Response to On Media

Media is always changing. What is considered new media today will be old media tomorrow. New media changes our view of old media. As Hovagimyan mentions in On Media, painting moved towards abstraction once photography was discovered. This is because photography brought a new perception to the audience. A photograph brings the actuality of a scene. A painting could never do the same.

This being said, painting still exists. It did not disappear after photography was discovered. It only changed. The same, I believe, has happened to sound. However, I do not think sound could ever be considered old media. The types of ways we hear sound, however, can be. For example, in grade school, everyone knew and use cassette tapes. Today, cassette tapes are nonexistent. CDs were the next manner of listening to sound. In later years, however, MP3 players replaced CDs. No manner what devices of listening are invented, sound still remains the same. Yet, sound might change depending on the mode of listening. For example, since sound excels on an MP3 player, it gives artists incentive to develop more creative sound.

Media is ever changing. New media is always being discovered. This causes old media, once considered new media, to be compared to new media. Sometimes this can cause change, like painting moving towards abstraction. Other times it can initiate advancement, like sound advancement. Nevertheless, media will always be changing. It’s inevitable. The way we criticize media’s change will determine our own perception of media and the advancement of media.

On Media Response

I found this lecture easier to digest than the previous one. The way the author describes and analyzes the media from painting to film is smooth and easy to read. I agree with the author when he says that any art work is a communication process and places art in the category of a language as well. Because we are communicating while doing art, we can express feelings and be clear if they are full of happiness or anger. As the culture evolves, the art does too. Art is always evolving, changing and adding new media and technology for their expression. In my opinion, the use of all resources to express art, including technology, is valid. I agree with the author when he said “The new cultural mythos is a mapping out of human society that is extended into its technology and in a sustained symbiosis with that technos.” (120) See below two pieces I found. the first one is an illustration from Flammetta Ghedini, an artist interested in merging of perception, technology and art. In the illustration she points that men first learn that we do not live in a flat planet but in a round one.... However, it is not a round planet anymore; because we live in several worlds at the same time, referring to all the information surround us at all times. Click here to see Illustration

The second piece is a funny video I found in youtube. I have no idea who the singer is and if it is good or bad, popular or not... What called my attention was "The cast were selected from the actual Sour fan base, from many countries around the world. Each person and scene was filmed purely via webcam", and the way they edited to create the spot:

SOUR / 日々の音色 (Hibi no Neiro) MV from Magico Nakamura on Vimeo.

Hovagimyan Response "On Media"

It is impossible to take any class on media nowadays without discussing the advent of user-generated media in the 21st century. Hovagimyan describes this trend interestingly, coining this new era the "Post Media" era, which followed the "Playback Culture" of previous decades. As Hovagimyan details, this has been the result of the long process of inventing "new" media, and retooling and combining them with other media. Through this process, audio recording combined with silent film to create talking pictures. Similarly, the principles of broadcasting explored by radio combined with film to create TV. Thus, TV and film are multi-media inventions themselves. Given the arrival of the Internet, the principles of film and TV have been put closer into the populous' control than ever before. People can now make their own multimedia projects and share them on YouTube, perhaps the greatest triumph of the Post Media era.

I found it interesting how Hovagimyan's notion of a Post Media era similar articles I've read in other classes about Adorno and Horkheimer's concept of the culture industry. To put their complicated theory simply, Adorno and Horkheimer dismiss popular culture as a byproduct of mass ignorance and corporate corruption. According to them, we do not truly have control over what TV, films, and music we digest, we simply submit to and choose from a pre-determined variety of commodified arts dispersed by the so-called "Culture Industry." While Adorno and Horkheimer linger on the verge of extremism, I do agree with their point to an extent, and welcome in a new era of media in which multimedia is not only chosen, but created by the average citizen.

That probably got a bit off the main focus of Hovagimyan's thoughts on multimedia, yet when I read about a "new era" of media I can never help but bring up A & H. All in all I found Hovagimyan's description of the evolution of multimedia interesting. Alexander Graham Bell's combination of telephony and performance art (whether he meant to combine them, or considered it performance art) displays just how long this evolutionary process of media takes. In a way, what Bell was doing was an early example of film, combining audio, narrative, and visual into a coherent performance. Then again, the same could be said of most live theater.

For my artist inspiration I posted the first several tracks of Pink Floyd's "The Wall." The wall is a masterpiece, not only because of its musical beauty, and intelligence, but also because of its multimedia prperties. "The Wall" is not just an album. It is a cinematic and all-encompassing soundscape that drags listeners into a compelling narrative where they can not only see the characters, but feel them too. Pink Floyd pulled out all the stops on this album, incorporating both sound effects and dialogue into their work. Without a doubt, this album displays the type of hybridization and innovation seen in multimedia throughout the years, as discussed by Hovagimyan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU2-r_0CtIo

Photography

Personally, a photograph would be even more misleading.

First, limits of angle, time and space create bias in photographs. Since photos record a specific moment in front of camera, the panorama of the whole issue might be misconstrued.

Second, people are subjective and have proclivity to link photographs to the backgrounds. When they see a picture of a frat brother wasted labeled "Alpha Omega", an impression of the whole fraternity might be denigrated.

Third, A painting is a "painting". Everyone might realize when they see those paintings. On the contrary, a photograph is usually taken granted to be true and convincing.



This photo was taken during "抗美援朝" (Helping-Korean-against-American War) or Korean War in English.

This is misleading because: 1. Because of the military imbalance between China (in 1950s) and U.S., Chinese soldiers suffered much severer casualty than United States. The war was extremely traumatizing. However, looking at this picture alone, one might think all Chinese soldiers are so full of bravery with eyes saying "we are going to win the war". 2. The weapons portrayed in this picture is misleading. Since the Communists just drove the Nationalists to Taiwan, they hardly had the power to produce so many advanced weapons as those in the picture for everyone.

However, this picture was very effective in encouraging people to join the army and fight the war at that time.

Keenan's Response to "On ***** Media"

In discussing the concept of “Post Media”, Hovagimyan brings forward an example of how the introduction of one medium affected the approach to another. After the arrival of photography, the role of painting shifted to represent a more abstracted version of reality. The transformation that Hovagimyan finds more interesting, however (as do I), is the attempt to circumvent photography’s inherent tether to reality. The photographic form is designed to capture reality faithfully, but the effectiveness of the medium can often come from the artist’s ability to corrupt that design. In this way, photography that skirts reality takes advantage not of creativity through freedom, but of creativity through form. The juxtaposition of the photographic form’s boundaries and the artist’s ability to push those boundaries can create an artistic tension. By extension, video that utilizes live footage can play not only with its visual link to reality, but also with the viewer’s sense of time.

Alfred Stieglitz, Equivalent (1844) 

David Rokeby: Transforming Mirrors

Transforming Mirrors essay

David Rokeby: Cheap Imitation

Cheap Imitation (2002)