So the whole idea of the Mac’s with the Pentium Processor made me really excited the fist time that I heard about it and I am a PC user. Then I was reading the NY Times and I saw an artical called Windows or Mac? Apple Says Both written by John Markoff. I don’t know if I am the last person to hear about this, but am I the last person to hear about this? The idea of a one computer using both programs is pretty awesome to me even if I would have to shut down one program before turning on the other. I told my roommate about this and she didn’t care. Her response was that she just wanted a computer that worked… but she also chose to buy one of the new Mac laptops rather than replace her old PC. Maybe there are computers with that capability and I am just the last one to know.
April 9th, 2006
Today I had to leave class early. But I thought that I would ask some questions and see what I got back.
First, what is a rhizome? Form what I can gather, a rhizome “structure” has a main base, and from that many branches extend. The base is neither root nor branch, but eventually becomes one of many places where other “bases” connect to? I put a question mark on the end of that because I am not really sure how to describe it myself.
In terms of how this whole thing works on the internet… I am not really sure. I think that the freedom to “publish” yourself on the internet, but I wonder about how radical the change in values can occure. I started to think about blogs. I have a blog, and hopefully I have an audience that takes some value in what I say, but what happens when systems of self governing of blog groups seems to add a whole other system and grade for value of acceptability. I know that it sounds like I am babbling, so I will give you an example. I have a friend who enjoys writing. Sometimes she will use her blog to show what she is working on. Over the summer she told me that there was a LiveJournal Group Writing group. But you had to submit your entries to the creator, and then they would decide whether to allow you to post or not. She was frustrated by the face that they did not accept her, but comparatively horrible writers were being accepted left and right. I am sure that this was a small community, but I really wonder how often it happens.
Also, I was wondering about the affects of the internet on the entertainment industry, especially music. Today while listening to NPR’s Fresh Air there was a music review of Arctic Monkey’s, they apparently has gained most of its popularity on the internet. Well, I don’t know about that mainly because I have only heard about the band through old media sources (radio, tv, and magazines). But they have already sold 118,000 copies of their CD in their first week. All that I can wonder is how much of their success in CD sales can be contributed to the internet exposure? How much can be attributed to the multiple old media sources that told people like me that they were a good band?
February 22nd, 2006
Okay, if anyone has paid attention to the links that I have added on the side, but if you have you are proboly asking, “Why in the world is there a link to a Jewish reggea singer, and why is there a post catagory called “Visual Display of Religion?” Well, I am taking a course called Visual Culter, Art, and Religion. In that class we bring an example of a visual display of relition. So, this week it was the website of Matishyau. I had a lot of questions about the preformer.
Last week I showed webpage that commented on the large Jesus statue in Monroe, OH.
January 28th, 2006
Recently I have added trolling on the student Digital Aesthetic blog pages to my nightly web troll (e-mail accounts (yes, more than one), Facebook, Live Journal, NPR live stream and then the DA pages). There is something that I have noticed while looking at the pages of others. Mainly that there is a wide range of what people find to be “appropriate” and “not appropriate” to put on their blogs. I am not talking about the blog title that had to be removed, we all know what I am talking about, but other things. My favorite tonight was “Name that Fish.” As I tried to figure out what type of fish was on that smooshed picture I suddenly realized that I had no real idea why it was on a blog that we all had to make as a class assignment. Don’t get me wrong at all, I love it. In fact it made me feel that i should add some links that would make people want to visit my blog site more often. But I really wanted to know why did Professor Havholm want us to make blogs? Is this what he was hoping would come out of it, or a mixture of information sharing (the LMK entries), to respond to class discussion on our own terms? Or to just show what you can do with a blog? I don’t know. But I wonder if there even could be such a thing as an academic blog.
Oh, and as a side note, I would like to state that I resent my document Spellcheck for recognizing Google, but not Blog.
January 26th, 2006
I just realized that there is a movie that takes the idea of the director using camera angels to experiment with position. In the 1960 film Peeping Tom the killer films as he kills women with a “spiked tripod attached to the bottom of his camera”. Now, I have not seen the movie but I do know that it is pretty graphic. But I am sure that it is worth seeing, I am currently trying to gain the courage to watch it.
January 22nd, 2006
The aesthetic activity, which takes place in a safe and protected “potential space” where our own safety is not immediately threatened, harnesses the pleasure of exploring to the neediness and insufficiency that is its object, thus making our limitations pleasing, and at least somewhat less threatening, to ourselves.”
Nussbaum’s commentary on the “safe and protects ‘potential space’” allowing the enjoyment of aesthetic activity is evident in the many examples that she provides. Nussbaum states that art evokes a spectator’s emotion on varying levels. At one level the spectator images themselves placing themselves or loved ones interacting with the art. She uses the example of the shower scene in the Hitchcock film Psycho. Nussbaum uses states that the spectators anxiety is derived from the fear felt for the woman in the shower, or as the killer who is approaching. The audience’s fear occurs as they imagine themselves in her position. The spectator is able to imagine themselves in the potential space as victim, or even as murderer. In this case, film provides a potential safe space for spectators to imagine themselves in the positions of the subjects without experiencing any harm.
Nussbaum’s theory is also applicable for the creator of aesthetic activities. Writers, directors and others are able to use their mediums to explore ideas and feelings that they desire to experience or share. To use Hitchcock’s movie as an example, the direction that he uses allows the spectator to view the vulnerable Marion Crane from the perspective of the murderer. The affect of the shaky camera as it moves closer to the shower screen allows the spectator to place themselves in the position of predator as well as prey. Hitchcock’s direction allows him to explore the predator as a potential being. At the moment of the scene the audience is not completely sure who the killer is (or at least what the killers state of mind is) so it is possible that the killer may be anyone. Spectator and director (who actually is behind the camera at the moment the scene is shot). By directing from the killers perspective Hitchcock explores both perspectives without having to harm himself or harming anyone else.
However, what happens with the “safe space” is no longer perceived as safe for the spectator. An example would be as small as a spectator in a movie theater leaving during a long battle scene because they experience an anxiety attack? Or when a murder mystery novel causes its reader to sleep with the lights on? Aesthetic activities have potential to produce such imagination in the spectators that they sense that they will be actually being affected. Does that mean that those examples are evidence of exceptional works of art?
January 19th, 2006
I am Nicole, a senior English major who has no idea how to play most video games and just got my first laptop and cell phone this year. I feel like I may be out of the digital loop in a lot of ways. I have started this blog as a part of the course Digital Aesthetics and Literary Experience. I will use this to record and comment on what I encounter in digital technology/art/entertainment. Hopefully I will be able to come to conclusions about questions that I have. Such as, what exactly does digital aesthetics mean?
January 19th, 2006