Day 9: Network Creativity

Today’s lecture by guest speaker Jason Nelson was about creative uses of the internet.
First up Jason introduced us to cites like Disaster map and speed test, that represent information/data in a visual way For example with disaster map we can see what’s going on in the world represented by symbols/images rather than just reading text in a newspaper. As viewers we look at these sorts of cites but don’t really think about how information is presented in a different way. The point was made about how we experience things on the net in small time frame jumps, we go into a cite quickly have a look and then move on. This point was illustrated by taking a look at generators: little applications or tools in which things can be created automatically.
Jason dismissed the myth that anyone can become famous nowadays with the internet, as we saw with the cartoons of home start runner, being successful is dependant on being continuously creative. Portabableapps.com further illustrates the ways in which our use of technology is changing and being used in a new way. This idea of portableapps is based on taking away the importance of computers, replacing it with portable applications stored on memory sticks. The point was made about the gap between people who understand the uses of technologies and those who don’t. Key logging was used as an example of how technology can be used that people aren’t aware of.
Jason introduced us to Google wave and how it works.

Jason’s Poetry
Confronting, Chaotic, multiple elements.
Jason work related to a piont brought up earlier in the lecture, in that some are visual representations of information for example in the weather visualiser: numbers relating to speed of wind, humidity ect are expressed as images and effect how the images are presented.
I thought a particular interesting point that Jason made was how traditionally we are asked to dissect a peice of art, to find its meaning and to understand it. But what’s also and maybe even more so important is in ones experience of the work, in how it provokes the viewer to think and impose there own meaning onto the work.
With net art the browser takes the place of the canvas, the viewer’s experience of the work becomes interactive. This idea parallels the way in which the internet has become decentralised, we are not just handed a peice of work and told how to view it, the individual is now involved in the process.