Week 8

This week in the lecture we talked about 4D space and Internet art. Internet art started in the 1990's and has been growing ever since. I found this concept quite interesting. Paul told us about the festival they had had in the university, and how that when they showed it on the web, the numbers dropped in the live lectures. This brought up the interesting discussion of Micro, Macro and personal space on the web. He brought up the point that students would rather watch it on the web than go to the lecture because of the simple fact in the lecture it is rude to talk and you can't really do it. This is true even in lectures that I have, you find that it is kind of an unwritten rule that you can’t speak. I think that watching it would benefit you more as you can share thoughts and debate with others around you, instead of sitting for 2 hours and slowly drifting off without learning much. In fact, if you watch it online, you will listen more. The myth of transparency is a rather scary yet truthful fact that we don't actually see the computer as it is, we just see this world of wide web that we explore daily. In fact we see it as part of our lives now, it's something we feel the need to do every day for even an hour, even more so now that technology has grown into the creation of mobile systems such as smart phones. As Paul said it's not a phone now it's a tiny computer with a phone in it and we can access and do pretty much the same things on our phones, as we can on desktops and laptops. Another interesting thing Paul brought up is the interface, such as new interface technology, for example the Apple TV that has been announced. It is expected to use voice recognition, so you won’t even need a remote. This is also happening with the Xbox Kinnect, that people are hacking into it and creating new interface technology whether it may be to improve the existing system or as a creative way to produce art of some sort. I think that technology movement like this is great and soon it will be in like movie's where you say a command like “computer create a new file called art” and it will do it all for you and respond with more options. It is a while off before this may be possible but at least we’re on the right path for this to be developed, anyway back to internet art.

Paul showed us an artist called Stelarc who is probably one of the craziest artists that I have seen. The fact that he got a 3^rd ear implanted into his arm so he could listen to his iPod is hard to believe. I find the question behind it even more strange, “What is our relationship with technology?” So pretty much to me from what Paul said and what I've looked at, this piece of art (if you wish to call it that), sums up our relationship with technology in that today, technology is a 3^rd part of us. I do believe this is 100% true and I do see the meaning behind his ear, but I just don't think it's that good. Yes, it is strange, out there and provocative, and I think he got a huge lump sum of money to do this. Yes the meaning and the ear is smart, but I believe it's a waste of money and just pointless. Saying that, I believe his other work is very impressive and captures internet art in a very creative and interesting manner. Stelarc had connected all these wires to each nerve in his body and they were then controlled by code. People could go onto a site, type these codes in and the commands would then run through the computer and into him, making him move uncontrollably. I found this crazy but I could understand the reason this time that computers will soon run our lives, which he demonstrated by letting people on the web control him. I think this is a good example of internet art, something that is being created in a personal space by someone at home and is still personal to others that are involved as well, yet it's not it's being broadcast all over the web.

The final thing I want to talk about is the exercise that we were made to do with secrets. Paul wanted us to create a piece of internet art in class, by writing a secret on a post it note then sticking them on the board. He would then take a picture of this and stick it up on the web; I had seen this sort of thing before in a music video for The All American Rejects- Dirty Little Secret. They got fans to write down on a bit of card a dirty secret of theirs and they based the video around that. When Paul said this you could tell everyone in the class was like “oh crap, what am I going to write”, “I don't have any secret's”, “ I don't know what to write”, when really we all did know deep down. We were either scared or not taking it seriously, although some did. I personally didn't, mainly because I was scared to be truthful in case one of the people either side of me seen it and then my class would know. This is again being provocative by making people be “out there” or not, I choose not to, which I kind of regret now. This piece that we created is a good example of micro and macro, in that it has some personal and serious things included but no matter what once it was uploaded it became impersonal and straight away it was being judged. We humans are judgmental people whether we want to admit it or not. Deep down it's a natural reaction and we tend to be more judgmental on the web. However if someone writes something personal, and it is uploaded to their personal space, if someone comments on it or passes it on, and it becomes available to everyone and anyone, is it still personal? Someone may judge you for sending them something and think “What is this weirdo sending me?” So anything we view and then send leaves the personal space. Overall I think internet art is an interesting thing but only when used in a creative way like Stelarc's dance piece, finally I would like to create one by saying that I wasn't truthful in the lecture so here is my real one now. “My biggest fear in life is failing and not being able to live a life that I know my abilities can allow me to”