Decelerator helmet - Lorenz Potthast

Introduction to Decelerator Helmet
- German Artist, Lorenz Potthast
- Publicized in Nov, 2012.
- Sliver, aluminium sphere




Detailed description

- Formed by Camera, netbook, accumulator, external display, head mounted display, bicycle helmet and aluminium sphere.
- The outside environment is took by camera and processed by network inside.
- Processed by the netbook to slow down the outside world and people inside the helmet can see through a head-mounted display, at the same time people outside the helmet can watch from the external display.
- The speed of the "processed" environment is controlled by a semi-spherical remote.
- Three modes of speed: 
Auto: the video is automatically slowed down, and brought up to regular speed after a time interval.
Press: the video is slowed down at specific moments when the button is pressed.
Scroll: the user can directly manipulate the video speed. [1]

Evaluation
- It is an interesting artwork. 
- It has content. 
It is talking about the “increasingly hectic, overstimulated and restless environment we are living in.” (Lorenz Potthast)
- It has the capacity to express ideas.
It is a reaction against busy city life in today's world, e.g. Fast Food Culture in Hong Kong
It expresses the slow motion life in experimental approach. Viewers (inside or outside the helmet) can get Lorenz’s idea through this interaction easily. Aware people to slow down their daily life and do not miss something important in your life.
- It makes people feel something.
It made a technological change in vision. (separates your personal perception from the natural timing.) It provides another perception of the environment for people. Make people watch things in another angle.
- It shows the concept of present in a constructed, artificial state.
-

Quotation
- “ The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Aristotle
- “Art must have content. This is why baseball and poker are not art: they have no content. Nothing is being expressed. Monopoly has almost no content: it has little houses and pieces that move around, but certainly not enough to be “art”. When we say, “There’s an art to playing poker”, what we really mean is that there is a craft to playing poker – there is a right way and wrong way to do it and that playing poker well requires a high degree of skill. But the act of playing poker is not an aesthetic act. It has no content. It is not expressive.” Ernest W. Adams
- “Art must have the capacity to express ideas. Film is an art form because it has an aesthetic, and it also has the capacity to make statements.” Ernest W. Adams
- “Life is just a quick succession of busy nothings.” Jane Austen
- “I’ve realized that busy is simply a state of mind. A state that often causes stress, unhappiness and waisted energy.” Scott Dinsmore

Reference
- Accessed Nov.26, 2012 http://www.dionarchibald.com/ArtQuotes/art.htm
- Ernest W. Adams. “Will computer games ever be a legitimate art form?” P.258-259
- Scott Dinsmore. “Find Peace in a Busy Life.” Accessed Nov. 26, 2012,
http://thinksimplenow.com/clarity/busy/

- Hudong wiki. “Decelerator Helmet.” Accessed Nov. 26, 2012 http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E5%87%8F%E9%80%9F%E5%A4%B4%E7%9B%94

[1] “The Decelerator Helmet. Live Your Life In Slow Motion,” New Rising Media,
http://newrisingmedia.com/all/2012/11/16/the-decelerator-helmet-live-your-life-in-slow-motion.html
(accessed Nov. 26, 2012).

Lev Manovich [Mission to Earth]

Mission to Earth is reflecting an "immigrant"'s experience on the Earth. It is just a different way in telling story comparing with the traditional ways as it is a new digital cinema. It includes some new and different elements and relies on the use of database. Different from the traditional one, the digital media divides the screen into different parts with different purpose instead of using whole screen for telling a whole complete story. Bu using low saturation colours, it creates a low key mood for the audience. Besides, the feature of this cinema is there is no dialogue from the characters. It is telling a story by these voice-over and visual elements instead of narrating from characters traditionally. The audience need to construct meaning through multi-screens.

Moreover, there are many combinations of the video clips as the video clips will be played by the software randomly. It can deliver much more possible ideas to the audience in different time and provide a room for the audience to imagine. When the audience watches again, he will have a new experience.
"While the narrative stays the same and repeats every 23 minutes, all other elements can potentially change." [1]

As the digital cinema is different from the traditional cinema, the input of pro-production technique is much more important than the performance of the characters. With the use of database and software, the traditional ways of constructing a film seems to be replaced. It is such a unexpected experience of watching a movie for me. It just totally change my concept of watching a movie.

I think the concept of soft cinema will remind me the montage-style. This style is using many different photos together and reforms a new image. It is similar to soft cinema which is using different video clips to reform a new ending or deliver a new image. Furthermore, a photo is divided into several grids, like the interface of the soft cinema.

Piet Mondrian, Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930

Besides, the appearance of this cinema also reminds me Piet Mondrian's work, with almost the some layout.

My opinion on this movie
The new medium makes the production of movie much more easier. Apart from traditional movie making, we can just use some basic technique to produce a movie as the software is very user friendly. We only need to know how to use the software and deal with the visual elements instead of putting huge of human resources. I think it makes the market-oriented movie to user-oriented. It provides a larger room for the director in producing a movie as the influence of market becomes lower. Added to it, the file size of soft cinema is much lower than the file size of traditional one. It is more convenient for people upload and download from the internet in order to enhance the information exchange.

[1] "Mission to Earth / Soft Cinema 2," Database of Virtual Art, http://www.virtualart.at/database/general/work/mission-to-earth-soft-cinema-2.html (accessed Nov. 7, 2012).

Mark Napier [Shredder] (1998)

According to Wikipedia, the Shredder 1.0 reconstructs the website and makes it becomes an original abstract form. [1]

I found that this work is typical of much digital art because it is an artwork that places importance on

• formal instructions


"Posing as a browser, it prompts the user for a URL, then appropriates that web page to use as raw material for its own fragmented output." [2]


The audience need to follow the instructions in order to have an output through the interface

• the concept rather than the art object

“This is an object-less medium, yet much of the technology of the web works to re-create the familiar" [3]

It breaks the traditional layout of the website into a reconstruct form and this form is not fixed. Napier used this work to present a concept rather a real object. Napier states that his works are not only an objects but interfaces. [2] I think it is the interface for Napier to present his idea.

"My work explores the ideas of ownership, authority, territory, and communication in the virtual world." [2]

• the event and audience participation

The audience participation is high since the audience picks up the website he/she chose to "re-create" the form of the website and he/she can change the choice anytime. It draws an interaction between audience and the work.

"The users become collaborators in the artwork, upsetting the conventions of ownership and authority." [2]

• an interest in random events and/or chance

"I can allow for the coding process to create unforeseen possibilities that add another dimension to the work." [2]

The result of the interface output is different each time. It draws the interest from the audience to curious about the next composition of the "re-create" layout of the website.

• borrowing or appropriation

Discuss with whether the artwork is borrowing or appropriation. It depends on how you define because it can be either borrowing the content of website or appropriating. But according Napier's personal statement, maybe he agree that it is appropriation.

"I do this by creating software that talks directly to the Internet and appropriates the text, images and data that make up the web." [2]

[1] "Shredder 1.0," Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shredder_1.0 (accessed Nov. 6, 2012)
[2] "Artist's Statement," marknapier.com, http://marknapier.com/presskit/mn_statement.html (accessed Nov. 6, 2012)
[3] "About The Shredder," marknapier.com, http://marknapier.com/presskit/ars_aboutShredder.txt (accessed Nov. 6, 2012)

Discussion: Digital Art

What are some challenges digital art presents to the art world (ie galleries, exhibition goers, art critics and scholars)?

From the group

Galleries:

- the equipment is not enough to exhibit the art work

- hard to perform the art properly

- since the artist will not always stay in the gallery, if there is technological problem, no one can handle it.

- sometimes, the gallery cannot provide a proper environment for the art work.

Audiences:

- may not have enough knowledge to understand the work

- become hard to judge the art work

Dada Poem: This is BLUE !

A quite funny Dada poem!

Discussion: Gamer Revolution (CBC documentary, 2007)

"GAMER REVOLUTION explores how computer games are not only a new medium for the 21st century, they are a massive form of change in our world." says Rachel Low, President, Red Apple Entertainment. "The idea of living inside a computer-generated universe is happening right now. The line between the real world and the virtual world is disappearing. Millions of people feel that they have a life inside these games." [1]

According to the film, video games have several purposes, such as, educational and learning purposes for children, attracting and training new army and entertaining people. Furthermore, in South Korea, video-games provide a room for some good gamer to earn money by selling currency and instrument of the game.

However, the video games brings some negative impacts to individuals and societies. Individually, a good gamer needs to spend a long period of time on playing video games. It harms their social network as they are lack of communication with other people in the real world. Socially, a cruel game introduced to the US army would also introduced to market. It brings a huge negative effect to the teenagers as it will distort their psychological building through playing these violent game.

There are some research prove that there is direct impact to the brain which, when you play violent video games, your aggressive feeling will increase, like FMRI. It reflects that their brain activity is more active when the experimenters are playing violent games.

As I mentioned before, the cruel and violent video games would bring some negative impacts to the players. In US, it is common that the school shooting exist. Some reports that those suspects were affects by the violent thinking and some anti-social actions are very intense.

Although there is a large influence brought by the violent game, we cannot restrict the freedom of the citizens. Even though the government implement the law, it can't ban the games comprehensively. On the other hand, this type of games contains entertaining purpose. People can release their pressure through playing the games.

Sims City is my group-mates' favourite videogame. This game can interact with people, develop management skills and creativity. It is because we need to interact with people in order to update level to unlock some special items and we can decorate the house and the character. However, there is some bad real-life behaviour will be led to the teenagers. As people can get married and have sex in the game, it may provide some information to some immature teenagers or may commit crimes.

[1] The dialogue from the video, http://www.ovguide.com/tv_episode/doc-zone-season-1-episode-6-gamer-revolution-1-3044611# (accessed Oct. 17, 2012)

Cory Arcangel: Super-Mario Clouds, 2002

According to Cory Arcangel's website[1] , Super Mario Clouds, 2002 is an Nintendo's game (Super Mario Bros) which Cory removed all backgrounds and characters, expect the blue sky and the white clouds. The blue sky and the white clouds keep moving from right to left.

IS IT AN ART?

Federico Fellini said that:"All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography." In my opinion, the blue sky and the white clouds are the Super Mario Bros' autobiographical. They are the marks of this Nitendo game. You can recognize this game from the gif at the first sight. The moving clouds seem like I am playing Super Mario Bros. I think an artwork should arouse viewers' sympathy. That's how this work does!

However, some people argue that this gif is just a kind of scrolling background without any obvious modification. It just for the game. Therefore, it is not really an artwork.

For me, I agree with Ernest W. Adams's thought that, "Art makes you feel things."[1] Art should not be in a fixed form and an idea. Sometimes, the feeling does not come from the artwork itself but the idea behind. I think Super Mario Clouds, 2002 makes me feel the video games in the other way. It do include Cory's creative representation ideas inside. Therefore, I think it is an art just like Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans (1962).




And even, there is a re-production of this artwork. HaHa! :DD

[1] Ernest W. Adams. “Will computer games ever be a legitimate art form?” P.258-259
[2] "Super Mario Clouds (2002-)," The Official Cory Arcangel Website, http://www.coryarcangel.com/things-i-made/supermarioclouds/ (accessed Oct. 3, 2012).

Digital games – Classmate Interviews

Ting's opinion on Adam's definition of art

Supplementary information:

According to Adam, art must have content, a capacity to express idea, make you feel something and so on

Reference:

Ernest W. Adams. “Will computer games ever be a legitimate art form?” P.258-259

0100101110101101.org LIFE SHARING

"Life Sharing is abstract pornography", Hito Steyerl

That's how Hito commented on life sharing.


















0100101110101101.org  LIFE SHARING is made by Eva and Franco Mattes, two Italian artists. Visitors can assess this computer to obtain all contents they want, including software, emails, screenshots,even their current location from GPS. All privacy turned to the public.

Is it an open source?

In my opinions, I think this artwork reflects the concept of open source -- "open source is a philosophy that promotes free redistribution and access to an end product's design and implementation details." (Wikipedia). All visitors can assess the computer freely. They can obtain all details they want, even a little modification of the computer, visitors can see the whole movement.

However, I think there are limitations for this artwork to be an open source. "For although the web is their stage and they use avatars in some of their live collective performances, to limit their work to the digital medium would be to downplay the premise of its psychodrama."[1] The content of this computer cannot be modified by the others, it determined by the owners (Eva and Franco Mattes). Therefore, the source is controlled by the owners. Visitors can only grab the information provided by the owners, unlike the last example, Wikipedia. So, in my conclusion, I think it is not really an open source, only in the concept.

[1] "Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Reality is Overrated," The Brooklyn Rail, http://brooklynrail.org/2010/06/artseen/eva-and-franco-mattes-aka-0100101110101101org-reality-is-overrated (accessed Oct. 4, 2012).

Open source vs Proprietary software

"Open source refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge." [1]

While, "Proprietary software refers to any computer software that has restrictions on any combination of the usage, modification, copying or distributing modified versions of the software." [2]

[1] "What is open source?" Webopedia, http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/O/open_source.html (accessed Oct. 02, 2012).
[2] "What is Proprietary software?" Webopedia, http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/proprietary_software.html (accessed Oct. 02, 2012).

Use two encyclopedias, Britannica and Wikipedia as examples, Britannica has entry barriers which the articles can be edited by experts only; while all of Wikipedia's articles can be edited by anyone without special requirements. Therefore, Britannica is a proprietary software and Wikipedia is an open source. The difference between them is the legal protection. The proprietary software is protected by the law which opposed of the open source. That's why it also called closed source because the source of this software cannot be modified.

With less restrictions, people more enthusiastic about open source resources. Compare with Britannica, the wordings are much difficult to understand as the articles are written by the experts and they used some specific wordings while the wordings in Wikipedia are more straightforward. It is because the wordings of Wikipedia's articles can be modified by anyone.

Moreover, Wikipedia is more user-friendly. Many topics in Wikipedia are provided Chinese and English version and even other languages version as the articles are edited by different nation people. Sometimes when the concept is difficult to understand, people can switch to the Chinese version and get the meaning directly and quickly. Also, it provides hyperlinking, especially for the specific wordings. You can just click the word to get the meaning quickly instead of searching the word again in the search engine. The validity of articles in Wikipedia are support by some academic documentary as there are many footnotes and references in the articles, although anyone can edit it. It is still have some credibility for people enthusiastic on it.

The pros and cons of the internet and new computer technologies

For the pros and cons of the Internet and new computer technologies, it is easy to find all the reasons from the Internet. I think it is the key point of the pros and cons of the Internet.

Nowadays, it is obviously that the breakthrough of technology makes our life different. Get numerous knowledge from different websites, raise productivity and efficiency in production line and improve our works in computer by using software, like Photoshop, Microsoft office. It enhance a chance for us to communicate with different people or to know what your friends' doing through the Internet. "To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune." (Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin). It is also a platform for us to express our feeling and to spread some information which were impossible in the pass. As we are not the workers in the factory, we usually forgot the dark side of the digital technology.

Still, there were some dark sides brought from the digital technology. The problem of exploiting workers is serious, e.g. the Foxconn incident in China, 2010, the welfare of those workers should be treated seriously. Besides, Kong girl $500, 2012, is implementing the cyber-bullying in the Internet. Furthermore, not just bring to the workers, as technology makes our life different, makes our life easier (get information from wiki, etc.), we are usually addicted to it. It is a huge problem that affecting our normal daily life, e.g. smart phone, facebook, whatsapp, MSN, we can't live without them. The Internet and computer technology are also eating our life.

* Kong girl $500, 2012 : the current hot issue in Hong Kong that a Hong Kong woman warned her friends do not give less than $800 to her as gift money for her wedding in her Facebook status. Her status was shared by many people and as the result, she was blamed by the public media and forum people.

Introduction

I am Nesca Lau. I am a final year student of Visual Studies. I like photo taking. This semester, I am taking the course of photography which makes me lots of fun. I am a technology idiot but the role of digital technologies is very important in my life. Why do I say it is very important? In this technology era, I think no one can escape from the use of technology. Even though I am an idiot on it, I do know how to use some software, like Photoshop, Photofilter, AI.. etc. to enhance my work and my photos! I think digital technology makes impossible in reality to possible. This is how the world changing!