"Digital Expression" on Wired Magazine: Research #1

I've done my first bit of research on an article from Wired Magazine called "Digital Expression". This article, written by Nicholas Negroponte, discusses how computing is moving out of the realm of being solely related to math and science and into the realm of artistic expression. Negroponte compares computing development to the development of photography in that it is now being moved into the hands of more creative individuals rather than just scientific individuals.

The primary example used, other than photography, is that of music. Music has “three diverse but complementary perspectives” (Negroponte 1), which relate to the scientific via a digital signal, the interpretive via discerning how music makes us feel or react, and the creative via the idea that music can be used as a tool for artistic expression. Negroponte’s point here is that computers are now able to provide points of access to all three of the elements of music listed above. With such a high level of versatility computers are quickly becoming capable of allowing many points of access for other types of media as well. Music was simply the beginning for MIT’s Media Lab. This program, founded primarily by Negroponte, has continued to do various research involving bits and atoms, digital life, and research programs such as Scratch, which is a “programming toolkit” made specifically for children to use in order to create interactive stories, games and art through the use of graphics, image, and sound manipulation.

The conglomeration of using graphics, image, and sound to create new styles of art is the basic thrust of all multimedia projects. With people like Negroponte working to create newer and easier ways to access these mediums it is just a matter of time before there is at least one person in every home who uses digital technology to express themselves, be they age 5 or 50. Negroponte states, “The means and messages of multimedia will become a blend of technical and artistic achievement” (1). This blending of imperatives, as Negroponte calls them, is the core idea behind New Media. Computers and all their various programs are becoming geared towards artistic expression as well as technological advancement. New Media is all about using computers to create and express ourselves with the new technologies becoming available to us. The fact that we can now combine various medias with traditional types of artistic expression is amazing. We are able to take many art forms and enhance or augment them with the technology multimedia provides. One such art form is that of digital photography enhanced by photo editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop. There are now even websites devoted to this particular type of photography such as, Digital Photography School, which has links to tips on taking better digital photos. The website, Digital Blasphemy, actually focuses on creating entirely digital images without the aid of a camera. The images on this particular site are actually 3-D rendered images created with Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Poser 6, and so on. The creator of the site, Ryan Bliss, is self-taught which demonstrates the idea that computers will and are enabling people to express themselves more thoroughly through much more technical avenues.

In class we’ve been discussing Negroponte’s book, Being Digital. This book has an example in it that Negroponte also uses in this article; that of the mid 19th century teacher being fully capable of substituting for a teacher today. The purpose of this example is to illustrate how slowly education has changed and to point out how it is beginning to pick up a bit of speed. “We are moving away from a hard-line mode of teaching that caters primarily to compulsive, serialist children, toward one that is more porous and draws no lines between art and science or right brain and left brain “ (Negroponte 2). Comparing this statement with Negroponte’s statement about multimedia blending technical and artistic achievement shows how we are becoming more comfortable with the idea of being ambidextrous in the way we think, work, and create. There has generally been the assumption that you are either a math person or an English person, a technical person or an artistic person. Rarely do we find someone who claims to be good at Math and English. However, we are being pushed towards that end by enabling greater levels of creativity, but requiring some technical/mathematical aptitude to accomplish it with the computer as our primary tool. Vice versa, Negroponte points out how computer hackers write programs that have deeper meaning and aesthetic values that reflect their makers. Writing computer code is a highly technical and mathematical pursuit, but apparently the artistic and creative flair can be seen within them as easily as the technical can be seen in a digital film.

Works Cited:

Negroponte, Nicholas. “Digital Expression” Wired Dec 1994. 31 Jan 2007.

The Medium IS the Message: Blog #1

After reading Marshall Mcluhan’s The Medium is the Message I find I’ve completely changed my opinion on how a medium effects its content.

Content is defined as:
“2. something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing, or any of various arts: a poetic form adequate to a poetic content.” You can look it up yourself at Dictionary.com or go to the page Here.

Content is a fairly easily understood concept. It can be applied to older technologies such as speech, print, and film as equally as it can be applied to the newer technologies of Flash movies, blogging, and websites in general. Since the content itself is static, the medium becomes the variable agent.

Medium is defined as:
“6. an intervening agency, means, or instrument by which something is conveyed or accomplished: Words are a medium of expression.

7. one of the means or channels of general communication, information, or entertainment in society, as newspapers, radio, or television.”
You can look it up yourself at Dictionary.com or go to the page Here.

The first definition of the word medium is how I have understood medium in the past. However, the second definition fits more snugly into McLuhan’s definition of medium since it relates directly to human communication and interaction via the vehicle of technology. It is easy to imagine the difference between a written play, an acted play, and a film play. The written play requires pure imagination, the theatrical play relies heavily upon a human being’s speech abilities as well as the set, and the same play produced in film may use certain special effects not available to the previous two mediums simply because of the level of technology. This illustrates the major impact the medium has upon its content.

With medium’s ability to change its message, we must begin to focus on how important media is becoming in the world today. McLuhan discusses technology as neither positive nor negative in its uses, but positive or negative from one type of technology to another. This is the difference between a bomb and a book. I am fully capable of writing a book that is anti-abortion in its message, however I am also capable of bombing an abortion clinic to get my message across. Obviously it is the technology that provides either a positive or negative effect on how the rest of humanity will receive this message. Thus, the medium becomes the message.

Things You Wish You Didn't Know About Me...

I hate chunky stuff in creamy stuff!!! Like fruit in the bottom yogurt and chunky peanut butter. It's bloody disturbing! I love really horribly cheesy horror and sci-fi movies. Particularly those w/ bad dialogue. I bellydance. Ummm..... I'm done here. Kthx.