An ARTS 3091 Blog by Tony Wong

In October 2012, United States was greatly destructed by Hurricane Sandy. As the largest Atlantic hurricane in history, Hurricane Sandy caused $68 billion USD loss on United States, and minimum 286 people were killed by the hurricane in seven countries. As such a great natural disaster that was causing a huge damage on United States, it was inevitable that Hurricane Sandy had become the news story that nearly every media in United States were covering. And among the various news coverage on Hurricane Sandy, the feature story that was written by Time magazine had specially grabbed a lot of attention. However, it was not only because the articles that are published on that volume of Time are well-written. Besides, the most attention-grabbing feature of that volume was the cover – Time magazine had put a photo that was taken through mobile application Instagram on its cover. As a weekly news magazine that has the largest number on circulation, the move that Time chose to put a photo that was taken by smartphone and edited by Instagram on its cover, had leaded to a huge discussion in the field of media. When people who are working in the field of media was still arguing about should a photo that is taken with Instagram be counted as “serious photojournalism”, Time’s director of photography, Kira Pollack, explained the reason why Time chose a photo on Instagram to put on its cover. “We just thought this is going to be the fastest way we can cover this and it’s the most direct route…It was about how quickly can we get pictures to our readers.” (Forbes, 2012) I think the statement that was mentioned by Pollack is just matching with what Manovich has talked about in his writing. In the article “There is only software”, Manovich (2011) argued that it is inaccurate to label the “new media” that its working process is relying on digital technology as “digital media”, it is more accurate to say that they are software. Manovich explained that reliant on the usage of different software, the “properties” of a media object will become variable. For example, through opening a digital photo by media-viewing software, you can only view the photo. However, with a photo-editing software, you can make changes on that photo. It is the same for the case of Time magazine using a photo on Instagram as cover photo. As the most popular online photo-sharing platform on mobile device, uploading a photo on Instagram does not simply mean putting a data on internet. Besides, it is a way of instantly sharing information by the medium of photo to the whole world. Through using different kinds of software, the nature of content can be varied in a huge difference.

Bibliography

Fobes. 2012. Skype Why Time Magazine Used Instagram To Cover Hurricane Sandy [online] Available at: <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/11/01/why-time-magazine-used-instagram-to-cover-hurricane-sandy/> [Accessed 3 June 2014].

In few days ago, I had met up with some of my friends and had dinner together. During the dinner, one of my friend said that she was being invited to use a mobile application called Foursquare. Foursquare is actually a social-networking website, which is mainly designed for mobile devices. Unlike other popular social-networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, the focus of Foursquare is not encouraging users to share contents via texts. Instead, Foursquare is a social media that is based on “location” – users can “check-in” at the venue that they are currently staying through the website and application, and write down their comments and review on that location. Foursquare also allows user to view the reviews that are written by other users in different venues, such that a network for exchanging information that related to locations is being constructed. “I know which cafes that besides my home are most recommended by others now!” my friend said.

  According to this week’s reading that is written by Bollier, internet service and mobile application such as Foursquare, are becoming a new part of ambient commons. Ambient commons refers to the things that exists in the built environment surrounds us, and they are smoothly embedded in the landscape that we would not have any odd feeling for its existence (Bollier, 2013). And nowadays, with the improvement and popularization of information technology, there are more ambient commons that are made of electronic devices and connected to internet are existed in cities. For example, the University of New South Wales has just launched some interactive information board on campus. Rather than just reading the traditional map, now students can search for the building or different retailers that they want to go through the boards, and they will show the way for going to the destination on the map that are shown on the board.

  However, with the smartphones that are nearly in everyone’s pocket, ambient commons are not only referring to the stuff that exists in entity now. By accessing the application of Foursquare, people can now instantly look for the information of various venues that besides them. These kinds of ambient commons can have a great effect on how people viewing the landscape, as they change the way of how people seek information about a venue. Bollier suggested a danger for this phenomenon – so do we really have a full control on knowledge about the places surround us? Or we are just controlled by the ambient commons that we utilize?

  “Well, besides just viewing the comments that are made by others and thinking those cafes are good, wouldn’t it be more accurate if you have a try of them by yourself?” That may be the question I will ask to my friend, if she talks about Foursquare again.

Bibliography

In 2008, Skype launched a marketing program called Skype Laughter Chain. It was a campaign that invited the users of Skype to upload videos that recorded their laughter, and other users can view those videos on the website that was opened by Skype. The most substantial characteristic of this campaign is, while watching other people laughed on their video, it may lead to the viewers to laugh along. At this point, Skype encouraged the audience to record and upload a clip of their laughter also, such that the “chain of laughter” could be continued – and as a result, the feeling of happiness could be spread to everyone who viewed the website. Skype also combined the laughter videos that are uploaded by the users, and demonstrate how the laughter of one person can make another person laugh. The final aim of this campaign was creating “the world’s longest laughter chain video” (ViralBlog, 2008).

  This video is a prefect demonstration of how “affect” works. Through watching clips that contain the content of other people’s laughter, we can sense the happy emotion of people who recorded the videos, and may lead us to have the feeling of joy also. Furthermore, the relationship between “affecting” and “being affected” is clearly shown in the video also. While watching other people laughing, it may make you bursting into laughter. And your reaction to other people’s laughter, can also lead to the laughter of another person also. That is why a “laughter chain” can be formed through the clips – as when an effect is affecting a person, how the person being affected will also lead to an effect to others.

  In the reading that is written by Munster, it discussed the videos that become viral on the internet may contain the characteristic of “thisness” (Munster, 2013). Viral videos are mostly involving contents that can be easily found in everyday life, and this characteristic makes the video “become an element at work in the individuation of networked affectivity”. They also empower a concentrating function of “affect and being affected” in online community. As a popular video on the video sharing website YouTube, the Skype Laughter Chain video has the same characteristic, as it shows how ordinary people laugh, and its power of “making others happy” encourage the audience to view and share in their network.

Bibliography

Munster, Anna (2013) ‘Going Viral: Contagion as Networked Affect, Networked Refrain’ in An Aesthesia of Networks: Conjunctive Experience in Art and Technology Cambridge, MA: MIT Press: 99-123

In week 9, we are studying micropolitics, and how these collaboration activities change different societies and the world. During the lecture, Andrew has talked about some important characteristics for micropolitics. Although “micropolitics” is a combination of words “micro” and “politics”, it cannot be directly understood as “politics in a small form”. The most significant difference between macropolitics and micropolitics is the method on making a decision that related to policies. Macropolitics contains a top down structure, as politicians and government officials have the full power on constructing different policies, while normal citizens can only voice out their opinions in different mediums but do not have any real influence on their decision. Besides, micropolitics emphasis on making politics becomes a thing that is transversal and opened to everyone. Micropolitics aims to let every citizen can be involved in the process of making a decision for developing or editing policies that are related to their community, city or even country. Therefore, micropolitics is being defined as the “social organization on the ground”, as it is a kind of “politic” that happens between people and group. Through the utilization of internet, there are various platforms and tools are being developed for helping people to collaborate and achieve the aim of micropolitics. PopVote, which is a project that is developed and operated by University of Hong Kong, is an example of micropolitics. In Hong Kong, citizens only have the right of voting for the members of Legislative Council (which is a legislature that is similar to the Parliament in Australia) and District Council, voting method such as referendum does not exist in the law of Hong Kong. Therefore, Hong Kong citizens are lacking of a medium to express their opinion on political issues. In view of this situation, the University of Hong Kong has developed the e-polling project PopVote. PopVote provides channel for specific communities to organize polling activities in electronic platform, and also civil referendum in large scale for the general public (PopVote). In 23rd March of 2013, PopVote had organized a civil referendum for letting Hong Kong citizens to vote on the candidates of Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Although the poll did not have any effect to the actual election of Chief Executive, it was still a very effective method for the Hong Kong citizens to reveal their points of view on the election –as actually Hong Kong citizens do not have the right to vote for the Chief Executive. To conclude, PopVote is a good example of micropolitics, as it contains the power to reverse the top-down structure in the system of government, and returns the political power back to citizens.

Bibliography

Are you a frequent user of the social media? I think for most of the people and especially for teenagers, the answer of this question should be “yes”. We have a Facebook account we can know what our friends currently doing and thinking now, we have a Instagram so we can share our selfies and photos with friends, we have a Twitter account so we can follow different celebrities, opinion leaders and information sources to know what is currently happening in the world, we have a Tumblr account such that we can view and share different funny and beautiful pictures with others…social media has become a new method for us to relate with others, and also share and receive different information.

  These functions of social media can help us to make friends and develop a connection with others, but also can group numerous people who do not know each other to form a protest, and finally overthrow a government. In 2011, a protest movement named as Occupy Wall Street was started in America, which is aim to raise the awareness for the issue of inequality in wealth distribution that is caused by the financial service sectors that are located in Wall Street. A special characteristic for this protest is, the protesters heavily relied on social media to encourage people to join the movement. Through information that were posted on Facebook page, videos that are uploaded on YouTube and discussions through hashtag on Twitter, Occupy Wall Street received a lot more attention on the internet, and traditional media also (Space Chimp Media).

  This phenomenon was not only happened in America but also among Middle East countries. Began on 2010, a revolutionary wave called the Arab Spring was started in different Arab countries. Through different kind of protests and movements, the government of various countries like Egypt and Tunisia were overthrown. Social media has become a great assistance for these movements, as several movements were organized through Facebook. An activist of Arab Spring also claimed that they use Twitter for coordination, and also YouTube for disseminating the movements (Kassim, 2012).

  Therefore, internet has become a great tool for citizens to be organized, and motivated to stand against government. The censorship and monitoring on internet that are worked by government also become an important issue to concern. From the reading that is written by Daniel Solove(2013), he pointed out that National Security Agency in America has the right to collect the metadata on the internet. These metdata are some “envelope information”, such as the email address that we are sending a mail to. This information seems to be some insensitive and unimportant content. However, is this still a fact in this age?

  I think the answer should be definitely no. Reviewing the protest and movements that I was listed on the second and third paragraphs, these are all organized and proclaimed on the internet. Therefore you can imagine, just knowing who is the people that are sending these information behind the Twitter and email accounts, can already become a threat to the user, as the government can easily take a further step to locate him and arrest him. By knowing just a single piece of the information, it can already threaten the freedom of citizen in this age. Thus, I think we should not contempt any monitoring on internet that are done by the government, as one day it may lead us to the jail in a way that we are not taking care of.

Bibliography

Kassim, S. 2012. Twitter Revolution: How the Arab Spring Was Helped By Social Media . [online] Available at: <http://www.policymic.com/articles/10642/twitter-revolution-how-the-arab-spring-was-helped-by-social-media> [Accessed 29 April 2014].

Solove, D. 2013. Why Metadata Matters: The NSA and the Future of Privacy. [online] Available at: <http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131125092647-2259773-why-metadata-matters-the-nsa-and-the-future-of-privacy> [Accessed 29 April 2014].

Among the biggest technological companies in the world, Google is probably the one that takes April Fools’ Day in a most serious attitude. In each year’s 1st April, Google usually release more than 10 pranks among the services it provided, including YouTube, Gmail, Google Map and etc. Some of the pranks are quite hilarious, and some of them are even fun to play. Just like this year, Google had released a “Pokemon Challenge” on Google Map. In the collaboration with Nitendo and Gamefreak, Google adopted the monster characters on its map service. When opening the Google Map application on smartphone, it could be found that there was various Pokemon appeared on the map. By clicking the pokemon icon on the map, users could “catch” the Pokemon, and also collect the 150 different Pokemon to become the “Pokemon Monster”.

  Although it was just an April Fools' Day pranks that was made by Google, it was quickly become the hottest topic on the internet. When I was viewing the news feed of my Facebook account, the screenshot of Pokemon that appeared on the Google Map appeared for an uncountable time. Though this “Pokemon Challenge” is not a “real” content that is provided by internet service using augmented reality technology, it is still an interesting example to show the relationship between “social” and augmented reality.

  In this week’s reading “The Impending Social Consequences of Augmented Reality”, the author discussed some social issues that the user will unavoidably face when using the services include the technology of augmented reality. Among the issues that are stated in the article, I think cultural quandaries is the one that may be most related to us. Let use Google Map as an example again. As a service that allows users to read the map and using the GPS function freely, Google Map also provides a feature calls Street View. Street View is a function that letting users to look at certain places in a first person point of view, with the photos taken by the car that are released by Google. The tricky part for this service is, the photos of the Street Views are taken without any permission, if there are any people included in the photo. Therefore, you can imagine this condition – when you are trying to catch a Pokemon on the places around your home on Google Map, and you found yourself on the photo in Street View.

Nowadays, with a smartphone and also dozens of mobile applications inside, a phone has become a device that not only being used for contacting with others, but also helping us to remember everything. In my phone, there is an app includes the function of creating “to-do list”, such that I can find out the things that I should finish every day by checking the lists I created in the app. My phone also includes a calendar, which marks all the time and date of my meeting with other people, events and also the deadline of my assignments. There is also an application of note that letting me to jot down everything that is important to me. It may include the notes that I wrote during the lecture and tutorials, and also a shopping-list of the materials that I should prepare for the party in the coming Friday. And finally, the phone saves all the telephone numbers of my friend. Losing the phone may not necessarily mean that I will lose all the contact with my friends, but surely it will spend me a lot of time to gain back all the numbers from them. To sum up, my phone is not only a device that providing the function of contacting with others, but also a device that store all the important information that I am not daring to lose.

  This phenomenon of relying single or multiple items to store all our memory, is being discussed in this week’s reading. From the essay that is written by Stiegler, it firstly discussed the “existence” of memory. Unlike our general belief, Stiegler stated that some of our memories are outside of us, rather than “stored” by ourselves. From notes that are written on paper, books with highlights, and mind map that are drawn when brainstorming, all these objects are something that place with our memories. These objects are called as material memory, and being named as “objective” by Hegel.

In this week, a documentary film which is called An Ecology of Mind is shown in the lecture. The film mainly talks about Gregory Bateson, and also his work Steps to an Ecology of Mind. The book itself and other writings that are related to this book are the reading of this week also.

  After watching the documentary and read through the readings of this week, there is a concept that is discussed by Gregory Bateson specifically aroused my interest. It is the concept of meta-communication. Meta-communication is a secondary communication, which means that there is an exchange of indirect clues during the communication process. Meta-communication is also about how information that is being presented should be interpreted. It sounds a bit complicated, but actually it is a very common situation that can be found in the daily life. For example, the statement “oh, such a lovely place here!” is not necessarily meaning that the person who are saying this is praising the place that he is standing on is “lovely”. In opposite, it can be presented as a totally different meaning, which is the person who said this want to express his dissatisfaction to the place in an irony way. “The same message accompanied by different meta-communication can mean something entirely different” – this is the base concept for meta-communication.

  Therefore, how can we know that our conversation between others is including indirect clues and other meta-communication, such that we can (try to) confirm that we are not getting the message in a wrong way? For Bateson, he suggested the idea of “pattern”. When we are communicating in the form of face-to-face conversation, there is more “redundancy” included. Besides the verbal message, other stuffs such as the tone of voice and body language, are also the elements that should be noticed in order to understand the understand the full meaning of the message. In Bateson’s word, these “redundancies” are being called as “pattern”. In the view of Bateson, every communication includes “a rich pattern of a whole bunch of events”, and actually a true communication involves a larger proportion of patterns rather than the simple message.