Okay, in my rational mind, the one over-educated in the school of 1-3rd wave feminisms, pop culture, and marketing, I know that Facebook doesn't really know how much I weigh, and how much weight I gained since moving to Cambridge, where I subsist off pub food and carb-y beer. But it's really, really, really hard not to believe that their ad-targeting is configured by spying on me as I lay on my back trying to zip up my old size 6 okay size 7 jeans.
I mean, everyone whose FB profile says "female" gets these ads, right? It's not just me, right?
I finally, after talking about it for so long, wrote the block of code that can interpret XML files to control various video parameters in Processing (thank you, proXML library for being so handy). Jonny and I had this convo about a year or so ago, discussing how rad it would be if an art object was somehow conscious of how popular/valuable it was, and was then able to react accordingly. If it wasn't doing so well, it would spruce itself up to get your attention. Conversely, if it was doing extremely well, it could flaunt it. This would be an exercise of pure cynicism in the face of "net.art" and its convoluted market, and would explore the tension between the facets of a networked art object that are participatory (or require active participation from the viewer) and those that are autonomous to the object itself (i.e. its aesthetic).
I will post some vids or other visual proof-of-existence once there's more to look at; I've been using a boring-looking video to do my testing. But, now that the engine is up and running, I can start populating it with beautiful images. Also, I have to think about the indices I'd call upon to continually test the object's value. Last year, Maegh (a Marxist scholar who studies art movements through a socialist lens) and I started thinking about what a Mei Moses index for net.art would look like. This is a difficult question, because the object in itself, by definition, exists in a place that is accessible at all times by anyone. In a traditional art market, collectors pay for an object that is a stand in for the artist's "genius" and non-alienated labor. But in net.art, the prospect of ownership gets nullified (although the genius+non-alienated labor combo is still there); the net.art object requires a shift/reorganization of the market forces.
I'm still on the fence about how to quantify such an object's worth, though. I guess the clearest indicator is whether or not the artist has gained the stamp of approval from the various cultural institutions. But is there more than that?
BTDubs, I just had a dream in which a novel was written about Olia Lialina. I saw a commercial for it on TV, and jumped up to go buy it. Then I woke up, sat down at the computer, and for some reason, my code started working... Creepy!
Just finished looking at the viewer data from Google Analytics. This blog gets a lot of hits from people looking for more information on D.E. Shaw (a hedge fund I used to work for). I knew that bit of info already. But what I didn't know about was the weird search terms people are coming up with. For example...
Last night, we did Share.tv episode 4 with Calliope Quartet, which was awesome. Ricardo, the percussionist, actually played his face: he kept rubbing a mic across his stubble to make these crackly noises. It was so cool!
Also, I finished my feature on the Yellow Drum Machine by Frits Lyneborg from letsmakerobots.com. It turned out pretty well, I think.
I'm currently uploading the full episode onto Blip.tv. Usually, uploading an hour-long vid to the internet is a pain in the ass because it takes so long. But now that I've got my Asus Eee PC (I named it Mylo), I can at least do that same task at the bar across the street from the station!
Dashed home on my temperamental moped this morning to do a phone interview with Frits L. from Let's Make Robots, a robotics guru from Denmark whose adorable little Yellow Drum Machine robot has been making the rounds on the interwebs. Yellow Drum Machine (YDM) is a tiny, Johnny 5-looking rover programmed to seek out sturdy standing surfaces, roll over to them, tap out a little beat on the surface, and sample and remix himself on the fly. If you haven't seen the vid of this little guy, you should check it out:
John, one of our audio guys on the Share.tv crew, pointed us to the video and I immediately contacted Frits for an interview. He was so good to oblige! We talked for awhile about the nuts and bolts of hobby robotics, then got into the more philosophical issues concerning the subtle differences that separate robots from coffee machines. I'll be editing this feature all week, and it should be part of next week's episode of Share.tv.
One down, six to go! Share.tv premiered on CCTV tonight on channel 10 and on the internets in front of an audience of at least 15 people.
I'm mentally exhausted-- the show definitely did not go up "without a hitch." There were some gaffs and slip-ups, but we chugged ahead, without there being a moment of dead air. Turn-out was... well, it could have been much better. Noah and I played the entire time, which was something neither of us really wanted to do. As for me, it's really hard to perform on the floor, and serve as a floor director as well.
The point is, I survived. Plus, I'm really excited to make the next episode 100% better than this one. I think my crew is pretty enthusiastic about being part of the project, and their support is what counts.
Pics, video, etc coming up tomorrow afternoon... are up! Check out: hotsocieties.com/share/?page_id=3, otherwise known as the "Gallery" page.
Today, I attended the FCC public hearing on Net Neutrality at Harvard Law School as a videographer for FreePress.net and CCTV. The event provided a pretty excellent opportunity for anyone to learn more about the issue from different perspectives: panelists included Daniel E. Bosley, State Representative of Massachusetts, David Cohen, the executive vice president of Comcast, David Clark, from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and a whole host of other professors, engineers, and policy makers who tried to sway the commission in either one direction or another on the topic.
Here's what I thought were the day's highlights:
There is an upcoming "bandwidth crisis" due to the popularity of video uploading/downloading. And we're not only talking about YouTube: this crisis looms large, especially as the internet is quickly becoming the channel of distribution for TV and film. Also contributing to the crisis are VOiP services and apps that allow for precise synching of live audio and visual data (i.e. the swanky 8-way video conferencing apps big corporations are so fond of...)
The way the ISPs are currently structured is, if you're just surfing the internet while your neighbor is bit-torrenting, you-tubing, or netflixing or something, you're suffering, because he/she is sucking up the available bandwidth on the network. So, according to the talking heads at the ISPs, you should be mad that you're paying the same amount of money as the next person, but are receiving diminished service due to their "abuse" of the network.
So, bearing that in mind, certain ISPs and their proponents propose a tiered internet, where the ISPs limit certain applications from sucking up the resources on the network. Which boils down to everyone having capped access to applications and services (already practiced by some ISPs in a sense: it's called "network management"). And also, the proposed system includes forcing commercial web services to pay premiums to allow the consumer easier access to their sites. So under this system, you'll be able to access YouTube (hopefully), but it'll be a lot slower than, say, Hulu or whatever else NBC is sponsoring. They expect the consumer to chose to patronize the sites that are easiest for them to access-- a fair assumption.
But is this by any means just? No, not quite. When listening to David Cohen, the VP at Comcast, speak, it was quite clear whose interests he had in mind. First off, why does his camp claim the right to impose this new system? Because "competitive broadband providers have responded with massive private investment in broadband infrastructure... with no goverment subsidies, and no assurance of success". So... we owe them a favor? So... we should just lie down and let them restructure the internet after TV's existing (and failing) model?
The anti-neutrality camp was very quick to vilify certain services and apps; those whose very existence pose a great threat to established media conglomerates. Here's his entire testimony before the commission. It's kind of dry, and not much to look at, so I tried to fill the vacuum with shots of audience members with wacky haircuts as well.
YouTube is a threat to the big broadcasters, Skype is a threat to telephone companies, and of course, they all love to jump on BitTorrent's back for being a virtual speakeasy for pirated movies, tv shows, music, and software. Given the ISPs' heavy stake in media distribution, it's only natural that their proposed tiered internet will punish those services who pose the greatest threat. Other engineers and professors testified that there are more reasonable alternatives to tackling this problem, including better network structure, or just basically allowing the consumer to decide which apps or services get priority on their network (which is the idea I like the most).
As for the citizens who were willing to testify for our cameras, a lot of them showed deeper knowledge of the debate than I would have expected. Going into it, I thought I might encounter a lot of people whose main gripe is that they won't be able to download stuff for free. (A prevailing view among many, really!) However, today's group brought up some issues that were both informed and local in scope. One man I interviewed brought an interesting perspective on how these proposed actions would hurt small businesses that rely on e-commerce to keep their overhead costs down. (On a personal note, his daughter runs a small business selling yoga mats over the internet. She wouldn't be able to stay afloat if she had to pay up to make her site as easily accessible as a competitor's with deeper pockets.)
So yeah, exciting stuff! I'm sure there is/will be more coverage all over the internets (including all of the interviews filmed by CCTV, SCAT, and Boston Indy Media on vuze.com), so please check it out if you're interested. Full coverage of the event can be found here at FreePress.net, and at CCTV, where Susan did a great job making all that information comprehensible!
I picked up a copy of the latest Boston Phoenix on my way to work this morning, and found this article about Dorkbot Boston, the multimedia art collective Noah and I belong to (whose tagline is "people doing strange things with electricity"). Looks like they were writing-up the Halloween show to promote the Presidents Day show DB has planned for the 19th. While it was good to see DB finally getting some press, it was *bad* to see that they had used a pilfered picture of Noah's Flora Mortis to advertise it. Bad for two reasons.
First off, the article itself mentioned nothing of Noah's project, not even in the list-three-examples-of-dorkbot-projects-in-order-to-give-the-reader-a-feel-of- what-it's -all-about line. Which is kind of a slap in the face, I think. I find it hard to believe that the author couldn't come up with a succinct caption that would explain the piece pictured, and as far as the printed version of the article goes, there was plenty of room to have done so.
Secondly: what? No credit to Noah? As an artist first-and-foremost, but, I mean, failing that, they could have at least been decent enough to credit the photographer (in this case, also the artist). I think she was just being lazy. I mean, the photo that was lifted from his flickr account wasn't even taken at the Dorkbot show-- it's actually a photo of his submission mounted in his bedroom as he was working on it. The journalist didn't even have to be at the event: the contextual discrepancy (a picture taken in someone's own bedroom as opposed to at the actual event) is only one manifestation of a growing trend.
So essentially, it's okay for journalists to outsource, or rather crowdsource, key aspects of their jobs to the population at large. And for the most part, I'm all for it. But just because his photos are part of the Make pool doesn't make them fair game. This was definitely an example of the typically good-natured 2.0/copyfighting/Creative Commons community being taken advantage of by the media we loyally support. Better luck next time.
I had quite a weekend last weekend. Went to NYC to shoot part I of my feature on DJ Rupture for the first episode of Share.tv. Rupture has a pretty sweet space in Sunset Park: cozy and neat, with not nearly as much intimidating stuff/gear as I would have expected. In fact, Rupture was a real adult, which was a relief. I'm editing now-- there's plenty of good bits in our interview about beat-matching and dj-ing, software, and what's more exciting, intellectually stimulating discussion about the need for visual feedback in electronic music, emotionally honest performance, and risk vs. spectacle onstage. This should be good! Tune into the show on February 17th to see it in its entirety. Big thanks to Thenji for her expertise on the shoot, and I hope I get to work with her again...
I stayed with Craniv, which was so much fun. Craniv and I have been friends since we were 4 years old: our parents are best friends, and we grew up in eachother's households together-- one of our parents holding tight to both of our hands as they whizzed us around the city everyday from one afterschool program to another (piano, German, painting, dance, circus arts). Craniv was there when I got the chicken pox, when the house caught on fire, when the dog died, when I started smoking, when I graduated, when I graduated from the next thing, and now here we are today. Cranny Boy is an amazing painter and sculpter, who just returned from his first residency at this gallery in Maine, where he spent one month getting paid to paint and be adored. (His website is in the works, but here's where it's temporarily parked. Better pics of his works will be up within a few weeks.)
It was an incredibly positive weekend. I got our parents together, who spent all of Saturday evening giggling like two schoolgirls. Not only was that adorable, but I was so unspeakably moved to see my mother so happy. On Sunday, Craniv introduced me to his friend, fellow painter and video artist Kevin Yang, and we went to an opening on East Broadway. Nothing much was happening there, except for a free beer, so the three of us chilled on the couch (which was the installation... all of it...) and watched some of Kevin's vids on his computer. (Was this rude?) They were pretty good, so I whipped out my thumb drive, and took them for my show. The transaction was unnaturally zippy and no-fuss: I wondered if he thought I was being pushy. But maybe that's just how Civilization 2.0 is supposed to work.
Got to catch up with old friends, and meet new ones. Was totally surprised to see Kentl at the Odessa Cafe, and glad to know her arm is healing nicely, foot-and-a-half long scar notwithstanding.
Next weekend, I come back. This time to shoot at MTAA's Over the Opening, where Kreigspiel premieres. Also, it's WYNA's BIRTHDAY so we're probably going to eat lots of meat in celebration!!!
Well, this is actually the most exciting news in awhile. Microsoft has (once again) made Yahoo a $45B offer to allow Microsoft to swallow them whole. Makes me wonder what will (would) happen to Flickr and Del.icio.us... Will MS push too hard to monetize these communities? And end up destroying them? But what's most exciting here, is the prospect of a merging-of-the-names (YahSoft? MicroHoo?) How about a Jon Squire-esque anagram of names* to usher in the rebirth? The Internet Anagram Server has served up a few good ones:
Airy Foot Smooch
root/fiasco/oh my!
it's coma for yo ho
Oh, I moo coy farts
...and although it's not using all the letters, I think the best name for this monster is MacroFist.
*John Squire was the former guitarist of the band The Stone Roses, and upon the bands tumultuous break-up, started another band, The Seahorses, rumored to be an anagram of "He Hates Roses"
Yesterday evening, I went to go see a panel hosted by the MacArthur Foundation and MIT Press, heralding their new 6-book volume laying the foundation for that shiny new pedagogy: Media Literacies. Participating in the panel were king of kings, Henry Jenkins of MIT's formidable Comparative Media Studies Program, Howard Gardner, the man who taught our generation's teachers to teach (and held his own on the topic pretty well despite being a self-professed luddite), and Katie Salen, who is not only a game designer, educator, and media literacy advocate, but one of those strange and beautiful creatures born as the seamless fusion of all three. Suffice to say, it was a very stimulating discussion, and I'm very excited that I was there for the "ceremony" where media literacy as an official educational discourse had finally "come out" to the rest of academia.
Henry started out by making an interesting correlation: he brought up the (somewhat cliché) image of the "good parent" who takes his/her kids out to art museums, fosters dinnertime conversation, etc., and compared that to the image of this century's "good teacher". We understand; the deeper an investment one makes in stimulating a child, the better formed that child will ultimately be.
When Jenkins made that leap, I immediately thought of that chapter in Stephen D. Hewitt's Freakonomics about the formula for "good parenting". The question was raised: if you bring your child to the art museum on a regular basis, will they be more successful than a child who was never taken? Ultimately, the Freakonomists concluded that a "good parent" doesn't get points for taking the kid to the art museum; a "good parent" is one whose natural notion of parenting is built around including their children in activities that they can enjoy as a family, that will stimulate the child to take part in family discussion, and that ultimately socializes the child in the world around him/her. I believe the quote is: "it isn't what the parent does, it's who the parent is" that makes the difference.
Similarly, you can't give a teacher some new software to teach, or a new device, or a Facebook group, and expect them to make a miracle out of it. A "good teacher" will use their unique ability to see possibilities in the contemporary, insanely digitized world, and use those in a way that will bolster a positive classroom environment. The panel did seem to do a good job of making this distinction. However, there's always the danger that this notion of greater investment could translate directly into "how about I make a game out of MySpace?" or something. (I don't want to do the whole night the disservice of glossing over the key issue; don't get me wrong, it was more nuanced than that. But, there's always that risk.) I can only hope their audience "got it". Some of the questions from the audience made me doubt. ("Have you seen these Webkinz your grandchildren are playing with?")
Sitting there, I wondered if twelve years ago these same people would have been talking about how Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? is going to bridge the achievement gap. Or if, twenty-five years ago, they would have been singing the praises of Sesame Street. In any case, it boils down to an attempt by an older generation to intercept and rework the younger generation's attachments and associations with media. Older discourse has always been too quick to call this kind of enterprise "the Answer", and it's always misleading because there are some places adults cannot go, some spheres of play that can never be controlled, harnessed, or emulated. However, I have faith that the panelists are very much invested in this discourse, and will drive it in the direction it needs to go.
Noah opted not to respond to Tuesday's anti-Facebook rant, but decided to comment in person, saying that it was unfair/naive of me to expect Facebook not to try to make money. Obviously, I know that people (programmers in particular) don't do things without expecting other things in return. So yeah, money is definitely the goal for Facebook developers, and they're entitled to it. However, what Facebook is doing is, simply, destroying the vibe that their community was founded upon. Once that's destroyed, why would you want to continue to hang out there?
From the perspective of a consumer, and not a FB user, I don't believe that the method Zuckerberg et cie. have developed is a bad one at all. They've successfully given a readable identity to a previously anonymous consumer. It will most definitely revolutionize the way advertisers target us, and put the products we want easily within our grasp. However, the social networking scene is NOT where that belongs. Aggregated consumer data juxtaposed with individual profiles on a social networking site has the look and, most importantly, the feel of living in an Orwellian nightmare. They should have known better.
As much as I was trying to cast my grievances in a humorous light the other day, I am seriously disappointed in FB for this new set of changes they've implemented over the past few months. We, the participants, are what makes that scene, not Blockbuster's ad revenues. And sure, there's always space for site developers to reign in some cash from corporate sponsors, but they have to find a model that does not intrude in the unique experience that site provides. Facebook has not done that.
And you know what? As much as I prefer Facebook's crisp, clean, aesthetic (or did), it's MySpace that actually succeeds at being a social networking platform that maintains its particular vibe while making plenty of money in ad revenue. MySpace, ugly as it is, never forgot that it was a community first, and as it expanded in scope, it did it in ways that were consistent with its user base and original goal. MySpace became a forum: for independent music, for political debate, for camwhores seeking the limelight, etc. And although some of the fruits were deplorable (Tila Tequila?!), they were lucrative, and still showed respect for the community.
And lo, the Beacon Ad campaign has been abandoned! Hooray!
Unruly like a child raised by wolves in the wild. I feel like a total Ted Kaczynski whenever I log on: the ads for stuff I don't think I'd ever want creeping up in my Mini Feed, the constant threat that even the most embarrassing of my personal purchases are going to be plastered all over my friends', family's, and mere acquaintances' News Feeds by those newfangled "Beacon Ads" (they couldn't have chosen a more draconian name), the ubiquitous application-du-jour that 12 of my friends have "invited" me to try out, hastily written by some third-rate CS student just hoping to have something, anything, linked to his name on the web, so he can pad his stupid resume enough to get in the door at some equally third-rate over-valuated techno-firm with its eye only on getting bought out for some crazy amount of money by some even-more third-rate VC firm. I was a kid in the late 90's, and I didn't really understand how the bubble burst back then, but it's oh-so-obvious now... Anyway, here's an interesting article by Alex Iskold about why my ranting is totally justified.
P.S. The Developer Application? It "lets you manage the applications you build using Facebook Platform. Edit your application settings, submit your application to the directory, and connect with other developers." It is either a joke or... I don't know. Too much. My head burns.
My friend Vicki Simon is currently tooling with the app-making app, working on what she likes to call "Facebook Suicide". Vicki, who's as fed up with FB as I am, says:
"its gonna allow you to kill yourself on facebook and then send a suicide note to all yo [sic] friends".
Once everyone on FB has committed "suicide," (and why not? the appeal is obvious) an angry email will be sent to Mark Zuckerberg telling him how much he sucks.
