HW#2 Reading – The Medium is the Message

Marshall McLuren presents a strong argument in this reading.  One of his main points is the vehicle that is used to deliver a message, is also a message within itself.  There is no way to separate the two.  I agree with his thoughts on this. Communication and the sharing of knowledge has long since been a source of power throughout humanity. There are many factors outside of the medium that impacts who actually can receive the content. From economic status to, cultural bias and available resources.

Media marketing people and advertisers know these concepts already. It’s not only about creating the best ad or commercial. You need to know the demographic you are trying to reach. Displaying something on a large billboard sends a different message than putting it in guitar magazine. How content is delivered to you can greatly affect the message you receive in it.

But can the same message be “good or evil”? Is the data neutral and the intent up to the consumer? The author seems to argue against this sort of neutrality. For example, referencing a firearm as a neutral message and the user deciding on it’s morality. I personally am a strong believer of context. There are situations where a medium can only be used for its intended purpose.

At the end there seems to be no such thing as unbiased information and we need to be aware of how and what is delivering this content to us.

Networked Media HW #1

Link to “firstserver”: http://174.138.50.174:8080/index.html

Response to Vannevar Bush’s As We May Think:

One of the most surprising things about this article to me is the date it is written. It was interesting to read Vannevar recap the current technology
in the 1940’s and make such bold predictions of how they could potentially
evolve.
My favorite prediction was the memex. He realized thanks to compression and improvements of reproduction methods, we could have volumes of data available at our desk. Then have it projected on a screen on demand.
To hear about how state of the art tubes were at the time made me think of these large machines served a limited purpose.
The focus of the article is really regarding passing information to peers and future generations for scientific betterment. Improving technology mean improving the quality and types of records we can create.

Pitch for Illuminated Acrylic Art

This was my midterm for Piecing It Together. I created a layered illustration using the artwork from a videogame character. It turned out well despite having some issues with alignment of the sheets.

I decided to continue with this method for my final but using my own art and resolving some issues like alignment and being able to easily display the work.

My solution was to make sure every artboard can easily be related to eachother. By creating holes near each corner, I can make sure all the paths are aligned and also a washer, nut and bolt combo to keep the piece together at the same time.

I used a digital painting I made for the final. Among a lot of the feedback Eric gave, he recommended using a light source for the final. So I plan on attaching LED strips to the edges for some dynamic lighting using an Arduino and touch sensor.

Longer explanation than submission.

I am confident I will be able to finish and put fine touches on this by next week.