Tag Archives: DTC

Technology is important

Posted on April 22, 2013 by | Comments Off on Technology is important

@RachaelS_DTC

In contemporary times, the commands that Douglas Rushkoff writes are important even if someone does not want a computer. This person is part of the digital divide because they are separated from digital media. Digital media should not be ‘shunned’ because “digital networks are biased toward social connections-toward contact” (Rushkoff 91) If someone refuses to use technology, then they are not connected to society. This is seen through the digital divide, since those who cannot connect to the ‘online community’ are noticed less often. Although people want to separate from technology because they think digital media is pointless, digital media is useful and needed for our society. Digital media is needed for our current society because “we must learn to tell the truth” (Rushkoff 108). The internet does have false information, but people want to know the truth and want it to be available to others. The digital divide makes this connection to the truth limited when someone does not have access to the internet. Our culture is composed of shared information online. Without being connected to the internet, then you cannot participate in sharing or obtaining certain information. For example, less newspapers and magazines are using hard copies because people are connected to the information online. Rushkoff’s main point is that if we do not program, then we will be programmed by our society. So people who separate themselves from technology because they do not want to be influenced are at the greatest risk of being influenced.

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Blog Post 14: Even though we’re supposed to have 13. Q___Q

Posted on April 22, 2013 by | Comments Off on Blog Post 14: Even though we’re supposed to have 13. Q___Q

@DTC_AlexTDTran

Considering Rushkoff’s last four commands of Program or Be Programmed, explain the importance of these commands for somebody living in contemporary times who may not have nor want to have a computer.  What is of significance within Rushkoff’s argument about these four commands for somebody who may fall within the digital divide?  (250 words; cite from the readings; due by the beginning of Tuesday’s class.)

Word Count @ 70 with prompt.

Rushkoff’s last four commands are:
Social

People who do not want computers/do not have are left out of the loop. In terms of social groups, in many cases people attempt to “hijack” these connections for profit (93-94). Essentially Rushkoff is arguing that friends are not the content of the network but the connections that makes this network work. Do not sell your friends.

Fact

Rushkoff argues that if you can communicate well in the digital, you can communicate well in the nondigital. He claims that the more real and true our statements are, the further they travel (106). Those who do not use computers will lack the ability to do this. While somewhat true, there are many cases where this is not true. An example can be Three Cups of Tea.

Openness

Learning to differentiate from sharing and stealing allows us to promote openness without selfishness (115). Those without computers would  be unable to differentiate between this when they do use a computer.

Program or be Programmed

If we don’t learn how to program, we risk being programmed ourselves (133).  Those without a computer would risk being controlled by those who do program. High businesses who can manipulate it themselves.

 

The significance of all this to someone who falls into the digital divide is that those in the digital divide do not understand them. They would be easily manipulated by commercialization of their friends but also themselves. They would unintentionally steal because it’s something everyone does so maybe it’s okay (it’s not). This would breed an easily manipulated and selfish world.

 

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Locative Art

Posted on April 16, 2013 by | Comments Off on Locative Art

@_bjeezy94

While searching the term “locative art” on Wikipedia, I found that it was vaguer. It was like giving me straight forward answers. I noticed why professors don’t usually like Wikipedia. I guess it was true about people changing things on Wikipedia, to give false information. I used Wikipedia first being that you type “locative art” and it is the first website that pops up. Another link that popped up was http://mypage.siu.edu/derek/locative/ , it also had straight forward answers, as well as examples of locative art. The last source that I used was our very own World Cat, WSU’s library database. I found it that the difference between this search engine and the first two links that I looked upon was that world cat provided books with information on locative art, newspapers, magazines, and even PDFs. It’s amazing on how different these search engines could run. Rating these sites, I would have to say World Cat, the link that I found, and then Wikipedia. I feel that Wikipedia is being used more often though being that we expect Google to pay upfront and pronto. The most important thing to learn though is that Wikipedia has no reliable sources. Who would have known that a GPS was a locative art? Or at least a type of locative art. Wikipedia gave a bunch of topics to read on locative art. MyPage gave a bunch of resources, and World Cat basically gave you facts with references.

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Locative Art and Internet Credibility

Posted on April 15, 2013 by | Comments Off on Locative Art and Internet Credibility

@starlingpreston

For this assignment I searched “locative art” on Wikipedia, WorldCat, and Leonardo Electronic Almanac. Wikipedia is a website that can be continuously updated by any user with access to the Internet. The information it offers is bias, and the work is based upon multiple author’s opinions. Since the “authorship,” or “biographical information” is not given, the content of that webpage becomes questionable (Evaluating Information on the Internet). Yet, it does offer an actual definition of locative art, and condensed information.

WorldCat offers a multitude of journals, books, scholarly articles, most of which have been peer reviewed or edited. Once the works or pieces are clicked on, WorldCat offers information about the author, along with publication dates, publication cities, and sources linked to that article or book. Furthermore, WorldCat allows its users to filter the material they want, so if they want a more current article, the user can request it. The sources on this site are more credible than Wikipedia because it offers “authorship, publishing information, source, currency, and verifiability” (Evaluating Information on the Internet).

Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) offers information that was written and published by credible authors. At the end of the peer reviewed journal the user is searching, the site provides in depth information about the author and publisher. While LEA offers “recent work and topics of current relevance”, it is prone to bias (LEA About). The author’s are experts in their respective field, and will have some bias towards their own work.

Where WorldCat and LEA offers journals and books about the topic, Wikipedia offers a distinctive definition with a condensed background.

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Internet Credibility

Posted on April 15, 2013 by | Comments Off on Internet Credibility

RachaelS_DTC

“Locative art” searched in three different websites provides a list of possibilities. Wikipedia sent me to a page about locative media where locative art was a topic, Leonardo Electronic Almanac showed a list of blogs about the topic, and WorldCat showed a list of books about art. As the document “Evaluating Information Found on the internet” states, the information I was given on each cite can be useful “when we view it critically” (Hopkins). Wikipedia provided a list of references and I read through them to investigate their credibility. One reference was from the Leonardo cite, and the link provided an article published by two people from (supposedly) two different universities. Unfortunately most of their sources, like Wikipedia’s, were from internet sites which weakened the credibility. Like most information from the internet, information “becomes misinformation when they are repeated by sincerely misguided people” (Hopkins). The books from WorldCat are credible because you can find information about the authors to investigate their knowledge of the subject. Unfortunately they were not always relevant to locative art because the database searched for all text with those two words in the abstract. I can understand why people prefer searching for information on websites like Wikipedia because it gives you quick information. People do not check the sources or use credible sites because it is easier to use a site that is easier to use and gives more relevant information. “If you don’t know who wrote what you read or why they wrote it, you don’t know if it’s trustworthy” (Hopkins).

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24 Hours: Quitting Cold-Turkey

Posted on April 8, 2013 by | Comments Off on 24 Hours: Quitting Cold-Turkey

@RachaelS_DTC

I wouldn’t consider myself to be someone who is dependent on technology, but this last week I discovered I was. It was very difficult to go 24 hours without using technology. I use to read in my spare time (when I had some) and having a break from technology allowed me to actually read a book that wasn’t required! I had a great sense of freedom and I was able to relax. I definitely was tempted to pull up Netflix, nonetheless I did enjoy having time to separate myself from the internet. I realized that this temporary separation was beneficial. First, I was more calm and relaxed. There wasn’t a notification on Facebook to distract me or a email I needed to reply to immediately. Second, I was able to spend my time with ‘real’ things, like my family and pets. This pause from my x-reality allowed me to improve my relationship with my family. I agree that digital technology makes us cyborgs by improving our lives, such as communication, but it also creates a barrier to the people around us. We are so plugged into social media with our avatars it is difficult to experience real life. Sometimes our x-realities become mostly digital realities and we become separated from the people closest to us. A break from technology has allowed me to experience my physical reality. I did miss technology and I would not be able to separate myself forever, but a break is sometimes needed to relax.

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LittleRED

Posted on March 5, 2013 by | Comments Off on LittleRED

“Redridinghood,” was the perfect example of showing digital media in its different aspects. It included many forms of digital media to tell a story that we all knew as a child. Total classic! The game-like work told a classic tale and gave it a little mixture or like a touch up which symbolized the changes made throughout digital media. It wasn’t more of Little Red going into the woods, it was more like going into the country from the city which could be connected or tied to the changes in generations of the different medium people decide to use. With the generation of technology that we use today, I feel as if the author wanted us to see the differences. He took advantage of the right away thinking so that we would continue to click knowing that we would be curious. This game-like media gave us the intention to get engaged in it all. From clicking on windows to clicking on flowers, just to see what would happen next. The artist uses the different mediums well to express his/her message across the audience. In the book, “The Medium is the Massage,” by McLuhan, it says, “Information pours upon us, instantaneously and continuously. As soon as information is acquired, it is very rapidly replaced by still newer information.” The artist created something different that kept the reader engaged. Leishman did everything mentioned in this quote, from providing information quickly and never left any gaps between messages. I found it really interesting and fairly easy to comprehend.

Bethel Muasau – @_bjeezy94

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Blog Post 6: Electronic Literature

Posted on February 19, 2013 by | Comments Off on Blog Post 6: Electronic Literature

@DTC_AlexTDTran

Of the three electronic literature pieces that I viewed, I would have to say that Ad Verbum would be the one I choose to evaluate. First of all, Ad Verbum is a piece of interactive fiction (Par. 10) that relies on word play and other strategies in order  to beat. This work is classified as interactive fiction because of it’s high reliance on it’s game element in order to progress the story. This work is not one that relies on art but rather narrative (Par. 10). This piece is a prime example of digital born work. Hayles claims that ““Unlike a print book, electronic text literally cannot be accessed without running the code. Critics and scholars of digital art and literature should therefore properly consider the source code to be part of the work, a position underscored by authors who embed in the code information or interpretive comments crucial to understanding the work.” In this case, Ad Verbum would not be able to run without the use of code and if it could be used with code, it could not be fully utilized i.e. one would not be able to  experience this work fully without being digital, “a first-generation digital object created on a computer and meant to be read on a computer”. Ad Verbum itself was created on a computer and must be experienced as such. This piece of interactive fiction is a digital-born work because of it’s reliance on the digital aspect of it’s nature.

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Remediation In the News

Posted on February 5, 2013 by | Comments Off on Remediation In the News

@MyDtcAccount – Jonathan Crabtree

 

Change will always be a part of our society. Whether it be technology, people, or places, everything is in a constant state of transformation. Some for the better, some…not so much. One thing that is evident, however, is that the change in technology reflects the society of the time period. By looking at technology from the past and comparing it to today’s technology, one can see the remediation – “the representation of one medium in another” (78) – clearly and observe how much it has changed. Bolter and Grusin have the same idea, saying that “the practices of contemporary media constitutes a lens through which we can view the history of remediation” (66). For example, looking at a broadcast of ABC World News showed a simplified approach that encouraged the viewer to focus on one thing at the time. In contrast, the 2008 broadcast had multiple videos, pictures, and headlines all going together at the same time. Media is a good indicator of society, and it’s obvious that America has transformed from a patient audience that watches the news one story at a time into an audience that demands the news as quickly as possible, sometimes by listening and reading two stories at once.

 

Although the medium of the news has changed quite a bit in the past couple decades, there are still many similarities. As stated earlier, remediation is “the REPRESENTATION of one medium in another” (78), meaning that the new medium is not an original, but simply an advanced copy. Bolter and Grusin also argue that remediation “ensures that the older medium cannot be entirely effaced” (79), no matter how many years pass, or how many changes it undergoes.

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Blog Post 2: Relationship between humans, computer and information.

Posted on January 21, 2013 by | Comments Off on Blog Post 2: Relationship between humans, computer and information.

@DTC_AlexTDTran

It seems that the video of the Dream Scene and the image from the very same movie represents ideas within the readings of Vannevar Bush and Theodor H. Nelson. Before I get into how it is appropriate to say that the ideas conveyed in this post will be completely up to opinion as considering how the interpretations of both the image and the video are up to the individual.

First of all it seems that video clip seems to show an endless amount of knowledge falling from the sky into nowhere. It seems that this data, knowledge or whatever people would like to call it, it seems that this data is unattainable to any regular person. People are forced to sit back and watch it fall into an endless sea of nothingness. This seems to represent the idea that Vannevar Bush presents that there is so much material and knowledge but how can one attain it. I would further push on this idea that without any way to attain this knowledge, it is lost. I would not necessarily say forever considering how it is still possible to attain it in some way.

The picture seems to represent computerized data and humans intertwined together. This might represents the idea that digital technology is only what humans make it out to be and that this technology is so intertwined into ourselves that we become apart of it as a whole. That is to say like Vannevar Bush eluded to this idea of the Memex (53) which could link people together in order to add new ideas to an existing idea or create a new idea in which people can add on to as well. While today, this already exists but for the time it would be a new and revolutionary idea to be able to connect to people inside and work together on a project rather than having to meet up and discuss.

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