Recently popularized by the Pokemon GO app’s introduction to society, Augmented reality works to combine or more accurately, layer the digital and real world.
I think that AR makes some of Jenkin’s literacies more crucial than others. In particular, I think that Simulation, Multitasking and Distribution Cognition are more prominent throughout augmented reality platforms. Augmented reality and Simulation go nearly hand in hand as augmented reality is to be interpreted and manipulated as another layer to the perceived reality of modern life, as it alters the perspective of AR user’s’ worlds. When confronted to an altered state of reality, especially in the case of AR, skills like multitasking are required to navigate the combined digital and real worlds successfully. Distribution Cognition is paramount, as the users of AR technology are interacting the with the technology as a tool, in order to achieve their desired outcome.
Even though Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are very different in their intent, AR having the purpose of adding to the perceived reality, and VR completely replacing it for its own reality, I think that Sachs’ argument about which is better has some merit, especially when you figure in all of the requirements needed for both Virtual Reality and Augmented reality. Though Virtual reality provides a completely digital, new reality, it does so at a price. VR works to completely remove a person from reality and completely submerge them in a digitally crafted fantasy, as such the equipment is excessive, difficult to maneuver as it blocks the user’s senses, and still at a stage where it is very difficult to obtain for the day to day person. AR however can be used with any device, making it accessible, can be enjoyed without inhibiting the user, and is something that anyone can obtain.
This was such an interesting project to take part in!
We started the project out with the division of roles, namely, buildings that make up Simons campus. This was a good process, mainly because we were all able to pick the areas that we were most familiar with For me that was Lady Eaton and Champlain, since I lived on West bank (“the best bank!”) for my first year and spent quite a bit of time exploring the area. Likewise Ramez was most familiar with Gzowski, and Kaiman was comfortable with Otonabee and Bata Library.
It was very interesting to see how we developed as a team and how we all had different styles that we wanted to adhere to while building.
As Zimmerman states in his essay “gaming literacy is based on three concepts: systems, play, and design.” and I fully agree. Through this assignment, I was introduces to the system, Minecraft and its limitations and possibilities, and through play and of course design, I tested this literacy and came out of this assignment with more knowledge and skills then when I went in.
I felt that this project strengthened my collective intelligence especially since, as a team, we needed to plot out land and keep track of resources and communication. I feel like we definitely improved in this aspect throughout the assignment. Multitasking was also a definite skill needed in this assignment. Im not sure about the others, but I was constantly juggling between my prewritten floor plans and gameplay, comparing, contrasting, and resizing all of my measurements as needed. Even judgement was used quite a lot in the preplanning process, since I was looking for different building plans that would display the measurements most accurately. Eventually I decided to go off of the images and sizing of Google Maps 3D version of Trenthere. Relatedly, simulation was something that I had to get good at fast, when translating the floor plans and estimated sized to something more suited to minecraft. And even then, I would change the measurements and add features and details as I saw fit, but graphing out the plans gave me a great place to start! And creating my own plans required quite a bit of visualization skills.
Champlain plans:
Lady Eaton Plans:
I think, that as a group, we did quite well working together to create our Campus. I, for one, am a bit proud of my creations. This was my first time building in survival mode as well which added QUITE the challenge to the assignment.
I would be excited to see the other group’s take on the project!
“We worship the aesthetic, but we do not have faith in it.”
– Mason Cooley
The “New” Aesthetic
As I see it, this is the utilization of digital concepts and imagery in the real world.
Used in art, fashion, architecture.. you name it!
An aesthetic, is a certain view of the world and perceived beauty, often judged on an individual basis. Basically a aesthetic is just a combination of visually pleasing variables combined together to create a ideal, satisfying image. As such, this ‘New’ Aesthetic is simply a combination of visual cues and patterns that appeal to a certain, growing demographic.
Broken down, the ‘New’ Aesthetic, and how it is displayed is simply a visual and artistic preference, not everyone shares the same preferences, and in this case, the idea of the digital world colliding with reality may frighten some, or seem less meaningful compared to the traditional associations with art and objects (Hardcopy vs digital photos). But at it’s base, this concept centres around common associations with the digital world such as the use of electrifying colours, geometric shapes and patterns, as well as the clever use of some digital visuals like pixilation. Just visual concepts popularized by the digital world, that are now being used and impressed into the world.
Is this a ‘natural’ perspective?
Nope. At least, not in my book. But I think that is where the appeal comes from! Its the opposite of natural, you would be hard-pressed to find this kind of imagery and perspective in the wild. And as such, it is the nearly forcefully clashing of two opposite mind states into one by combining aspects of both reality and technological abstraction. But its complete disregard for the ‘natural’ is probably why it has such an unique appeal.
As such, though this concept of the New aesthetic does have many futuristic elements and has plenty of room to develop, I feel like it can still relate to Lievrouw’s idea of the eventual combination of technology and society.
“The task for new media studies in the next decade in Internet time will be to bring these elements together in coherent, innovative accounts of the ways that communication technology and society constitute one another.”
-Lievrouw
Participation:
Built a WordPress blog with a completed ‘about me’ page as well as a test blog post.
Made a suggestion for the mine craft monolith and voted for it.
Answered a fellow classmate’s forum question in week one as well as submitted my URL in the introduction forum.
Submitted my own question to the Minecraft forum (even though I found the answer elsewhere).
Asked a question about deadline times in the Assignments forum
Posted link to blog in Blog URL forum
Kept up with and read all forum posts in the discussion board
As a child, I was always fascinated with astronomy.
Unlike others my age who only held similar interests because of popular movie franchises (you know the ones..) and mysteries of untraversed space, I was mainly drawn to the sky because of the stories and myths behind the constellations as well as the exciting challenge of being able to locate them. Since my family’s home is located deep in the country, far from city lights, I got accustomed to being able to view a clear star filled night time skyline every night from my bedroom window. Unfortunately, since moving to Peterborough for school, and now my Grandfather’s townhouse for work, I have seen very few starry nights as of late. Luckily, this course inspired me to search out a Augmented Reality app that could potentially rectify this, as such I eventually stumbled upon SkyView a AR app that allowed me, to an extent, to return to my stargazing tendencies. Though this app allowed me to view and explore the constellations, I found that I ended up dissatisfied with the app in the end. Though it does take the
“digital world and paint the physical world with that digital information” Mistry
I found that it was just not as interactive as I had hoped. A terrific learning tool certainly, and interactive to the extent of being able to physically direct the app to sections of the sky and seeing what stars are obscured, just not exactly what I had hoped for when thinking of a app about the stars that combined the digital and real worlds. I felt like there was very limited connection with the real world, and more that I was just reading information off of my phone instead of viewing the world through a melded lense.
The second AR app I found, I admit, I was quite excited for in the beginning, but after using it all I felt was regret. SketchAR, is a app that allows the user to display pictures in a simplified, drawable manner, and project those images through the camera, as a ‘guide’ for sketching.
As someone who has struggled with art throughout life, I thought that I could use this app as a tool, to help improve my realism artistic abilities, which I sorely lack, and tend to stick to abstraction. After using this app for awhile, I just felt like a cheater. I wasn’t creating art, I was copying it. Though It did provide an extremely interesting perspective on the use of AR and the projection of the digital into reality.
As for the New media Literacies that I found these Apps demonstrated:
Both apps were good tools for visualisation. SkyView through its displaying of information in a new and processable manner (the constellations and their illustrations were well displayed) yet, SketchAR also used visualization, specifically through the scanning and re representation of images in a more manageable manner. SketchAR was very strong in the need to multitask as I had to continuously shift focus from the displayed photo to my ongoing sketch. I felt that both apps helped me in developing distributed cognition, as I was able to interact with both apps as tools to further my knowledge and understanding of star placements, as well as my understanding of figure placements and traceability with SketchAR.
Though, I did not get personal satisfaction from these apps, they did open my eyes to the possibilities that Augmented Reality presents, specifically in terms of being a tool to help educate and teach.
Alright folks, time to talk about everyones favourite topic of the week:
BIG
DATA
So, I think it best to start off with some little bits of information that first time readers may very well need to understand some of the following verbal spew-age. We can start with ‘Big Data’; as defined in Manovich’s article:
“Data sets whose size is beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to capture, manage, and process the data within a tolerable elapsed time.”
-Manovich
Manovich also covers two other terms of data that hold importance in the following discussion; ‘Surface Data‘ and ‘Deep Data‘. The key difference of which being the scope of the data itself, with Surface data being about large amounts of people, and Deep Data being more focussed on smaller groups or individuals.
Manovich’s article touched on the idea of Big datas relationship with Surface and Deep data. Now, after reading Manovich’s article, I have decided that I believe that Big data has not passed by “surface data” and become “deep data” but that it has simply gotten to the point where the two have melded together, with big data having the ability to cover a vast range of people (similar to surface data) yet still maintaining the ability to be as selective of the individuals or small groups that are of interest. Though, this is also dependent on the types of data that are being looked at as well as the respective platforms. For instance, in Bruns and Weller’s article, the main focus of study was collecting big data sets from Twitter, in particular a wide variety of tweets, which could be analysed as a cumulative whole, as surface data, yet the potential to look deeper into an individual’s Twitter contributions is also there.
And indeed, Big data and its analysis have incredible potential.
Though it is true that all information (especially of Big Datas scope!) has the potential of causing both harm and good, yet I believe that the potential for good in this case outweighs the possible damage. In fact, Manovich stated some of the capabilities of Big Data within his article.
“Our ability to capture, warehouse, and understand massive amounts of data is changing science, medicine, business, and technology. As our collection of facts and figures grows, so will the opportunity to find answers to fundamental questions”
-Manovich
The impact on medicine and the possibility of improving of the world was what really drew me onto the side of Big Data being a force for good. I also had decided- before even thinking to judge Big Data- to look up some TED Talks on the subject. I wont pretend that I have any acute knowledge on the subject beyond class readings and some light personal research, but finding the following TED Talk really resonated with me and gave me a wider perspective on Big Data and its potential. One particular section that really spoke to me was when Charlie Stryker (the TED Talk-er) mentioned the effect that Big Data and it’s collection, analysis and availability would have on health care, particularly, the fight against cancer (Found starting around 3:55).
Now, my Mother had cancer a few years back, and though she was a surviver I cant help but think of how much time and pain could have been avoided if Health Care professionals had access to records of similar cases and methods that could have worked for her sooner, and left less side effects. Big Data could change that, making comparative information for cases available, perhaps show trends, successful treatments for similar cases. Limitless possibilities.
As is, every cancer treatment is different, working off of a trial and error basis until a treatment system that works for an individual against their unique cancer is found. And even then, most treatments are dangerous themselves and cause lasting damage all on their own, not to mention the time possibly wasted in order to find a successful way to fight the cancer.
Becoming literate in these different types of data, could change the world. Whether to solve world hunger, save lives, or perfect strategies like in Lowe’s article. The information is there, it is up to us to learn from the data and use it appropriately in order to gain the most advantage from it.
The potential is there, it just needs to be utilized and available to those who need it.
Firstly, I’d like to focus on the key traits or literacies that Jenkin’s proposes are needed in order to fully and successfully participate in our new media landscape. Such literacies as Play, Performance, Simulation, Appropriation, Multitasking, Distributed Cognition, Collective Intelligence, Judgment, Transmedia Navigation, Networking, Negotiation, and Visualization.
Though I would consider myself generally competent in these literacies as a whole, I tend to have a bit of (read: huge) weakness in the multitasking section… For example, while typing out this post right here, I may have definitely found out that E-Bay had a secret section for the purchasing of exotic tree seeds and gotten lost on that site for a while, and then got promptly drawn into Tumblr for a while, and then Facebook… It’s been a while…
Now, personally, I think my strong suit primarily lies with the ability to play. I love figuring out the mysteries of the different platforms that I am exploring! Be it website, game, or other. At the moment I am trying to figure out how to create art on FireAlpaca, and boy howdy is there a lot to explore. I’ve been exploring it for a month or so now and just.. There are so many layers, so many brush textures.. It’s a tricky platform to understand for sure, but I keep going back and I keep trying. Even though I’m not always happy with the end result, I am learning every single time, and I see improvement. It’s rather satisfying.
Okay, moving on.
While watching Wesch’s Ted-Talk about today’s youth and the importance of being knowledge-able instead of knowledgeable I found that I could not really disagree. I would value being taught differently, and in such a way that I would be able to actively use the knowledge gained throughout my life. Was Welsh fair in his statement about youth and especially university? Normally I would have to say that if he was not a member of the group that he is criticizing that it would lack the objectivity or understanding of said group. Yet in this case, it seems like Wesch worked very closely with his students to get their opinions on the matter, in particular, University.
Wesch’s comparison of Postman’s Television and New Media really rang true to me, and brought back Marshall Mcluhan’s idea of “The Medium is the Message” especially when Wesch states that it can potentially mediate relationships, cultural conversations, controlled by the few to the masses, make all content,even the serious and important information, entertaining. And the fact that these one way conversations through the television or otherwise make it so that people need a large often unattainable platform to even have a voice, is terrible. Even though new media is quite different to the television era, most of these ideas, to different extents, of the manipulation of the users are still relatively accurate. This only serves to strengthen the idea that media literacy and awareness should be more widely taught and stressed to the masses ( so that we can all avoid a 1984 (Orwell) type scenario).
Work Cited
Orwell, G. (1949). “ Nineteen Eighty-Four. ” London: Harvill Secker
I’ll be completely upfront, this entry has very little to do with this week’s readings, and more to do with figuring out how this blogging platform works. As such, I simply wish to caution you -the reader- that you should not feel obligated to continue reading (unless you want to see some interesting music videos that rely on technology to challenge the traditional method’s of music making..).
After having watched the video Dub FX 18/04/2009 ‘Made’ that was attached to the Week One: What is [New] Media [Literacy]? blog, I was reminded of some other music/technology related content that I had previously viewed, and thought that posting about it would be a good chance to experiment with WordPress before having to submit actual course material and responses.
Also, who knows, maybe these links will interest someone else.
Since I am (more or less) familiar with some classical forms of music making (ie. completely hands on, traditional instruments ) and am aware of how difficult it is to understand the theory of music, I’ve developed a huge appreciation for musicians who are able to incorporate technological tools like the Loop pedal into their performances, and musicians who are able to manipulate sound through technological means in order to essentially, create their own unique sound.
Below is a video of a skilled street performer who uses a similar Loop Pedal/Station as was in the ‘Made’ video. What I find most impressive about this musician is his ability to fully utilize his instrument and it’s noises as he can be seen plucking strings and knocking on the violin’s body, among other things to create unique sounds. Perhaps unlocking more potential for the instrument then could have been achieved without the assistance of sound modulation and samples.
Below is a video featuring a ‘Finger Drumming and Performance Controller‘ that can be used to manipulate collected sample sounds to produce original music.
Any instrument… Any sound…
Endless possibilities…
Well, that was my first, rather pointless and (extremely) loosely content related test submission to this new blog.
I hope that you have gained something from viewing this , reader, whether it was a renewed appreciation for music and it’s evolution or just a song stuck in your head.
scepticalsarah 