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 8: Introduction to Feminist Theory

Log into googledocs and complete the activity listed here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgfvwnr9_59dkcrr5f5

• Key Theorist: Donna Haraway - her term "god-trick" for the idea that we can be objective, i.e. "see all from nowhere" but we've learnt that we're all situated, becoming subjectivities.
• Donna Haraway, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva develop the idea of “situated knowledge”: race, history, culture, gender, class, location all play important roles because knowledge is always constructed through who we are
• Haraway: “the crucial political action that women and people of other marginalized groups must take is to 'refigure the terms of that story', to re-narrate, to 'produce a female symbolic where the practice of making meanings is in relationship to each other, where you're not simply inheriting the name of the father again and again.’”
• Haraway's model = new forms of narrative do not simply subsume the old, but "widen the number and kinds of stories that get told and the actors who tell them."
• “Cyborg writing" as a form of oppositional consciousness.
• Critical literacy work is fundamental to critical engagement with larger structures of ideology & discourse, & to applying lived experience to an examination of relations of power
• Situated knowledge is postmodern, i.e. remains resolutely dynamic
  
  

The links you'll need:

Rosi Braidotti's paper is here: http://www.let.uu.nl/womens_studies/rosi/cyberfem.htm

and I'd like you to choose one of the six born digital fictions from here: http://wetellstories.co.uk/

Any questions, remember to e-mail me: jlaccetti AT dmu.ac.uk

I'll look forward to reading your critical interpretations. Keep in mind these parts of the critical thinking process:


The image is from a presentation by University of British Columbia, Okanagan education professor Phil Balcaen. Have a read here for more information on critical thinking that adds to what we discussed in last week's lecture.

In the white darkness by Reiner Strasser: Maxine Armstrong

I watched all the pieces, but the one that moved me the most was ‘In the White Darkness’ by Reiner Strasser.
The title suggests that it is about losing memory and things being blanked out, as in a snowstorm. I have not heard of the author before and although I have seem interactive pieces before, they have had a more linear storyline.
“It assimilates and reflects the experience with patients fallen ill with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases, showing the fragility and fluidity of memory from a subjective point of view.” (Strasser, 2004)
The interface is a grid of dots that you select to view text, photos, audio and videos in random combinations. Any number of combinations can be played together and a few are suggested for you by the connecting lines. Not all the dots trigger a response which to me was like the memories that have already been lost.
As images split and fade it gives you glimpses, not really stating anything, but just hinting. It made me think how dementia can cause your memories to escape and you try to reach them but it is no longer clear what sense they once made. It raise questions over what makes a persons identity if they lose their memories.
“We build our history thru the experience of our life
Do we loose our history when we loose our memory?”
The way I view a text defiantly depends on whether I view it for ‘fun’ or ‘research’. For ‘fun’ I am hoping for an enjoyable experience, for ‘research’ I am looking to increase my knowledge or understanding and usually I expect it to be stressful.
I am not sure of the genre, it might be a memoir as the artist, Reiner Strasser, collaborated with Marjorie Coverley, although I am not sure if it is based on her actual memories, therefore it could be interactive fiction or a visual novel.
I do like this text as I think it is quite effective. It reminded me of my grandmother who lived by the coast and suffered from Alzheimer’s.
I think more sound would help – perhaps music or the sounds of the sea. I was surprised by the oriental music and writing as I could not see how they fit with the rest of the images used. The ‘author’ uses images of the sea, beech, waves, coastline, sunsets, etc. but they are all fleeting. Few words are actually used.
I guess that some people may not understand the point of this piece and be unfamiliar with interactive works.