Collaboration and Creativity

The two articles we looked at this week bring an interesting contrast into light with the relationship of postmodernism and creativity. With the IP law we see companies and writers trying to commodify the internet and make the reproduction of copyrighted material impossible without monetary gain. On the other end we see the emergence of wikis. Wikis stress the value of collaboration and anyone is allowed to write and participate in the wiki. How these two internet phenoms contrast is important, showing the devolution of "individual" creativity and the emergence of collaborative creativity.

Johnson says that, "the decline of fair use rights is firmly linked to a postmodern turn in intellectual property law- for the rise of postmodernism in general is tied to the loss of original context..." (203). I haven't felt the decline of fair use rights personally, enveloped in the bubble of MSU's database system, but it seems that another point he states later is of the utmost importance in regards to fair use. He says, "...textual content  has  become commodified, put into motion in the capitalist system, forced to earn its keep by moving incessantly" (203). Johnson seems to regard this as a negative result, harming future generations by what he sees as "the rich getting richer" and "the poor getting poorer." I think however that this constant movement is imperative to the future of writing.

To see the future of writing I think we have to look to the wikis and the collaboration that occurs online in places like forums, Wikipedia, and social media websites. Here is one example of collaboration.


One simple mistake can be creatively modified by another person and what was once a mistake turns into a funny dialogue that thousands of people can read, contribute, and comment on. What is fascinating to me is that Johnson does not mention, or seems to disregard the notion, that creativity can be collaborative. He seems to separate facts/collaboration from creativity/individual.

So, while the fair use rights might be tightening and individual finished works are being monetized and copyrighted, and even anthologies of texts are being copyrighted and restricted (another collaboration, but one that still seems to firmly remain in the textual sphere) there are wikis where creativity is not static and the process of creation is constantly fostered and necessary for its survival.

In the text, "History Now," the authors quote Grube and expand on his argument that, "the so far leading criterion of non linearity to determine hypertext should be taken back in favor of the criterion of interactivity" (173).

This constant interactivity is nonlinear and ongoing, but the authors separate it from the previous theory of non linearity and hypertext to show that the process of writing is just as important as the writing itself. I had some problems with this idea. Mainly, because the process of writing doesn't seem to be writing at all. In the same vein, we could say that making a sandwich is the same as eating a sandwich. There is the preparatory phase and then there is the actual act.

However, this process of writing is important to the structure of wikis in the fact that it does encourage constant revision and interaction due to the fact that it is a collaboration and people are free to change their views as time passes or history changes. This structure or space seems to break down the barrier that we have previously constructed between kairos and writing. It also seems to show that collaboration is a creative act, one that fosters change and connections- the heart of creativity.

Infographic

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzsFl1M5d9-ZRHpKMjlOMG1nU00/edit?usp=sharing

Rambo Stats

Critical Photo Essay

For my final essay I will talk about the effect the internet is having on the music industry. The rhetoric aspect will come from the different pioneering tools that aspiring artists are using to get recognized today. What interests me the most is the rise of music videos, the collaboration that occurs online, and the social media aspects involved.

My main area of research will be conducted on Youtube and music blogs, such as thissongissick and hypem. Through my research I hope to discover what makes a band appealing, besides the music, and how different bands are making a name for themselves on the internet.

For the composition of my critical photo essay I will be using videos, examples of web pages, and my voice for the main description of the content. There will also be text, used for support throughout the essay to guide the viewer on key points. This will all be done through a medium such as Powerpoint.

Intuitive and Unconscious Meaning

When a student writes a formal essay he or she is aware of the parameters defined by our teachers, our training, and the genre in which we write. This is something that was taught to us or something that we read and acquired through logical thinking. It is a conscious process, that builds a community of like people that all try to practice this process and work towards something.

Because writing is man-made, we also prescribed certain rules and restrictions that define what or what not it can be. A student writing a research paper is expected to behave a certain way, certain values are stressed such as logical process, building our ethos, and making our thesis clear.

Now, what happens when someone uses pictures in a research paper? Yes, it is frowned upon sometimes (most often). And yes, it has its functions. But what happens to the reader when they scan over the picture? Well, like McCandless said, "there is something comforting about pictures." Whether we like them or not, we can't help but scan over pictures and interpret them. The person can also be manipulated in certain ways to see a certain way. An example of this is with the WIRED magazine Fetish page in which the eye can't help but follow the pattern that the designers set. They created a never ending loop that keeps drawing our eyes back, around, and to the pictures they want to emphasize.

I think the main reason stiff English rhetoricians are resisting pictures is because there is so much unconscious activity taking place that they cannot define and can't place in a specific genre or grouping. It is much easier, I believe, to trick people with pictures than with words. Just think of illusions or optical tricks like this one..

With our eyesight we expect certain patterns, maybe that are even defined by our genetics. When we come into contrast with these pictures, our eyes might know that something is not possible, yet keeps trying to make a connection. This could be because our eyes are much more connected to a stable sense of reality than our brain, and when something threatens this reality, it still sticks to its guns.

Now, I think that one of the ways in which we can escape this sense of threat(coming from personal experience ha) and ignorance is to create genres for visuals. We make meaning out of things that we see, even more so than writing, yet previously this has all been done so quickly that we don't realize we made the connection, or it was done unconsciously. If we teach that certain visuals equals certain meanings, and show people in schools or in training the function of pictures and the allure of lines and shapes, people like myself will not feel like they are getting manipulated by pictures unconsciously. We can define the picture and through that definition and genre, make a logical connection that sets a parameter for it, and defines its function and what the picture is trying to accomplish.

A/V Video Commentary

When I made this video, one of the hardest parts was making it seem as life-like as possible. The lighting had to be just right and the transitions from scene to scene had to flow naturally. Basically, it had to be as close to the real thing as possible, as if a person was actually being instructed at the gym. With this in mind, the most conscious part I had to become aware of was the transition from scene to scene. In writing we seem to take it for granted that there is a natural progression of time, inside a specific scene, and the reader seems to recreate that continuous sense of time as if their eye and senses were jumping from person to person, or roving over a New York bar. But with video, there is a pressing demand to make the events flow in order and seam together to make a piece work. The blockier the piece is the less believable and life-like it seems, and you can't cut right from a scene to a person talking, they have to flow together and intermingle much more directly, that leap from scene to dialogue flowing much smoother. The seamless transition from one frame to another is what seemed to work for me, but there were other cases where my classmates used set scenes with an overlay of writing to convey a particular mood or setting, and these were individual blocks of time. I still have this idea that pictures/video should be as life-like as possible, recreating vision, but there are always people who distort this conception, and by so doing, make us rely on our other senses to interpret the work.

In other ways, my video was very similar to writing a short story. There has to be tension, breaks in the story, a mood imparted, characters, transition from scene to scene, description, and a choice to highlight on specific points rather than others.

Have we gone past hyper-speed and into plaid?

I was definitely intrigued in the article by Wolf the idea that computer simulation is at a level where it is trusted as reality. The example he gave that stuck with me was the cockpit, where pilots are basing their sight and lives on a mathematical representation of reality. We just assume that these representations are the real thing and place our absolute trust in mathematics and diagrams. Another example he gave was the courtroom scene, with the lawyer who presented material using a 3d analysis of the material, showing the jurors how the bullet path could have happened and chronologically placing events into a real-life scenario. It was then the judge's job to remind the jurors that this representation showed probabilities and did not represent the actual fact. The notion that he brings up is the idea that abstractions can become more real than reality itself. In Mishra's article we find the same concept mirrored with his example of the photograph and diagram of a mitochondrian. The diagram shows the three dimensional aspect with lines pointing to key functions of the mitochondrian, while the picture looks like a circle with diagonal blobs running through it. While this diagram may be a better representation for someone that is interested in biology and understanding different complex parts of the body, it can distract from the bigger picture of the story, and detract from new ideas being formed. For example, Mishra also gives us a diagram of the heart, one that we have all seen with the arteries and valves nicely colored, each part looking distinct and separate. He then says how med students will go into the body and be flabbergasted at how strange the heart looks, expecting reality to be similar to this basic diagram.

With this perspective I can understand how simulations and representations can be problematic. They are based off of past "truths," when in reality there are still no set truths that we can say are 100% for certain. We can say that statistically speaking, with the evidence given to us, from what we have seen up till now, that they are true, but we can't account for any future evidence that may disrupt these assumptions. The problem with this and diagrams/simulations representing reality are--what I can imagine being assumed to be true in the future when we are completely merged into computer simulation, maybe even living in a simulator ourselves. I'm not going to go all Matrix on you guys, but more like that Bruce Willis movie, Surrogates, in which we are living, working, playing in a simulated world with life-like avatars. It could definitely happen, why travel when a simulation is exactly the same? What better way to bridge the gap between time and space?

Anyways, if we live in this world where we are completely basing all our decisions off of models that were created, expected to be true, based on past conceptions of the world, then how can we discover new phenomena that is currently outside our current perception? (Ok, I'm going to go Matrix a little here).

I don't know there is something about the notion that Mishra presents and Wolf seemes to coincide with, that abstractions define reality better than reality itself that I just don't jive with. A present example of this is Photoshop, and color sharpening with pictures, to make them appear clearer and in the case of models, more beautiful.

Climb On!-Video Post

http://youtu.be/0JBKfRv-uC0

Climb on!