the interpretation and re-creation of reality….” I agree with this statement. I took art history in high school, and throughout history, man has been trying to portray space with the intent of involving the viewer in the image-world. As I was reading, the art history term that came to mind was a French phrase "trompe-l'œil," which means "trick the eye" and describes a hyper-realistic style where the imagery creates " the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three-dimensions, instead of actually being a two-dimensional painting" (http://www.alexander-hamilton.net/stylesandthemes/trompe.php).

Artists weren’t successful in this endeavor until the Renaissance, when they discovered the joys of linear perspective. Now, they could “create” huge spaces on canvas that appeared to be extensions of the actual building – be it walls or ceilings. This illusionistic painting style was done on purpose to make it seem like there was a whole other world beyond the building.

Masaccio's "Holy Trinity"

Mantegna's "Camera degli Sposi"

Cortona's "Glorification of the Reign of Urban VIII"

I feel that Shaw is right in connecting art of the Old World with the New World - mankind as artists are always trying to portray things with more depth and realism. While the traditional art world has moved away from this (e.g. modernism, post-modernism, abstract, expressionism), other media are still trying to do this - film (CGI) and videogames being two examples. 

Nowadays, a game is often judged and reviewed on how good its graphics are. I think this is partly because a game that looks and feels real is easier to become absorbed and sucked into, and thus better. Skyrim and Bioshock Infinite are two examples of this hyperrealism for the purpose of virtual reality and viewer interaction. 

I remember when Skyrim first came out, people were posting screenshots all over reddit, showing off the incredible detail in the game. One user, jellyllama, posted an album of 89 different images taken from the game. Link: http://imgur.com/a/WbhTO#0 

Since Bioshock Infinite came out recently, I saw the commercials over and over again. Despite how many times I saw them, I couldn't get over how real it looked - it looked like a movie! Everything was so saturated in detail - characters, settings, movements. Every time it came on, I noticed that I would pause and stare, transfixed at what I was seeing, and almost overwhelmed by not knowing where to look first, such was the visual feast I beheld. And that was only a 30-second or 60-second commercial - imagine if I had actually bought the game! Here's the commercial: 

Week 2: Thoughts on Krueger's "Responsive Environments"

I liked reading about this type of interactive technology-art hybrid because they seemed to me more like experiments than art. There were a few spots in this essay that reminded me of interactive technology that I have seen heard or read about. I'll take excerpts from Krueger's list titled "Control and Composition":

"5. An instrument which the participants play by moving about the space. In Psychic Space the floor was used as a keyboard for a simple musical instrument."

This reminded me of a YouTube video I saw, in which researchers turned a flight of stairs into a piano, making notes depending on which step you were on. If I recall, it was a social experiment to see if making stairs fun would get the public to use them more. Essentially the same principle.

6. "A means of turning the participant's body into an instrument. His physical posture would be determined from a digitized video image and the orientation of the limbs would be used to control lights and sounds."

This reminded me of the later version of the PowerGlove - the Xbox Kinect, the Wii or any of the Just Dance/Dance Central video games. I remember when they were advertising it, the commercials had the tagline "YOU are the controller." In my experience, and for many of the commenters on the commercials, there was some false advertising as to the ability of the game to precisely capture movement:

"Only problem is, in the real world, Kinect can't do half of those things. Sorry Microsoft, but this is completely false advertising. The responsetime, and amount of limbs the Kinect can recognize, and will recognize in this commercial, is simply not true" - Tage Fosse

"it will take another 5 year+ before we see that kind of flawless tracking." - catha86

8. "An experimental parable where the theme is illustrated by the things that happen to the protagonist - the participant. Viewed from this perspective, the maze in Psychic Space becomes pregnant with meaning. It was impossible to succeed, to solve the maze. This could be a frustrating experience if one were trying to reach the goal. If, on the other hand, the participant maintained an active curiosity about how the maze would thwart him next, the experience was entertaining."

The idea of an interactive game with an objective that is impossible to achieve reminded me of the Fantasy Game in the book Ender's Game, which was essentially a complex mind game built into the school's computer system that was filled with meaning and had profound pychological effects on Ender. In the game, he played himself, and was able to penetrate farther in the game than anyone else had gone. While other students became frustrated, Ender was continually exploring the confines of the world within the game.

"In each environment, a single person walks into a darkened room where he finds himself confroned by an 8?x10" rear view projection screen. On the screen he sees his own life-size image and the image of one or more other people. This is surprising in itself, since he is alone in the room. The other images are of people in the other environments.... The visual effect is of several people in the same room.... By moving around their respective rooms, thus moving their images, the participants can interact within the limitations of the video medium."

This description reminded me of the Mirror of Erised in Harry Potter, because it is the same setup of one person alone seeing themselves surrounded by other people in a created space of the mirror/screen. And like the limitations of video, Harry can really only look at his parents, or interact with them in the mirror-space; we see him trying to feel their actual presence when he touches his own shoulder, seeing if their reach extends beyond his reflection.