Our Class Wiki - So Far

In our Wiki page assignment I was assigned to be an editor of the page Art and New Media. I created this page and posted general contend to it. I also arranged several websites that are very useful in the art world and they provide up-to-date information about contemporary art scene in New York and internationally. I learned how to create the context, different pages, how embody external links and various images etc.

I worked on researching the artist that make and represent art through various aspects of new media as well as creating a summarized context and finding interesting video, images to embody on to the wiki.

Else than Art and New Media page I contributed to several other pages, such as New Media in Entertainment where I added additional sources. I also work on the Glossary as well on the outline of New Media page where I contributed new source image and introduction.

I find this process very interesting, but very time consuming. Through my research and screening through our Wiki I realized how much valuable information is contributed to these pages. This is defiantly a good source of information and I will continue to contribute and get informed through Baruch's Wiki.

The Nex New Thing

I think the next new thing will be virtual world! Not in the way of Second life but in the form of schooling. I think that in a decade or so technology will be able to advance so much that they will be able to create classrooms in which every student would have their own equipment for virtuosity and while a teacher would talk about history, geography, nature and other subjects that can be visualize these equipments will allow the kids to actually see, smell, touch, taste these topics right there in the classroom. They will be able to put on the virtual masks, gloves and similar equipment that will stimulate their senses and allow them to feel present in the given topic.

Of course this can be abused in a way that people would use it for pornography, violence or just personal cluster of social world. But if they would develop technology right, and program this equipment to function for only particular subjects-if not all in school it can defiantly advance education and motivate children to learn.

I could actually see this happening and I think we mentioned this is class throughout the semester. But it only makes me wonder what would be the next step…teletransportation into the actual space and time??? Awesome! J

About my term project

The main idea is to show how art ideas, media, techniques and their presentation changed over time and how they are complimenting new technology and new media in its structure.

By showing this transition chronologically I introduced the old art forms and the new revolutionary product-camera and photography that, in the arts, have brought us where we are today.

Chronologically I showed images and talk about topics that concern this.

I showed my point by introducing several artists and their work with new media and technology.

I started with Sam Taylor Woods who uses still video projection to capture the image of decaying rabbit that represents the beauty of life and the vision of how one life dies while the other one is being born.

The installation work of Marina Abramovic and her revolutionary involvement of people into arts, and a completely new perspective of looking and presenting art work.

Mariko Mori, the Japanese artist that uses light,video,sound, sculpture to develop the strikingly beautiful vision of cutting edge technology for the 21st century.

Olafur Eliasson's focus is on the light and the differences of preservations of colors. He uses mirrors, focused projections of light, and elements such as water, stone, and moss to shift the viewer's perception of place and self.

And finally the main artist that is completely involved in new media and our generation of technology is Cao Fei. She actually created an avatar on Second Life that serves to public and tells the story of the artist’s idea of life. . In here she projects her vision of the world and depicts Chinese architecture, landscape and images that echo tradition of China but also contrasts it to the dreamy world that second life can offer us.

This is the new form of art, a new vision of 21th century for which my main argument was that it needs to be accepted as art of new generations and that people need to shift from old traditional views of art to the new technological perceptions.

Privacy & Confidentiality

I would say that privacy and confidentiality is one of the major problems in social networking, internet and new media.

Privacy on the web is very unsafe, and everything and anything that we ever posted on line is available and permanently it is stored in the system. Therefore, as soon as we open a new profile, post or edit a line, or even if somebody else does that-mentioning our name on some webpage or anything of the similar manner we are exposed to the border public. Therefore our privacy gets lost and our identification can be seen across the world. In some ways it has a good meaning, because in our Western culture where technology, new media and advancement of communications are allowing us to progress and through this-on a business aspect we can easily be reached, and we can't hide anymore.

As of confidentiality, I think it is the same as with the privacy. Nothing can be safe and confident on internet, we shouldnt trust anything. There are many resorces but many of them can be and are wrong and people still trust them and get in trouble. For exemple the scams that we get through e-mail to invest money into certain things that will dobule after only a month or so. And people tend to be naive and trust these information. Also there is a enormus amont of scams through craigslist, when ever I would post somethig I would get different offers, that are composed very nicely, and seem very reliable but deep down I tend to get that gutts feeling through which I realise that this is wrong.

When ever we would send any kind of information via internet we should be careful because it can easily be exposed to everybody.

Advice to Baruch College

You are hired by Baruch College to use new media to improve the College. What are some suggestions you would make?

I think Baruch is pretty much well connected through faculty, students and resources that it has to offer. But of course there is always more to be done.

First, I would make like an obligation "advancement courses" that every professor, that is to be hired or is already a part of faculty at Baruch, would have to take additionally to advance their subjects with communications through new media and technology. This will introduce new and advancing technology communication, and allow every professor to continuously be informed and given training with new media. This is very important, because if the student are expected to know, learn and advance from their professors in today's technological society than every professor should be up to date with technology and know how to use and teach their classes using these new media.

I would advice them to set up every class room with all advanced technology and make professors use visual data, internet etc. Visual perceiving advances students memory and keeps us engaged in the classroom and many professors, believe it or not, still just have plain lecturing classes!

Second, I have to mention that my PSY 1001 class this semester has been introduced to a new book that has been custom made for Baruch faculty and student and allows amassing learning techniques that of course involve internet. Our professor can now record his lectures and post them on line through a specially design program that allows students, that have purchased the book to stay connected on very level. Also this program offers online interactions with lectures, it has an uploaded eBook, and it has various quizzes and practice modes that allow student to interact and advance their study performance and most of all make them interesting. I would defiantly advice Baruch to take this aspect of learning and new technology into the consideration, because this not only that it competes with new media aspects but advances student's learning and makes it more interesting.

Third, one of the things that I feel is lacking is communication between students, so I would try to create different social networks to advance the communication among students that have similar interests.

My New Media Class - So Far

What kinds of technologies are part of the new media? How important is the Internet to the new media? Why and how are the new media replacing and / or enhancing the old media?

In my New Media class at Baruch College, I have been introduced to various aspects of communication, social networking, evolution of technology, etc. It has been an mind opening experience in every aspect of this subject. Even though I was and still am very actively involved into the technology usage of today's world, through this class I realized how much more can be done in a sense developing easier communication and enhancing our performance in every day life, and in the business aspect of our careers.

We gained knowledge by talking and examining the historical aspects of media and technology such as broadcast communication through television and radios that is still part of new media, but is in general rapidly being replaced by new visions of technology.

Internet plays a major role of new media, in such way that makes this world much smaller, and easily connected throughout the planet. For many, if not for all, aspects of new media including social networking sites, gaming, virtual world, UGC all these systems are considered new media and are drastically dependable on internet connection.

These technologies are developing so fast, that sometimes I have a feeling that as soon as i learn to use one application, a compliantly new and advance one comes around. This is a never ending cycle in which our participation is necessary to benefit, both, us and technology.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

In our class and from the readings we found out how entertaining, helpfull and interesting this new world of Virtual Life/Second Life is. But infact it is that second life mixes up with reality.

I defiantly do support this new world of communication, establishing friends on line, meeting people, staying in touch with your existing friend and family, getting over certain fears and so on.
Many companies know how to use this new technologies into their advantige and communicate with people through virtual world. Such as Gap creating a custum fitting room in the Virtual World so that the custumers can tryout new products, see exectly how it fits them and be able to immidialy purchase it over the web. This is a great benefit for Gap, because it allows comments from the custumers and it enchances sales over the internet. Alo different architeture firms can create and avatar to check out interaction of people in the project that they are designing. This is all great and I highly support it.
But the thing is that we only look at the positive side of this. I am sorry for ruining this illusion of ideal world in Virtual Life, but this is not real!! Yes, it is great to play with it, to enhance communication but if we were to look at the statistics-real statistic that show to how many people did this actually benefit it would probably be far less than what we are being introduce to.

People can easily get lost in this world, and loose perceptions in reality. Yes they might join in desire to loose free of social restrains and practice their interaction with people through this world, and it might help them. But imagine how many people get carried away, and just waste hours and hours trying to do so in this illusion, instead of going into the real world! Imagine how many frauds there might be, how much crime, maniacs and weird people is actually out there. This comes to be like a free lend for those freaks that are limited in the real world and are free to do what ever they like in their Second Life, don't you think this is bit dangerous?? Imagine naive teenagers, or just lonely people that are looking for any kind of attention..well imagine the trouble that they can get into.
I like the quote from the "I've been in that club, just not in real life" in which Clayton Patterson a photographer of Manhattan said: “It’s the complete denial of your space, a complete theft of what it was that you lived in for years.” referring to a virtually created world in one of the avatars, in Manhattan that holds neighborhood's trendy places.
I believe that real life, as dangerous and challenging as it is, should stay real and present, because it is hard enough to make our living in the real world and imagine what would it take to do a double job in Second Life and get carried away and loose perceptions of reality.

Social Networking

Social networking is a new key term for staying in touch and being connected with your friends as well as with the rest of the world.



What are some ways that these technologies can be used? There are many ways to this aspect if we look at the personal level to many it is a way to stay in touch up to date with the events in your life as well as to learn what are your close friends, relatives or co-workers up to( when I say this I preliminarily think of twitter) but other social websites such as match.com or blogger give us a chance to express ourselves. Like match.com where people are able to show their interests and need and that way be matched with a partner, on dates or just socially or maybe more in this case web based entertained. I heard that this works pretty well and that there is a big resource of different people that might be interested in just same thing as you are. Blogger allows us to post our thought, catalogs different reports get insights for a particular topic etc. and be able to share it with the rest of the world. Also I very much support the use of messengers which are also a way of social networking, where interviews and personal connections can be performed. This can defiantly be loocked at as a benefit because many companies do not have representatives in the city where they might find recruits so a benefit of for example Skype is that there can have an interview with live web cam and audio performance.

The dark side of this aspect is that people can get in trouble by not being careful with the concepts that they post on their blogs, facebook or twitter updates and other might abuse that.

In a way I am afraid where the technology is heading and how feast it is spreading and globalizing people-which is defiantly great-the world is getting smaller and the access to different information is much easier. But the part that scares me is the fact that people are replacing real physical society with the online virtual world. I think allot of time is being wasted on computers while that precious time can be spent out side in the nature, playing sports or just simple socialising among friends rather than on web.

Check Out Social Networking Sites

Social Networking sites are globally enlarging their functions. Everyday more and more people join these networks out curiosity or just with an intention to network and meet new people.
I, personally, am not in the big favor of these because I do not like to be exposed to everyone.

MySpace has this aspect of communicating where everyone and anyone can visit your page, view your pictures your favorite music, the things that you like and don't like. For me this is a invasion of privacy, if you of course decide to put yourself out there.
On the other hand another social networking site that I kind of approve is Facebook, because here you have a choice to whom are you going to let to see your pictures and your activities in life. But still even this is limited to a selected public where your privacy can be majorly expose even to those that are not your friends but are friends of the friends.
From my knowledge hi5 is another one similar to facebook but it is in general more popular among South American community.
Twitter is another form of social networking where you are updating your followers with events that you are going through daily. This is a newest version of a social network I believe and it is the one that is not exposing you graphically at most part but verbally, in a way that you update your status. For me this is not that interesting because I do not like to share my everyday tasks nor do I really want to know what are you doing or thinking every second of the day.
But this is a new era of communication and in some ways it is helpful and defiantly time consuming.

Blog vs. Wikis

Blogs vs. Wikis- both of this new media functions are enhancing our communication and allowing us to stay connected worldwide.

But what is the difference between these two?? As I understood; blogs are social websites that enables people to create their own personal account, to post as much personal information as they wish to expose and most of all post their thoughts of different concepts on their page. From these pages they are raising questions, brainstorming ideas, or just simply communicating about the subject that interest them, while blogging with people from all over the world. This is a very neat function because everybody that becomes a member on such blogs can find a discussion subject and express their opinion. On these blogs, nobody can change, correct or add anything on the thought that you have already posted, but they can comment as much as they like.

While on the wikis, a certain community is created and everybody of that community has access to whatever you contribute. They can edit it, share their thought, change the look completely or just simply add to your comments.

All in all, both of these have same idea to enhance the communication among people, to speed things up and allow easier communication, but one in a worldwide way with a bit of privacy; while the other in a community way in which all the members can have a peak.

Old Media Vs. New Media

It has been a long time since we had to use a pencil and paper to write an essay. Such a long time that, it is almost unimaginable to function without the computers. I believe this is the first noticeable shift in Old vs. New media in the history of technology.

Hand written scripts vs. Massively manufactured, computer based production- Years ago…centuries even..books, and different scripts had a very difficult time of being produce. That said; it would take monks, moths and years to hand write certain scripts, for which copying technology in today era is much faster and easier.

TV years ago and TV now- This is still considered same media, but it has majorly expended its habits in today’s technology. Fifty years ago TV was a luxury and only certain programs were offered to public-the ones that were able to afford it. In today’s world this aspect is massively shifting to a broader-almost complete population of the world and it has become a number one informational unit for people. But now, if we compare computers and internet technologies in today’s era, even that new TV media is shifting its roots away and yielding its functions to internet and computers where much easier access is given to all worldwide affairs.

Looking at future- this new and popping culture of internet and mobile connections on every step of the way is possibly going to be exchanged with the new virtual world technologies that might be braking through in just few years.

New Media in the World of Arts.

Media in general is highly influencing everybody’s lives and new generations are being extremely exposed to this world of high-tech communication. Well not only that new media it is being conduct ed in communication, machinery, medicine and other areas of our lives, but now it is also changing the way we look at art.

An old school traditional, panel-color technique is being rapidly introduced to the new world media. Art installations are set up with impressive usage of light and video projections, the way museums are marketing themselfs these days, how and where is digital photography, animations and 3D designs taking us and how is high usage of technology replacing brush strokes and even our way of interacting with art.

That said, I plan to research and present new ways of looking at art. How this traditional method is slowly sleeping away and might it be replaced completely.

What is New Media

The new media technologies includes the world that surrounds us today. Starting from the evolution of computers, camers-that are now digital, TV that is high definiton radio and so on.
Internet is definatley a very important part of the new media, in the way that it enchansses the functions and communications through this new techlogy.
New media is resplasing old media in the way that is becomeing more funcational, portable and dependable through the world and its people.

Looking back at functions of TV or Newspapers which were the main aspect of communication and beeing connected with as much as possible up to date information that was going on in our communities-some time ago this was new media, today this is easily considered old media even though we still use it.
Today' much more advanced sistem for communications is available to us and those are computers and internet conections that easily replace all of these "Old Fashined" aspects of communication. Like in the article "Who needs a TV? I'm watching it on laptop." where this exeact replacement is mentioned. We do not need to schedule ourselfs to watch a particular show at the particular time if we can just simply go to the website of the same tv show's provider and watch it when ever it fits our schedule the best. For this kind of interactions with the new media internet is a preliminary sourse.