September 2007 Archives

So, here is the end of Module 1 ! Four weeks of dynamic introduction into media and the transformations it has undergone so far. I have greatly enjoyed out discussions in class, which I quite honestly found very inspiring, and I often found myself thinking about the issues that we considered long after the end of the class. While, I am not sure that I can comment on each assigment that we have had during these four weeks ( like many of you have done and "hey, well done!"), I do want to mention an interesting tendency that I noticed this week. At a certain point I realized that, as a result of this module, I have not only accumulated a solid mass of information on media but also the way I react on the information that I constantly get from the news on media has changed. What only several weeks ago I would have passed as "curious" but irrelevant or unimportant, now I see as an occurance in a specific context. I see the problem in things (tendencies, practices) and I am able to link it to other problems in media culture. Thus, for example, in the beginning of September I read in Netinfo.bg a short "just to let you know" kind of an article on how the compromising pictures of a girl, found in her lost camera, were disseminated in You Tube. I would have normally approached this information as a tragic accident with highly dramatic consequences. Thinking about it now I approach it from the perspective, for example, of participatory culture (my first association). I think about the "vulnerability" of content, about the issue of authorship in practices such as blogging(which as all of us already know can be so problematic), I think about how participatory applications In Internet allow others to participate with you (you as a content) even without your own knowledge. And then we talk about "democratic potential" but how many texts from our bibliography talk about the right to protect yourself ("you" as an individual, not merely the content one has provided in Internet)?

Oh well, this is  just an example illusrating what I mean. I`m curious to see what follows and I hope it will be as challanging as it has been so far! In the meantime you might be interested to read my essay on the Yerrow Arrow project, my last assignment and culmination of the first module :

Yesterday, Smiley celebrated its 25th anniversary! It was on September 19, 1982 that the happy face, composed of a bracket (smile), colon (eyes) and a dash for a nose, was first invented and put into use by the Carnegie Mellon University research professor Scott Fahlman. Since Smiley's first introduction into the virtual realm, numerous variations of the "happy" theme have been elaborated. The so called emoticons, now also comprising a sad, crying, confused and many other versions of Smiley, constitute traslations of human emotions into combinations of characters and numerical signs, which have now turned into an integral part of the vocabulary of the chat room, the text message and the email.

 The need to give a most realistic representation of human emotions have resulted in the subsequent expansion of the series of faces and the creation of animated emoticons.They all testify for the attempt to augment the expressive possibilities of the internet user, who approaches the net not only as field of information but also as one of communication. Emoticons betray an impulse to "humanize" and make less abstract the virtual space.

There is a principle in science according to which the abnormal or impaired functioning of one of a person's senses leads to the increased acuteness of another sense. Thus, people who have lost their sight, for instance, become more attentive to the flow of aural signals the ear constantly receives from the world around and develop increased sensitivity to sound. I was reminded of this principle while reading the Introduction of Susan Douglas` book on the development of radio and especially American radio culture throughout the 20^th century- a sentimental (at times) and "romantic" (as she herself calls it) work which provoked in me an equally sentimental reaction. [...]

I write about something that is here and now- Media Culture; a live and pulsating matter that is transforming itself in the very moment I am writing. And that makes a difference- both what I am saying and what I am commenting upon. Art, I have come to realize, does not make a difference- a verdict which at first sounds much crueler than it actually is, and which, it has to be stressed, by no means diminishes its value. The referential nature of art inevitably results in its alienation from reality and robs it of its capacity to bring about change. While art reflects socio-political, cultural and aesthetic processes and tendencies, attitudes and positions, it can not be a fully "here-and-now" phenomenon, nor can it be a starting point. Because reflection is always an end point and referring always requires a look back.

All this is meant to function as an introduction to this new chapter in my life- the passage from art history to media culture. I enter a field of perpetual transformation, guided (whatever the consequences) by the need to elaborate and improve...In a way, I feel that I do step into a more creative field.

Well, this weblog is all about me having fun and feeling inspired. Do not search for consistency! I enjoy the idea of constructing a "kaleidoscopic" space of randomly composed but precious bits and pieces, my little cabinet of curiosities, a patchwork whose pieces will be re-used and one day will probably form the nucleus of a more substantial work. Feel free to use my "bits and pieces", let`s all be bricoleurs and see how Deuze` s "bricolage" works!