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) Scalability 2) Emotional response
Scalability 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.
Scalability 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)
Being introduced to crowd-sourced, design-generating platforms, I've started speculating in the characteristics of post-industrial labor.
Often referred to as 'logo-mills', the majority of this type of online platforms provides a system for an individual or entity to offer a design-related assignment. Presented as an open contest the assignment is released to an in-site crowd of designers, with prices generally ranging from 99$ to 299$ (depending on the characteristics and scale of the assignment).
The core issue in my speculations revolves around the illusion of promised freedom or empowerment of the individual versus exploitation, and the fine line in-between.
Individual designers enters fierce competition amongst each other. Encouraged by the structure of the platform they find inspiration in each others design-proposals, often edging towards plagiarism, creating a sour, hostile environment between each designer, to the productive benefit of the contest-holder; thousands proposals are being generated freely, of which the preferred ('star'-rated by contest-holder), constantly are being refined by contestants.
As a winner eventually is chosen, the payout of the contest-price, deducted a fee payed to the platform, leaves the price-taker victorious; he has conquered the bounty, he has won the race, he might even get a small iconic winner-badge for his profile. An ultimate example of gamification.
The excitement of winning might overshadow the fact, that salery-per-hour-ratio, which at times is diminishing, especially taken to consideration that hardly every competition you enter is won by you. All the losers, the actual crowd, is left unpaid, yet they frantically cling on, in hope to win the logo-lottery.
3) TumblrJumpr (2013)