READING, WRITING & RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

Assignment 30/10/2013

essay in progress ASSIGNMENT2, Common notes Luci, Caetano, Nikos

Lecture notes on participatory surveillance

TASK 1 + notes on Evil Media Lecture LATEST VERSION what-how-why WHAT Profile Pictured Portraits This is a series of digital portraits of some of my facebook contacts and includes 12 jpeg files (but more will be added, its an ongoing project) .It is located in one of my facebook albums called Sketches for Liars Toilettes. The basis of each portrait is the same preselected picture where an old mobile that lies on a wooden surface is connected with an excessive amount of cables. The composition of the image does not allow the viewer to see where the cables connect to.The portraits are presented in the screen of that mobile and consist of (profile or not) pictures of my contacts. HOW I found online this picture of the old mobile with the cables. I am searching in the photo albums of my facebook contacts and select one picture of them. I save it. I open both files in gimp or pixlr.com and with the collage techinique I copy and paste the picture of the contact to fit the screen of the mobile. I save the new file and follow the same procedure with every picture. At the end I re-upload it and tag my contact in the picture. WHY With this project I want to create portraits in a totaly online and networked context. I want to observe the reactions and interactions of the people selected. Do they perceive it as a portrait of themselves? How do they feel beeing part of a series that can be seen in my fb album?And further i want to draw connections with the issue of access of personal data. Anyone can use the data and items of the collections we curate/create. WHAT Facebook after facebook The work is a tumblr based webpage and consists of a url adress and images (jpegs and gifs) in vertical structure and on white background. It appears to have some abstract similarities with facebook profile , however it is visible that the differencies are more. As a user opens the page sees a gif image of the classic blue colour facebook profile header. As the user scrolls down can see animated gifs and still screenshots of random facebook newsfeed images. HOW I am taking screenshots of my facebook newsfeed that displays the news and activity of my contacts. I am saving them as jpegs and then edit them with gimp in order to distort them using filters or effects. Some of them are turned into animated gifs with gimp. I upload them all in imgur.net to get a direct link for each file and be able to embed them in my code. Then I am creating a new tumblr page, deleting all of its existing code and start working with my own html and css. Setting a white backround and start embedding the pictures one under the other. With code I let them be responsive. WHY This project is an attempt to propose a design alternative for facebook. It remains abstract and focuses on two basic elements, movement (animation) and remixed images. The project wants to create connections and discussion on how would we like to design our ideal network (even just visualy at the moment). It also implies that short moving images like gifs (and not video) but also online creativity tools within the network could lead to a very creative result in terms of users creativity. WHAT Live stream cacti1 This is a documentation of a live streaming video work. Its part of a series of videos on cacti collecting and internet streaming. It presents a view on one shelf of my cacti and succulents collection in my garden in Athens.The camera is in a fixed position for the whole duration ( 7 mins) and as the cacti remain still the only movement that occurs is the one of the wind and its affect on the leaves and the plants of the background. There is also the sound of the wind and of some birds. HOW First of all I am logging in my ustream account. Then I am setting the laptop in the position I want on the shelf of the cacti collection and start streaming while recording with my laptop camera. Sound is on .I do not move my laptop at all so the shot is stable. As long as the streaming is finished I save the video in my ustreal profile as a documentation that is accessible. WHY Because I want to bring in dialogue technology and nature. I have never understood the distinctions between "humanists" and "technolovers" but I still see that it is visible. Another aspect I would like to highlight was the issue of freetime. What is it? Why do we connect it so much with nature and not with technology? FIRST VERSION WHAT Profile Pictured Portraits This is a series of portraits of some of my facebook contacts and includes 12 jpeg files (but more will be added, its an ongoing project) .It is located in one of my facebook albums called Sketches for Liars Toilettes. The basis of each portrait is the same preselected picture where an old mobile that lies on a wooden surface is connected with an excessive amount of cables. The zoom doesnt allow the viewer to see where the cables connect to.The portraits are presented in the screen of that mobile and consist of (profile or not) pictures of my contacts. Facebook after facebook The work is a tumblr based webpage and consists of a url adress and images (jpegs and gifs) in vertical structure and on white background. It appears to have some abstract similarities with facebook profile , however it is visible that the differencies are more. As a user opens the page sees a gif image of the classic blue colour facebook profile header. As the user scrolls down can see animated gifs and still screenshots of random facebook newsfeed images. Live stream cacti1 This is a live streaming video work based and hosted on Ustream platform. Its part of a series of videos on cacti collecting and internet streaming. It presents a view on one shelf of my cacti and succulents collection in my garden in Athens.The camera is in a fixed position for the whole duration ( 7 mins) and as the cacti remain still the only movement that occurs is the one of the wind and its affect on the leaves and the plants of the background. There is also the sound of the wind and of some birds. NEW VERSION AFTER GROUPWORK (additions and corrections in WHAT, +HOW) Profile Pictured Portraits This is a series of digital portraits of some of my facebook contacts and includes 12 jpeg files (but more will be added, its an ongoing project) .It is located in one of my facebook albums called Sketches for Liars Toilettes. The basis of each portrait is the same preselected picture where an old mobile that lies on a wooden surface is connected with an excessive amount of cables. The composition of the image does not allow the viewer to see where the cables connect to.The portraits are presented in the screen of that mobile and consist of (profile or not) pictures of my contacts. HOW I found online this picture of the old mobile with the cables. I am searching in the photo albums of my facebook contacts and select one picture of them. I save it. I open both files in gimp or pixlr.com and with the collage techinique I copy and paste the picture of the contact to fit the screen of the mobile. I save the new file and follow the same procedure with every picture. At the end I re-upload it and tag my contact in the picture. Facebook after facebook The work is a tumblr based webpage and consists of a url adress and images (jpegs and gifs) in vertical structure and on white background. It appears to have some abstract similarities with facebook profile , however it is visible that the differencies are more. As a user opens the page sees a gif image of the classic blue colour facebook profile header. As the user scrolls down can see animated gifs and still screenshots of random facebook newsfeed images. HOW I am taking screenshots of my facebook newsfeed that displays the news and activity of my contacts. I am saving them as jpegs and then edit them with gimp in order to distort them using filters or effects. Some of them are turned into animated gifs with gimp. I upload them all in imgur.net to get a direct link for each file and be able to embed them in my code. Then I am creating a new tumblr page, deleting all of its existing code and start working with my own html and css. Setting a white backround and start embedding the pictures one under the other. With code I let them be responsive. Live stream cacti1 This is a documentation of a live streaming video work. Its part of a series of videos on cacti collecting and internet streaming. It presents a view on one shelf of my cacti and succulents collection in my garden in Athens.The camera is in a fixed position for the whole duration ( 7 mins) and as the cacti remain still the only movement that occurs is the one of the wind and its affect on the leaves and the plants of the background. There is also the sound of the wind and of some birds. HOW First of all I am logging in my ustream account. Then I am setting the laptop in the position I want on the shelf of the cacti collection and start streaming while recording with my laptop camera. Sound is on .I do not move my laptop at all so the shot is stable. As long as the streaming is finished I save the video in my ustreal profile as a documentation that is accessible. EVIL MEDIA M FULLER exhibition= expanded sense of media command and control EVIL (what would you do different, natural language= multiple meanings difficult to handle natural- formalised language, evil produces no knowledge, stupidity, policy- remain abstract), grey media, background of contemporary society ambiguity (book 7 types of ambiguity) management has its roots there, strategic value, its easilty reduced as a problem of language, plato, contradictory thinking was made strategic just by accident, techology and products dont exist in isolation, boredeme n stupidity in new media systems, in a contemporary environment ambiguity, anxiety , fear become operators STANLEY MILGRAM -POSTAL EXPERIMENTS A GOFFREY how does media makes us different in our existence, randomness is a complete form of order, for YOHA technical objects have a directive side, incompletance (ask us to use it), 2 authors present a broad definition of media that treat the body as information system and how is abmiguity used by people and not only by system, SELF HELP MANUALS, BIRTHDAY RECORDS archive in grey media, control my connections (clipboard itself,critical thinking, understanding, evaluating information, control, grey media and grey literature /publishing, locating things in their context)