User:Lassebosch/reading writing methodologies/3 Trimester

Draft for essay

KEY THEMES

the peer/seeder, sharing, stealing, inspiration, the mass/crowd, science of 'emergence', the sum of the crowd, exploitation vs empowerment, control, prediction, shaping future, systematic simplification - cybernetic perception, crowd-control, surveillance, mimicking/imitation - group, Freedom as an excuse for exploitation, globalization, convergence, unification, mono-culture,

PREVIOUS RELEVANT WRITINGS

'Future Map', Brian Holmes

'The Peer', 2'nd chapter, Cyburbia, James Harkin

'The Long Tail' - Mark Leckey

'The Guardian Angel', Opinion, 2. trimester.

http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Lassebosch/reading_writing_methodologies/Annotations

http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Lassebosch/reading_writing_methodologies/2_Trimester

PREVIOUS WORKS

1) A Shutterstock Voyage (2012)

A growing personal fascination for stock-photography and video turned into a longer period of intense examination, working with and against the phenomenon. The project took shape as a expanding set of web-based tryouts, each experiment involving some sort of interaction.

By examining stock-photos, two central 'parameters of success' was laid out; 1) Scale-ability 2) Emotional response

Scale-ability relates to the question of application; the more generic the content of the photo is, the more it sells. Examples:

• Most often stock photography refrains from depicting factual events. Instead it seeks portray particular moods, feelings or 'states of being' all known to western cultures: Success, happiness, melancholy, love, pain, etc.
• Environmental recognition removed
• Low field of depth: blurring out the background, while creating focus on key-elements

Emotional response relates particularly to use of color, saturation and brightness. Using these strategically leads to images which naturally attracts and craves attention from the eye. Some examples of usage:

• Super-brightness
• Super-saturated colors

The brightness is used to emphasize areas or restrain interest from others while super-saturated elements, often lips, eyes or foods of various kind, provokes attention of the eye.

Scale-ablilty pushes the emergence of the generic image - stripped off all layers of denotations only leaving emotional connotations. Acting as an empty frame or shell, the stock-photo embraces whatever input it is given and churns out an emotional-laden product.

The phenomenon encourages a plug-and-play implementation of cheap, fabricated images, which has gained enormous speed during the last ten years, allowing for everyone to participate in "A global marketplace for imagery, powering a new era of creativity".

2) Questioning Crowd-sourcing (2012-2013)

3) TumblrJumpr (2013)