trees are people too

In researching our man Tom Sherman, one of his research interests is ‘the economics of information and attention’.

There is a lot of discussion about the nature of media changing our attention span, or is it vice versa? This is particularly pertinent in advertising, but is becoming more and more relevant in other media such as tv, in which shows are being downsized into snack sized ‘bites’, programs that last between one and four minutes long. Maintaining the viewers attention is becoming more and more difficult with an increasingly fickle audience.

Considering all this, I just couldn’t help my amusement at my reading of this story on stellar news satirists theonion.com, and then discovering this today on BBC.

Our media is changing, and if it is not for the better, it is certainly for the quicker.

SO, moving on. Lets make a book a blog.

My two primary features of a blog were that it a) has allows the user to interact and customise and b) that a blog is transitory, temporary and constantly changing and updating.

So, for a book, video or audio to be more blog-like, it might possess these features:

Keshanee also mentioned the fact that books (as blogs) would be searchable, you would be able to search through all content for what you are after, which is a fantastic point I hadn’t thought of – the interactivity should let us control where we go and what we want to see….

This is just a few, among many many qualities of a blog you could argue could be applied to the mediums of books, video and audio. Hopefully all my indulgence in blogs will lead me to more.

BUT having said all that, I might also make my blog slightly more book like, in that it can be marked… technology such as this already exists (and is great fun) in ‘whiteboard’ websites such as skrbl, an online collaboration tool.

Maybe? I don’t know. As far as I am concerned, the more involved the better. bring on the remix.

Books (including video and audio) and blogs. Both can contain text, both convey information and both are ‘read’. So why are they so different? Lets start by defining and analysing both.

book: physical, fixed shape, size, format, tactile pages bound between covers, usually linear, usually sequential, text – alphanumeric, printed, pictures, cannot be edited, as a material object will wear and degrade with time, although can be updated periodically (but usually at lengthy intervals)

blog: immaterial, intangible, temporary, transient, flexible, nonlinear, nonsequential, multilayered, customisable, editable, can combine all – video, audio and text – in an interactive environment, essentially timeless in terms of availability (will not wear, degrade, can live on for an indeterminate amount of time on the internet), updated regularly and constantly (and can be updated almost immediately)

So aside from the physical qualities of both (one might put this argument between a blog and an ebook) the primary differences between the two ‘texts’ is a) the ability to interact with a blog and b) that a blog is transitory, temporary and constantly changing.

A blog can be read in any order, can be customised, edited, can have many authors (including the reader) and can include a number of different media in the one location at the same time. It is interactive and multilayered. It is also constantly changing, due to this interactive quality, and due to the nature of the media it can include (hyperlinks, comments etc) and of the internet itself.

So how on earth can I get my book, video or audio to be more blog like? What qualities does it need to possess?

All I can think of at the moment is Penny’s computer book (remember? Oh, how I wanted one!!), but I will address this pressing matter asap.

In class today we established the correct Tom Sherman. There are a few, and there are also a few who are prolific video bloggers it would seem, so it’s nice we worked out which one it was. We have also set a regular meeting time for us to meet as a group and action, er, action plans. This will be each monday between the lecture and the tute for one hour. We can review if we need more time, but hopefully we will be so organised and brilliant that this will work ok.

We did a graph on strengths and weaknesses, which offered some insight into who might be suited to doing what. We seemed to have quite a diverse range of skills in our group, we just have to harness them and work together as a team and we should have no problem putting together a good wiki.

My first concern is in regards to contacting him. Sure we can send him an email, drop him a line, write him a letter, but what exactly are we asking him. Is this a conventional interview, or something more lateral. Will he talk to us? (lol)

Brief says that we will develop questions in class, so I am sure it will all become clear. In the meantime I am just reading up on him and checking out his productions, writings and musings on the web. And gazing at the blank iiki.

Creativity
This is going pretty well so far. The weekly tasks keep me producing (whether I like it or not) and this has led me to try and create in new and different ways. i may be creating utter shite, but creating I am. This would indicate that I am pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. Oh good on me.

This also has led me to learn new skills through creating, as I hoped it would. I want to try new and different techniques (repeating the same practice for every weeks task would be a bit dull) so I have already ventured out somewhat. Nothing revolutionary, don’t worry. So….good so far. I was a little ambitious saying I would create 2 pieces outside of course work, but perhaps if you could call blog posts a form of production or piece, I am currently having no trouble blabbing on my blog. I might review the creation of additional pieces outside of course tasks to one, and state that a good blog post or images (photos, sketches) or even brainstorming could be considered a ‘piece’.

Exploration
So easy. So excellent. We can’t the entire course just be based on exploration. ha. I am finding it easy to access/explore at least one or two new resources/references/even plugins each week to expand my knowledge and skills. But this bit is fun, and there is so much info out there. Subscribe to a couple of good media blogs and it is all at your fingertips. So this one doesn’t really count. :P

Discovery
As above, my discoveries are the fruits of my exploration and I am having no trouble indulging in this. I guess the trick here is to keep my ‘discoveries’ (ah, intrepid explorer) relevant. It’s easy to get sidetracked. Tay Zonday is perhaps not as relevant to the internet’s outstanding ability to disseminate information as I first thought. But going ok. Discoveries a plenty.

(n.b. Exploration and discovery so far so good, but I would imagine as the semester gets busier it might be a little harder to keep on top of my personal criteria. Therefore I grant myself a slight respite in later weeks or very busy weeks, but I with my addiction to rss, websurfing etc, I am hoping I will want to keep exploring and discovering, thus keeping on top of it.)

Risk Taking
As I am the only one who knows my own boundaries, capabilities and my fears, I am so far pleased with how this is going. I still want to die every time I see a post or production of mine appear on mog, but I am keeping at it. Not a big deal for most but a big deal for me. I am hoping it will become easier, and while I sometimes feel gung ho, I know I have a way to go. The ambition would be for this sort of involvement/risk taking to be quite natural by the end of the course. It’s getting easier, so perhaps I am heading in the right direction.

Wizard for now, but there will be updates and further reviews I am sure, and moments when i think that I have made a terrible mistake.

Righto. As Adrian instructed, I went off like a good girl to try and install the OPML file so I could have blogroll of all of integrated media on my blogs. I have had some problems with my blogroll before, however, and so I had a sneaking suspicion this wouldn’t work.

Sure enough, downloaded from mog, uploaded into my blog and….nothing. I am not one hundred percent sure, but I don’t think the theme I am using supports a blogroll function (it is pretty old). The last time I edited/changed my blog roll, I had to go into the theme editor, open the sidebar section and edit in my links manually. Time consuming stuff.

Of course, being the misoneist that I am, I am loathe to get a different theme, and that is why I have no fabulous new blog roll.

I’m going to ask Adrian in class if this is just me being daft, or if this is actually a possibility. Perhaps if I could somehow extract the urls from the opml file i could just copy and paste them into my sidebar?? Putting them in one by one seems tooooo time consuming though, so for the moment you will just have to deal with the current blogroll. It’s still very tasty.

An addiction to RSS has been mentioned. I have recovered somewhat, but seem to have occasional relapses. Some days are good, others are bad… just taking it one day at a time.

I wanted to share/mention a couple more blogs/sites that I have subscribed to and am enjoying. They are all media related, mostly new/digital media, but some are more business oriented than others. As such it’s sometimes a bit dry, but also really relevant as inevitably one day we are going to need to present out media skills in something of a business sense, i.e why we should use this media, how this media will generate views/customers/profits etc – sell ourselves and sell our skills, if you like.

So, check these out to be prepared for business time.

New media (and literacy in it) is becoming a powerful business tool. Corporations are paying close attention to rising trends such as user generated content, and are trying hard to harness the power of web 2.0 (in fact, web 2.0 is defined as such because of the way it has changed business operations). It’s good for us, therefore, to know what the f**k is going on with media in an practical business sense.

Hopefully i will add more as I stumble upon the, but seriously if I don’t stop reading RSS feed and doing some work, I am never gonna get this course done. ha.

(In hindsight this is probably a pretty superfluous post, as there are literally millions of blogs and articles out there on the web talking about these issues, and you probably already know about at least a few. But this is my blog, and I do what i want.)

in my media researching I have stumbled upon the heinous. I introduce to you: Generation C. Uh-huh.

I had only just recovered from the pleasure of discovering (through research, I assure you, not personal experience :cough:) the wonderful attributes of generation y, the children of baby boomers who are all about individuality, self expression, cynicism and celebrity, and who are (were, sorry) the most technically savvy generation in history.

But apparently there is already a new generation, all strapped up and ready to supersede.

It’s not Generation Z or the internet generation, as I so foolishly thought. No, Generation C (the C stands for the Content Generation) is the new and latest generation defined by ‘by trend spotters, media commentators, technology industry observers/CEOs and semioticians‘ (now we know who is pigeonholing us).

The interesting thing about this generation is that it is less defined by its social demographics – in particular its age – and more defined by its media habits. This is outstanding – rather than a generation being defined by its habits (and media and communication playing a crucial role in this definition), media itself is now defining an entire generation. This is not about our values, our desires, our emotions (although I would like to argue they are reflected in our media usage), this is about how we access, process and disseminate information, how we communicate.

Generation C is a group that ‘creates, produces and participates in news and information in a connected, informed society’. That’s us!! Us, the prosumers. Anyone who is engaging with the digital age really falls into this category by default, and therefore Gen C spans across numerous generations. A space for all ages.

Generation C is composed of those who are literate in Web 2.0, digital media and digital networking, and those who create user generated content – which is most of us, if you have commented on a blog, submitted a video or photo to a website or contributed to a wiki.

The whole definition captures the incredible phenomenom of user generated content, websites such as youtube, wikipedia, flickr, even facebook and myspace, and the avalanche of content that consumers are producing. As noted here, Generation C needs to be able to media multi-task to survive, and we, as media practitioners, need to be spectacular at this.

So right now I am writing my blog and trying to watch TV at the same time. Genius. Well, not exactly, but you get the idea. The way media technology is advancing will change not just how we communicate, but how we interpret and create, as I discussed in a previous post about video.

In the past six months I have learned at least three new media skills, and I am applying them regularly, be it thrashing delicious, writing html or finding the record button on my phone. or the shut up and post button on my blog. I guess that makes me Gen C.

More on UGC next time, which is where I was heading with this.

In his manifesto, Vernacular Video, Sherman is passionate about video and its development as a medium. I had never really considered it this way.

‘Video is now a medium unto itself, a completely decentralized digital, electronic audio-visual technology of tremendous utility and power…not the exclusive medium of technicians or specialists or journalists or artists – it is the peoples’ medium.’

Not only accessible to more receivers than ever before (and increasing), video can transmit a message more efficiently than any other communication system – instant playback of recorded events viewable almost immediately. More than stop, start and rewind, this is upload, download, edit, alter, define, contribute and dispersion of a medium and communication system like never before. And everyone can use it.

All surfaces? I like that. The world is your whiteboard.
It’s actually all pretty incredible, really. 25 years ago you would be lucky to borrow a friends home camcorder that was size of a house for dubious ‘wedding video’, now every person at the wedding will be recording it.

Of course, these are not examples of video in its most artistic and literary form. But as Sherman notes, the change in the technology is altering the form of video itself, and this in turn will affect video as art. The evolution of the technology offers development in video art that is unprecedented among other media. the possibilities are endless, in terms of customisation, collaboration, experimentation, creation. it’s exciting, whether perceived from an artistic, cultural or informative sense.

‘…the twenty-first century will be remembered as the video age’, and it’s available on your mobile phone, right now.

(n.b: a rambling first reflection. excuse me)

for our group assignment we will be compiling a wiki on thomas sherman.

wiki: defining a wiki

(n.) A collaborative Web site comprises the perpetual collective work of many authors. Similar to a blog in structure and logic, a wiki allows anyone to edit, delete or modify content that has been placed on the Web site using a browser interface, including the work of previous authors. The term wiki refers to either the Web site or the software used to create the site. Wiki wiki means “quick” in Hawaiian. The first wiki was created by Ward Cunnigham in 1995.

More at wikipedia.

Thomas Sherman is an artist and writer across a wide spectrum of media: video, audio, radio, performance, books, magazines, weblogs and listservs. He is a professor in the Department of Transmedia at Syracuse University in New York, and was awarded the Bell Canada prize for excellence in video art 2003.