Jennifer Elizabeth...

I was really, really amazed in class when we discussed different aspects of the internet that i never knew before. The internet is a major part of my life and most of the world depends on the internet for so much. We depend on the internet for work purposes, but communication purposes, for shopping purposes and for entertainment purposes. 
Before our class discussion, I had only briefly heard of internet protocol but never really understood its function. The old internet protocol was called IPv4. Under the IPv4 internet protocol, IP addresses or internet protocol addresses (which are basically numbers assigned to all devices connecting to a computer network for location and identitification purposes) all were composed of 32 number bit unique address. Sure enough, 4.3 billion IP addresses were not enough, and we were running out of addresses and a new internet protocol needed to be created.  Today’s internet protocol goes by the name IPv6! IPv6 determines IP addresses differently then IPv4 did. IPV6 allows for 128 number bit addresses which can allow for 340 undecillion address options. I have no clue how many that really is.
It was also very interesting to re-touch a familiar topic of open source. In my early years at Hunter College,  I took an entry level computer science course which the professor was a huge, huge, huge open source fan and strictly used Lennox and on an occasion used firefox. Open Source software leaves the door open for endless possibilites and lot’s of interesting outcomes.
In class discussion we also ventured into a very rough territory, known as, internet language! The language of the internet is actually very, very fun and frequent internet users were really forced to create new lingo and talk to communicate with the internet community. I really found it interesting to learn the origins of cyberspace and avatar both came from science fiction writers. Memes was definitely a fun word to learn, I’m sure I’ve come across many memes in my day and never knew the term to describe them.

Databases have made the world a better place. Technologically databases help us organize information and help limit chaos from an informational perspective. Databases have become such a conventional part of society and the technological world that we don’t realize how often we use databases. When thinking about how databases make my life easier, I couldn’t help but thing about work. I’m a receptionist at a doctor office. Our office database keeps a list of all of our patients names, phone numbers, addresses, insurance information, appointment history as well as the schedule for each day in the present, future and past. I play a huge role in creating this database therefore I play a huge role in creating media on a very small scale. I might even possibly be apart of a metadata community. In our world, the user plays a huge role in organizing data and creating media. With so many new media forms, everyone can get involved in some way or shape. My favorite example of a metadata community was the three-wolf moon tee-shirts being sold on amazon.com. Not only is it genius and hilariously funny, but it was a fun and easy way for so many users to get involved. This specific community is easily accessible and well organized for everyones viewing pleasure. I also enjoyed the class discussion on how games are of a narrative nature. One of my favorite games has always been super-mario brothers. In the early days of mario and luigi the overall narrative included mario and his side-kick fighting off evil creatures all in hopes of finally killing the mean monster king and rescuing the princess. Even the simplest of games was created on a narrative. From class discussion and analyzing metadata and databases for this analysis, I realized we all all apart of metadata communities and we all contribute to data for databases in so many different ways.

in the year 2010… blogs run the world. there are blogs about everything. we even have a bloga bout this course and each student in the course also has their own blog. internet communication has become standard in everyday life. these days everyone has an email. these days, everyone has a facebook page. even my 65 year old aunt from pennsylvania, who i never even thought owned a computer, has a facebook page. online dialogue has taken over the world as we know it. online communication makes it extremely easy to contact friends, family member and business partners globally.

last class we discussed a chapter from Theodor adorno and max horkheimer book titled “Dialectic of Enlightenment.” we discussed in detail the topic of a culture industry. The culture industry is basically a giant standardization whih was ultimately created to make money. by creating a culture industry, it creates a universal audience and it creates a universal need for the same things. we as individuals conform to whatever the norm becomes and feed into the mass standardizations for society and according to the reading, not conforming to the norms makes us as individuals powerless in society. media allows people to feel as an individual by categorizing us into groups. “…it is claimed that standards were based in the first place on comsumers’ needs and for that reason were accepted with so littlw resistance. the result is the circle of manipulation and retroactive need in which the unity of the system grows ever stronger.”

we also discussed in class two main forms of media, cool media and hot media. a perfect example of hot media is radio. its a one way communication and their is not audience interaction. cool media is when the user has a active part and the audience can project themselves into media interactively.

a question that i would like to ask is whether media creates the culture or whether we create the culture. this question is a catch 22. it can go both ways. the main goal for media is to make money, so the public has little control over what they put out. on the flip-side we control what we like and what sells. so i ask you the same question… so we create culture or does industry create culture?

Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” brought up many interesting points which I had never explored. “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element : its presence in time and space, its unique exsistence  at the place where it happens to be.” Benjamin brings speaks in this essay about something that he calls “aura.” Aura basically refers to the authenticity of a work of art, whatever the it may be. Benjamin basically states that in the age of mechanical reproduction, aura “withers” away. Benjamin goes on to say that, “By making many reproductions it substitues a plurality of copies for a unique exsistence.” Art loses its aura or its originality when it’s duplicated. Mechanical reproduction can guarantee an exact reproduction of the work but it cannot guarantee it’s aura or it’s authenticity. Benjamin sees the authenticity of art as “it’s testimony to the history which it has experienced.” If Benjamin were to write a piece today reguarding aura and today’s media, he would probably feel that most art is very inauthentic and the aura which makes art real has been lost due to the mechanical reproductive world that we currently live in. He would probably see art with a very narrow eye and most likely becauses he sees the loss of originality due to the availability of duplication. Film, photography and computers have greatly impacted the meaning of image. Image was a very simplistic term. For years there was little depth to an image. In today’s world, the term image is extremely general and can relate to anything you see in real life, on television, on the computer or in a museum. Image for our generation definutely does not hold the same meaning as it did for our grandparents generation. Benjamin also introduced to me the difference between art work for cult value and art work for exhibition value. Benjamin explains cult value as “what mattered was it’s exsistence.” Art with cult value is not meant for anyone to see. We learned a great example of this in class with the cave drawings done thousands of years ago in France. this drawings were not done for the viewing pleasure for others, they are simple the world’s first recorded works of art. These drawings were done for the cult value of just simple being a work of art. The modern world wasn’t even aware of these drawings till the 20th century. In today’s world, most art is designed for the exhibition value. We have so many opportunities have evolved for artists to be able to show up their talents and control who sees it and when. Machinima would give Benjamin a lot to think about. Machinima’s authenticity or aura could be debatable. Some may argue that Machinima is as inauthentic as it gets. Gamers have no original concepts and steal the content from video-games to create these movies. Others may argue that the production of Machinima is completely and utterly authentic to the gamers design.