Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin suggests that “mechanical reproduction,” that is the reproduction of art, changes the reaction of the masses toward art. With such contemporary technologies nowadays, society as whole has unmistakeably have changed in the way that we react and view art. Technology such as, computers with CD/DVD burners; phones with sound recorders etc. have contributed to this age of mechanical reproduction. We can now buy Cd's, DVD's with recorded, that is reproduced, art work to either be seen or heard. There is now no necessity to visit a movie theatre or go to a live concert; we view everything on a digital basis.

At the time when art work was produced by a viewable and real medium, an artist or skilled professional, there was an evolving change in technology. With music, images, videos and or types of art work being created and reproduced digitally art has changed in a matter of meaning. “Art” is now not just a painting or a live concert or opera, it’s a form of everything around us. One could suggest that the environment is a work of art nurtured by a horticulturist, or the inside of a restaurant designed by a interior design. Art can be seen anywhere and everywhere we step our feet. However those artworks produced by real mediums are somewhat different to our digital forms. One cannot really connect oneself to the artist as we see these digital forms on TV, computers, and hear others on headphones or speakers. “Art” has changed dramatically and is for in some sense changed for the better in a way that art can be viewed or heard anywhere in the world via the Internet. Conversely digital mediums lose a sense or realism when loaded up onto one’s screen.

Other questions still remain as to whether a “photoshopped” image is in actual fact authentic. Some suggest that this new form of digitalised art can be called authentic in a sense that the final product is different from the original. It is a question of belief and or viewpoint to whether one to call a “photoshopped” image “authentic.” Most certainly many people would claim that a “photoshopped” Picasso painting is not authentic, yet a photoshopped image of a model for an advertisement would be suggested as most probably authentic depending on the audience.

Even though Walter proposes that digital forms do not consist of an "aura" one can suggest that it still consists of an “aura,” though is significantly diluted through the process of the art being transformed into digital media. For example the essence of watching a live opera is much more impacting than what it is to listen to the opera on one’s iPod. One’s reaction is substantially changed if one was to listen to recorded media rather than watch and listen to a real and live media. Digital mediums still form an “aura,” however; it is just an issue of how close one is connected to that “aura.” The digital form is just less aura-listic than the real original form.

Search Engines

How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?
Google is an example of this. The heart of Google's software is PageRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages' relative importance.

Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines dozens of aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

Some of my favourite search engines include Google, Yahoo, altavista, and hotbot. For myself Google and Yahoo are the ones I use the most. Mostly for the reason where they have given me better and more relevant results for searches. I think that such search engines as hotbot and what ever are quite underrated though and with more user awareness would strengthen their database and provide better results for searches.

Scavenger Hunt

1. Who was the creator of the infamous "lovebug" computer virus?
Onel de Guzman a computer school student, 24 y.o.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/06/29/philippines.lovebug.02/index.html

2. Who invented the paper clip?
Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian inventor with a degree in electronics, science and mathematics, invented the paperclip in 1899. He received a patent for his design from Germany in 1899, since Norway had no patent laws at that time. Johan Vaaler was the first person to patent a paperclip design, although other unpatented designs might have existed first.
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpaperclip.htm

3. How did the Ebola virus get its name?
Ebola virus was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) in Africa, where it was first recognized.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/ebola/qa.htm

4. What country had the largest recorded earthquake?
The largest recorded earthquake in the world was a magnitude 9.5 (Mw) in Chile on May 22, 1960.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/facts.php

5. In computer memory/storage terms, how many kilobytes in a terabyte?
There are 1000 000 000 kilobytes in one terabyte
http://www.riverland.net.au/text/look_first/gloss2.html

6. Who is the creator of email?
Computer engineer, Ray Tomlinson invented internet based email in late 1971.
http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/email.htm

7. What is the storm worm, and how many computers are infected by it?
"Storm worm" is a backdoor trojan horse viruses that affects computers running Microsoft Windows. Some experts have put the number of Storm-infected PCs at close to 10 million, but most estimates are more conservative, pegging the infected pool at between a few hundred thousand and a million or so machines.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/10/the_storm_worm_maelstrom_or_te.html?nav=rss_blog

8. If you wanted to contact the prime minister of australia directly, what is the most efficient way?
Vist the PM page of the Australian Government and email him there.
http://pm.gov.au/

9. Which Brisbane-based punk band is Stephen Stockwell (Head of the School of Arts) a member of?
The Black Assassins
http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/art/staff/stockwell.htm

10. What does the term "Web 2.0" mean in your own words?
Web 2.0 is a trend of technology that envolved on the internet such as email, blogs, and other internet communication based technologies. It is a web platform that can be altered. It is the concept where "anyone" can lodge information and such media on the internet with little limitations.
http://webdesign.about.com/od/web20/a/aa021306.htm

You can never really know whether or not your source is an accurate one. Most people regard political, gorvernment, media, scientific related sites as accurate sources. Contrastly these sites can be altered as easily as wikipedia can be altered and changed by anyone.

Alphaville

Some say this is a superb film, somewhat similar to 'Blade Runner', some say it is not. Whatever your opinion Alphaville has its place and tells a somewhat near future story. The film entails a mysterious "Outland" agent, Lemmy Caution who arrives in Alphaville, a metropolis controlled by Professor Von Braun and a massive computer system called Alpha-60. Dominated by Alpha-60's perfect logic, the citizens of Alphaville have lost their ability to think, to communicate, and to love. Lemmy Caution struggles to destroy the machine and rescue Von Braun's daughter Natascha.


Alphaville brings across themes of a controlling technology. It makes you wonder if this could happen in the future. Many of us would say, "As if this could happen," but think about it, everything these days are going online and are put into computer databases. Our bank details, birth certificates, passports, centrelink, university grades etc are all backed up by computers. Could this personal information ever be tampered with? Of course. What's stopping anyone!

Even now, programmers and IT experts are designing computers to monitor and learn from human behaviour. Playing games against the computer is just one example of this. You could say that sooner or later computers will be able to determine our next move even before we play it out. They will know our behaviours to minute detail, subsequently leading to a sense of hopelessness in most of us. Just like Alphaville we too can be "taken over" if we are not careful.

Why do you think we have hard copies or paper copies? Is it for our safety? Or is it just that we do not trust technology? What would happen if everything was digital? I could not fathom the thought of everything on digital technology even though this could happen in the future. Some people say the future is scary, but I think that not having control over your own future is scarier.

Second life?? How about GET A LIFE?

Been a while since that lecture but it has just started to bug me. 'Second Life' that virtual online game that seems to have taken some people by storm.

I have three words 'Get A Life.' Not to criticise too much but, the concept of people making characters that mislead who they really are and pretend to be sometimes someone they are not just annoys me. And some of them treat it like a job, designing clothes etc. Really, how much money could you really make?!? Maybe a few people make success of that and I say 'Good for them!' but not just open a real store? You would probably get more customers! Not just all those people obsessed with 'Second Life.' I see it as a game chat where you be what you want to be. It seems so fake to me. But that's just my opinion. I think I'll just stick to communicating with people in 'REAL LIFE.'

No friends!?!?

Of course not!!

No matter who you are you can always have friends. Some friends are real people in the real world, some friends are imaginary, some are virtual and some are online friends. No matter what type of friend they are you can still call them a friend.

Communicating with your friends and family is now more easy the ever. Mobile phones, video phones, online video chat, msn messenger chat are just some of the ways that we may choose to communicate with people we know. Depending on the type of person you are you might prefer one over the other for example. I tend to use msn messenger online chat much more when communicating with family. When you don’t want to talk you can ignore them! (Sorry mum). It’s quite convenient I think. On the other hand, when talking or chatting with friends I prefer to use my phone a lot more. Having a real conversion using voice means much more to me than just typing all the time and sometimes I can’t be bothered typing either.

My thoughts about a few questions.

1. Do you have friends whom you only know from the internet and have never met in person?

Of course I have but it is a rare case. They are usually friends of friends that were introduced to me through an online social network. For me, these types of friends are people that I’d love to meet but just never have the chance to. We have the same sort of conversations that my real friends and I do. The only difference is that there is no deep connection or strong bond that I have with real friends. You could say it’s more of a light friendship or even acquaintanceship.

2. How long have you been using these communication technologies?
I’ve been using communication technologies since as early as I can remember. The analogue phone for instance, and those old chunky mobile phones that are heavier than a brick.

3. What influenced you to start using these particular technologies?
More than what influenced me; it was a change in society that got me to use these technologies. It just becomes second nature to use them just because everyone else does.

4. Is privacy an issue for you when using new technologies? (How do you deal with issues around privacy?)
I think privacy is a big issue with msn messenger and other chat where you can save conversations and exploit people with them. No so much with mobiles phones but you really need to watch what you say when you chat. How do i deal with them? I try to be cautious of what I do online. You never know who is on the other end too!! The internet can be even scarier than real life.

What is technology? What is communication?

Communication and technology are intertwined with every part of our modern day lives. Some people say we can’t live without technology and communication. In contrast, some people say that we can live without communication BUT we can live without technology! An example of these technology so called ‘haters’ despise the way we use our mobile phones. They say we are controlled by them, having to ‘be on call’ 24-7. Despite the fact that sometimes these ‘haters’ maybe be true about the mobile phone controlling us, can we really live without one?

The answer for some of would be yes. I myself feel that my phone controls me in a way that I can’t enjoy the day. I feel naked without my mobile phone, and sometimes empty feeling of loneliness builds up inside of me because I left my phone at home and now can not contact my friends and so on. On the other hand, in the midst of forgetting my phone, I find that at the end of the day that I felt quite good, ‘one of the best days of my life’ I think, and am somewhat glad that I forgot my phone and didn’t worry about anything all day.

Worrying about communicating? You can never communicate too much, that is how we strive as a people. But communicating with another human being believe it or not can sometimes be daunting! Intersubjectivity, a theory that the listener interprets a message and changes it as they send it along. Every heard a story from your parents that were passed down generations? It would be interesting to compare the old version against the new version.Intertextuality is also another theory that any message gains its own meaning (for a particular person) from all the other messages that a person has previously received and sent.

My particular experience with this is messages sent on mobile phones. The use of emocons (the little characters that people add to messages to display emotions and feelings) had widely affected me in the way that made me feel about a person. For example, I often received messages from Japanese girls with little love hearts and similar characters. This threw me off and made me think that this girl liked me. However, this was not the case as I embarrassingly found out. She had only put them on just to make the message more pretty and cute!! Gee I felt sheepish!!

There is no doubt that most of us use these new technologies everyday and ultimately embrace them for our future lives. Without technology and communication where would we be? Maybe back in the olden days with the cavemen!! Who knows!? Technology has many mysteries.