reading assignment III

Sorry this is late, I totally forgot about these readings until I was checking blackboard for something.


One thing I found particularly interesting about these articles (and many of the readings we've had so far in this class) is that New Media is so closely intertwined with the theoretical dreams and theories of the past. These technologies and ideas seem so completely contemporary to me that when I read about Licklider predicting computer networks making work more efficient, it's astonishing to me. I never would have thought there was a relationship between a German composer from the 1800s like Wagner and the sort of art I make when I create an online community, although the idea of the Total Artwork is pretty broad.

While finding out there is a historical basis for the principles of new media art, it still worries me to discover that there are certain theoretical ideas we use as the basis for all of this kind of artwork. Besides the fact that many of the people writing about the possibilities of new media were male (at least according to this article), I am worried that this linear historical train sets up a teleological endpoint for all new media....like ultimately we're running faster and faster towards an entirely virtual reality, and that's the only goal that matters?

but i suppose these are only minor quibbles. everything we do is rooted in history and the past; what we try to do now is an attempt to build on something that came before. I'd love to be able to say that using computers and the internet and new media is a way to full break away from all power structures, but since the internet was first fully developed for the army, i'm not sure it's entirely possible to escape the ramifications of history (and politics for that matter).

Digitize your brain.

This is incredible. You can drastically increase your speed-reading ability by turning your brain into a computer.

Subvocalizing is the sounding out of words in your mind as you read, routing the signal through the speech center of the brain before comprehension, which limits most people's reading speed to roughly the same speed at which they would speak. This online gadget will allow you to totally bypass this with practice.

"Drop some text into it and run it. The only "problem" is that the default speed isn't really all that fast (which is probably why some people try it and "don't get it" since they can actually subvocalize that fast) so they aren't getting any benefit yet. The magic is in gradually bumping up the speed you are using and it will get you to the point where the part of your brain that subvocalizes starts "falling behind."

Now push it just a little faster and your brain will "give up" trying to subvocalize, but (probably much to your surprise) you will actually have very high comprehension of what you just read anyway. In fact, then as you push higher over time (and not that much time actually, your brain is VERY good at this once you get used to it) you'll find you have VERY high comprehension at speed that would have sounded absurd. I've honetly shocked myself at the word per mintue my brain can recognize when I'm not trying to pronounce them in my head at the same time.

Basically you are training your brain to directly connect visualized words to their known meaning without having to go through the "detour" of your brain's speech center."

-from Digg user comments

visual architecture

hey class,

i just found this blog post about visualizing new york through searches done on major new york blogs, which creates an typographical representation of the city and naturally thought of the project that we did last semester in illustrator.

here's the link:
http://io9.com/5157709/enjoy-a-virtual-new-york-as-seen-by-keywords

kS

My Trip to Liberty City

My Trip to Liberty City
Created and narrated by Jim Munroe

"I never feel like getting into a car is the best way to see a city." I watched this video at the How to be a Canadian screening curated by Brett Cashmere and Astria Suparak. It is hilarious.

Search responsibly :)

A film by Lernert Engelberts & Sander Plug: I love Alaska

"August 4, 2006, the personal search queries of 650,000 AOL (America Online) users accidentally ended up on the Internet, for all to see. These search queries were entered in AOL's search engine over a three-month period. After three days AOL realised their blunder and removed the data from their site, but the sensitive private data had already leaked to several other sites."

Make sure to click here to see the search queries.

Tryit Editor v1.4

http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_table_test

Letters in Binary

A 01000001
B 01000010
C 01000011
D 01000100
E 01000101
F 01000110
G 01000111
H 01001000
I 01001001
J 01001010
K 01001011
L 01001100
M 01001101
N 01001110
O 01001111
P 01010000
Q 01010001
R 01010010
S 01010011
T 01010100
U 01010101
V 01010110
W 01010111
X 01011000
Y 01011001
Z 01011010

And the semester begins!

Some examples of net art and art on the net:

Keith and Mendi Obedike
Chris Barr is Available on Thursday
Mark Napier's Shredder
wwwwwwwww.jodi.org
Code Zebra
http://0100101110101101.org