Rachel brought up many interesting points, but the one point she made about the loss of text in the evolving world stuck out. She said Facebook is mainly about the pictures, twitter about the limitation of the "tweet" and how we crave a short version of a story/picture rather than a "wordy" article. This pushes us away form words and into the image. The question I then pose is whether this is better or worse for the artist? Immediately, I think that this is evolution toward the age of the artist, the image and the power therein, an age in which words are just a subtle afterthought, either slightly clarifying or part of the art itself. Lee Manovich's article Art after Web 2.0 explores the idea of marketing strategy, and I think that this is exactly why the image is so powerful. The image draws an immediate connection between two or more thoughts and/or memories, while text can be mysterious, confusing, and unclear. The internet is marketing constantly. In the Futurama episode I linked to above, immediately after entering the internet" the advertisements were all they could see, and had to fight through them.
As I am writing this blog, Lawrence's internet continually fails, and starts back up, an ongoing cycle. Watching video's on youtube becomes challenging, as the videos do not load, and searching for images on google just doesn't work as the images don't load.
So as a final note, and with sincere hope that the blog will find a second to load through all the failing internet cycles, I leave this final video.
If the internet is going to loose all text eventually...then yes it will probably be taken over by porn, which at that point will be a pretentious art form as well.
As a wise man once said a picture is worth 1024 words (geek jokes). I totally agree that picture is a very powerful tool. Soon enough I believe that words will fade away and you will only find pictures and some captions but not a long article anymore. Think about how much time we spent reading for pleasure and watching video for pleasure. For me it is clear, watching video is easier and I can do other stuff while watching it. Life demands a lot more from us now, we have to harvest the most out of the time given.
ReplyDeleteI really like futurama, and i know that episode. Although futurama's jokes are super lame, I think that the idea of advertisements taking over what the internet is... is a really applicable point. It seems to me like the whole point of putting something online is for other people to see it. That idea makes posting content to the web seem annoying, really.
ReplyDeleteWhen the internet isn't working, we realize it could all go away and we'd be left with reading books and writing letters again in a hope of staying informed and connected.
ReplyDeleteThe loss of text in the internet is a very strong example of internet communications getting more and more streamlined. Why use words if a short video says it all? Why write an article if 10 words suffice? I don't think that this in inherently a bad thing, but it does bug me that it makes people's attention spans shorter and shorter and shorter. I don't think every person needs to sit down and read a long book, but I do think many people would benefit if they just slowed themselves down and allowed themselves to experience each moment for what it is, rather than getting caught in a frenzy to read as much as they can, accomplish as much as they can, post as much content as they can, etc. Slow down! Take some nice deep breaths. Feel the wind on your face! Embrace the time it takes to write out a thoughtful email rather than punching out a 160 character message. These are the things that I think people lose out on with current internet advances.
ReplyDelete