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.