This video is brilliant, and it strikes me as reminiscent of Chapter 2 in Understanding Comics. Words as abstract icons. The video could be accurately described as “text and audio” but its creator has made something far more interesting and entertaining by manipulating the letter icons in a meaningful way.
A much better QuickTime version of this video can be viewed here.
Two-Dimensional Narrative Space
**I’m audio recording this lecture using my new iTalk Pro. I’ll embed the audio later, which will hopefully serve as a helpful supplement. A backchannel? Anyway, to be honest the lecture section here is very difficult to make notes on, so the recording will have to suffice.**
Update: Here’s the audio. The first minute or two is mostly silence (or anything but substance), and I should have cut it. Oh well.
Professor Timmons is guiding us through a powerpoint slideshow/timeline of “written” communication.
Humanism - alludes to the fact that artists were looking at the world in a more realistic way.
Iconography is more static vs. Humanism which is more dynamic.
An image of the Madonna, wherein the figures around the Madonna are all gazing into space, and the only way that we can tell that the Madonna is the most important figure is because she is placed in the center, she’s bigger than all the other figures, and she’s drastically different from the others.
An image of the death of Christ, where Mary is holding her dead son in the bottom left of the frame. We’re guided to the most important part of the image–the dead guy–because all of the gazes and the lines that are implied by the other figures that lead us there.
There’s a lot of symbolism here. Mound of beauty (she’s not pregnant). The dog represents fidelity. The lone flame on the candelabra represents the presence of god. The mirror reflects the witnesses to the wedding, but not the painter–making the viewer a witness to the wedding. Digital technology allows us to take this one step further. Now, we can virtually enter the space and explore it.
Class is ended early because the weather sucks.
OK, it’s been one of those weeks where the New Media journal takes a backseat.
The window exercise is interesting. It wasn’t so much at the time, but in hindsight it is interesting. We looked at a static digital picture of the hallway from every angle we desired–and recorded our observations. Then we looked out into the hallway through the narrow classroom window and recorded our observations. Then we flung open the doors and took off into the hallway and recorded our observations.
At the time, I thought that exploring the hallway would be what I remembered as the most interesting. After all, it was total immersion into the environment. I could have bought a soda, or tipped the machine. I could have peed on the rug. I could have knocked on the doors of classrooms where class was in session. All of those possibilities were interesting–and I didn’t do any of them. For obvious reasons (except buying the soda, which I refrained from doing because I’m cheap).
No, what I found to be most interesting was looking through the window. There was some inherent drama, because anything could happen out there, I just had to be in the right spot to see it (positioning myself for a good view was about all I had control over). Though looking through the window is a bit readerly because I can’t impose myself onto what I see–it is what it is.
The picture…*yawn*
Relationships (parallels)
Criteria - the things we use to judge something
In order to find the relationships between old and new media–and to describe them–we need to define the criteria.
Aesthetics are a collection of criteria.
Use the terms that we’ve defined in class. Is the newspaper linear? Is the online version transactional? The five principles of new media. Static. Narrative.
“We don’t see things as they are
We see things as we are.”
–Anais Nin
We perceive the world through our five senses (plus intuition?).
The Perception Process
First stage in the perception process in which some data are chosen to attend to and other are ignored.
Stage in the perception process that involves arranging data in a meaningful way.
Process of attaching meaning to make sense of data.
Context affects our perception. The letter “i” in Tim is pronounced differently than the letter “i” in time Or “Take a bow.” versus “The bow of the ship.” versus “This is a bow and arrow.”
Influences on Perception
The senses, age, health, fatigue, hunger, and biological cycles.
Roles of gender, roles of occupation, our self-concept, and shared narratives.
Every culture has its own way of looking at the world.
Something to think about…
When looking at optical illusions, how important are relationships to those optical illusions (effects)?
Then we observed the view through the narrow vertical window on the classroom door, again from as many perspectives as possible.
I saw the ramp (from a different perspective of the photo), the door across the hallway, another bulletin board, the floor outside the door, the wall across from the room, and some student who walked by.
Lastly, the doors were opened and we were told to go out and explore. So I walked around. I saw all the classrooms in the 200 building, some unused furniture stacked in the hallway, saw that it was cold outside, some artwork display cases without any artwork, the men’s and women’s bathrooms, and the water fountain.
All of my observations above were very superficial.
In part one, we were limited by what the camera recorded for the photo. When we got close to the picture, we were not able to see more detail necessarily (after a certain point).
In part two, the size of the window was quite limiting, but as we moved what we saw moved with us. We were looking through a frame so as our vantage point changed what we could see changed.
In part three, we could see whatever we wanted. Having free reign over the hallways allowed us to observe everything. We were immersed into the environment. Once we got outside of the room, we had removed the frames that served as editors of the world.
The window frame “edits” the world that we see, as does the photo that we look at.
Take a look at these 360 degree VR images from Times Square, versus the 2-D static image that we looked at in class.
For next week:
I am not an artist. The attached illustration is absolutely not to scale and though I took some notes, I’m sure that I left out some things. It’s awfully suspicious to go walking around a Best Buy store and take notes–at least that’s how I felt–so my own self-consciousness was a detriment to my spacemapping in this instance. Hopefully my observations (in the form of a concise essay) are more valuable than my drawing.
The entrance is located near the center of the store immediately to the right of the exit. Where people go in, people go out. Inside the door is a man standing at a workstation. He’s posted there to acknowledge every person who comes in and goes out which discourages shoplifting. His presence and that of his workstation keep us walking to the right. This reminds me a lot of those splash pages on websites where you can enter your zipcode, or sign up for a candidate’s e-mail list before you continue. When you enter the Best Buy, you don’t have to go to the right, just like when you see a splash page you don’t have to enter your info. On the website, if you can find the eensy weensy link, you can “continue to the main site” and in the store if you want to go against the flow of all the lines at the entrance, you can go straight to the loss-leaders that are set up by the cash registers (Best Buy would rather you go around their whole store and check out the other stuff before picking up the latest CDs that they’re selling at cost or a loss).
The path of least resistance through the store takes you around past the greatest number of sections, in sort of a loop ending up by the cash registers and the exit doors (which are on the other side of the gatekeeper guy). On a website, you don’t have to exit through the splash page, you can exit whenever you want from whatever section you’re browsing. Because Best Buy is a physical architectural space, it has to have a sort of pre-defined path to maximize revenue.
Some New Media elements are incorporated into the Best Buy retail store. If what you’re looking for is not in stock, you can use a kiosk to purchase the item online from BestBuy.com. I realize that this is a tenuous connection to New Media through the principles of modularity and numerical representation. The store has some modular elements. Each week, as new films or albums come out, displays are changed at the front of the store. A promotional merchandise display for a blockbuster film can be put into place and later removed without affecting the rest of the store, much like a pic-of-the-day feature on a website can be updated without monkeying with the site.
The honorary sixth principle of New Media, Interactivity, is present in this space in the form of demonstration models. Want to try out the PS3 before you buy it? Pick up the controller and play. Not sure which MP3 player will be easiest to operate? Grab one that’s tethered to the display and try navigating its menu. Almost all of the laptop computers and desktop PCs are plugged in and logged on for interactive demonstration and trial. Obviously, all of this interactivity is in service to the store’s goal of selling something, not in service of entertainment.
The flow of the store is not restricted, but it’s not exactly open. I’d describe the flow as “suggested”. As you may be able to see in the drawing above, there’s a path leading from the entrance to the right and back, then across to the left and then back down to the cash registers. Compared to a New Media space, like a video game, the store space is similar. If you play a Grand Theft Auto game, you can roam around the city doing as you please, but there are guided missions. Same with a game like Super Mario 64. You can wander around in the 3-D environments, swimming, running, and jumping then just turn the game off. That’s akin to walking around a Best Buy and checking everything out and then leaving without buying.
On a somewhat related note to today’s discussions the father of modern newspaper design died.
Online attributes
The online edition is dynamic content. A customized version of USA TODAY utilizes the new media principles of variability, digitalization, and transcoding. It’s called a personalized newspaper but it’s clearly not a paper.
Technology tries to extend every sense.
Digital technology attempts to work in the same way, extending senses.
Digital technology struggles to appeal to all five senses, and there’s a question as to whether appealing to more senses increases the immersion.
There is however such a thing as good and bad.
What is “author”?
–Performs a FUNCTION
–”I” centered
–Works with standard codes and structures
–But the structures are hidden
–meanings are fixed (every time we watch Gladiator, the same meanings are present)
Think of “Author” as “authority”
What is “writer”?
–Performs an ACTIVITY
–”de”-centered
–structures are revealed
–allows the reader to manipulate the codes and structures (a Web 2.0 principle)
–meanings are not fixed, but are transferred to the reader
Authored or Written?
1+1=2 and 2+2=4
These are examples of fixed or authored statements.
Stories, movies, paintings, photographs, music, etc. that speaks to us in different ways each time we experience them are authored but have a written aspect.
Is Harold an author or a writer?
Harold is a writer, but the book is authored.
Authors create Readerly Texts
Writers create Writerly Texts
What the hell is “readerly”?
–a stable text
–assembled out of familiar signs (we know how to read it and interact with it)
–the reader passively decodes
–combines into a cohesive meaning
–meets the expectations of the reader
– 2+2=4 or Two plus Two Equals Four (both fixed meaning examples of readerly)
What the hell is “writerly”?
–makes the reader a producer of the text (a la CYOA)
–the reader actively controls the codes and structure
–has plurality (implicit meaning that varies depending upon who experiences it)
–is networked
–is decentralized
Plurality - Writerly supports connotation (multiple associations beyond literal meanings) rather than denotation (fixed meanings).
Networked - Writerly allows the reader to navigate their own course along the body of the text, freely and repetitively experiencing the text making it possible to read a text from point to point not just straight through
Decentralized - Writerly removes any hierarchy of meaning but is a galaxy that has no beginning and can be accessed from multiple entrances none more dominant than the other
A calculator (virtual or physical) is an example of a writerly text or item because we can use it and manipulate it to find sums and products etc.
Blindspot by Darcey Steinke is an example of a writerly text, or a hypertext story.
Another example of writerly text is Caveman’s Crib, an interactive room.
The readerly work will never change. We will change, so if we come back to the work in 10 years, the text may change.
In hypertext, the writerly work can change. Every time you go back to the hypertext novel, the work changes and the text changes.
In new media, everything is a text. If we can read it, interpret it, design it, and learn from it, it’s a text.
Architectural Narrative
On some form of writing surface, draw a map of the interior of an architectural interior, describing the layout of the space from the crow’s view (top down). Here are a few guidelines. Before you attempt a map, complete a walkthrough of the space. Walk around and make notes. Try to note as many features of the space as you can, including entrances, exits, rooms, passages, and halls.
Check out iPhone website for insight on flow.
Two things they’re looking for in the assignment are a map and a concise essay.
Avoid small or few-featured spaces (like bedrooms, apartments, etc).
Part 1
I’m sitting here with a two-day old USA Today–the most recent available at the Tunxis CC Library. I suspect that one of my classmates is curled up on a couch nearby with today’s issue. The paper is folded in half, horizontally and is about 14″ wide and 12″ tall (24″ unfolded). The masthead has the blue USA Today logo centered in the middle with photos and graphics on either side. A ribbon of blue across the top has three text elements. The one on the left is the URI of “www.usatoday.com”. The one in the center, directly above the USA Today logo reads “THE NATION’S NEWSPAPER”. The one to the far right reads “75 CENTS”.
I had to find an empty table at which to sit and read the paper, because I needed to make room for my laptop and the newspaper, which quadruples in size when unfolded. I’m seated near the back of the Tunxis Library. Before I even open the paper, here’s what I see in the left-hand column:
Back up above-the-fold, below the masthead is a banner with a green background and a color-coded headline “Hoops poll points to Madness” There’s a vertical rule between the leftmost column and the center column, over which a red bubble/sticker graphic thing reading “Super Colts” is positioned. The same kind of red bubble is also present at the right end of the green “Hoops” banner mentioned above, though that bubble does not rest on top of the horizontal rule below it.
The horizontal rule spans across the remaining columns and is much thicker than the other lines used on the page.
Back up above-the-fold and to the far right below the green “Hoops” banner is a large headline.
So I go to the top and see an article that I want to read about American Idol. It’s color coded purple, so I pull out the “Life” section and use up some more deskspace to set the other sections aside. The article, thankfully, is all contained on the front page of the life section. No further page turning, just an unfolding (or flipping) of the paper to read the article as it spans beyond the fold.
A related article on Idol is suggested by a dropbox in the text, and so I turn to page “6-7D”
Article is not an accurate description of what I find. Spanning the center fold are several captioned photos of American Idol contestants who were rejected. This photo collage thing takes up a huge chunk of the unfolded page. So much so that as I type to describe it, 3/5 of the paper is hanging off the end of the desk at which I’m sitting.
Part 2
I sit at my desk and open Firefox. With my right hand I use the mouse to click in the address box and type in “http://www.usatoday.com” (typing http:// is a bad habit I got into a long time ago) and then reach for my coffee mug and take a sip.
The page loads immediately, and Firefox has blocked a pop-up. I don’t care to know what it was advertising, and am pleased that the ad was thwarted. I see a search box at the top, sponsored by Yahoo, along with an option to click and personalize my weather. No thanks. It’s cold out–everybody knows that.
The masthead has the same blue banner with white USA Today logo, except that immediately below it indicates the time that the site was last updated. I wonder how many times per day the news at USAToday.com gets updated. One-third of my screen is wasted on whitespace, probably because the resolution on my monitor is 1280×1024 (slightly larger than average). I’m looking at two columns of content in the portion of my screen that is being utilized.
Back up at the top, the masthead is animated. Every 5 seconds, a new photo and article description is displayed, cycling among five different articles (one for each of five sections). There are five bullet point hyperlinks that indicate which one is showing, that I could click on to navigate between the descriptions. Each of the descriptions, when displayed, is a hyperlink to its related article.
Back up at the top, I click on “My USA TODAY” and am directed to a page where I can customize the headlines and news that I see. The page layout is similar to the Windows Explorer program used to browse computer files back in the Windows 3.1 days.
Rather than hit the browser’s back button, I find the USA TODAY logo at the top left and click it to return to the home page.
I see an article on a suicide prevention group that criticizes a GM advertisement from the Super Bowl. The article teaser is displayed in the animated masthead, so I click on it.
The article loads and is contained on one page, though I do have to scroll to read it in its entirety. Below the headlines are options to E-Mail, Save, Print, Reprints & Permissions, and an RSS subscription link.
Part 3
The differences between the two are more fun to note.
Recommendation site fights manipulation
Posted 2/7/2007 11:30 AM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this Subscribe to stories like this
By Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer
NEW YORK — A website that ranks and displays news, blog and other items based on recommendations from its visitors has responded to efforts to manipulate the rankings by dropping its list of most active users.In an open letter, Digg founder Kevin Rose said the top users who were spending “hundreds if not thousands of hours” identifying the best stories for others to read wound up getting blamed for much of the efforts at manipulation, which includes offering cash and other incentives to vote favorably for certain items.
If I wanted to include an excerpt of the same story from the print edition, I’d have to retype it myself. If I wanted to have you read the rest of the story that I had typed up the excerpt for, I’d have to cite it according to the MLA standard and you’d have to take the time to track down the physical paper, and look for the full article.
There are likely to be many more differences and similarities that I hope to illuminate in class. I feel as though I’ve rambled on enough.
I don’t even know if it’s necessary to say more.
Think about that. Time was, you’d only frame good pictures. High quality prints in a nice frame hanging on the wall or tastefully arranged on a bookcase or desk.
Now you can have a dinky 4×6 or 8×10 digital screensaver running on AAA batteries scrolling through your photos–at crap resolution.
The model pictured above sells for $321.18 at this link. What do you get for that kind of money? You get no cardslot. You get to hook your frame up directly to the computer when you want to update the slideshow. You get to set the slideshow to music (yeah, that won’t get old). And when your frame dies, you have no way to extract the information stored on it.
What you should get for that money is something wireless. Get me a digital photo frame that’s at least 11×14, compatible with the latest 802.11 standard wireless (and the latest wireless encryption). Get me a remote control. Get me some software that will let me create the slideshow on my computer and stream it to the frame. Get me some kind of a sensor on it (even a motion sensor a la those singing bass) that powers up the frame when I enter the room. Oh, and then cut the price down to about $150.
There’s a new New Media blog on the block.
And it’s beautiful.
I use (and am extremely pleased with) WordPress for my political blog, but I wanted to 
try something simpler for my New Media class blog. No doubt that Blogger was easier to set up on my existing domain than another WordPress blog would have been (slightly), I’m already wishing I’d gone for something slicker.
Also, going with Blogger has created a problem of sorts. All of my sidebar items and links are coded into the template. The further into this I get, the greater the burden if I wish to change templates. WordPress is better aligned with New Media principles because it is more modular (purely modular?). There’s a reason that style sheets are separate from content on modern websites, and I expected better from the “new” Blogger.
I tried the new