Rent Video Games

One Comment

1. chani santos
   Posted September 11, 2010 at 3:07 pm | Permalink

   1.1In the year I was born, 1978, I was pleased to see that the first vocal track written to a silicon chip was designed. This technology was first used in the Speak & Spell that was also introduced that year. It was a toy that would say a word and the user would type that word onto the screen. Incidentally this was one of my favorite toys as a child!1.2The year my father was born, 1950, the first commercially produced computer was made. It used the earliest device for memory, a magnetic drum, which held one million bytes of memory. 1951, the year my mother was born, a computer designed by MIT debuted on television. Marking the first time the general public had been exposed to the computer.2.1 An example of participatory media that I participate in is my Facebook page. I often post links on my page to my blog or I post interesting things I’ve taken pictures of and recirculate interesting news links, photos, and pages that other people have created.2.2 I think that by participating in social media it makes me and my life more accessible to people that I may not see on a daily basis and gives me more freedom to express myself. I think that participating in such social media has prepared me for this class in a way that I already know the technology associated with this course and already know many ways to express my thoughts and creativity with new media.2.3 Transparency, as Jenkins describes it, is the notion that digital media produces the effect of “swimming in media, but not seeing the ‘tank’ you’re swimming in”. That is, that many of the users of digital media are young people who do not possess the language or critical thinking abilities necessary to explain the experiences that occur or how these experiences affect their lives. I believe this is an accurate metaphor because, like a fish in a fishbowl, we are constantly using and experiencing new media, but may not realize how important the media is. We become a fish who knows only the bowl but also does not know the importance of its own environment.2.4 The ethics problem addresses the fact that most new media is public and unpoliced; meaning that the poster has no form of authority telling them what should and shouldn’t be posted on sites such as Live Journal. This is beneficial because the user experiences freedom of expression but also can affect the user negatively in that the user may not possess the skills to recognize fact from fiction or the skills to handle intense social situations that are devoid of consequence because of the lack of face-to-face contact between individuals.2.5 Jenkins defines ‘play’ as experimenting with surroundings to solve problems and or make mistakes. This can best be reflected in the definition as it stands in video gaming. In video games you creatively solve problems and then test that hypothesis within the game. This can lead to success or to death where the player would start over. Experimentation, as I understand it, is different in that, there is a definite consequence to failure. Play involves less consequence and a more open experience for learning.2.6 Creativity is not just the development of unique ideas but can also involve the re-appropriation of already existing media. The creator often takes archetypes and develops already existing ideas, characters, etc.; making them their own. This can be obvious, such as in the case of fan-fiction or more covert, such as incorporating character archetypes into the development of your own characters within literature.2.7 Networking is the production of media and it’s posting on social sites. This leads to mass production and widespread availability of media. In this case it would be more beneficial to write about an existing character, such as Harry Potter, than one of your own creation because it is a character that is already well known and allows for the communication between the author of the fan-fiction and say a social network for input and critique more easily.2.8 Collective intelligence is the collecting of knowledge about one subject from several different individuals. This is best seen in the website Wikipedia. Individuals who have actual “top-down” expertise on the subject provide the information that can be accessed by the individual, such as authors on the subject, teachers, etc.3.1 Collaboration and participation are often very important characteristics of what defines New Media art. Much of new media art is collaborative in that the pieces that are created often require many different areas of expertise and, thusly, many different hands are involved in the creation process. This is why most new media art is collaborative rather than singular in creation and design. Many of these pieces also require that the viewer become participant in the work itself. Usually this comes in the form of some kind of interaction between the viewer and the technology of the piece (i.e. clicking on images/ sites, etc.). In this way the viewer facilitates the existence of the piece of art.3.2 I have chosen Cory Arcangel’s Super Mario Clouds as the piece from the reading excerpt to discuss appropriation. In this piece the artist took the well- known video game Super Mario Bros. and hacked the program; removing all other elements except the background sky and clouds. He appropriated the already existing media and altered it to make it his own by hacking the software programming within the game. The work was then produced in an installation where the game is projected on screens for the public to view. Super Mario Clouds3.3 It has been stated that the appropriation of already existing media into new media art works displays the lack of originality in these types of pieces. In Wolfgang Staehle’s Empire 24/7 the artist made a webcam installation that captured an image of the Empire State Building from another location. This piece was homage to Andy Warhol’s Empire that was an eight hour long film of the same building. This is typical of the notion of attenuation, in that, Staehle has taken the same subject matter and recreated it in a nearly identical fashion but utilizing the new technology, the webcam, versus older technology. I t shows the artist’s knowledge of Art History but also reflects that lack of originality with which the New Media movement is often associated. Staehle’s Empire 24/7 and Warhol’s Empire