The YouTube Phenomenon

Yes, it's true, I have chosen to do my New Media Presentation on YouTube.

The most successful of its kind, YouTube is a website geared toward the sharing, watching and uploading of videos.

With a multitude of functions, the open ability to upload anything at all has truly influenced our current society.

A prominent example are those individuals who have being "YouTube celebrities" almost overnight.

Here is an example of someone who catapulted their career through the usage of YouTube:

Esmee Denters is a 21 year old girl from the Netherlands. Discovered in 2008 by Justin Timberlake himself, she was the first signed to his new record label "Tennman" in association with Interscope. This video was posted on YouTube on November 9th, 2006.

New Media Presentation: Future of "Digital" Music

Even in this terrifying age of technology, composing, recording and performing music still takes up a very large portion of what constitutes as "media" in Western society.

So is the future of music or rather musicianship, at stake? Will digital technology actually out do human endeavour? Can machines really produce greater beauty than men?

In light of these questions, I will discuss my ideas on musical robots & the future of the music industry, for my "New Media Presentation".

Motion Comics

For my New Media presentation I chose to focus on Motion Comics. After dealing with it previously this semester, I was interested in what goes into creating them and how they're holding up against other mediums.

New Media Project: Motion Comics

For my new media project I chose to focus on Motion Comics being that we are all somewhat familiar with it from earlier in the semester. Here is a link to the motion comics available from Marvel Comics' website.

http://marvel.com/motion_comics

TED

http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html

Products and perception

Notes from Architecture lecture

Approaching Building Analysis:

Notes from lecture.

*Where are ENTRIES?

-What is experience of entry?

-Compression vs. Release

-Transition from outdoor to indoor (Air conditioning / Heat)

*ACT OF TERRITORY (-Morris Smith, MIT)

*MATERIALS used (glass, wood, concrete, etc...) (ex: Apple Store = all glass: conscious of being "on display" vs. Victoria's Secret = closed: conscious of privacy)

*WHAT IS PUBLIC/PRIVATE (ex: Boston Common: public space vs. fenced in area - to modify behavior)

McCloud and Closure

The human race, for the most part, possesses a very visual mindset. Television, fashion and art are some examples of very prominent factors in today's culture. Through our visually-wired mindset, the human brain often seeks patterns. It is because of this "visualization by association" that McCloud's term "closure" permits even the most abstract of icon (primitive "stick-figure" face) to come alive through the dialogue on the page. "There is no life here except that which you give to it" (McCloud 59) The more abstract the icon, the more personal it reflects in the reader's mind. For example, scrying is defined as "a magic practice that involves seeing things psychically in a medium". This definition deals more with the act of "crystal ball gazing", however "cloud gazing" is also an example of scrying. Finding shapes in clouds is very subjective, as the clouds swirl in very abstract shapes. When different individuals' brain tries to detect patterns, one's results often largely differ from a fellow participant.