#hyper connectivity

Week 8: Hyper Connectivity // 3.12.18

The hyper-connected world is the definition that embodies today’s society. Everything that we’re doing and all around us, in some way, is hyper-connected. Taking a photo and posting it onto Instagram, is a form of hyper-connecting. Think about it. The coffee you just took a photo of and merely decide to upload onto Instagram where your followers, who consist the majority of your friends and acquaintances can see, is more than that. It goes through the system of the internet, where the data is stored in multiple databases. It is also a hub for people to come and visit, especially if your profile isn’t set to private and it’s essentially able to be reached by millions.

Another example, Youtubers.

They’re one of the prime examples of hyper-connectivity. Being able to record videos and document their lives and uploading it online, instantly connecting to millions and developing a fanbase. This links to designers and creators as well. With the help of Behance and LinkedIn, we’re able to share what we do and connect with potential collaborators. Not to mention, designer websites that you’re able to scroll through their portfolio before deciding if you want to work with them, we live in a day and age where everything is at our fingertips.

Is that good or bad?

We can’t say for sure, but as we progress, everything that we’re used to is leaning to ‘good’ considering it helps our day to day basis needs. Wake up in the morning, check Instagram. On your break, pop into Twitter. Over the day, check through Facebook. All of these platforms are the definition of hyper-connectivity that we’re so used to, we’re desensitised by it on the amount of information we actually share online.

Even this blogpost is ironic.

However, being in the hyper-connected world does spark up some perks. But does it help in terms of art? Sure, we have our portfolios online, where future employers and collaborators are able to read through our concepts and judge our qualification as a designer but that opens a portal for plagiarism. Where do we draw the line of taking inspiration from another’s work without proper credit? How do we differenciate between ‘inspiration’ and ‘inspired by’ with ‘going against the laws of copyright’?

That’s very tricky, considering everything you decide to put out on the internet, there has to be a statement somewhere in between the long terms and conditions we agree to in a second is contradicting to what we actually want to agree on if the terms were blatantly bolded for our eyes to see.

images and the article on: https://www.boredpanda.com/people-caught-copying-plagiarism-stealing-art-knockoffs/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

With our world being so connected, it’s easy to be able to ‘catch’ the culprits of who plagiarised your artwork, but on the other side where our world is so saturated with media through the hyper-connectivity, it makes it also impossible to catch every single one that does. 

However, looking into this topic, we’re able to easily reach our peers and spread our work with portfolios online. We send our resumes and CVs out to be reachable and it creates job opportunities.

We’re able to grow our design community and reach a larger audience because of the hyper-connectivity of today’s age. What would take hundreds of days to spread an artwork back in the day, is now with the touch of our fingertips. A photo that’s uploaded online is able to reach millions and has the potential to create a revolution.

We are able to spread positivities and the greatness of design, reach for feedback from experts around the world and connect with our community. This also gives a chance to those on the opposing end a voice to voice out their disagreements. It can either make or break a designer based on the feedback they receive - also, thinking about if they make a controversial mistake or something that is deem ‘wrong’ to the public eye, their mistakes could be documented on the internet forever.

Thus, tainting their image as a designer.