Commenty

AHHHHDEEEEEE! Que paso, brother?

I Really dig this video, regardless of the unorthodox fashion it was done.

It made me think, being as I was so focused on your game of tetris that I forgot to notice the background, and I missed some things, almost missed the Astro-Boy Cosplayer. I also thought it was really cool that you were able to screen the footage of you playing the game over you walking ith the camera in hand.

=To Andy

ABCDEF whore comment time.

Hey John, I've already expressed to you that I think this was a good video, that it was interesting and yet still made me think, about how even something that should be beautiful. like a walk on the boardwalk, turns into something terrible when distracted by digital media.

Basically to restate this video's point is to say that we get so absorbed in the details of digimedia that we lose out on some of the beauty of being in a physical reality.

To shamelessly connect this to my own video, my perspective, I understand how connected people can get to videogames, like the way you talked about moving as the character in the game moves, reacting in time to the game. I do the same thing, getting very involved in what I am doing, excited over in-game victories.

To develop your ideas, I would say that you could have done with a bit less of the screen views when you do hw/AIM.

E.......

Farewell.

-To John Li

Video is finally here.

Your Life on Screen from Tom O'Brien on Vimeo.

What are some thoughts and feelings you have when watching your own video?

That this video is drastically different than the one we did last year. Without being able to provide a soundtrack or other tidits, I felt like it was less capable of entertaining people, of keeping their attention. I did what I could. Retrospectively, after seeing Hannah's and John's, I feel that I could have done more.

When you think about living your physical experience being largely what is shown on the video, how does that seem to you?

The thing is, this is not really quite so much of what I do. It is a small piece of my life. I didn't video myself reading or exercising, or just taking a walk, or socializing offline. This is just the relevant information that regards digital things.

Would you want your little sister (or future son) to spend a lot of time doing this stuff?

Heavens, no. I didn't look quite happy, I'd prefer she never do it ever.

What do you think of the contrast between what's happening ON the digital representation device and what you look like interacting with the DRD?


What do you think of ideas like the Wii that are supposed to make this contrast less stark?

I like that things are being take in a new direction, but if it is marketed as a deliberate move that way, it will lose popularity.

Okay, so it's late, I know, crucify me. It's actually in the process of uploading and converting and such on vimeo, I like the quality the best so I'm willing to wait.

In the video, you'll notice me playing my 360. Like John Li, I told myself to ignore the presence of the camera, and for the most part, I did. I did look over every once in a while to make sure it was still recording. Also, for when you see only my face as I'm using the computer, the video seems skippy and editted, that's because photobooth on my laptop wouldn't stay open and recording as I paroused other sites, so I had to load a page and look at it in the background so it could record. Lastly are clips of me using my home computer, and a little video of me watching stupid TV. This should all be done around tomorrow, 5-6pm.

What has been altered by digitalization?

Dad- In general, all this new, digital stuff is pretty arbitrary. It's what the kids do now, we had our thing, now you have yours. I'm not saying I like it, I always think a kid should be out an active instead of in and idle. But, things have gotten better, like the technology in hospitals, in that people have instant access to old records and can transfer things instantly.

At the same time, things have become much worse. (We were talking about love here) When you love a girl now, and she rejects you, or you get dumped, or you break up, there's no real space between you to clear your head. Back in Ireland, when I fell out of a relationship, we could go our separate ways. No one had a phone so the only times we'd see each other was a hello here and there, so there was a way to get it out of your head, to cope. Now, they're always there. If not in person, then on the texting ,on the internet. You can never get away, never really clear you're head. It sucks.

Eileen- I see how texting and websurfing has done terrible things to kids' language. I mean, I teach comparative literature, so I get a lot of papers. You wouldn't imagine how many kids hand in papers they typed up on their phones in class, sometimes forgetting to not use shorthand messaging for words. I have read some papers with a couple of LOLs and U's. I can't imagine what it'll get like from here.

Thoughtty wotts. (HW 3)

In regards to digitalization, I'm sort of straddling the fence. I see how it is completely altering how we talk, how we see people, the way we interact. That being said, I also believe that there are both positives and negatives to that. One one hand, it sort of draws people closer, having them open up more often to their friends online, connecting. Unfortunately, this attitude changes in person, once you can see a person, have them react in real time to your words, have them feel the emotion more than any typing could do. Facebook helps to unite long lost friends, but also invites a certain amount of disconnect in person. It's always much easier to talk to a screen as opposed to a face.

I prefer texting (the computer tells me texting is technically not a word, and I was taken aback, before I realized how that was further proof of how digitalization is affecting us. OMG LOL) to phone calls. This, I imagine, is a result of impatience for patchy calls and strained hearing through crappy earpieces. Texting, while still not a real substitute for person-to-person talks, makes communications easier and at least slightly more fluid.

I want to reread some of my favorite books. First being A Clockwork Orange, hence the titley witle.

Update - I was just upstate this weekend, with no phone and no internet, no cable TV. I felt perfectly fine, maybe a little lighter, save for the anxiety of anticipating an email response from a couple of people that I wasn't able to get to until today. Turns out I missed a potential movie date with friends and a couple people needed to talk to me. I'm not sure how to feel about it. It's deeply personal and not something to blast on the internet, lest some unseemly types get to it.

I guess I'll just update these thughts as I go, putting in new things every once in a while. Yesterday were the MTV VMAs, or the Video Music Awards. The internet was buzzing with talk of the event, particularly when Kanye West disrespected Taylor Swift by leaping onstage in the middle of her acceptance speech and snatching the mic from her, announcing that Beyonce should have rightfully won the award and that her video was the best of all time. Kanye then left in a bit of a huff, as MTV scrambled to cut to a commercial. They did a recap of the show, demonstrating how the website Twitter had over 10,000 tweets about the VMAs, Kanye in particular, next being Taylor Swift.

Now, I certainly see the impact this has on our concept of digitalization, with millions of people able to share their opinions instantly over the internet to people who really don't care past sharing their own. The thing about the internet is that it gives you a voice, it makes you willing and able to share anything at any time, as you are essentially talking to a screen and not the real person. I could tell you right here and now that I love you, that I have always loved you, from the day we met, but it amounts to very little in this 12 point Times New Roman.

The very fact that we are doing this class on computers tells us how connected we are to the electronics we claim to use. Turns out, IT uses US. Okay, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeraty wation, but regardless, the point is evident - we are leaning more and more into the digital void, and boy, it looks deep.

Hell, even our music is changing. It's all auto-tuning, so that artists no longer need to have any actual talent, a machine can make them sound nice. Disney is making that concept it's personal motto, making any young actress they hire an instant hit with their filtered, technological sound.