As discussed extensively throughout the semester, digital technologies have paved the way for further increasing the popularity of civic journalism and freedom of expression.

As shown by activist campaigners, such as ‘The Yes Men’, and the Australian version in ABC’s ‘The Chasers’, media channels are used to successfully capture the public’s attention. These groups often imitate figures of authority or reprise events with the goal of exposing corporate or government “EVIL” agendas – for the public’s interest of course.

Witness.org is an organization, which promotes “the use of video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations.”

Without succumbing to political discussions, especially with the current global financial crisis, exploitation of mainstream media is somewhat reasonable. Personally, it is not only an informative source, but also a rather a entertaining one. Must we always have to accept bad news? However, these groups often encourage viewers that it is acceptable to disrespect the decisions of politicians or disregarding the recommendations of experts, for the sake of generating comic scripts. It is always wise to gain two sides of a story – not every government initiated media releases are necessarily negative. After all, a country’s governing body is to serve what is best for their nation – in utopia!

Although their intentions are represented in digital forms through TV, radio or the Internet, these groups support the traditional means of protesting in achieving effective ways to communicate their ideas and objections.

Art? 

What defines art?

The masterpieces by Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello and Leonardo (wait a minute….they are the 4 teenage mutant ninja turtles), the sculptures displayed throughout the new Eastlink Freeway in Melbourne, the graffiti which colours the walls of city laneways, the advertising images on billboards, Andy Warhol’s pop art images, the gruesome scenes of Quentin Tarantino’s films, the beautiful lyrics of romantic songs, the collage of shoes I want to purchase…… are all considered some form of art.

One can say, ‘art’, whether it is represented through a process or as a material product, is an expression of ones thoughts and beliefs that captures the attention of an audience.

This week’s lecture showcased the artwork of 2 interesting ‘contemporary’ artists – one who altered images with the use of a scanner and the other produced digital artworks that resulted from combining science and technology. Each artist had very different goals in what their end product would look like, yet they shared similar intentions in using digital techniques to manipulate their artwork.

Brophy’s article ‘Singapore Biennale’, discusses the issues in regards to “art going beyond painting.” With the availability of technology, media art is now absolutely huge! As technology continues to advance beyond expectations, production of art digitally is somewhat a fresh means of expression – as demonstrated by the guest speakers this week. Digital aesthetics as a new channel for art expression allows for art to evolve into something that will show distorted unimaginable images, something that will blow audience’s minds – according to Brophy, “this will push mediums beyond its numbing base.”

With the onslaught of new, ‘cool’, savvy, state-of-the-art, funky, sweet (call it what you like!) technologies available, it is now much easier to record daily experiences and furthermore, store as much of it as you would like.

According to the article ‘Life Caching’ by trendwatching.com – “trends are often a manifestation of new enablers unlocking existing human needs.” As the article points out, humans are fueled by a society with pressure for control, validation, self-worth, vanity and even immortality.

As the trend of owning the latest digital toys escalates, caching every moment of our lives is now often second nature. Additionally, the increasing popularity of social networking sites on-line, sharing these images/photos is almost encouraged…. much to the ignorance of the consequences involved in doing so. Because of our obsession with capturing nearly every moment or event, which occurs in our lives, have we forgotten why we take photos in the first place? Traditionally, photos were taken with the intention of remembering sincere moments in our lives. Today, it seems pictures of derogatory nature are captured with the purpose of displaying it for public viewing (ie pouting for a Facebook profile photo) – am an offender of doing so! Are we capturing these images for memory’s sakes or for attention?

In relation to globalization and the effects it has on the media and publicity, the ease of being able to capture events have brought upon certain advantages. Citizen journalism, for example, has exploded in popularity of recent times, especially since 9/11. Media companies have taken advantage of the images captured by the public – who were present at the exact time as to when the event took place. This gives first-hand images to support breaking news stories. However, when does it become inappropriate to take images? Is it ok to take photos of someone who has just died because of a bomb blast? Is it ok to take photos of a young child who has just been raped? Is it now socially acceptable to take photos of anything for the sake of obtaining an image as proof of an experience….and are these images something worth remembering?

In Thompson’s blog, ‘Collision Detection’, lifeblogging was a personal experiment conducted by Gordon Bell, a Microsoft Research scientist. ‘Lifeblogging’ involved Bell to record every single experience he had everyday – from conversations, images, thoughts and to every detail in his activities of daily living. Every gesture was captured, and a picture was taken every 60 seconds from a camera around his neck – and all archived into his computer. Bell’s intention was to “never forget anything.”

What will life be if nothing is forgotten?

There are certain times in everyone’s lives when events are better off forgotten. Many would suggest that there is no need to archive every minute details of a person’s life. Once every detail is recorded, behavioural changes occur to ensure what is being captured gives the ‘the perfect’ impression or depiction, therefore personalities and reality are set aside.

Having the capacity to be able to offload memories and thoughts into a machine can benefit those who need to remember important things, have the need to store knowledge for future use or simply have difficulties in remembering things. However, one needs to elect which information is worth remembering or more importantly, how much information is too much information?