- Eve.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Au revoir.
Well, the course has now ended and I am finishg up on my essay, titled "The Fabric of our World – A Symbiosis between Science Fiction and Reality". I have enjoyed the materials we have read during this course very much, as well as the discussions we have had during classes. It's nice to have such enjoyable courses that inspire creativity and thoughtfulness in midst of other, heavier and more technical courses. I want to thank the teachers for making every lecture a fun experience and for making me come to class with joy.
- Eve.
- Eve.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Wikitannica
For the purpose of this assignment I looked up the term "Snow Crash" in both Wikipedia and Encylopaedia Britannica, hoping that I would find some information about the book by Neil Stephenson which we had to read for this course. I searched for this keeping in mind that "Snow Crash" is a science fiction book that has influenced our culture in a significant way, spawning many other books and games that would not exist had it not been for this piece of literature. So all in all, it's a pretty important book. And while Wikipedia presented me with an extensive article that covered the plot, the characters, ideas behind the book, philosophy and even some of the technology used in it, Britannica only had to offer a small stump where "Snow Crash" is briefly mentioned in the final lines of the article.
It seems to me that Wikipedia is far more reflective upon our modern age than Encylopaedia Britannica in the sense that it puts its focus on more contemporary topics rather than covering the traditional themes. The entertainment industry makes up for a lot of articles in Wikipedia whereas in EB they are briefly mentioned, if at all, since they are not considered academic matters and are therefore irrelevant. The great difference between these two encylopaedias then is that EB seeks out the most academic topics whereas Wikipedia tries to encompass it all. It is also constantly growing every single day unlike EB, so Wikipedia seems to be the place to go for the most up-to-date information in any matter.
Wikipedia might not have the most accurate or academic information, but what it lacks in traditionalism, it makes up for in diversity and magnitude. These are two crucial key words in our modern times, where the world is coming together and everywhere you look you can almost see changes taking place in front of your eyes all the time, every day. Wikipedia is almost like a living organism, for its eyes, ears and hands are the people who build it and make it grow. It evolves together with us, taking in everything that happens and reflecting it back into our lives. Is it an encylopaedia? Yes. But it's far more than that. Essentially it is a mirror reflecting back at each and every one of us. It is a contemporary cultural phenomenon more than anything else, and therefore its value lies in more than just the information it contains - its importance comes from the way it is constructed and the people that shape it - us.
It's a splendid example of a product of the age of information and connectivity, or Web 2.0 as some might like to call it. This phenomenon of internet, of digital information and constant evolvment is our shadow - if we pick up the pace and start running faster, it will be right at our heels. But are we still the ones who determine the pace of our evolution? Have we ever been able to do it in the first place? These are interesting questions I think. If we're sitting in a car that's going down the information highway, are we sure that we're the ones at the wheel? Are we ready for whatever is out there, waiting for us? Only time will tell. And time, in today's society, is everything and simultaneously absolutely nothing.
- Eve.
It seems to me that Wikipedia is far more reflective upon our modern age than Encylopaedia Britannica in the sense that it puts its focus on more contemporary topics rather than covering the traditional themes. The entertainment industry makes up for a lot of articles in Wikipedia whereas in EB they are briefly mentioned, if at all, since they are not considered academic matters and are therefore irrelevant. The great difference between these two encylopaedias then is that EB seeks out the most academic topics whereas Wikipedia tries to encompass it all. It is also constantly growing every single day unlike EB, so Wikipedia seems to be the place to go for the most up-to-date information in any matter.
Wikipedia might not have the most accurate or academic information, but what it lacks in traditionalism, it makes up for in diversity and magnitude. These are two crucial key words in our modern times, where the world is coming together and everywhere you look you can almost see changes taking place in front of your eyes all the time, every day. Wikipedia is almost like a living organism, for its eyes, ears and hands are the people who build it and make it grow. It evolves together with us, taking in everything that happens and reflecting it back into our lives. Is it an encylopaedia? Yes. But it's far more than that. Essentially it is a mirror reflecting back at each and every one of us. It is a contemporary cultural phenomenon more than anything else, and therefore its value lies in more than just the information it contains - its importance comes from the way it is constructed and the people that shape it - us.
It's a splendid example of a product of the age of information and connectivity, or Web 2.0 as some might like to call it. This phenomenon of internet, of digital information and constant evolvment is our shadow - if we pick up the pace and start running faster, it will be right at our heels. But are we still the ones who determine the pace of our evolution? Have we ever been able to do it in the first place? These are interesting questions I think. If we're sitting in a car that's going down the information highway, are we sure that we're the ones at the wheel? Are we ready for whatever is out there, waiting for us? Only time will tell. And time, in today's society, is everything and simultaneously absolutely nothing.
- Eve.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Johnny Mnemonic
I found the story to be quite confusing and didn't understand that much of it. However, I could recognize William Gibson's style and I know that the story will make more sense once I read it a few more times. I recognized the female character Molly from his novel Neuromancer, since she also features there. I read Neuromancer a few years ago and should read it again because I found it very interesting and again, I'm sure it would make more sense if I read it once more. William Gibson's writing is very scientific, complex and cyberpunkish, with many lapses in time and non-linear jumps from one thing to another, which makes it difficult to understand the first time around - or even the first few times. The world he paints up in his novels and short stories is very high-tech and all the characters in it take many of these technological things for granted, which means that there are few explanations of what exactly is happening.
The main character Johnny basically seems to be a sort of cyborg who stores information in his head and other people pay for memory space in his brain. The gist of the story seems to be that one of Johnny's clients stored something in his brain and then did not seek him out to retrieve the information. When Johnny seeks out this client to find out why he hasn't collected his info, he gets into trouble and realizes that the information in his brain is dangerous and that someone has stolen it from the Yakuza and his client put it in Johnny's head and then, after realizing that the information is dangerous, sought out some people to kill off Johnny and get rid of the problem. Johnny manages to stay alive with the help of Molly who knows people, Johnny's client is killed by the maffia, and Johnny is dragged away by Molly to figure out what's inside his brain and how to make a deal with the Yakuza and manage to stay alive for a little bit longer.
All ends well, the maffia ends up leaving him alone and Johnny manages to hide away and change his appearance through extensive surgery and memory alterations. Not your traditional happy ending, but that's as good as it gets in a William Gibson story.
- Eve.
The main character Johnny basically seems to be a sort of cyborg who stores information in his head and other people pay for memory space in his brain. The gist of the story seems to be that one of Johnny's clients stored something in his brain and then did not seek him out to retrieve the information. When Johnny seeks out this client to find out why he hasn't collected his info, he gets into trouble and realizes that the information in his brain is dangerous and that someone has stolen it from the Yakuza and his client put it in Johnny's head and then, after realizing that the information is dangerous, sought out some people to kill off Johnny and get rid of the problem. Johnny manages to stay alive with the help of Molly who knows people, Johnny's client is killed by the maffia, and Johnny is dragged away by Molly to figure out what's inside his brain and how to make a deal with the Yakuza and manage to stay alive for a little bit longer.
All ends well, the maffia ends up leaving him alone and Johnny manages to hide away and change his appearance through extensive surgery and memory alterations. Not your traditional happy ending, but that's as good as it gets in a William Gibson story.
- Eve.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Jailed influenced judge
Arrests men between yesterday
Terrorist understood himself
Death reported radical
Buried manager Tim
Guilty feet
November chloroform sold
Date-rape speeches worked
Money denied speculation
Monday, April 23, 2007
Digital Works
Whitney Airport: About.
The about page of Whitney Airport doesn't really say what kind of artwork it supports; instead it describes the different services it provides for artists and the various ways they can exhibit their artwork on the website.
Rhizome.org: General Information.
Rhizome seems to have a much more advanced support system, with an online newspaper, exhibitions, web hosting and many other offered services. It seems to mainly focus on contemporary art, such as photography, websites, Flash animations.
Wikipedia - Digital Art, Internet Art, New Media Art
The definition of digital art seems to be art that has been created or altered by the computer, it doesn't necessarily have to be entirely computer-generated, it can also be a scanned photograph or something similar. Internet art focuses on art that mainly uses the Internet as its source of destribution, and New Media Art by definition is art that can be created by any new technologies and software, such as graphics, animation, the Internet, robotics or even bio-technologies (the last I found pretty interesting and would like to know more about).
I Love Bees.. Or Do I?
I would hardly call this a game, it seems to be more of a non-linear narrative story experience. It's dependant on interaction and unpredictability, as well as some amount of chaos and confusion. Game is one of those words that seems very obsolete when put into such a contemporary context as this story. Seems to be a pretty good example of Internet art since the manner of distribution, its medium, seems very important to this work.
Implementation
I remember that we looked at this work during our Digital Poetry class. If we have to peg it down into a box, I would like to call it New Media Art, since it uses a different, post-modern and non-linear way to tell a story on a grand scale from seemingly scattered bits and pieces of paper. I'm quite fond of this idea and think that I would enjoy stumbling upon these snippets of information here and there wherever I walked. The important thing in such a work is to make sure that every piece of information tells something about the most important goal of the project, to ensure that even if one would only come across a small slice of this story, they would understand what it's trying to do. There has to be a red thread throughout the narrative that ties it all together, if not then the story falls apart and disintegrates. But I think Implementation has succeeded with keeping this read thread in all the installments. As far as I could see, they tried to include some information about Iraq, soldiers or war in every snippet.
- Eve.
The about page of Whitney Airport doesn't really say what kind of artwork it supports; instead it describes the different services it provides for artists and the various ways they can exhibit their artwork on the website.
Rhizome.org: General Information.
Rhizome seems to have a much more advanced support system, with an online newspaper, exhibitions, web hosting and many other offered services. It seems to mainly focus on contemporary art, such as photography, websites, Flash animations.
Wikipedia - Digital Art, Internet Art, New Media Art
The definition of digital art seems to be art that has been created or altered by the computer, it doesn't necessarily have to be entirely computer-generated, it can also be a scanned photograph or something similar. Internet art focuses on art that mainly uses the Internet as its source of destribution, and New Media Art by definition is art that can be created by any new technologies and software, such as graphics, animation, the Internet, robotics or even bio-technologies (the last I found pretty interesting and would like to know more about).
I Love Bees.. Or Do I?
I would hardly call this a game, it seems to be more of a non-linear narrative story experience. It's dependant on interaction and unpredictability, as well as some amount of chaos and confusion. Game is one of those words that seems very obsolete when put into such a contemporary context as this story. Seems to be a pretty good example of Internet art since the manner of distribution, its medium, seems very important to this work.
Implementation
I remember that we looked at this work during our Digital Poetry class. If we have to peg it down into a box, I would like to call it New Media Art, since it uses a different, post-modern and non-linear way to tell a story on a grand scale from seemingly scattered bits and pieces of paper. I'm quite fond of this idea and think that I would enjoy stumbling upon these snippets of information here and there wherever I walked. The important thing in such a work is to make sure that every piece of information tells something about the most important goal of the project, to ensure that even if one would only come across a small slice of this story, they would understand what it's trying to do. There has to be a red thread throughout the narrative that ties it all together, if not then the story falls apart and disintegrates. But I think Implementation has succeeded with keeping this read thread in all the installments. As far as I could see, they tried to include some information about Iraq, soldiers or war in every snippet.
- Eve.
Essay
My current idea about my essay is the symbiosis of science fiction and reality, and how both influence each other. Basically, I want to contemplate on how much science fiction films and books draw from reality and how reality is respectively affected by this genre of films and literature. I might however change my mind or make additions to this essay idea on Wednesday, when we'll be going through digital art and literature.
Update: I'm thinking about using Snow Crash and Blade Runner as reference and for comparisons, and perhaps also to incorporate the book I'm currently reading, The Lathe of Heaven.
- Eve.
Update: I'm thinking about using Snow Crash and Blade Runner as reference and for comparisons, and perhaps also to incorporate the book I'm currently reading, The Lathe of Heaven.
- Eve.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Crashing into the Matrix
What can I say about The Matrix? So much has already been said and analyzed when it comes to the film, even by me. When it was released, it took everyone by surprise. No one could imagine this bizarre combination of action, fighting and philosophy, all in this cyberpunkish-enviroment. It was a new and different way of presenting ideas and thoughts, it was literally explosive and blew everyone's mind. Few could understand it, yet everyone loved it. They made a safe bet creating this film I think, because they knew that even though the masses might not understand the philosophy behind the film, they would love the film itself for all its innovative action sequences. So it's a win-win in either case, and a very profitable situation indeed. But it has been discussed plentifully from every possible angle, so I think I will draw comparisons between The Matix and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash instead.
I didn't really think about The Matrix while I was reading Snow Crash, but it seems to me what both Metaverses have in common is a sense of predictability. By using the code provided by the Construct and specific googles and software, the characters in both enviroments can use these elements to adpot a heightened awareness of their surroundings and get the ability to dodge bullets, know where to go to be safe, how to move to avoid getting killed. The obvious difference, however, is that in The Matrix this can only help you in the simulated reality, whereas in Snow Crash these tools are used in the real world. It seems to me that the world in Snow Crash is a bit closer to what Jean Baudrillard calls hyperreality and third-order simulacra. There's a very tight relationship between The Metaverse and The Reality in Neal Stephenson's book, they complete each other and heighten the users experience of both. Whereas in The Matrix, The Metaverse and The Reality are each other's enemies, where the first is used to control people's minds and the latter is a plateau for a broken fight for freedom.
What also struck me as interesting in both the film and the book, is the broken sense of time. Snow Crash seems to be a straightforward story of chained events where all the characters are busy doing something all the time. Right? Wrong. At some point, towards the end of the book, Hiro suddenly thinks about the many times he and Y.T. have eaten junk food together. But the book leaves no account of such a thing happening, so when exactly did it happen? We can never know, but this just shows that we're not left a complete account of the supposed events. And in The Matrix, Morpheus just tells Neo that he thinks it's the year 2199. He can't be sure, he might be completely wrong. There's more about time in the following Matrix films, but I won't go there now. But these things also tie into Baudrillard's idea of an era where time no longer exists.
The Metaverse of Snow Crash visualizes that which Second Life is a step towards - an enviroment used for business as much as entertainment, and where people can interact with each other when they cannot do so in the real world. Need a quick business meeting to discuss urgent matters? You don't have to fly half across the world to meet your partners, you can just plug into The Metaverse and voilá, they're all there. Need a tight security system to protect your property? Get a Thing, a semi robot-dog killing machine that knows everything that's going on around your land and will act faster than you can say "Woof". Are you immobilized after a horrible accident that has robbed you of any chance to move around properly? Create a realistic enviroment in The Metaverse where you can spend your days peacefully observing your real world self and countless events and other people. The possibilities are endless.
It's a fascinating vision, and as it would seem, we are definitely headed in that direction. One can only hope that we will learn how to use this technology for good and not become arrogant idiots which will eventually lead us to our doom. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the vision of The Matrix is far off either. We do have a tendency to really screw things up and think that we're gods or something. Take Babel, for example. Or Atlantis. Or even, heh, USA.
- Eve.
I didn't really think about The Matrix while I was reading Snow Crash, but it seems to me what both Metaverses have in common is a sense of predictability. By using the code provided by the Construct and specific googles and software, the characters in both enviroments can use these elements to adpot a heightened awareness of their surroundings and get the ability to dodge bullets, know where to go to be safe, how to move to avoid getting killed. The obvious difference, however, is that in The Matrix this can only help you in the simulated reality, whereas in Snow Crash these tools are used in the real world. It seems to me that the world in Snow Crash is a bit closer to what Jean Baudrillard calls hyperreality and third-order simulacra. There's a very tight relationship between The Metaverse and The Reality in Neal Stephenson's book, they complete each other and heighten the users experience of both. Whereas in The Matrix, The Metaverse and The Reality are each other's enemies, where the first is used to control people's minds and the latter is a plateau for a broken fight for freedom.
What also struck me as interesting in both the film and the book, is the broken sense of time. Snow Crash seems to be a straightforward story of chained events where all the characters are busy doing something all the time. Right? Wrong. At some point, towards the end of the book, Hiro suddenly thinks about the many times he and Y.T. have eaten junk food together. But the book leaves no account of such a thing happening, so when exactly did it happen? We can never know, but this just shows that we're not left a complete account of the supposed events. And in The Matrix, Morpheus just tells Neo that he thinks it's the year 2199. He can't be sure, he might be completely wrong. There's more about time in the following Matrix films, but I won't go there now. But these things also tie into Baudrillard's idea of an era where time no longer exists.
The Metaverse of Snow Crash visualizes that which Second Life is a step towards - an enviroment used for business as much as entertainment, and where people can interact with each other when they cannot do so in the real world. Need a quick business meeting to discuss urgent matters? You don't have to fly half across the world to meet your partners, you can just plug into The Metaverse and voilá, they're all there. Need a tight security system to protect your property? Get a Thing, a semi robot-dog killing machine that knows everything that's going on around your land and will act faster than you can say "Woof". Are you immobilized after a horrible accident that has robbed you of any chance to move around properly? Create a realistic enviroment in The Metaverse where you can spend your days peacefully observing your real world self and countless events and other people. The possibilities are endless.
It's a fascinating vision, and as it would seem, we are definitely headed in that direction. One can only hope that we will learn how to use this technology for good and not become arrogant idiots which will eventually lead us to our doom. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the vision of The Matrix is far off either. We do have a tendency to really screw things up and think that we're gods or something. Take Babel, for example. Or Atlantis. Or even, heh, USA.
- Eve.
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