How The Web Works

After some months, I’ve finally been able to reflect on the not so uncommon experience of writing a wikipedia article and it getting removed. I began by thinking about what I wanted to write about. Then it dawned on me to write about all of the missing topics on the Manchester United page, my favorite professional soccer team. 

After going through the page I realized one of the most important things was missing. At Manchester United, one of the most important things for the new manager at the time, Sir Alex Ferguson, was to “...kick Liverpool off of their perch.” There’s a bit of a background story that I’ll share with you guys. Liverpool at the time was the most successful team in the UK at the time. They were winning anything and everything they competed in. While in Manchester the team was becoming more and more popular. As such, an age old rivalry was formed. When the two teams played, the battle wasn’t only on the field, it was in the stands, on the streets, in the pubs, and even between family members in homes. The two teams were complete rivals all the way down to their fans. To this day, I personally think less of a person should he or she be a Liverpool fan. Its just the way it is

Before reading the chapters of Thompson’s book, I went on a little associative trail. I looked up some of the other things he was involved with, just to get to know him as a person first. On the book’s website there are some links to his SXSW talks/involvement, which was of no surprise to me given the book’s subject matter.  Then I searched his name on google and found out that the only thing in common, social media wise, was our mutual follower on Twitter…Lil B the BasedGod. Funny enough, he is an extremely successful man. To the internet youth, that success could be attested to the fact that the BasedGod follows him on Twitter. After a while, a lot of my trails led to the book’s website.  Interestingly enough, these somewhat mindless interactions between my research of the author and technology would guide my thinking when I started to read the book.

During my reading of the chapters, I began to understand some of the ideas that Thompson was playing with. The most intriguing part, in my opinion, were his statements regarding the “centaurs” playing in chess tournaments in the first chapter of the book. The idea that humans and computers in tandem can yield not necessarily better results, but different results, is something that makes a lot of sense to me. From some of the other things we’ve read during the course, it is evident that some people believe that technology has caused a very bad problem and relentless dependency on technology for every day tasks that were once easily completed without tech. Describing the collaboration of technology and humans as “centaurs” I believe that Thompson is able to convey the coexistence of tech and human beings as not only okay, but a new category of task. I’m sure that there are still chess competitions that are for humans only. There are probably computer-only chess competitions as well, but the competitions that include both human and computers together, as teammates provide a new, fresh, and innovative way to play an age old game. The idea, in my opinion, is extremely futuristic and I’m glad I know about it now. I wonder how many other games/competitions that were formerly human-based now have “centaur” brackets.  

After reading Thompson’s Smarter Than You Think I began to reflect on how some of his ideas and thoughts applied to the art/creative world. I started looking up DJ’s that were highly trained with predominantly analog systems. Meaning vinyl and non-computer based mixing. Basically, it was all about hearing the mix not seeing it. Then I looked at DJ’s who used mostly computer based mixing. It was extremely similar to the chess situation. There were purists that believed that the original mixing, that of vinyl and analog mixers, was the true form of mixing. On top of that, they go further to say that computer based mixing provides so much assistance that the DJ is no longer anything but a curator of a playlist. While they do admit to the computer making their work as DJ’s easier, but there is still a large amount to learn. The hybrids however (those who use vinyl and computers) are able to do something very interesting by mixing the two techniques. Those who are able to combine the two techniques of using vinyl/analog mixing with computer based mixing create an innovative style that mixes the old sounds of vinyl with the digital sounds of computers. Beyond the mixing, it creates a new industry all together. There are all new companies providing hardware to convert analog mixes to digital mixes which allows those who can do both an unlimited world of possibilities. 

Travis Scott

Virgil Abloh

SoccerBible

Here is my DS106 assignment for Module 5, I tackled a small part of the giant creative conglomerate that is DONDA

https://kumu.io/gideonibemerejr/donda

For me, constantly being able to connect these assignments to DONDA/Virgil and all of these guys, means that they’re on the right track and so am I. Recently, Virgil was working on a stand alone store for his brand Off-White. Then some people at Family NY helped him from social media interactions. Case and point. 

It kind of crazy to think that someone in the 1970′s would have such a small idea as to allow data flow from on end to the other and back as the primary feature of the internet. This as John says “...enables permissionless innovation.” Here below are some examples of what people have been able to do because of that. 

Virgil Abloh’s “Pyrex Vision” was a combination of being a Chicago kid who had probably seen Pyrex used to make pancakes and/or whipping a brick (search urban dictionary for that one) and wanting to break into the fashion world so that the youth could prevail. In this innovative “look book” he used an art gallery and simple seating to convey several text heavy messages. 

After seeing Doug’s talk over Digital Literacies I couldn’t help but try to apply his ideas to music. From the UK to US rappers in Paris I discovered a very specific piece of creativity that pertains to digital performance and it also crosses cultures, but has the same effect.

First, is a Boiler Room Set from London featuring Logan Sama, The Square, Stormzy, and Skepta. Informally this would be called a grime rave and most people would be caught greeting each other with a “wagwan” or “bless.” More importantly, they are all there for this audacious style of music called Grime. Grime in the UK is what “Gangster” Rap is in the US. The youth flock towards it and because of this, DJ’s and rappers are forced to become a bit more creative with their crowd control. Cue the “wheel up.” Basically, when a song starts and the crowd is already at an 11 through the first four bars, start it over. They will go insane for more. Skepta’s part in the set provides a serious example of a wheel up at 53:17. Being able to understand a crowd, the music they want to hear from you as the performer/songs you want to perform, and being able to control that swaying line of respect between the two is a huge aspect in today’s digital performance age. 

Here is another Boiler Room Set, this time with Flat White aka Virgil Abloh. For those who don’t know, he is a huge cultural influence from Fashion to working side by side with Kanye West. Also, he DJ’s as Flat White. In this video there are countless cries for wheel ups, some answered, some not, and one was forced by the MC. The latter ended up being a small pause in the set because of how crazed the MC was trying to wheel the song back. This example has so much information is crazy. From Virgil being from Chicago performing at an event in London to the MC being British and forcing a wheel up, the crowd vibes to an almost euphoric state. To a digital illiterate eye, this may mean nothing. But hopefully with the prelude of Doug’s TED talk this is beginning to make sense. 

Finally we have Kanye West and Jay Z performing “N***** in Paris” on the European leg of the Watch the Throne tour in Paris. Now not only are they in the city the song talks about, but they perform the song ELEVEN TIMES. That’s right, all 53 odd minutes of this video are Kanye and Jay Z performing the same song, to the same crowd, eleven times. As I said before, it might not make sense to someone outside of this digital space, maybe even some people inside it. But they took the wheel up to a new level. Not only was the song restarted, it was performed in full. The crowd is insane every time. 

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