Triangulation

For this task, it was really helpful to be able to put all the thoughts I have been having regarding this project into one place and explain it. Seeing the links begin to be formed between points and ideas has sparked some further ideas. I think I will pursue the ideas of self-expression meeting cyberculture - essentially exploring how culture and society forms in the digital realm. I want to look at ideas surrounding how we filter and portray ourselves online, influencers, and automation. I also want to look back on how cyberculture has evolved and formed over the last few decades, as the internet grows more global and accessible.

Study Task 4 - 200/300 Word Summary/Intro

Access to modern, ground-breaking technology has never as global as it is in this moment in time. Especially in developed countries, it is commonplace – even expected – to own a smartphone, whereas the first iPhone was released only a decade ago. The leaps and bounds this kind of technology has taken has lead to an interesting phenomena, known as “cyberculture”. The term originated back in 1963 by A.M. Hilton, who defined it as “that way of life made possible when an entire process of production is carried out by systems of machines monitored and controlled by one computer.” Today, cyberculture more commonly denotes the online communities built around a common interest or platform, and can also widely refer to the idea of automation and “cyborgazition” of the human mind and body. This phenomena has led to much criticism, especially by generations that did not spend their formative years experiencing this kind of digital freedom. The rapidity at which this technology has advanced in the last three decades is unlike any other revolution that humanity has experienced. James Harkin, in Cyburbia, states that “The electronic information loop that its prophets imagined would tie us all together has, to a large extent, now been built.” This raises the question of where we are to go next with this ever evolving technology. The cyberculture that has been created is mostly populated by millennials and Generation Z, with today’s children consuming content through tablets. While this raises a whole host of new problems, such as children “being deliberately targeted with content which will traumatise and disturb them, via networks which are extremely vulnerable to exactly this form of abuse. (James Bridle, There is something wrong on the internet), it has also given rise to new generations that communicate and are a part of a cultural revolution akin to that of any culture seen in the world today – complete with discourse, subcultures, artistic influence and counter-culture.

What I learned at MAF

This year at Manchester Animation Festival, I watched a few short animations that dealt with the theme of digital technology. What was frustrating - but not at all surprising - was how they chose to view the topic. One animation I will look at for this post is iRony, which I have linked the trailer to below.

iRony took the form of a spoken poem, accompanied by animation to bring to life the words. However, this animation mostly focused on digital technology - namely, social media - being a drug. It likened social media to pills and an addiction, only focusing on how "likes" and using social media makes humans dumb and like "sheep". While I think the actual animation itself was fairly good, the overall message and meaning was unoriginal and very holier-than-thou. It frustrates me that animations, and other texts much like this, are so popular. They show only the extremes of social media and digital technology, berating those who choose to use them, rather than also pointing to the positive uses of such technology.

What struck me as truly ironic was how the previous animation shown in the screening was about a divorced father, whose only way of seeing his son was through social media and video calling. This is clearly not what the creators of iRony were targeting their animation towards, and it is interesting how texts such as iRony choose to ignore the positives of these growing technologies.

I do think there are problems in the way we use social media in the 21st century, but I don't think they are the problems that iRony shine a light on. Additionally, by showing only the extremes of social media (girls that starve themselves for likes), the message is completely blown out of proportion. The problems in real social media aren't always as extreme as the ones shown in this animation, which leads those who experience real problems to dismiss their own experiences, as they don't believe them to be as bad as the extremes portrayed onscreen.

In the end, narratives such as in iRony are overdone, and seem preachy. They are not relevant, and while there is still validity in the points they are making, the over-exaggeration and offensive metaphor leads texts such as iRony to feel like parody.

texts Referenced

Lanier, J. (2010). You are not a gadget. London: Allen Lane.

Phillips, W. (2015). This is why we can't have nice things. MIT Press.

Hollings, K. (2014). The Bright Labyrinth. Chippenham: Strange Attractor Press. 

Harkin, J. (2009). Cyburbia. St Ives: Little, Brown.

"A distinctly cybernetic aesthetic has burrowed its way into the stories we watch on TV and in the cinema, and a cybernetic sensibility is also finding an echo in everything from alternative theatre to football to the organisation of the mainstream media."
"The electronic information loop that its prophets imagined would tie us all together has, to a large extent, now been built."

d'Arnault, C. (2015). What is Digital Culture? https://digitalculturist.com/what-is-digital-culture-5cbe91bfad1b, Accessed 9/11/2017

"More contextually, digital culture is using social media as our main mode of interaction with others; sharing every moment of your life on the internet; the selfie phenomenon; the live streaming obsession; the anonymity provided by online communities; Apple Pay and Android Pay; wearable technology; the use of emoji to enhance communication; internet/cell phone addiction; the sharing/on-demand economy; cloud computing and storage; the internet of things."

Bridle, J. (2017). Something is Wrong On The Internet. https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2

Hilton, A.M. (1963). Computers and Cyberculture. Michigan: The University of Michigan. 

“that way of life made possible when an entire process of production is carried out by systems of machines monitored and controlled by one computer.”

Cavallaro, D. (2000). Cyberpunk & Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson. London: The Athelone Press.

The configuration of the female body as a cyborg uterus, its manipulation by the fitness and beauty industries and its subjection to penetrating technologies bear witness to the fact that the meat-and-bones body has not melted into thin air as a result of cybernetic interventions. In fact, it is central to the perpetuation and reformulation of legion technologies of subjectivity

Claudia Springer observes that this opposition is embodied, within cyberculture, by the contrast between the phallic and hypermasculine cyborgs of popular cinema and the ‘“feminized” computer with its concealed, passive, and internal workings’.18 Taking into consideration a further stereotype, the one based on the association of the female body with a troubling sense of mystery, it could also be argued that digital technology is metaphorically feminine to the extent that even experts find it somewhat impenetrable. 

Thus, virtual sex does not take the body away but actually multiplies its users’ experiences of embodiment, to the point that, as stated in Susie Bright’s Sexual Reality, ‘you could look like anything and be any gender or combination of genders you want. There’s no particular reason for you even to be a person.’63

Study Task 3 - Image and Theory

Select and define important terms / concepts you have discovered through your reading (if you do not have any you may choose from the list below)

Aesthetics / Millennials / Automation / Fandom / Influencers / Virtual Reality / Automation/ Cyberculture

Collect and analyse examples / images / phenomena that could be interpreted as following these concepts.

Instagram trends - blogs with a good "aesthetic" do well, visually pleasing = popular. Ideas of "themes" on these sites.
Fandom culture, the things that people (often young teens) follow becoming part of their personality. Especially true with vloggers. 
The idea of amateur production often being totally false - scripted, sponsored etc. Sponsorships of popular posts/videos without audience being made fully aware. 
Nostalgic influences, digital and physical aesthetic of the 80s and 90s coming back into fashion. 
Self-representation online often carefully filtered and mediated - art?

How could they be used to interpret your theme / question? Triangulate with theorists and critics.

You may apply the analysis technique below to examples - to help deconstruct your choices.

Theorists: 
James Bridle 
Donna Haraway (A Cyborg Manifesto)
Alice E. Marwick (Becoming Elite: Social Status in Web 2.0 Cultures)
Sherry Turkle (Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet)

Other:
http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/cyberculture.html
http://wiretap.area.com/Gopher/Library/Cyber/mindvox.txt

• Context / when it was made / where it appears (including when)
• Subject / content / compostiton
• Audience / who is it aimed at 
• Purpose / why was it made / why was it used 
• Method of production

Living Landscapes Brief

My response to the Living Landscapes brief ties in with my themes of social media and it's influence aesthetically on the users. I am focusing on the influencers and cult of personality on social media and in 21st century technology, as well as looking at the way automation is seeping into these elements of our daily lives.

Reading Academic Texts

Problems with finding texts relevant to my area of study:
The texts are often outdated and do not contain up-to-date information, even by a few years. This means that I find that online texts are preferable to physical ones as they are more updated.

Process of reading...
Skimming, taking down key quotes and notes, trying to find nuggets of information that are relevant to what I am studying and looking for, looking at chapter titles to direct me to the right area. Indexes, looking for keywords, asking tutors. Writing down thoughts and responses.

What worked for you?
Using both online and physical resources, using the library as well as books I found on Google Books and recommended texts.

How do you get what you need?
J-STOR - has more updated articles. Google Books, the library.

Vocabulary - Search Terms - Triangulation
Social media - character - robots - automation - fandom - influencers - aesthetics - trends - identity

Task 3 - Select and define important terms/concepts you have discovered through your reading 
Collect and analyse examples/images/phenomena that could be interpreted as following these concepts.
How could they be used to interpret your theme/question? Triangulate with theorists and critics.

COP Session Notes - 2/11/2017

Sentient Spaces - Living landscapes within animated worlds

Snack and Drink - animation about a man with autism. Sounds loud, senses heightened. 

Prometheus' Garden - Bruce Bickford (1988) Everything is transient, moving, changing and evolving. 

Based off of The Garden of Earthly Delights - Heironymus Bosch

Sentient Spaces - Wider Context 

Hundertwasser - bringing nature back into an urban environment

Cities are "living"- CCTV, google maps/earth, a living landscape already

Emotion Garden from Coraline - Henry Selick

Similar to Gaudi - almost cartoonish use of colour and black and white

Surreal, abstract shapes + forms

4 main visual elements in animation - characters, foreground, midground, background.

The Little House - Disney, 1952.

Steven Pinker defines consciousness as:

self-knowledge (the sense of awareness of our own existence)

access to information (the introspective response to our own knowledge)

sentience (subjective experience and the "raw feels" that collectively make up our conscious states)

Concepts of sentience, awareness and consciousness seem to focus on individual entities, such as people, other organisms and their putative surrogates as robots. 

Monster House - Gil Kenan

Suspension of disbelief is often an essential element for a magic act, circus sideshow or an animation. In monster house, an audience is not expected to actually believe that a house becomes alive in order to enjoy it. 

Sentient City - Mark Shepard suggests that "... a sentient city, then, is one that is able to hear and feel things happening within it, yet does not necessarily know anything in particular about them. It feels you, but doesn't yet know you..."

Jean Dubuffet

Practical Task: Establish your theme and then design a "Living Landscape" in response to your theme and animate it on a loop

This should take no more than 1 hour and should only consist of either 4 drawings or no more than 6 stills, the animation should loop seamlessly