Module Evaluation

Throughout this module I have been continuously engaged with the course material and information available to us, I have enjoyed learning about the stuff associated with digital media and look forward to seeing how we shift from web 2.0 to web 3.0. The module helped me to revisit areas of my own particular interest, consumer production (prosumption) is a popular trend in the world of viral production and I feel as though my knowledge of the media landscape and digital technologies has improved during my time researching. The production phase of the brief allowed to apply the concepts and ideas I was engaging with and implement them into a piece of my own, a project I felt aided my personal development and work ethic throughout the term. I feel that by creating my own server space I was able to work in a more professional manner and see how I could present myself as a media producer online in an ordered appealing way. I look forward to improving on the techniques and theories I have learnt to expand my own repertoire of knowledge so that I will have an advantage when I set out into the industry and begin to produce my own projects on regular basis.

Focus Group – Feedback Response

I have been using my blog as a networked space and been active in the way I look at my peers content through commenting on their posts and providing them constructive criticism to aid the progression of their work. Two people I worked with in a focus group were Tayo Daramola & Charlotte Lawrence; we discussed the appearance and concepts of our work and provided each other feedback to help each other improve the work we were carrying out. I visited their blogs online and made comments they could use:

I also received feedback from my peers and tutors in regards to the work I had already completed; it was very useful as I found out which methods and of my practice were working efficiently and also which ones I could benefit with from changing. I applied what had been said to me to my blog to make vast improvements. I feel that by sharing each other’s work with one another to scrutiny can be very productive if it is done is a positive, constructive way, a way I feel it was carried out with me which only led on to help me create the website and blog I now have completed.

Installing Galleries

I had completed the taking of my images for work, rest & play and began to look at how I wanted to portray my images through my site. I knew that through the database functionality of WordPress I would be able to install a few galleries that would present my work in an ordered yet appealing manner. The first thing I did was visit the Plugins section of my dashboard and see which galleries I preferred to use on my blog, NextGen is a popular gallery and one I regarded as reliable so I installed it into my WordPress and began inserting my images to it. The NextGen gallery has a few interesting presets so I was able to select the ‘Image browser’ option which I felt showcased my images in a simple way.

After installing my NextGen galleries for my photosets (Work/Rest/Play) I thought it would look nice on my blog if I also showed the extra establishing images of ‘The Scenes’ I had taken. I went about looking at possible ways I could do this via my blog and located in the widgets section of my dashboard that I could install a NextGen slide show to the sidebar on the right; this was done quite simply because I had already created an album with the images I wanted to use on my WordPress and was easily able to insert them into the slide show I wanted to create. Once I had applied these images to my blog I felt that the viewer would see more of what I was doing without having to search for them, thus simplifying the experience of viewing my blog.

The final steps I took towards showing my work on the blog was to install a Flickr plugin; this took quite some time because of the way theme is designed. I tested quite a few plugins and finally came across one I liked the look of, its called ‘Quick Flickr’. I like the way I’ve set up my sidebar and thought it could do with some more colour to boost its appeal visually. I did not want to show all of my photos in the sidebar but merely offer a link to the rest of them via my Flickr web page. I configured the plugin on the widgets page of my dashboard to show 8 of my images (2 x work/2 x rest/ 2 x play/ 2 x scenes) each with a hyperlink to the main photo stream. I had completed the visual aspect of the creation of my blog and liked the way it had come out in the end as a professional networked space that highlighted all the work and projects I was conducting including rss of my personal interest.

Concepts for Photosets

Creating my ideas for the photo-sets was something I took a while to do. My initial thoughts were to take pictures of everyday life situations that included digital technology. The images I pictured in my mind were people watching television, playing games consoles and doing work on laptops. I had quite a vivid sense of how I wanted to take my pictures but did not know how I would be able to fit them into the “digital: work – rest – play” brief we had been given. I decided not to rush into the production phase of taking my pictures in thought that it would be worthwhile if I spent more time generating ideas so I was ready to take them into action once finalised.

I had been thinking about an idea that I found really interesting but was still ‘on the fence’ in my thoughts about its relevance. My idea was to show how we have become digitally versatile in the spaces we use to conduct work, rest and play. I believe that in today’s modern era we are rapidly beginning to “blur the boundaries” and can do all three in one location. The theory was formed on the basis that as long as we have the technology available and adequate comfort, any of the themes can happen in one particular location. My example is the bedroom, a person can rest on Facebook and also play on a games on a console whilst still being able to do work on a laptop all in one place. I planned to explore a variety of locations that encapsulated the theme I was beginning to generate and became intrigued with the way I could expand upon the idea.

I began planning how I would structure my photo-shoots, the model was this: I would set up 10 different locations with at least 3 people in each set; 3 people because each of them would be captured in the activity of either work, rest or play. The brief was to include 30 photos which inevitably meant I would ideally have 30 people in my photos, I wanted to use a different person for each picture because I felt it made more of an impact on the statement I was making in terms of locations being universal to people from different cultures and backgrounds. I went on a location recce to draw some inspiration on the other possible settings I could use for my locations. The locations I finalised on were:

- Bedroom – Canteen – Common Room – Garden – Group Meeting – Library – Living Room – Lounge – Computer Room – Table

I felt that these locations covered the general area in which people conduct their digital activity and felt that I would be able to achieve the completion of taking my images. I had my plan ready and began by going to the locations I would be able to take pictures the easiest, my own house was the first stop. I was able to capture a moment when I had my friends and housemates all together for the Living Room scene; they were playing Xbox, while another was doing work on his laptop and I had my other friend relaxing to music on his iPod. To ensure that “I captured the entire moment”, I took an image of the whole group together and then went on to get each of them individually. Once I had completed my first location I felt that it was a method that would be successful in each of the locations and set out to repeat it.

As I went out visiting my locations I was able to see people who were in small groups carrying out work rest or play, because I wanted to use a variety of people for my photographs I was able to stage some of my shots by kindly asking people “if they wouldn’t mind taking part in some photography work I was carrying out”; nearly all the people were willing to allow me to capture them with only a few hesitant on the basis that they were shy. I was able to get a lot of my friends to take part in my sets and was happy with the shape and body of work I was building. By the end of my photography I had 40 images (work x 10 – play x 10 – rest x 10 & 10 extras for the scenes), I had taken my time when angling my images so I knew which kind of shot would be taken and when I examined all my images I was pleased with the way I was able to formulate a narrative. I had successfully fulfilled the potential of my idea and been able to clearly represent it through my images.

Designing The Blog

Designing the blog was something I enjoyed more because I was familiar with doing work of a similar sort and found the task relatively simple and straightforward. The way I started working on the design of my blog was to look for a theme that suited my style of work and also look professional through its presentation. The first theme I chose was one named Brownline, I chose it because I liked the way it was set out and thought it would look much better if I customised it. After installing the theme and exploring the capabilities of the CSS I realised that it did not fit the picture I had imagined for it and decided to go about looking for another one.

I went through a lengthy search looking for a theme I knew would match the requirements I was seeking. I like themes that have a 3-dimensional look to it and feel a bit futuristic, themes with a right sidebar also appeal to me; this is because I like to arrange all my work and links in one easily accessible place and feel it is important to show organisation. The next theme I came across was one called Digitalis, I liked it because I felt it was simple yet had a bit of an edge to it. A problem I found with the theme was that the parameters of the tables for blog posts were not wide enough and did not allow the adequate space for the content I was inserting. Thinking about the installation of plugins and content in the sidebar inevitably I decided against having the theme as I felt it would take away from the presentation of my work.

I felt as though I was spending more time on the visual aspect of my blog and thought it would be very useful if I began to finalise on the theme I wanted and how it looked so I had more time to concentrate on the rest of the project. I simplified my search and went through a few pages of themes looking at ones that had the specifications I wanted. I managed to stumble across a theme I thought was very interesting, one called Inanis Glass. The theme is designed like Windows Vista and seemed very sharp and sleek with its interface, I particularly liked the colouring and expandable text space; once I instilled it to my WordPress I was very happy with my choice as I felt that with some editing I would be able to make it feel personal to me.

I began the customisation of my blog by working on the header. The theme allowed me to have an image in the top right corner so I decided that it would be nice for the viewer if the blog had an image of myself embedded into the page. Changing the image was a very simple process as it was in the appearance menu of the dashboard. I moved on to inserting my own custom logo into the banner at the top of the page; this was something that was harder than expected because of the expansion available in my text space. I wanted my logo to take up a significant amount of the banner space so the audience knew whose page they were on and felt that it was personal to me. I managed to resize the image to a scale that fitted into the banner and placed it on the left side of the page. I like the way this came out as it appears more subtle whilst still having a professional presence to the blog.

After I finalised the customisation of my blog I began to look at the widgets page and how I could share content in my sidebar. I began to insert a few widgets that showcased myself and also linked to pages of my interest. The widgets I finalised on were:

- WordPress – Archive – Pages – Blogroll – Recent Posts – The Scenes (Slideshow) – Twitter – Flickr Photostream - Search – BBC News – Media Guardian – Engadget - Wired – Billboard – SkySports Football – Delicious -

The sidebars fit well into the design of my blog and I like the way they are not ‘in your face’ whilst viewing the page.

I linked my external pages from my main site which are: – About – Associated Websites – Contact – Main Site. My photosets pages also appear on the blog, they are: – Play – Rest – Work

The Static Page (Main Site)

Designing the static page was a task that proved to be more difficult than expected. The difficulty was that I did not know what style I wanted to take when designing the page. I initially began working on a table in Dreamweaver with quite a simple the design. I wanted to have a banner with my name  in a logo form and have the links at the bottom of the page. I acknowledged that there would be quite a bit of space in the middle and thought it would look interesting if I had an image I had taken as the background and focal point of the page. The idea was one I felt happy with but as I had not been using Dreamweaver frequently it was my execution that had slowed down the creation phase of the site.

I eventually moved on to another idea that was fairly simple and one I felt fully able of completing efficiently. The idea was to have the page made like a welcome page that was the portal to all my other related pages and websites. I wanted it to be ‘in your face’ and make the visitor feel the need to click one of the links to see a page of their own interest. I liked my idea of the static page because it was something I did not find familiar amongst the others I had seen, I see this as a developmental piece that I will be able to look back on and improve because of its simplicity.

Once I had finalised my idea I began implementing the basis into Dreamweaver with a simple table that I inserted content into. I wanted to have text for some of the links and logos for others. I looked on google for images of twitter and Flickr for buttons that I could use for my table. The plan was to design fonts on the Fireworks software and use those for my text links; this was going quite smoothly and I like the way the page was coming out, all that was left was for me to begin considering the colouring and general theme.

Applying the final touches to my page was a process that became easier as I went on with designing my page. I was initially making sure that all of my icons were in place and the fonts I had made in Fireworks were finished. Inserting my images into the table was a straight forward exercise; the objects in the table were then each made into a hyperlink that would go to my various pages (which are: Blog, About, Contact, Associated Websites, Gallery, Twitter, Flickr & Vimeo). I wanted the background to be black so that the focus was on the links on the page, because of the size I chose for my static page it was easy to make a border that stretched out to the right size in a web browser window.

After testing each of my links and finalising the position and colour of each of the buttons and backgrounds I felt full of relief that my page was completed. I like the look and feel of my page and have sought the opinion of my peers and professionals; they have given me valuable feedback that I will put into consideration when it comes to representing myself with online mediums.

Virtually Real

Lectures sparked off the topic of understanding how we are beginning to progressively integrate virtuality into our own realities, something that has been made possible through the advent of new emerging technologies. Something that caught my interest was the message that “Everyone is a media producer today”, this is true because of the facilities we have available to us and its ease of use. In terms of my own personal production and place in society as a media producer I feel the need to remain updated with the constant changes in new media; this is because I am competing with not only university students but also those in industry that are working through other means.

The creation of illusion is something that developers have invested a lot of time and money into, the reasoning behind this can be seen through the way in which people feel the need to seek the more fictional ‘unreal’ forms of media. Virtual environments can now be created and submerge users into a world that they possess total control of. The idea of a ‘Second Life’ an online one that has people create an avatar version of themselves and play out their fantasies and dream lifestyles is a phenomenon that has swept the world of digital data. In terms of the advancing technology we now have access to, it is clear that the immersion of this technology is present. The impact new media has on the lives of the public is quite astonishing, people feel attached to the web and are more than willing to feed content to the machine at a continually increasing rate.

Semantic technology and the changeover from web 2.0 to web 3.0 is a transition that is inevitably going to happen, it is only a matter of time before we are completely surrounded by technology and software that truly interacts with each other as well as the user. In class we began thinking about “why do we have such an intense desire?” with the virtual world, I believe this is so because of the fascination people have with seeing and doing things that have not been done before. Humans have imaginations that expand ideas continuously, through the advancements in new media and technology the ideas people thought would be far too complex to carry out are now coming into formulation and being practiced coherently.

We looked at the work of Oliver Grau and how he perceived virtual arr with the concept of illusion to immersion, I found his techniques very interesting and thought of ways I could implement them into work I am carrying out in the future. The art of creating an illusion is something that has existed for ages, looking at the ways people use technology today to create hyper realities only shows that our thought processes have not changed much over time it is only that the means we use to execute our work has developed and progressed. There are various ways people use technology and one is the creation of lies, people use the camera in many forms to recreate situations and provide images that can represent something with unintended purposes. The truth can have multiple sides to it and although it is ‘true’ that people use new media to formulate false situations there are also people who are actively engaging in a positive way. The creation of an alternative reality seems to be a recurring motif when it comes to looking at the work of media producers in the digital age. 

Examples of representation are starting to ‘blur the boundaries’ as it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish the real from the virtual; I look forward to seeing how technology continues to improve itself and also how I will fit into the media landscape as an active member of the digital society. An aim for myself is to be able to utilise the online resources available to me so that I can present myself in a professional manner and have my “voice heard in the melee of humanity” so that I may be ubiquitous in my practice and involvement. I also like to consider the life of ‘the digital natives’ and see how they manage to carry out their own day-to-day patterns without being fully connected to the web; this is something I could not picture for myself because of the way my life is completely integrated with online technology. I also consider how we are beginning to shape our future with the changes we constantly make and looked at how one day we may become entirely dependent on the digital and allow ‘the machine’ to do and control everything for us; I hope this is not the case because ‘the dulling of life’ is something I do not welcome, only time will tell how life will be in the world of web 3.0.

The Internet & Digital Data

The term Mashup was visited in lecture as we began to look past our initial associations of the word being a musical combination and began to look at in a more digital sense of it being able to bring together existing forms to create a new form. The concept of hybridisation is very interesting when understanding how some of the ‘unique’ methods of practice and new technology have come into formulation. ‘Hybrid Forms’ by Lev Manovich explores the idea and creation of the cultural forms and software of today; most of the innovative media products we now enjoy the utility of have been combined with something that previously existed to make it a ‘new & improved’ version. APIs (Application Programming Interface) are a very progressive medium that has swept the world of computing and web-based usage. By the combination of various programmes, hybrid applications have been created that offer content that is accessible to all. In keeping with the idea that we are in an age of ‘prosumption’, anyone has the ability to create their very own APIs which can only expand the amount of differing technologies being created and used amongst our communities.

The World Wide Web has gone through many changes over time and has made progressions from having simple uses to its development of becoming a very sophisticated infrastructure of access to the online databases of web pages and the like. The content delivery system that is the internet has made a steady progression towards its transformation into the web3.0 state we now find it as. A very notable introduction to the websphere is the emerging use of software situated around the illusion that is augmented reality the ’next big thing’ as it stands. Augmented reality is a very interesting medium because of the way in which it allows unreal ‘fictional’ situations to be visually displayed in a vivid realism  that users engage with; as improvements are made to the existing software the line between what is perceivable as authentic will gradually disappear as will not be physically capable of distinguishing the differences.

To be able to efficiently integrate the knowledge of theories we were learning into our own work we would have to be capable of analysing them and developing an understanding of the different types of content and various forms of presenting them. The simple database functionality that all websites operate on can be seen as quite a complex practice if not interpreted knowledgeably. Content management systems (CMS) are a way of simplifying our usage of the internet; they exist purely for the purpose of managing the content we upload to various templates. The terms P2P, HTML & XML were also mentioned, these are codes I am fairly familiar with so I did not feel cautious when hearing we would be dealing with them. The language of computing is just another way of understanding, things like style sheets and themes each have a particular language that makes changing them simple. I visited the website: www.w3schools.com which was very useful while I was personalising my website.

Testing – Screenshot

Here is a screen shot of my website. I was playing around with the theme functionality and came up with this one as I liked the style of it. I’ve altered some of the colours that previously came with the theme and hope that I will be able to make more changes to the page’s appearance; whilst doing this I will aim to ensure that my site has the right customisations to suit the tasks I will be conducting.

Digital Media – A level playing field?

We began to look at digital media in more depth in lecture which sparked off the idea that ‘The Digital Age’  has seen power go into the hands of the people or the masses  as they have been referred to as. The concept of accessing the web and connecting to ’the cloud’ is becoming much easier as emerging technologies are persistently being produced. The surge of mobile devices has seen the progression and development of real-time communication; users can contact each other ‘instantly’, faster than ever before with picture perfect display. Democracy of technology has become less censored with the governing bodies of society not being able to control the content we now have access to. The internet has given the people freedom of speech and the space to exercise it.

The idea of control is greater explored with case studies such as that of Wikileaks being able to ‘expose’ confidential information to the public. Censorship is something that the government seek to have full control over and feel that their authority is undermined by the exploits of privately owned broadcasters. There is a theory about the control of behavioural patterns; this is that people will behave well as long as they have the subconscious belief that they are being watched. The method has been tested in the design of more modern prisons and has seen to have positive outcomes, with the progression of technological innovation it only seems that understanding of the human psyche will only improve till there is state in which people can truly be monitored and controlled efficiently. Francis Bacon once said: “Knowledge is Power” which says a lot about how people compare to computing, although it seems that most of the products being released today are for advertising or propaganda purposes it is by increasing ones knowledge of the society and its digital landscape that we can actually define what is ‘Real’.

The is an amassing tension that has been created situated around the use of global information, because of the way in which computers have been programmed it is becoming increasingly hard to define the authentic from something that is a digital alteration. The advances in digital technology have seen computing become one of the most important mediums in everyday life. The more popular introduction of visual displays like CGI begin to challenge the barriers that shape the world around us; as more films like Avatar are produced and websites that create the illusion of an alternative life acquire a greater following it is only a matter of time that we are completely dependent on the internet and digital technology.

So to get started with my own website I visited my control panel and had the luxury of doing a new and simple installation with the software functionality of the Fantastico Deluxe in sync with my WordPress. The aim for our work was to ‘emulate what the industry are doing’ so I began having a look at digital media practitioners and their websites to see if I could produce something of a similar standard. I came across quite a few interesting website, one that I was quite impressed with was http://www.reggieyatesphotography.com/; I am quite fond of the work of Reggie Yates and think his website is simple yet pleasing to the eye. As I continue experimenting with the capabilities of my website I hope to soon be able to develop an overall look and theme to the work I want to produce.