Everything that has a begining has an end...

So I am now wrapping up my networked media unit with this final little blog post. I must admit this has been my favourite class of my first semester at uni, but what have I learned? I think really the most valuable lesson to be learned is that of the power of networked media. The more connections that you attach to your message the the richer it becomes.

With that in mind, how has my blog benefited from networked media?

To be honest not overly;

however I do understand why. I came into this unit assuming that there was some kind of army of social recluses who read all the blogs on the internet. This obviously isn't true; you have to stand out. My shortcoming was my belief that a nicely designed blog would be enough to encourage people to read. If I was to do it again I would definitely include more quick content. Rather than heavy blocks of text, photos and videos to grab people's attention and links to easily show what my interests are. Also some sort of facebook integration would be handy to channel some more traffic.

What was my valuable content?

2/18/10: Entering the blogosphere.

Understanding my interests and technology in an off-line state.

3/21/10: Perfect time to hit the blogs

Uploading and adapting my interests and ideas to an online world.

4/9/10: Love that site

Experiencing and understanding the full potential of networked media.



These three stages are reflective of my progress and understanding of networked media. I know use a collaboration of networked media platforms as a self promotional tools for my music works. I also use other platforms to advance and escalate my creativity and technique. For me, networked media is an invaluable resource.

Geo-disaster!

My geo-narrative is complete and I am quite proud of it too!

The strength of the geo-narrative is definitely twofold. Firstly you can develop a physical idea of the scope of a story though the distances travelled and the places visited. I used this to aid in creating the almost surreal nature of an empty city. The protaginist is a local and she knows the area well, when all the people are removed from the equation, she becomes confused. Disoriented in a place she knows like the back of her hand.

Secondly, I used Google Maps' ability to reference external material. Using images from flikr, video from youtube, blogs and other links I developed a sense of authenticity. You get the feeling that not only would this be a an accurate depiction of hypothetical disaster but you can also start to image these things happening in reality. I think this makes the geo-narrative form an excellent vessel for modern horror stories similar to mine.

Of course this kind of story wouldn't be relevant in previous years, with the advent on ubiquitous mobile technology and terror warfare this story could only work in the modern day. All the external material would be out of reach for the one girl to have in her pocket. Now, however, things like cameras, GPS, phones and note taking devices are all condensed into mobile technology.

This leads into what I believe is the heart of my narrative. How would these events unfold if they took place today? This is my take on the question taking into account cultural context: Mobile technology is everywhere, we use it everyday and everyone has access to it. We have even learnt that twitter can work quicker than an earthquake. It is the forseeable that we would use these devices to record any kind of disaster situation, which we do. In order to understand an event others too must view it through the "lens" of mobile technology.

The geo-narrative incorporates all of these aspects and that is why I used it to write and to tell the story that I did.

Progress!

The geo-narrative is coming along well! So far I have drafted my story (just need some editing) and taken my images. So currently I'm editing my images and mocking up a short video. I would like to build a couple of basic websites relevant to the story, however, I may condense these to blogs given my limited time allowance and other work commitments.

Rather than take a more full on zombie apocalypse story I decided to take a step back and make something a little more mysterious. I'm not going to go into huge detail and ruin the story but I tried to make a few connections, references early on which on make sense when you get the whole picture. I really hope some of the extra content, videos and blogs, etc. will help expand the narrative.

As far as technical progress, so far building the geo-narrative has been quite simple. The google maps interface doesn't take much learning. There are a couple of feature that would be handy, primarily, stringing placemarks together with a line without having to create a new line icon. However, these are all menial disruptions. Editing the images should be fairly painless as should video. Building other media does take time though, as mentioned, I believe I can make some effort and hopefully keep authenticity to a believable standard.

Back to work

Geo-Narrative?

So after seeing some of the previous geo-narratives in the tutorial I've scrapped the the dataviz idea.

I think the fact that the geo-narrative assignment allows me to really create something. I don't have the know-how to build a datavisualisation but the geo-narrative seems to me like a really interesting task. Linking various media types, I think, will make for a really cool story. I plan not only to use short bits of text and images but also use videos from youtube, websites and other links to really enhance my story.

My current idea involves ZOMBIE INVASION! We follow a night's adventure of a apocalypse survivor. Snippets of their story have been captured and mapped by mobile technology. Online video clips, websites, pictures and witness reports are all pieces of the puzzle. What caused the mayhem? Cane it be stopped and will our protagonist make it through the night?

stay tuned for more updates on my thrilling geo-narrative.

No sparks

Data visualisation, simple concepts, easy to understand but I'm finding it very difficult to find something special.

I've seen some very interesting and cool visualisations in the past week. I understand how dataviz' work and how they can show important information. The use of networked media makes sense, however, what makes a good dataviz great is so elusive.

Some visualisations use clever way of displaying info, focusing on creating a strong visual affect to empower data. The BOS average age dataviz we saw in the lecture is good example. One of my favourite visualisations has been WE FEEL FINE. It is the data which really made the visualisation come to life, it's something that no one would never discover by themselves. WE FEEL FINE allows anyone to actually take a close look and compare the feelings among bloiggers. Pulling data from most of the major blogging platforms, WE FEEL FINE has huge scope, creating an environment to pull apart the blogosphere. It's is really entertaining to use and the design and visuals add immensely. A variety of tools allow as much or as little exploration as desired. WE FEEL FINE is an amazing dataviz.

I however cannot think of a good idea. hopefully inspiration will strike soon.

website idea

Are you ready for a revolution in the way you search for images online?

Our concept emerges from the idea of viewing topics through a tagcloud and is enhanced using microsoft's seadragon software. Our website will connect visual artists; painters, graphic designers and anyone who uses image to send a message.

When A search query is entered into the website it will create a node of images. other relevant seach queries will appear around the central search. The nodes shall contain images, the most relevant or popular first, then as so explore further inside the node more images will appear. The same function will appear on surrounding nodes and accessing other nodes will display even more relevant nodes. This will allow the user to theoretically make their way through scores of images without having to re-search.


WImages will be streamed from supported image sharing sources using APIs as well as a dedicated host sever built into the website. Displaying images will also allow access to extended image information as well as contact information and links to other images (these will be displayed as a node also)

The end result is an infinite universe of images that can be explored. Browsing images becomes a much more interesting experience and users will become more connected and create a stronger community.

Love that site

I'm so glad I hosted my website. I've been making a few CDs of my DJ mixes recently but I'm trying to host most of my stuff online because honestly, who uses CDs these days?

Now by using the very web 2.0ey soundcloud I can share my music with aaaaall the world. My next step is to set up a soundcloud dropbox. This will allow others to send me music that they're listening too or making. Then I can play them in my DJ sets, sharing to even more people who can go to my website and give me their music. Time to harness the collective intelligence of the procrastinating youth.

Honestly this is one of the things I've been having trouble with in terms of music. Searching for new music takes a long long time and unfortunately this is something I'm not gifted with at the moment, the ability to pretty much outsource a lot of music searching to friends is going to same me big time.

Another problem I face is that after extended periods of time, you start to develop a strong idea of what you're looking for, so much so that you can overlook other great music that doesn't fit into your category. That's why I'm always glad to have a fresh set of ears to help broaden the sounds of my sets.

Aside from soundcloud my other fantastic web 2.0 tool is the ubiquitous facebook. When it comes down to it, bigger is better and facebook is the biggest. By hosting profiles to a huge majority of my target demographic, facebook allows me to share my music with anyone who cares to listen.

The features of facebook's artist profiles are fantastic. As the administrator I can actually pull apart my following into demographics and compared popularity between ages, gender, nationality, etc. I can see what aspects of my page are most popular (pictures, videos, etc.) and analyse activity over time. This is, I admit, somewhat limited in use with my narrow following but it is nonetheless fascinating.

Finally, my most loved web 2.0 tool is the soundcloud app for facebook. Now everyone can actually access my music from facebook. Allowing me to really tap into facebooks vast resource of social connections.

d-wils.webs.com

I have created an entire online exhibition to share my insight in the field of audio and visual performance. I have recently become immersed in a world of technology revolving around performance, the using of sound and light to create a place to detach from society. Most people come into contact with this style of performance at nightclubs, concerts and music festivals, however, is ever becoming more commonplace. Access to technology is becoming cheaper and now it is possible and affordable for many to start to create their own performances that can be showed at any sized event. Even in Canberra groups such as Univibes are getting together, pooling talents and resources to create amazing shows using sound, light and vision out of ordinary house parties. It is this subculture of technologically driven young people that I explored with this website.

Using my own forays into audio visual performance as a base I have created the startings of a knowledge base that people can refer to in order to understand and begin to learn about digital performance. It is easy to see the cultural context of this website; young people are always looking for new and exciting forms of expression. It only makes sense that the youth of today are interested in digital performance, considering that they have been born into a world where everything is slowly being digitised. Young people are constantly adapting, learn new ways of doing things digitally. From the humble use of the internet as a research tool, adapting to a new social networking platform or learning software to aid their learning, kids know technology. Explanation and understanding of this digital subculture should then come easily to a child of the digital generation. To polish of the website I added some other fascinations of mine which I believed relevant. I think what makes my website successful is the fact that it not only gives information about a wide range of topics but also the account of someone who themselves is still learning. A basic and broad understanding for the masses who know little.

I set out to explain not only the software aspects of performance but also how this interacts with the hardware to create a finished product. This obviously is not an easy task so building the user interface simplicity was key in mind. Not only did I want the website pleasing to look at but making sure my audience was not confused before they even read the content shaped the aesthetics of the website. Separating content onto numerous pages was an easy choice. I used style sheets to keep formatting consistent and created a sidebar for navigation using a table in the HTML. A link to my blog and facebook API were also included. The facebook page badge not only provided a link to my performance profile but also displays recent updates to my website. I look to expand the content on my website in the future, something I will do as I myself continue to learn more. I also plan to add a image gallery, probably using Flicker’s API, once I collate my images online.

Images used can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobysimkin/3787228445/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobysimkin/3787228899/in/set-72157621812928763/

http://www.casa-laserlight.com/images/laserlight_DCRV/DC-F.JPG

Perfect time to hit the blogs

I'm becoming slightly nocturnal,
maybe it's the not having early lectures,
the amazing univibes parties,
my DJing,
homework,
or my fascination with Keanau Reeves the insomniac hacker in the matrix
but it's working ok so far.

Instead of attending skyfire this year, along with 98% of Canberra's underage drinking population, I hit a crazy house party come music festival come night of mayhem. Organised by the amazing crew at Univibes (working out of the ANU) they had three stages of music, DJs, Live bands, circus acts, VJs and enough lights and speakers to fuel the 100s of people who showed. Truly a marvel of a night. Local music producers paqman and shifty business were a highlight. One of the best things was the atmosphere, it was a pretty small place which helped make it feel safe but also brought the craziness you can only get at house parties.

Hopefully I can relate this night somehow into my web page, I did pick up a few new tricks off the DJs and it really showed how much you can do with such a small area. Another great part of the experience is how the party worked well with the law, by starting at midday and only going till midnight the neighbours stayed (mostly) happy and I got a good nights sleep before work this morning. Great idea!

Next week you will be hearing about my finished web page, I might even send it live if I find an appropriate web space. Expect a feature length instalment of all the ins and outs.

wk5

time passes
time passes

It's all sinking in now,
blogs,
css / html,
the internet,
time,
space,
etc.

I'm mostly focussing on content at the moment, getting that website up to scratch, but lets review.

-Semantics
As we know there are many ways of achieving things in code, I would say there is no right or wrong way but there is semantics. Semantics make your website better presented under the skin, not only that, but they are important for anyone that wishes to go back and change things later. A web designer who has used semantics in their coding can easily change any number of formatting variable with ease as opposed to spending hours ctrl+ving "size = "14".

-CSS
CSS saved my life. I cringe at the mess my website would be if I were hand coding everything. The fact that I can format all my pages in exactly the same way without clogging the html with masses of code is great. I have 1 line referencing the CSS at the start of the html and I'm set. If I need anything specific I just need to call on my trusty div tag.

-Censorship
The government's plan for a censorship firewall is bogus estimates say that it will slow down broadband speeds by at least 30%! Australia already has one of the lowest average broadband speeds in the developed world. If the government wants Australia to stay competitive in a digital world ISP censorship is a big no no.

Now that I've had my little spiel on that I'm getting back to some real work.

Project A

My work on CSS and html has been continuing this week and it's starting to sink in. Using CSS has actually been really helpful for creating my multi-page design. By referencing the same style sheet I can make each page formatted the same and use div tags whenever I need a specific design aspect.

So now it's coming down to ideas on content, sharing my ideas in an interesting and easy to understand way. To start with I'm going to break it down into various sections and subsections. If I have time, subsections further.

Example of sitemap:

-Home Page
-Sights
-Lighting - DMX512
- lightings software
- types of lights
-Video - live video mixing (VJs)
- visulisations
-Decor - festival decor
- nightclub decor
- house parties
- Fashion - Dance fashion
- Club vs Festival vs Concert

-Sounds
-Dance music genres
- Music Production - synthesisers
- Live music - performance styles
- performance software
- technology

-My Exploits
-current fascinations
- links to/ examples of work
- current tech
- future prospects and goals
- link to blog


This design should hopefully allow people not only to find out what I'm doing but also where I'm coming from. Although it would be great to have a one-stop all inclusive package, I think providing links to information across the web will be better suited to my needs. A lot of the attention will be focused on my current forays, using the other info as a reference in understanding my direction. Most people are confused when I try explain why I buy so much technology, maybe I'll hook a few people into my fascinations along the way. The more I work on this task the more I'm starting to enjoy it.

{html}

I think I'm in a bit of a love/ hate relationship. Html is very fascinating, it's how the internet works, but it hurts my brain! Maybe I'm just lazy but I don't particularly enjoy sifting through masses of text to find out where I forgot to type a semicolon. I know you may think I'm being pedantic but I think it's probably emotional scarring from high school. My IT class was actually just a demonstration for how html can be used for the forces of evil. Never have marquee and blink tags been used in such frightening ways...

What really racking my brain is the first project. At the moment my plan is to create an almost portfolio for my electronic entertainment prospects. Explain and outline my experiments with sound and music, playing between genres and future production possibilities. Also looking into my lighting tech, how it works and how it can be expanded. Finally my goals and what I hope to with all my music and lighting.

The tricky bit is finding an appropriate home for all this info! Ideally, I envisage, a multi-page blog that incorporates plenty of images and colour but also houses facts not only on my own work but also a starting knowledge base for all the technology that I use. This would not only help in audiences understand better my fascinations but also give a starting point for anyone else interested in doing what I do.

Entering the blogosphere.

Hello Internet I have officially joined your blogosphere.

It's curious that it's taken me this long to start an online journal. My life has already gone digital in so many ways already, my music is digital, the films and TV I watch, even the half the books we read at school have now been digitised.

I think it is important, or at least very fascinating to find out how it all works though. I did have a brief understanding of how the internet was built networks, however, the info on packets and data transfer is great for understanding how my other technology works. Currently my music and lighting software and hardware uses DMX512 and MIDI to control assorted functions. To my newly acquired understanding, they both uses packets of data and their attached values to send and receive information between my PC and music and lighting devices.

One thing I would like to learn more about is bit rates. We have covered this somewhat in my Intro to Media Production lectures, but mostly in regard to images and colour. Perhaps I will do some reading on the construction of sound in a digital environment, how bits of data actually make up sounds. Hopefully it will be covered in one of the coming lectures too.