Open Sky, Part 3

"From now on, distancing prevails over nuptial abduction; as, with teleconferencing, what counts above all is the separation, the putting asunder of face-to-face parties; touch, physical contact between partners, being no longer the go so much as the rejection of the other person"
-Paul Virilio

In part three of his book, Virilio discusses sexuality on the internet and how it has diverted humans from relationships with one another and disconnected us from physical relationship with other people. I think this is a shocking reality that we are faced with the internet, not just sexually but relationally. With the internet and global media, despite the fact that we are members of this "global city," we are divorced from real relationship with one another, sexual and emotional alike, by being removed from their physical presence.

Once again, Virilio is onto a good idea, but takes it a few steps too far. I don't think virtual reality or sexuality on the internet is going to ever replace the physical drives of human beings. Sexuality on the internet does not threaten reproduction, and by doing so, threaten the continuity of the human race. Marriage will continue to be an institution regardless of the effects of the internet, and we do not need to worry that "the only societies left to ensure the continuation of the human race will be those that are underdeveloped and, worse, 'media'-deprived."

Open Sky, Part 2

Virilio's Open Sky makes several interesting suggestions about the notions of space and time and the way that these are affected by modern technologies, but I just think that he is far too cynical in his approach to these new realities of our world. While there are undeniably negative effects, he fixates too solely on them and gives them too much power. In Part 2, he discusses the effect of global media on physical space, and his claims are pretty outrageous.

"But the tragic thing in this temporal perspective is that what is thereby polluted, fundamentally damaged, is no longer just the immediate future, the sense that the environment is missing: in a word, the death of geography."

Geography is hardly dying with the use of global media, and it is a little extreme to assume that digital interactions will completely replace ones occurring in the physical world. While technology is seemingly making the world feel smaller, geography and physical space are still immutable realities.

Virilio's Open Sky

In his book Open Sky, Paul Virilio makes several speculations about the information age and how the technology and media have shaped and shifted the nature of our society. Many of his claims are incredibly valid--the ways in which technology has altered our views of time, space, and reality are undeniable. However, I think his argument is incredibly difficult to follow, and part of this might be due to some of the clarity being lost in translation from the original French to English.

I found the most interesting part of his argument of telepresence. One of the most interesting effects of modern technology is the way that it alters and affects "real-time." Technology makes it possible for you to be "tele-present" almost anywhere in the world instantly.  This distorts the most basic reality--you don't have to physically be in a specific location to be present anymore. I think Virilio sees this as a danger to society, but I honestly think that it can be good for us in moderation. His view is pretty cynical and I don't believe it takes into account the positive things that can come form this type of technology.

Life On Brews Control

User Experience

Creating a simple and effective experience for users is vital for any company or organization hoping to get their website off the ground. Simply put, if a user has a bad first experience with a website, it is unlikely that they will come back again. Lack of attention to the user experience is the kiss of death for a webpage. Good user experience means good business. Businesses strive to analyze their return on investment by looking at different conversion rates to measure how many browsers are turning into buyers.

There are 5 planes or elements that help create the user experience--the surface plane, the skeleton plane, the structure plane, the scope plane, the strategy plane. The strategy plane is vital because every other element stems from there. Each element of the website should be used to advance the strategy or purpose.

For example, the motivation behind the American Airlines website is to sell plane tickets. Every element of the webpage, from the aesthetics to the structure, is utilized to advance the strategy. It is an incredibly user friendly website, which always encourages me to use them when I fly.

First Impressions

As someone who frequently gives up on technology because I just can't figure it out, the topic of usability is vitally important. A website that can clearly and efficiently portray its purpose, agenda, and how to navigate around is gold for the technologically impaired. If I can figure out a website quickly, I will love it forever. If it takes me too much time to navigate a site, I will move on quickly and never look back. It is vital for a website to make a good first impression on users.

To look into this idea of first impressions, I decided to analyze search engines. Google got me right off the bat, simply because it is so simple. There is not a lot to distract you, and it is easy to search for exactly what you need.

Yahoo is also incredibly usable. It is less simplistic, but still clear. There is a lot more information, but it is organized in such a way that everything you need is easy to find.

Bing appears simple from the outside, but it is slightly trickier than the others. The homepage looks simple like google, but with more pictures like Yahoo.

But when you search for something on Bing, it tries to connect you to social information as well, but it does not organize it in a particularly efficient way. There are three columns of information that extend fairly far on the webpage.

The Points of View

In productions of media, there is always a message to be conveyed, some bit of information to be communicated. It may be theoretical, ideological, moral, instructional. Part of the producer's job is to figure out how to most effectively present their message. Each message is a story, and it is vital for the producer to decide from which point of view to communicate the narrative. All sorts of elements factor into creating a point of view--audio, video, language. However, when it comes to the film element of the message, the point of view is very limited. Videos are, by nature, shot in the third person. Even if the narration of the production is delievered in the first person, video records and relays the action in the third person.

To potray this idea, I attached a scene from one of my favorite movies, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In the scene, Matthew Broderick is addressing the audience in the second person, talking directly to them as if it's a conversation. But although Broderick is looking directly at the camera, addressing the viewer, the video itself is still very limited in it's point of view. The monologue is second person, but the video is undeniably third.

The Difference Between A Sweet Note and A Sour Note

"For a writer, it's a word. For a composer or musician, it's a note. For an editor, it's the frame, and two frames off is the difference between a sweet note and a sour note."

Quentin Tarantino

When producing a work of multimedia, there is so much that has to be taken into consideration--audio, video, text--and there is no role as crucial as that of an editor. The editor fuels the story, and has the most influential role when it comes to affecting the viewer. Their job is to get inside the viewers mind, to use transitions, image, sound, rhythm, pacing, and compositing  to create continuity and salience of a plot line. The Tarantino quote I opened my blog post with communicates this point the most effectively--"two frames off is the difference between a sweet note and a sour note."  The way that a piece is edited affects whether it is dramatic or dull, suspenseful or serene, sweet or sour. 

The post production process arguably might be the most crucial part of the creation process. In the digital age, the editor and other post production staff are responsible for bringing together all of the various elements of a work and ensuring that those elements fit, flow, and have meaning. They are the ones ultimately responsible for whether or not the message or story is communicated effectively. While a successful pre-production process is vital, and the actual production is important, the post production can make or break a piece of media.

Forces Within The Screen

In reading the article "The Two Dimensional Field: Forces Within The Screen," I was taken aback by all the complexity behind the way a viewer perceives an image, and the way in which the producer can control those effects. All of it was very psychological (I took a psychology class my freshman year and it was not my forte to say the least) and crazy to wrap my head around.

The most salient idea in my mind was that of vectors. Vectors can be both visible and invisible, explicit and implied, superficial and emotional. They affect the way we watch something by guiding us towards what we should focus on and influencing how we feel. When I was reading this section, all I could think about were movies--namely action, thriller, adventure type movies. I personally watch maybe one thriller-type movie a year, just since my sensitive psyche is inclined to nightmares. But one movie I particularly enjoy is The Italian Job. I attached one of my favorite scenes from the movie to use as an example.

The producers of this movie use a whole variety of vectors in this scene. The music cues, the motion of the actors, the motion of the camera all influence what we watch and how we feel about it. This scene always brings me to the edge of my seat, which I'm sure is largely to do with how the creators of The Italian Job used forces within the screen to grab and hold my attention.

Greenville on Brews Control

The Rhetoric of Multimedia

Rhetoric has been described as "the available means of persuasion." In the age of orality and literacy, this meant invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and literary devices. However, the available means of persuasion have greatly expanded in the digital age. With the advancement of technology, there are more tools of persuasion beyond just language. Today, as Anders Fagerjord describes in the article "Multimodal Polyphony: Analysis of a Flash Documentary," "writing, speech, music, sound effects, photography, painting, and camera movement" all contribute to a rhetorical argument. Multimedia can be used as the available means of persuasion.

There are several different ways that multimedia can be used to advance an argument. The concept of "rhetorical convergence" is the idea that when different forms of media come together, they are even more persuasive because they can affect the way the audience not only hears, but also looks at an issue.  Even the way the frame moves or the time an image is project on the screen can add meaning. Because of where these technologies show the viewer to focus, the understanding or perception of a scene can be altered. They can also relate the whole to the details and the details to the whole of an image when alternating between micro and macro perspectives.

By using multimedia, you can contextualize images, as well as direct viewers as to where they should look to catch the most important element of the image.

To create some examples, I decided to look at some of my pictures from my semester abroad. If you wanted to zoom out from a picture to the whole scene, you can contextualize a part of the photograph to the whole. This close up of one of my photographs looks merely like a picture of me and my friend Kathleen.

However, once you zoom out, the Eiffel Tower in the background reveals that this image was from our trip to Paris, adding an important element to contextualize the image.

The dialogue recorded over the image can be used to reinforce the point of focus as well. For example, as the image pans back from our faces to reveal the eiffel tower, the voice over could begin to discuss the city of Paris of the history of the tower itself, directing the attention to the background.

Back to Orality

When the radio trend swept through the world in the early 20th century, it seemed almost reminiscent of the age of orality--the realm of philosophers like Plato, Socrates, and the Sophists. It was revolutionary in the sense that it shifted away from a mainly visual and literate culture back to the art of public speaking. In Douglas's article "The Zen of Listening," he comments that radio took America "back into the realms of preliteracy, into orality, to a mode of communication reliant on storytelling, listening, and group memory." The radio, like the invention of the written word, once again caused a major shift in society.

Douglas's article suggests that radio fostered a sense of community amongst its audiences more so than a book or a painting could. Americans across the country could tune in to a program, and know that there were thousands of other people listening to the same program at that moment. There is an undeniably sense of unity and commonality developed by this phenomenon. Still today, producers of entertainment try to capitalize on this community aspect of media. Television programs will try and get users to tweet and hashtag about their show so they can be connected to the rest of the audience. This was first developed with the development of the radio.

Photographic Truth: Fact or Fiction?

Photographs often seem factual—it is a captured moment in time, a piece of visual evidence that is undeniable. Cultural weight is given to photographs because they are traces of the real. However, what people often don’t realize is in the same way that a journalist approaches an article with his own bias, a photographer approaches a photograph with bias as well, and that can seriously affect the factuality of an image.

The photographer dictates a lot of what message is being communicated by an image with the lighting, the angle, the focus, the framing, the moment he or she chooses to capture. While an image can be pretty strong evidence of what is true, they cannot always be taken at face value, in the same way that a piece of writing can not be.

With modern technology, the need to develop a critically eye for photography is escalated further. PhotoShop has revolutionized the way that photos can be digitally enhanced or manipulated to portray a desired effect. Because of this, the photographic truth is put under further scrutiny. There is no guarantee that a photograph represents unbiased truth.

Sturken and Cartwright suggest in their article "Images, Power, and Politics," that the viewer is responsible for how they view images, and the way that they engage what they are viewing. Assessing photographic truth is "one way that we, as viewers, contribute to the process of assigning value to the culture in which we live." While photographic truth is debatable, we, as viewers, can glean truth and meaning if we are critical of the ideologies that may be at play in an image.

Coffee to a Tea

Coffee to a Tea, a set on Flickr.

Coffee to a Tea

<object width="400" height="300"> <param name="flashvars" value="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2F93590198%40N04%2Fsets%2F72157632862471339%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2F93590198%40N04%2Fsets%2F72157632862471339%2F&set_id=72157632862471339&jump_to="></param> <param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=124984"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=124984" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2F93590198%40N04%2Fsets%2F72157632862471339%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2F93590198%40N04%2Fsets%2F72157632862471339%2F&set_id=72157632862471339&jump_to=" width="400" height="300"></embed></object>

Original

Edit

Original

Edit

Original

 Edit

Original

Edit

Original

Edit

Reading Images

People download and process images in a myriad of ways--different people will view different images differently. However, there is a way that producers of images can structure their images to get their intended messages across. There are three basic elements of the way that producers can try to influence the way their audience will perceive an image--information value, salience, and framing. Information value deals with the placement of the elements, whether that be left, right, top bottom, center, or peripheral. Salience deals with where in an image the viewer should focus their attention. And framing deals with the devision or union of elements within an actual image.

Producers of images are able to influence all of these elements to portray a powerful message. In my opinion, the most interesting element of this theory of reading images is the information value distinction between the given and the new. Producers place the given information, or that which is already known and understood, on the left, and move towards the new information, or the unknown and not yet understood, on the right. This is true for writing as well--you start with that which is already known, and then build new ideas off of that foundation. Depending on the readership of a newspaper or magazine, that which is given and that which is new may change. Also, the new has the potential of becoming the given for the next new. Information is always evolving and changing.

The Producer or The Viewer... Who has the power?

As is true of most messages, the producer of an image has an intended meaning behind it, but they are unable to be fully in control of the meanings gleaned by their viewers. In their article "Viewers Make Meaning,"  Sturken and Cartwright discuss the concept of interpellation, or the ability of an image to interrupt a procedure in order to question someone or something formally. This means that since an image poses a question, that leaves space for viewers to disagree or dislike an intended message, even if it is not the response that producers preferred for their viewers.

What I found to be one of the most interesting parts of Sturken and Cartwright's article was the discussion of "taste" and how that is affected by the producer-viewer relationship. Aesthetics are culturally determined, and taste is individually interpreted. People with a high taste level are those who have been educated on that which is considered to have high aesthetic quality, and that which isn't. They have been trained to appreciate "the finer things," but the finer things are socially determined by an individual culture.

One example that the article gave was museums. While studying abroad last semester, I was had the tremendous opportunity to visit several incredible museums, housing some of the worlds finest art. However, it is evident which pieces of art the museum curators deem the most aesthetically pleasing, which plays a large role in shaping what is considered tasteful, and what isn't.

The Uffizi Gallery

Two of the most prominent museums I got to visit in Europe were the Uffizi in Florence and the Louvre in Paris.  The Uffizi is one of the oldest and most renowned art collections in the Western world, housing some of the most significant pieces of art work from the renaissance. When you walk into the Uffizi, the halls and rooms are lined with incredible paintings and statues, but the curators make it clear where you are supposed to guide your attention. There is particular emphasis placed on works such as Botticelli's Primavera, as well as Giotto's Madonna Enthroned with Child and Da Vinci's Annunciation. The curators ensure that the viewer knows the paintings which are the most valuable. Whether there is an entire wall dedicated to solely to one work, or a specially lighting, or prominence in the set up of the room, the viewer is aware which works are important to know for acquiring a high taste level.

Botticelli's Primavera

In a similar way, the curators of the Louvre in Paris ensure that the viewer knows which pieces of art are of importance to viewers wanting high taste. When you walk down the left wing, you head through a corridor lined with marble statues, and up the staircase to where the Nike of Samothrace is housed. It becomes immediately evident by its isolation that this is a work of great importance.

Nike of Samothrace

Also, when you enter the room dedicated mainly to the work of Jacques-Louis David, and the Neoclassical painters, The Coronation of Napoleon, David's most revered work, is housed in the most central point of the left wall.

David's The Coronation of Napoleon

Despite the fact that curators very intentionally highlighted the most "prominent" works for viewers, I often found myself, despite the clear message of where to focus my attention, being drawn to other works. My favorite work in the Ufizzi is Botticelli's Birth of Venus, which is actually displayed less apparently in the same room as Primavera. Similarly, in the Louvre, I was drawn to a painting on the opposing wall of The Coronation of Napoleon entitled La Liberté Guidant le Peuple by Eugene Delacroix. 

Botticelli's Birth of Venus

Delacroix's La Liberté Guidant Le Peupel

This goes to show that a producer can put out an image with an intended message or meaning, but ultimately, it is up to the viewer as to what they will glean from a message. They can interpellate the image however they chose, whether that be negatively or positively. The power is undeniably in the hands of the viewer.