Intro to Interactive Media

Despite Casey Reas’ semi-monotonous narration, I still enjoyed the presentation very much. I’ve always been an avid admirer of simple geometric shapes and repeating patterns in art so I did not think I would like some of the more “messy” projects displayed in the presentation. After looking at a few more, I started to think that they were actually very aesthetically pleasing. Many of them did not appear to resemble anything in particular. Nonetheless, the collection of lines and mixture of colors still had its own unique appeal. I’m beginning to understand how to create images that have patterns, but art that just… messily beautiful… that’s a different deal.

The video was fun to watch as there were many interesting projects. I liked how he replicated the project where there were motorized toy vehicles moving based on light intensity, into a simulation and then found a pattern.

His work seems, ‘extraterrestrial’ in some ways to me as they resemble actual beings which I think is what makes his work special and gives it life.

I found the reading interesting as the author explains how the media is now, “programmable” which is a strong term. I believe that the author is right and in fact in my opinion it is more programmable than he writes as there is so much fake news and controversies created from thin air. I also like how the author regards human language as discrete, “A human language is discrete on most scales: we speak in sentences; a sentence is made from words; a word consists from morphemes, and so on“. I learned about the history of the world wide web with really ancient web browsers like, “Netomat” and how structural programming was used in applications such as Macromedia Director’s Lingo. Overall it was an interesting read and got a lot out of it and I do think there is a huge change in the forms of media.

This reading was well organized and it should’ve made a lot of sense. However, I think because of the complex vocabulary I was often lost. I believe that this reading does build off of each point and make sense in terms of what it set out to do. I wish that I was able to follow it more. The concepts were explained in a manner that was tailored to suit someone who was familiar with the technological terms that are common, but even those I had to think about when reading which interfered with the fluidity with which I could understand the concepts.

One point that I did find interesting was the one about the advertisements and how computers seem to analyze the data that we give them. We know that this is happening but it was interesting to read about. Also the point where everything is built off each other, how programs and new media always use things from the last generation. I don’t know what else to say about this as I was unable to fully grasp each concept.

I found this talk incredibly interesting in regards to the merging between softwares and visual arts, because that is a personal interest of mine. His reference to Marshall McLuhan, “we shape our tools and thereafter, our tools shape us”, can be seen as moving further than just software and more into media in general. What I understood from it was that we can try to create something that in return will help us create and produce from it. In terms of software, this is applicable due to the way that we now use the same software to produce art.

Although I enjoyed some parts of the talk, I did not find it engaging, mainly due to the tone of the speaker. However, I cannot help but take away the artistic possibility of working digitally and with software. The examples he showed were incredibly cool and made me think about the type of art I want to see and create.

Though sometimes I feel that Reas could have articulated his ideas just as clearly as he did without quoting another artist/influential figure, one line that he did say that I think sums up his talk is, “Artists maintain order in the face of nature”.

Though he doesn’t expand upon what he means by this idea, one of the words I would like to play emphasis on is “maintain”.  Going through many examples of projects, Reas talks about the idea of combating chaos and resolving order; how there is a constant phenomenon of keeping order even if the what is seen seems to be pure chaos. The idea of keeping constant and maintaining a set structure seems to become the basis of design and computing.

I think his point is not only relevant in the case of design and computing, however, it applies to the wider context. One of the main ideas that I got from his talk is the idea that for something to work well, it must have order and a thus a good structure as a base. I felt that his talk was indirectly a life lesson as well.

Overall, I found it interesting how he described the projects that he had made and his explanations of how they linked to the “real world”.

 

I really enjoyed the part in the reading when Manovich was talking about how by the end of the 20th century, there was a media evolution which basically garnered a large need to generate new technologies to store, organise and efficiently access media materials. This reminded me a lot of what my other class, Future of Medicine, were discussing in relation to genome sequencing: how there would be such large amounts of data that would be gathered (big data) and though we have the opportunity to do genome sequencing, the problem is to do with the storing of the data as sequencing one person’s genome would take up terabytes. It seems that as society becomes more technologically advanced, so too does the technology to store and organise information.

The part about variability and the generation of many different versions of something reminded me of the computer graphic recreation project that we presented on Monday and I think the projects highlight Manovich’s explanations of the difference between old media and new media well (in the sense that new media creates versions that are automatically assembled by a computer, shown through random and noise functions).

Although I found this a bit of a challenging read because of the jargon, I think some points made throughout the piece were quite logical and rosonated with me. In talking about new media, I think it was interesting the way he divides it into subsections of what it ‘should’ have. The examples used in terms of film and language (and semiotics) made his point of numerical representation more clear to me. I also found the part about removing the human from the creative process interesting, and instead replacing it for automation. His identification of ‘low-level’ and ‘high-level automation shows the difference between different types of automation and what they can mean according to context. I also enjoyed his reference to McLuhan, because I think a lot of his media theory is still valid and applicable in media studies.

I found some parts of this talk extremely engaging. However overall, it was quite disengaging as I found a lack of passion in Reas’ voice, which made it challenging to devote my full attention to the video. I liked how Reas stated that for a rational machine to do something unexpected was pretty subversive back then, but at the same time, it’s also pretty awesome. I really like the intersecting ideas of the ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ in computer graphics. I also resonate with the artist Reas mentioned, who claimed that exploration of the grid can be seen as moving away from humanity, moving away from narrative. This is something I find puzzling and problematic about computer graphics, and most art today in general. When we abstract an idea so much that the narrative is removed, I do not see the purpose in art. Another question that arose while I watched the talk was that if I am not in total control of the artwork that is being produced, if I do not even know the possible result I desire, am I even the artist? Do I have the right to call solely myself the artist, or is it the duo of the man and machine? This video highlighted interesting ideas that I would love to reflect on and discuss further.

I found this text interesting but also quite challenging to read. There were many definitions and concepts I had to keep searching up, I felt that there was a lack of context for a general reader’s understanding. An idea that I found to be profound was how modern media was described. The author explained that it had discrete levels because it emerged during the Industrial revolution, and how modern media evidently follows the factory logic. I really liked the connection between social changes in the 19th century and art. The claim “to understand the logic of new media we need to turn to computer science” allowed for a greater appreciation for the work I am doing in the Intro to IM class.