Lecture 10: Web 2.0

Notes on Student Presentations:

Andy P

• Alice's "brain" is stored on a separate server

• although text only, the interactor has to write most of this him/herself so it's highly interactive
• the coding is elegant - xml driven language
  
• language is not just yes or no's but works with "categories" and "recursions": how much something is reiterated
• only in English right now
• Alice is not the only AI application, g.o.d: talk to god
• changes the space/time - talking not with a person but with code

Maxine

• Sessions.edu Colour Calculator
  http://www.sessions.edu/ilu/ilu_1.asp
• You first select a design and then a shape (square, triangle, etc.) to rotate around a colour wheel. The resulting colour values are listed as CMYK, RGB and HTML web-safe colours and you can either copy, download or email the number values. You can adjust the saturation and lightness of the hues
• different from a piece of paper because of the speed, and ability to try lots of different examples
• a bit limiting if you start off with a colour in mind and then it doesn't have it
• you can save all the colour information onto you clipboard
• they are all web-safe colours so not useful for print work etc...

Paul

• Fluid Forms - your unique designs
• designing your own products online
• "Personal tastes are as different as people themselves
  For this reason Fluidforms offers everyone an individual Design. Our website enables you to design according to your own preferences with but a few clicks of the mouse. Create your own unique forms, and bring to life your own individual Design"
• not enough human interaction, too limited
• long tail - niche marketing

Kieren

• Peter Howard - probability of racoons
• emote poem
• http://www.peterhoward.org/emotepoem/emotepoem.html
  
  
• java works on mobiles so could *easily* move this into a different environment
• also might show it on interactive white boards for use in galleries
• Uncyclopedia
• content here is usually hoax, jokes - look at the entry for "jesus"
• anyone can edit but according to rules - fits Strickland's number 7

Amanda:

• bbc bitesize
• Questionaut
  Journey through strange worlds and test your knowledge of English, Maths and Science on this magical mission to recover your friend’s hat.

For Next Week:

Create your own map like this for an area you know well: http://www.wayfaring.com/explore/live

Include:

• Something cultural
• Something historic
• Something personal
• Something for tourists
• Something only locals would know
• Include information about each of your waypoints

Lecture 9: Feminism, Narrative & Web 2.0

Activity in Pairs:
To Review your Reading

With a partner add this to your blog post:

• Explain two sections from Braidotti’s "Cyberfeminism with a Difference"
  
• Critically analyse Braidotti’s thinking (in your two sections)
• Define keywords which appear in your selections (such as postmodernity, post-human, irony)
• Fill in the exploratree form: http://www.exploratree.org.uk/c/?x=car38191958u406egg (1 per group)
• Include at least three links to resources that help explain or develop your interpretation (images/audio/video/reference)

Group One: Rachel and Andy P. - Introduction postmodernity
and Post-human bodies

Group Two: Max and Kieren - The politics of parody
The power of irony

Group Three: Amanda and Paul - Feminist visions on science fiction
The cyber imaginary




For Next Week:

• Read: "Born Digital: A poet in the forefront of the field explores what is—and is not—electronic literature" by Stephanie Strickland, found here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=182942
• Bring a born digital example from your field of interest (online architecture, pedagogy, design, holography etc…)

Lecture 8: Feminist Theory,Critical Thinking and Born Digital Fiction,Rachael Folds

The story starts with the line – “I was a man in the wrong place at the wrong time”. This immediate denial of his part to the proceeding story indicates to me that it must have been a woman’s fault as he essentially excuses all men from blame.
Braidotti when discussing post modernism describes the decline of the modernist hopes as:

“Symptomatic of these changes is urban space, especially in the inner city, which has been cleaned up and refigured through post-industrial metal and Plexiglas buildings, but it is only a veneer that covers up the putrefaction of the industrial space, marking the death of the modernist dream of urban civil society.”

The reader can feel the excitement of the character in visiting a structure that epitomises Braidotti’s description of what marks “the death of the modernist dream of urban civil society.”
This text on the whole, it is felt represents the male as being the all powerful and intelligent and when a man did not fit into this stereotype, he was then referred to as girl (whimpering like a schoolgirl) thus demeaning woman.
There were strong elements of male bravado, for example when the cabbie assumes that the problem Rick is dealing with must be “Girl Trouble” and his friend that picks him up(essentially saves him) had just spent the night with a glamour model. Also when Rick states that he “handed the driver two hundred quid from the wallet” gives the impression that even though he is unemployed he is still able to splash out great sums of money just to run a red light.
I feel this story further cements Braidotti’s view that there is an “ongoing struggle with language to produce affirmative representations of women” and in this short story females are degraded by consistently being referred to as:
1. Girls and not woman
2. Objects of desire - gorgeous Greek girl or mischievous little housewife or She had a spot on her chin the size of a dung beetle thus rendering her unattractive.
Even when he lands the job at the end, there is no reference to the Alexis being responsible for his good fortune, just a reference to her bedroom eyes, subjugating woman further.
With regards to visual imagery of women, the only image of a woman is that of a naked slim woman, which it is felt, was totally unnecessary.

Lecture 8: Feminist Theory, Critical Thinking and Born Digital Fiction, Maxine Armstrong

Rosi Braidotti’s “Cyberfeminism with a Difference”: http://www.let.uu.nl/womens_studies/rosi/cyberfem.htm

Born digital fiction from We Tell Stories: http://wetellstories.co.uk/

The 21 Steps, by Charles Cumming, is an adventure novel, based on John Buchan’s, The 39 Steps, which was first published in 1915. The story is told by following red markers across a map of Great Britain and is based on Google Maps. Extra features are provided by green markers which provide background information not directly connected to the story’s plot.
Braidotti’s call that we “need more complexity, multiplicity, simultaneity and we need to rethink gender, class and race in the pursuit of these multiple complex differences” does not figure much in this story. The characters are all familiar to the spy thriller genre that features a predictably male all-action hero.
Apart from the hero, Rick Blackwell, there is his girl, Alexis, ‘a gorgeous Greek girl’, who needs rescuing and so leads him into danger. Her father, Aristotle Vassilopoulos, who is both rich and powerful, runs a shipping company.
Although Alexis turns from being a damsel-in-distress into a femme-fatale she does not hold any power in the story, that remains in her fathers hands. Rick also makes it clear he is not in love with her.
Other female characters are described in overtly sexual terms. On the plane Rick sits next to a ‘mischievous little housewife from Manchester’, whilst the ‘very pretty possibly Eastern European girl’ had been making eyes at the hero. She is later found unconscious, laying naked on a bed.
The minor male characters include a bad guy who wears a pin-stripe suit with a ponytail, the tall, wiry, Greenmantle and the older mentor-figure who starts the game, Mr Jack Kalba. Rick’s mate, Danny, from college, is one of the ‘good ones’, trustworthy and helpful, we don’t get a physical description.

The whole story is narrated by Rick so we get to hear his views and concerns, but not any of the other characters. Although I enjoyed the way you could follow the game across the map, the story was quite predictable, as were the characters. As a story it has no depth, but then it does not try to be anything other than a thriller.