Unit III: Experience – Affect – Electracy
Project 3: Screen Self Portrait
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» Due (14-Nov) Exercise 4: Sensory Experience Quantified & Unclassifiable
Week 13
M 11/16 discuss: “The Genealogy of Electracy (An Interview with Gregory L. Ulmer)” Reconstruction 9.2 (2009)
- focus: apparatus theory, inventing electracy, affective-aesthetic paradigm… (Unit 3 inquiry)
- optional reading: “The Learning Screen”
— discuss/use in optional blog entry
(along with any videos from “The Ulmer Tapes”)
- Sarah Arroyo, “Growing Up with Electracy” (2015)
W 11/18 hybrid work :
- Watch Reid: “Virtual Community, Virtual Immanence, Virtual Exposure”
- Watch Arroyo & Alaei: “The Dancing Floor” (2012)
- Discuss: Reid & Arroyo videos; invention (digital rhetoric), and expression
- Comment and Reply in thread below
» Individual Conferences → schedule using this form
F 11/20 Due: Blog entry 5: “personal database” sampling (warm-up to project 3) — prompt below
- also instructions for optional additional entry — for bonus blog credit (post Fri-Sat)
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» Optional Exercise — compose over Fall Break (prompt coming soon)
» Blog entry 5: “personal database” sampling (warm-up to project 3)
- As a first attempt of sampling from “personal databases,” post at least one selection from each:
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— autobiography / family
— school / career (discipline)
— community / social
— entertainment / culture - No need to explain/discuss your selections! (This is not a written entry.) Just post — as media in any form, or references/quotes in text fragments — these signifiers/mediators of your identity.
In addition to sampling: add a caption (or epigraph) to the entry, selected from any personal database (or composed/remixed on your own).
- think about how we mediate experience through certain avatars/icons and “frames of reference” — and how we express ourselves, particularly digital identity, through these as “readymade” or objective mediations. Your selections should be “legible” (if not “tangible”) in this regard, sensory/empirical images or references that you feel a strong sense of “identification” with: avatars/characters (people), places, objects, quotes/phrases, references, materials, gestures/actions (protip: GIPHY — or make a GIF from YouTube)…
→ This is the first warm-up to project 3, exploring how we think with/through images and “frames of reference” that mediate our sense of self (and sensation of identity) — including the subjective dimensions (affect) that are not necessarily represented / visible “publicly.” Thus making the “samples” potential material to compose with when making the ScreenSelfPortrait…
- The video below illustrates (as simulation) the process of exploring by association/intuition and sampling from my 4 “personal databases”.
(these all are mediations of experience, signifiers/references I think with/through…)
— note: you do not need to create one composite image! (like in the video) The entry can/should be separate samples (1 each minimum) from the 4 personal databases.
— Also potentially helpful to consult video “Growing Up with Electracy” (Arroyo 2015)
Preparation / guide for sampling:
» Optional Blog Entry (bonus participation credit)
- Speculate in discussion (100−200 words) the implications and potential for Project 3 approach or techniques (poetics of praxis) — considering your warm-up sampling, not to explain connection but to consider as way of working unique to Electracy (unlike Orality & Literacy). In other words, the mode of creating via Invention + Discovery, to compose the Screen Self Portrait.
Be sure to include at least one reference/idea from Ulmer interview (or optional reading) — and discuss your first attempt, perhaps in relation to one of the videos viewed this week.
How might “personal database” sampling, or avatars (mediating), or choragraphy work uniquely as a way of composing-communicating mediated experience? How has this activity (blog entry), using intuition & association, differed from other modes (belief-story, information-argument) — perhaps as “paradigm rhetoric” for experience…?
Be sure to include at least one reference/idea from Ulmer interview (or optional reading) — and discuss your first attempt, perhaps in relation to one of the videos viewed this week.
How might “personal database” sampling, or avatars (mediating), or choragraphy work uniquely as a way of composing-communicating mediated experience? How has this activity (blog entry), using intuition & association, differed from other modes (belief-story, information-argument) — perhaps as “paradigm rhetoric” for experience…?
Videos for Wednesday 18-November
- Sarah J. Arroyo and Bahareh Alaei: “The Dancing Floor” (2012) Abstract
“The Genealogy of Electracy (An Interview with Gregory L. Ulmer)” Reconstruction 9.2 (2009)
» W 11/18 Discussion
Comment: identity specific part/reference in one video that helps you understand electracy, mediated experience, digital identity, aesthetic-affective paradigm
Reply: note example, in video(s) or from other observations (or experience)
— or, connect with your post, especially in relation to other video or Ulmer reading
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Concerning invention in the online community, I liked and related to the example of the collaborative music video effort for “Liztomania”. To me, that is one of the clearest examples of a collaboration that absolutely wouldn’t be possible without an internet that spanned the entire world, and puts that collaboration into a visual representation which shows progression like a conversation. Although the effects of a worldwide web are clear in any manifestation of the internet, it is not always clear that such communication produces something both beautiful and new — an invention, a creation. This relates to “The Dancing Floor”, which speaks about invention as a small recognized instance within a greater field of bodily experience, separate both from sensory input and logical thought, where the person experiencing something discovers something new. This relates closely to video in terms of communicating the very process of invention. Separate from this, however, I wonder how this theory of invention changes very much with the onset of electracy? If invention is so internalized, then has the way that we invent actually changed at all? Or through video are we simply given a greater field of experience in which to invent?
I also loved the examples that you looked at. It is beautiful that online media can demonstrate similarities and differences in cultures to learn new aspects to change one’s worldview. This could be a response to your invention question as it may not be innate in a sense but may be more closely related to changing conventions of invention through seeing how other cultures are doing something differently. A limitation of this would be that the communities that are able to easily access the internet are somewhat similar in their social standing our possible worldview.
I completely agree! When you think about how we collaborate on the internet, it’s pretty overwhelming! Conversationally, it’s clear to see where these aspects come to play online. Comments on youtube, tumblr, twitter, facebook, exc. portray how we collaborate with each other through conversation. One thing that I find interesting is that often times, if a tumblr post becomes popular, it typically will be because of the comments that follow.
I really like your thoughtful ideas about invention. I think there are a lot of different terms we could use to define invention and it might vary depending on your field or life-style. But, in general, I do think invention has become more of a technological experience.
I like how you mention the popularity and comments on a certain post on a social media platform. Drawing from the Reid video, these posts and comments and pages where you find these things, all create communities. You access these communities through your devices, and can become a part of any community you would like. When a post becomes popular, and you like it as well, you become a part of a community of people who share the similar interest or stance as you do.
Both videos discuss the good and bad of the digital world and how it impacts our culture. They both touch on how the internet connects us. However, the Virtual community video stresses this in more depth by using the analogy of computers being windows into a single connected system. This gives this information such great influence because it reaches thousands of windows at the same time creating a “community” that is never actually together in person in most cases. It becomes more complex when this is applied to how this affects us culturally. The Dancing Floor analyzes this more by showing a stream of videos of people doing a certain dance all over the world. This is a huge impact because before the internet this is such a rare occurrence except for in the case of mass produced media (very famous music/ movies/ films). We have more in common now than ever with other cultures due partially to the internet.
I agree. This was an interesting argument stated especially in the Virtual Community video. It is possible to connect this to the Ulmer readings and his proposition that the internet is an institution for Electracy. The internet is the apparatus which is used to perform many of these collaborative tasks.
I definitely agree with your post although maybe we don’t have more in common with cultures, but just understand them more? I think that just the realization that there are people who can take something and experience it completely different then us is exciting. With the internet we can be more aware of this and see how globalization is truly creating a more combined world. Not that we have to be similar or have things in common, but rather celebrate the differences and embrace them because we can learn so much more from differences then from similarities.
I agree with you. Electracy is allowing the virtual community to think together and share information on a global level. Also, allowing us expose ourselves to observe or create more common interests with other cultures.
Grace, I think you are really onto something with you interpretation of these videos. We see the effect of these virtual communities constantly in our lives, through Facebook and Instagram. The concept that is difficult for me to comprehend is the sheer size of the communities these avatars are a part of. For example, a celebrity posting on Instagram could have a 100,000 people like a post in 20 minutes. The internet and these communities can be used as a positive and negative force.
In “The Dancing Floor”, the concept of chora, which “aims to provoke, reel us in, and generate response … both in textual and video formats” (Aroyo) helps us to understand Electracy. Digital formats evoke more reaction from audiences and promote action in a way that the written formats of the Literacy paradigm were not quite able to do. This is more affective in nature. The aspects of video that allow the whole body to be included (such as when dancers are performing a piece) are more able to evoke a response from the viewers.
With concern to your note about how watching dancers can evoke more than, say, reading about dancers, I find it interesting that the speaker in the video seemed to speaking more about what the dancer herself is experiencing, rather than the person watching the dancer. To some extent, I think that electracy has its limitations in that whatever experience it evokes for a person, it cannot entirely give a person that experience. Watching a dancer will never feel the same as being the dancer; pretending to be a medieval knight within a computer game will never feel like actually being a swordsman. I think we should be careful to recognize that a video experience is not necessarily less real, but it is certainly different from a bodily experience. Our experience is made up of much more than our brains, and our sensory experience is more than sight and sound.
I really like what you said about the dancing video. I also liked how it involves the entire body and can be more affective than literacy. When you see a photo, a reaction is instantaneous, making it very raw and moving to the person experiencing the reaction. When it comes to literacy, your reaction is slower, and more thought out. You do not feel the instantaneous emotion in your inner core as you would from something written.
In the “dancing floor” it spoke about the concept of a social remix. Individuals use dance and themselves to create a shared culture. It is interesting that within this we can help understand mediated experience a little bit better. It brings to light how people can use youtube and Facebook to spread ideas about culture and the identity of that part of the world. Our experience will be different as a viewer, listener or dancer and what will we get out of it? I feel like we can all experience something a little different and that one is not better then the other, but rather helps us create more out of that difference.
I found this idea interesting in the way that they showed all the people dancing from around the world to one song. It shows that even though we all have different views and styles, we are all not that much different from each other in the emotions that we have. Maybe that’s why it’s so much easier to express emotion through emoticons or GIFS and it comes across a lot clearer than words can express.
I made a similar connection, that maybe like dance and music we us emoji and gifs to transcend the differences in cultural contexts, norms or perhaps even expectations. We all have the need to express ourselves and emotions are sometimes better described using an image or sound instead of words. Using these images we can create both false and true profiles of our emotions.
Yes, this is a very interesting concept because in my opinion it is easily overlooked. What I mean by this is that we use these social media sites every day of our lives, but we probably dont even realize exactly what we are converting and portraying. But we are leaving behind a media trail, and everyone’s trail has its own identity linked to it.
Yes, this is a very interesting concept because in my opinion it is easily overlooked. What I mean by this is that we use these social media sites every day of our lives, but we probably dont even realize exactly what we are converting and portraying. But we are leaving behind a media trail, and everyone’s trail has its own identity linked to it.
The way that Punctum was described in “The dancing floor” stuck out to me, because it point out how it disrupts the studium and “it’s sting cannot be articulated by something that can be defined” (2:09). I think this is important in understanding this aesthetic paradigm in the sense that images have the ability to provoke in ways that words can’t. In the images that stick out and leave an impression, the Punctum is obvious and cannot be overlooked. If images have a purpose to express something in ways that words just can’t do, then the Punctum is the reason why.
In the video “Virtual Community, Virtual Immanence, Virtual Exposure,” explained that the virtual community opens a new point of exposure. To me this helped me understand electracy because digital media wouldn’t exist without the virtual community. The virtual community has evolved over time; in the 20th century we couldn’t publicly broadcast a message, now we have a market, which allows the community to move towards the market. The reference that electracy is to digital media as literacy is to print, was evident in this video. I found that the reference can be linked when explaining our behavior as a virtual community, we can no longer see ourselves without technology, it allows us to think collectively and share information; in the video they brought up the fact that we can’t imagine ourselves without the alphabet or writing.
I agree. I think that the comparisons this video makes when it comes to the internet and literacy/ print are spot on with the ideas of electracy. This video talked about our dependence on Google as being similar to our dependence on the alphabet and writing allowing us to further our communicative potentials while also gaining a better understanding of how forms of electracy have been around for many years.
The demonstration of Dance in Arroyo’s video demonstrates interpretation and the connection between the author of dancer and the one watching the video. This is a demonstration of electracy in media. Ried and Arroyo seem to differ on the viewpoint of how virtual media is expressed. Reid says that this is a regimented form of expression based on “credits” while Arroyo realizes the changing aspect of relatability and cultural world. While these seem opposing they can be intertwined as a the “credits” of reputability are socially changing in the need for said credits or how one gains their reputation through expression in articulating differences that Arroyo points out. Both of these videos were interesting explanations of literacy turning into electracy through the experience paradigm.
The “Virtual Community, Virtual Immanence, Virtual Exposure” video brought up an interesting point about how the accessibility of distributing information has changed throughout time. At around the 7 minute mark, the video discusses how, in the 20th century, only bigger corporations (in charge of the media) could distribute ideas widely whereas common, everyday people had relatively no voice. This has changed in today’s society. With social media like Facebook, twitter, youtube, etc. everyday people can voice their opinions and have access to share information all around the world. An even wider audience is reached when topics become trending or videos become viral. This reflects how our society changes and how information is becoming more widespread and available to people everywhere. This helps people to assert their digital identity in ways that were not available in the past. Their digital identity is everything they choose to post on social media and what information they consume from other posts from other people as well.
I found that part of the video very interesting as well! It is weird that these virtual communities didn’t exist back then. If you had something to say to the public, you couldn’t. These people were seen as weird, and their word didn’t get spread. Now it is as easy as a single click of share this on Facebook to spread your message and thoughts. This does alter peoples digital identity. Their digital identity can be based on what they choose to share, or what they choose not to.
I thought that was interesting also. Media has really changed the ways that we are able to represent ourselves. Without it we would not have nearly as many connections as we do now. I think that this, while it can be harmful to share too much, really helps people to become who they are, at least in the way of sharing what they believe, and finding like communities to experience these beliefs with.
I think it is also important to note that experience is more valuable than reading because it is much harder to connect to something when reading a book (as we all know). That is why hands on experiences are valued in the work place. Even an account of a dancing experience is more interesting or captivating to an audience than an account explaining how one dances. Media has enabled us to be able to experience this new perspective and represents people and activities in what I think is a much more real and genuine way.
In the “Virtual Community, Virtual Immanence, Virtual Exposure” video, it talks about the concerns about our connections with imaginary communities and forming our imaginary identity. We form these identities online, and it is not truly who we are as a person. As we develop these online identities, our real identity is being lost. When we don’t remember something or want to know something, we can just type it in to google to retrieve our answer. It is so easy and part of our daily lives. This generation is so used to these online features, that is hard to imagine a life without it. Soon, we wont be able to imagine ourselves as people without this dimensions. It will be the same as the ABC’s, and how they are put into use daily, and nobody can imagine a lifestyle without them.
I think this is an interesting point, especially when you say, “We form these identities online, and it is not truly who we are as a person.” I think this connects well with what Knight says on page 152 in section 4 about how “not only does the user actively go into new media, but the user also actively creates the image—the image is a process which takes place within the users body.” She also mentions how information is filtered and manipulated to fit our needs. These identities are ones that we, ourselves, have created and it is how we want the world to perceive us, rather than who we truly are.
From the “Virtual Community, Virtual Immanence, Virtual Exposure” video I was able to gain a better understanding of electracy and the use of the internet to propel our communicative potential. In this video, the internet was described as a means for finding new and more important ways to collaborate while maintaining a balance between work and play and our exposure when using it. I really liked the analogy between our dependence on Google and how that directly parallels our dependence on the alphabet or other literary means. In this video, internet is also described as an instrument for thinking. All of these examples, I think, coincide ver nicely with the idea of electracy and how we can use media and the internet to really drive forward our communicative potential.
I like how you mention that the internet (and thus Google) is a method of thinking/learning, mainly that I find this to be fairly accurate; with the internet harboring vast amounts of information and readily available at our fingertips, it is easier to look up a bit of trivia than it is to simply remember it. If one forgets a minor detail of some thing a quick search on the internet will remind the person of said detail; similarly, if one forgets how to spell something, one can quickly turn to Google to see what it considers accurate.
I thought the same thing when watching this video, we really are dependent on the internet these days in how we communicate via text or just sending a photo trying to describe your emotions. I can relate to the video when they talked about using the internet as an instrument of thinking, I find myself being able to find out a lot more than I intended to know by just using google and doing my research. There is a lot that comes out of the internet and the benefits of it, but I believe it has its disadvantages too.
I think it’s sad that we can are as dependent on Google as we are on the alphabet. The alphabet is objective… whereas I believe Google and other internet search engines should be subjective! What I know as “A” in the alphabet will always be “A”. However, I don’t think the same can be said about everything that we read or see on Google.
Reid’s “Virtual Community, Virtual Immanence, Virtual Exposure” hit on ideas that I’ve already been discussing with myself and my peers as well as ideas I hadn’t really given much thought to. Initially, the video starts by focusing on how this generation is different than generations of the past in terms of technology usage and the results of it. The truth is this generation is extremely different, the age at which exposure to media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is becoming younger and younger. When I look at children nowadays, they’re playing with their own or their parents iPhones, iPads, etc,. That observation alone tells me that we are changing drastically in terms of exposure, technology awareness and usage. When I was the same age as the technologically adept and laden kids I see today, I was playing in playgrounds and created my own games to pass the time. It’s true that this exposure to technology creates a “self surveillance that young people don’t think about in terms of political issues”. So much of our intimate lives are broadcasted on media in detail to forever be there as a part of an extensive “imaginary community”. A lot of parents use the scare tactic of threatening their kids about never being able to get a job due to their social media presence/content. I wonder, how many of my peers (including myself) will be at risk of that type of judgement (based on our social media identities) if we all have some sort of history? Will will be all be cast off as undesirable for certain jobs?
The second idea mentioned in this video is one that I hadn’t really thought of before. Instead of social media being used as a means of personal human, open ended self expression, it has now become a way of succumbing to regimented, conformist expression. I see more and more individuals online, changing opinions/views/standpoints/identities at a whim and I really do believe that is is because technology has the power to cajole us into rendering ourselves up to the market.
The concepts of studium et punctum, as discussed in ‘The Dancing Floor’, stand out the most for me: Studium, which is Latin for ‘zealotry/eagerness/enthusiasm for someone/something’ (or, in general, ‘a study’), seems to stand for the community in general; the general beliefs, general actions, and general identities of the digital community. Punctum, however, meaning ‘a prick/pierce’ (and thus ‘wound’), is a small, short action, either disrupting or dispersing the studium; it is, by no means, a major action, a quick, barely noticeable event that disrupts and pauses, a detail that causes one to stop and think, to ponder.
I thought this was interesting as well. Especially, since studium was likened to a type of “stasis,” while the punctum implied movement, which seemed to assert the idea that punctum was a “higher” form of information presentation. At the same time, that seemed a little biased to me bc the author certainly seemed to connect stasis with the past and punctum with cutting age digital communication. But, think how revolutionary the alphabet and the written word were at the beginning stages of literacy. Just because something is traditional does not mean that it is less moving. At least for me anyway.
What I get from this, is possibly the human desire to explore and discover. Maybe the two terms could be used as one, (piercing eagerness?) to describe a human attitude towards new frontiers of knowledge such as social media, multimedia, ect. It’s another reference to the “humanness?” of people, an element that cannot be quantified or shown through numbers or even possibly words.
Wow! I thought that both of these videos really helped me connect to this idea of electracy. I particularly liked the idea of the “social remix” in Arroyo & Alei’s video “The Dancing Floor.” When I was watching that part of the video, I thought to myself, “hey, I think this might be exactly what our next project is going to be.” Social Remix was defined as: “using shared culture as a language to communicate something to an audience.” So, digitally, we can use music, quotes, avatars, pictures of celebrities, personal pics, etc, and by pasting them together in an “original mash-up,” they become a message, a narrative. At the same time, I was interested in what Reid had to say in his video about “critical literacy” and whether or not electracy was bringing about a critical literacy or whether it was actually dulling our critical functions. I found Rushkoff’s argument about the market driven trajectory of the internet very interesting, especially his point about the “devolution” of the net from “quirky and personal homepages to completely formatted and market friendly Facebook pages.”
I really thought that the Dancing Floor video helped a lot with the understanding of our project also! The way we are able to express our emotions, attitudes, and thoughts is very interesting and exactly what I thought of when watching this video. For example, like what we talked about in class, the memes we see on social media or wherever else goes to show that we can relate to exactly what the meme is showing or portraying to us.
So interesting that you bring up memes! I was thinking the same thing. It’s funny that we can take a phrase, message or even a single word, match it with a photo from a movie, youtube video, vine, etc., and relay a meaning/message that huge amounts of people are able to relate to. I think that that is a pretty powerful affect for an image like a meme to create. Memes are shared on every single social media platform. Not to mention apps that keep on re-creating and creating new ways of individualize the media we are editing on it.
I was really draw into the Reid video and how the ideas or identity creation were being talked about. Since the beginning of time we have relied on real lived social contexts, situations, histories and relationships to construct our identities social or otherwise. There was no real way to create an in-genuine identity or lived profile for ones self as there was an analogue paper trail, relationships or historical record of your actions. Fast forward to today’s world, we can 100% artificially cast an image our ourselves for the world to see. In some ways I see this ability as the great social equalizer; I mean that anyone can call themselves x without needing to back it up with any real tangible evidence. While this notion or practice can level the social landscape in terms of networking and connecting with people on a transcontinental global scale, nothing n my eyes will ever replace or outweigh the analogue and tangible experience of meeting a friend face to face. Regarding the idea of networking, I also found the “dancing floor” video intriguing in the way that a single song was able to transcend many social contexts and bring people from all walks of life together and dance. I guess that music can be thought of a sort of social networking experience or tool in its own right.
“Wherever there is a system, totality, unity, there is the trace of the excluded.” I find this passage from the beginning of the dancing floor interesting, because in a way it sort of cleanly sums up/ is parallel to this idea of Electracy. If you look up a definition for Electracy, youll find that: “Electracy is to digital media, as literacy is to print.” In this sense, the dancing floor is to dancing as Electracy is to digital media. What is concrete is the media, the software, the literature, what is left out and up to human interpritation/experience is the electracy, the literacy.
I’m still trying to wrap head around the notion of Electricity as well, but I find the analogies used to be a great way of looking at the definition. What perhaps strikes me as a potential downfall to using analogies/metaphors etc. is the potential to loose the concreteness of Electricity in the vague medium of the prior. Or is that potentially the only way in which you can make the definition of Electricity relevant? Electricity, is perhaps most defined as an intangible matrix of the physically unexplained phenomenon.
I found the concept of “chora” to be absolutely fascinating. I feel that this idea of an “open-ended” grasp on reality is essential to the creative mind. As “chora” is explained in, “The Dancing Floor,” it is what stops us from simplifying. Chora enables us to embrace the unattainable, maximize on everything we can to create and invent, and not settle for perceptions of “reality” as we know it. “Chora” pushes us to know more, to understand more, to invent, and create more. From what I gathered in, “The Dancing Floor,” “chora” pushes us to reevaluate are sense of understanding.
*****I found the concept of “chora” to be absolutely fascinating. I feel that this idea of an “open-ended” grasp on reality is essential to the creative mind. As “chora” is explained in, “The Dancing Floor,” it is what stops us from simplifying. Chora enables us to embrace the unattainable, maximize on everything we can to create and invent, and not settle for perceptions of “reality” as we know it. “Chora” pushes us to know more, to understand more, to invent, and create more. From what I gathered in, “The Dancing Floor,” “chora” pushes us to reevaluate are sense of understanding. The idea of chora allowed me to better understand “electracy, mediated experience, digital identity, aesthetic-affective paradigm” as these concepts exist in a world that we can only glimpse, what we know of the technological universe is minimal, our grasp on it only goes so far. A mediated experience or digital identity, exist only in some physical substance in the cyber world, a world we can only begin to scratch the surface of. Much like chora, a concept rooted in broadening one’s grasp on reality, these technological concepts can only be understood by a broadened grasp on reality.
I agree. The last sentence really caught my attention and i think that the broadened grasp on reality in the future could be different from all ours. Reality could become more about false technological worlds. I thought that maybe the videos were pointing in this direction.
In the Virtual Community, Virtual Immanence, Virtual Exposure video, I liked how they talked a little bit about how these media communication websites are any good for us. A man mentions the multiple topics of how is it changing the way to communicate, identify ourselves, and communities and how they shape our relationships these days. This helped me understand how much of our identity shapes who we are today and how it has made us either have no voice or a different voice than we actually do in person. Dancing Floor video helped me understand electracy in media mostly. The way that the audience and the performer connect whats happening. In the video they say, “IN textual and video formats”, I thought this made a lot of sense in how digital media can be expressed in many ways like we talked about it class. Our emotions, attitudes, and thoughts can be shown through visuals.
I also found that the “The Dancing Floor” helped me to better understand electracy (specifically in media). The explanation of youtube, and how modern society values “spreadability” over all, but that somehow this value of spreadability has created interconnectedness across the globe in a unique and revolutionized way really stuck with me.
I agree! I really like the quote they use, ” Chora both unsettles us and moves us to respond”. Chora, video culture, is such an interesting concept to me! It’s not only focusing on spreading a message and creating interconnectedness but about prompting a reaction. I thought the video was really interesting because you could really see how they were challenging things.
The way that we connect is a limitation to not only our perception but also the perception of those we tell. Our voice online may not be our true voice. This expands beyond our limitations and broadens our horizons, if you will. There are no ways of knowing the limitless options and ways of thinking if we never explore beyond he walls of our own comfort. Enter subtweets and fake profiles and identities that we wish we had…
Both videos are weighing the pros and cons of the upcoming digital age. They are a view from all people who are kinda of over the hump. Given every generation will become more technologically inclined, i would still like to see a video from the future PhD’s who are to come 10 years from now. I bet they would have completely different views from the ones presented in the videos.
“…the illegitimate nature by which cora must be grasped elicits a wider perception of clutching and holding that involves more than the hands…” This caught my attention in the first video. There is such a wide variety of ways to perceive something. This hs never been broken down to me before, but this portion of the video, unlike some of the other parts really got me thinking about what is real. We only perceive what we want how we want and how we know how. But that is a limitation of ourselves created by ourselves. Media and digital Modes are creating the path to allow so many more perceptual categories and modes because we have never been able to explore them before.
I found it very interesting in the “Virtual Community, Virtual Immanence, Virtual Exposure” video that they compare the internet now to how it was in the past. In the first few minutes of the video it was brought up that nowadays on the internet we share every aspect of our lives without really thinking to much about who might see it. I thought this was also interesting because my grandmother always insists that we do not share her picture on the internet because they don’t need to see her. Its weird how our mentality has changed since then. AS they were talking about later in the video, the internet used to be a way to express ourselves, but now we use it to gain popularity and to conform to the standards of society.
I feel that this helped to explain electracy because we are now better able to understand how to communicate thorough media than we ever were before. This also greatly depicts our digital identity.
I like this perspective of us being better communicators because of our ability to actively participate in networking. I think the concept is a perfect start, but also I think this idea that people are not capable of keeping themselves from overusing this networking source is a big problem. The fact that your grandma has that mentality is also interesting, I think that is a big example of how the virtual world shapes the way we as humans perceive the world. Cool.
I thoroughly enjoyed “The Dancing Floor”. They question why some photos evoke ceratin emotions and others are “just there”. For me, the picture of the flying man from 9/11 evokes a lot of emotions and I think that it probably does for most Americans that know what it is from. Having a shared experience, common knowledge of an event makes it more personal and real. Cultural is a huge aspect of this. They comment that this ability to “spread” images, ideas, notions all over the globe can actually create a sense or value of interconnectedness. One thing that is really interesting to me is that again, this is a cultural notion. Living in a first world country, we have constant and consistent access to the internet which gives us the ability to look into other cultures through this paradigm. But, there are cultures in third world countries that do not have any access to the internet even though their pictures may be floating around. This is a bizarre thought to me. Are we really more interconnected or do we just think that we are?
I felt that “The Dancing Floor” did not speak as clearly to me as the “Virtual Community” video did. I related to the first video’s numerous speakers which all had their opinion on whether a virtual portal that we all enter every day is positive or negative. In some ways, it allows you to build your connections, but can also act as an impediment. For example, people make connections on social media and then build a reputation for what they post. If people enjoy what they have to say, it gives them extra opportunity for work or to propose more imaginative ideas. Inversely, we can become so enveloped in the social media that we forget the necessity of face to face interactions. I would argue that this post I’m currently writing is beneficial to my reputation because it’s relatively straightforward…But would my listeners receive a different effect if I were standing in front of them, speaking this?
The “Virtual Community, Virtual Immanence, Virtual Exposure” video talks about an imaginary communities creates an imaginary self. This is interesting because our imaginary communities could and do consist of groups on Facebook, or on Twitter or really anything. These are not technically real groups but they create an imaginary self because of the identity that one feels in this community. Virtual and media identity is an interesting concept because of how different people can be in real life than behind their “cyber wall”.
I too notice his correlation of a “cyber wall”. I also think this aspect of the virtual world is a little less scary than actually putting personal information onto these sites. I like the idea of this literacy where people find a line between putting too much information for others to see, and in turn making ones virtual self safe.
What fascinated me about the part of the video you are referring to is the notion that imaginary communities have a presence in and of themselves. Yes, they are a collection of thousands if not millions of individuals and their self expressed points of view, but to think that the greater “imaginary community” is an entity in and of itself (a single Internet with presence/and agency) is quite profound.
The Reid video was very interesting. I really like the main concept that they wer talking about, which is this idea of a literacy. I feel like I have somewhat thought about this subject, but I never really analyzed it from the point of view of the speakers in the video. Back in the day the idea that someone could their voice out there no matter how much they wanted too is crazy to think about. I think it is even more upsetting that now that we have the opportunity to speak, we do not utilize it in the right way, instead we find ourselves exploited by the market. I was just thinking, how much of this was the object of the person who created this “machine”. People believe they want privacy, but then put everything about themselves freely on this social site, because they feel like they are marketing themselves. I think this whole concept is fascinating, much like the tv show “person of interest” lol.
I really liked the idea of community in the reid video. Community is a shared space, and we use devices to access this space which is pretty much a whole different world. Then, within the community of the internet, there are separate communities you are a part of dependending on your interests, political identity, institutions you are a part of, things you find funny, and the list goes on. It was really interesting to me when they started talking about how everything is now a market place, and because we are always marketing something, our personal literacy is going down. However, I liked the Dancing Floor video even more because it talked about the reactions brought from things that occur in the world whether it be photos, posts, etc. As a photography geek, I find that certain photos evoke emotions that feel like they incorporate the entire body, so I really connected to this video. For example, when I see a photo from a terrorist attack, I experience a surge of emotion that seems to engulf my entire body. I was a victim in the Boston Bombings, so I can identify how photos can also bring up a surge of emotion felt during the time that you are remembering. Photos and videos are created to evoke some sort of reaction.
Do you think perhaps there is a reason that the inter-web has deformed into a market arena? I’m still trying to wrap my head around what could lead to this transition from the previous thought of web space that was more expressive in nature. Could it potentially be a result of outside influences, say the state that our market is in, the debts that are being wracked up in our personal lives as well as in our communities and governments? I believe that it has to be something along the lines of a collective expression/our desire to feel satisfied by attention or economic success.
The “Virtual Community” video was really interesting to me, it talked about the different levels of exposure people experience online and the vast network of information/communication we can access on the internet. Virtual community has become a mediated form of experience. Virtual communities are a way for people to expose themselves and their identity online. Availability of information is changing constantly and the numerous portals we can access it creates a lens to look through. Certain information can be used negatively in these spaces, and people often are not conscious of the true number of people that can access it. Online profiles are a result of an individuals direct external portrait of themselves that they share and change depending on the community.
I find in the video “Virtual Community”, the notion of establishing a literacy to help mediate how we see ourselves/form our identities in the virtual community to be a unique thought. I didn’t quite see how the evolution of ourselves from free expressionary people to a personal marketed self could be made until the point was about the evolution of social media from the precursors to Myspace->Myspace-> to Facebook was made. In response to the notion that the blogosphere has perhaps changed us to a more regimented/framed sense of individual identity, I believe that it is a result of our inner drives for power, presence, and prestige rather than a result of a virtual framework.
I thought it was interesting that Arroyo and Alaei compare the construct of language to the construct of dance model. It puts something that is less concrete into perspective when you relate it to something you do everyday. The dancing model is constructed from ideas where as language is concrete which applies to electracy as well. Language is the foundation for electracy just as steps are the foundation for dancing.