internet history etc...

My grandfather graduated from MIT with a bachelor's and master's in engineering in 1959, so the whole time we watched the film in class I was wondering if he had worked with any of those grad student/internet pioneers. of course he hadn't since most of that happened after his time, but he did get to use some of the equipment. I don't understand why it took so long for the government to relinquish control of the internet, but I remember how quickly everything changed after 1994. In fourth grade I was typing papers on my mom's word processor, but by sixth grade I was addicted to instant messager. on a side-note I really liked Ken Perlin's pad program, and I'd rather play with that than windows.

The garden of forking paths reminded me of two things: choose your own adventure books, and the short stories of Kelly Link. The choose your own adventure connection is obvious, but why aren't those popular anymore? I used to have a ton. Borges' writing reminds me of Kelly Link mainy because of the style, the way it seems to start in the middle, as a story within a story wherein the first story never finishes. Kelly Link doesn't introduce the reader to ideas of infinite simultaneous paths of labyrinths, her stories just give you a glimpse of something, like you're looking through a window at it.

The next great movement

In my History of Media class last Thursday, we got into a discussion about the great artistic, philosophic, and literary, movements of the 20th century--you know, post-impressionism, surrealism, dada, existentialism, deconstructionism...etc. When it came to the great movement of today, no one could think of one. The professor argued that there is no new school of thought uniting any artists of any kind in this day and age. After reading the second New Media Reader article, I have decided that "computer-based artistic activities"-- New Media, is the new school.
The idea that "new media is the encoding of modernist avant-garde" supports my theory.

I consider Borges, with his dreamscapes and irrational concepts, to be the father of the New Media Movement. Though Bush may have developed the precursor to the technology which enables new media to exist, it is Borges' ideology that led to the "artistic uses" for this technology--the very definition of new media.

After seeing Microcosmos and Winged Migration, and playing with all the toys on Ken Perlin's website, I realized how completely permeated with new media today's society is. New media has not only changed the daily life of nearly everyone on the planet, but it has allowed us to experience our own world in new ways (as in the films), and to create worlds of our own (such as the technology developed by Ken Perlin). Both of these are the aim of every cultural movement, and new media is that and then some.

WOW and all that cal

My personal experience with World of Warcraft (a.k.a. WOW) has led me to believe that games can ruin lives. While this genre of online role-playing games is an amazing technological feat, it's far too easy to get sucked in. I once lived with two guys who played WOW 12+ hours a day--no exaggeration. A trust-fund kid and a waiter, they would start playing around noon--by which time I had already left for work--and continue until about 7 am (the waiter would go to work for about 5 hours, then start right up again). These guys had spent years perfecting the skills of their characters, buying and building property, and forming "guilds" which acted like gangs terrorizing the other players in the game. During the occasional Sunday morning breakfast my roommates would tell me stories about the housewife in Oregon who joined their guild and helped them lead raids, and the basement-dwelling crew of 30-somethings in Nevada who became their rival guild. As amazed as I was to discover that thousands of people across the country seemed to spend as much time doing this as my former roommates, the most shocking revelation was that people actually buy and sell items in this game on e-bay, for real money! They pay real money for things that don't actually exist in the physical world!
There are those who would argue that money doesn't "actually exist" either, but I think that this trend is the beginning of something very bad. In Second Life where major "real" companies are selling their virtual wares on the game, I think I have found the epitome of wastefullness and excess. In some countries people work 60 hour weeks for a couple dollars, but in the western world we're so obsessed with becoming the God and master of our own virtual universe that we'll spend hundreds of dollars on....nothing, via e-bay.

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Hi. I am adele. This blog will be a series of weekly responses and research for my Digital New Media class.