Computing, Entertainment, and the Fine Arts New Media

1. Computing, Entertainment, and the Fine ArtsNew Media Module 8

2. The Big Trend Participatory media Everybody a creator of artistic work Everybody a consumer of artistic work Everybody a critic of artistic work Anybody can reach anybody All of this enabled by information and communication technology But is it art? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38QR6xEz7Ho http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2lNtE3Q54w

3. Definitions of “Media” media (1): the actual creative work new media: transforming and augmenting artistic expression media (2): the technology that supports creation and interaction with the creative work new media: new technology to support the creation of, interaction with, and distribution of artistic expression media (3): the way that creative work is distributed new media: transforming the relationship between the producer and consumer of artistic expression

4. Media (1) Transforming creative expression

5. Old Media (1) Transformed visual arts digital art + photography tools drawing and painting tools eg. PhotoShop cool ideas ultra high resolution images U. of S. College Building: 40 megapixels world’s biggest digital picture: 16 gigapixels interactive art the art and the consumer of the art can interact

6. Old Media (1) Transformed music electronic music, digital encoding tools digital sound in several formats, eg.MP3 synthesizers composing software eg. Audacity Eg. GarageBand digital players cool ideas digital mixing

7. Old Media (1) Transformed movies computer graphics/digital sound tools animation tools: Renderman, Art of Illusion graphics techniques to replicate real world: Poser, Carrara image encoding standards, eg. JPeg cool ideas digital sets and characters, CGI effects potentially completely artificial movie Toy Story: the first animated film generated enitrely with computer graphics - now Beowulf how long until a non-animated film can be generated artificially? The uncanny valley effect

8. Old Media (1) Transformed Literature, electronic books, audio books Tools word processors: Word, Latex Book readers - eg Kindle cool ideas hypertext: multi-media documents narrative is hyperlinked and non-linear interactive book book interacts with reader, perhaps adaptively to personal aspects of the reader socially constructed written works eg. Wikipedia

9. Old Media (1) Transformed drama computer controlled sets, lighting, and sound sculpture sculpture with computing on-board eg. Bellagio fountains Las Vegas dance Labanotation for ballet LabanDancer: translates Labanotation scores into 3-D human figure animations - useful for choreographers and for training

10. Brand New Media (1) computer games types first-person shooters (Doom, ………) massively multi-player (World of Warcraft, ……..) adventure (Myst, ……..) challenging movies for total revenues virtual reality sight and sound tactile other senses?

11. Brand New Media (1) immersive environments multi-person, multi-media, multi-modal interaction simulation environments (eg. SimEarth) social environments (eg. The Sims) customizable environments (eg. Second Life) http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-10878_11-174450.html?tag=gald Sex in second life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruMi3MAGkvc

12. Media (2) Transforming the technology that supports creation and interaction with the creative work

13. Old Media (2) old media printing presses radio, television, and movie studios broadcast: specialized distribution networks old computers old hardware standard von Neumann architecture hardware standard keyboard input/output particular encodings of images (jpeg), sounds (mp3) printers old software standard operating systems languages for building any application utilities that replicate non-computing versions (Word, Draw, …)

14. New Media (2) all computer based specialized hardware (xBox, Wii) specialized operating systems (eg. for gaming environments) specialized languages (eg. to create web pages) specialized I/O devices (eg. game box controllers) new encoding schemes for images and sounds (to get ultra-realistic output) new modes of interaction (eg. tactile interfaces, haptics) new tools to support interaction (drawn from HCI and AI) ability to create artificial agents (eg. opponents in a computer game)

15. Media (3) Transforming the way that creative work is distributed

16. Old Media (3) Transformed broadcast radio web accessed tools internet and satellite transmission cool ideas personal radio programs: podcasting global radio stations finding programming for a person based on tastes music genome: Pandora narrow casting to a small audience

17. Old Media (3) Transformed television digital sound and images tools internet and satellite transmission the computer as TV set cool ideas direct access anytime from anyplace consumer created content: YouTube personalized TV: TiVo

18. Old Media (3) Transformed newspapers on-line and web based tools standards like XHTML to allow consistent presentation of and interaction with content tools to support content creation cool ideas blogging the reader as reporter personalized news: user profiles to capture individual interests and customize news Wikis and collaborative construction of knowledge

19. Old Media (3) Transformed movie theatres digital projection, both image and sound combined with communications technology means that the number of copies of a movie is unlimited galleries sites for sharing of digital content eg. photo sharing on Flickr Virtual gallery in Second Life museums electronic guides to real museums eg. Museum Wearable on-line museums eg. the Hermitage and many others

20. Old Media (3) Transformed libraries electronic information the challenge of non-authoritative information the challenge of changing information the challenge of finding information: the need for metadata archives digital archives ability to store data more flexibly ability to find data more easily ability to make sense of data more readily: data mining

21. New Media (1, 2, and 3) convergence of new media types 1, 2, and 3 fusions of different types of art fusions of different kinds of media all distributed on the internet all playable on one entertainment complex all digital and widely accessible potentially interactive created by everybody for everybody: participatory media

22. Main Media Issues What are the main issues that are driving the new media revolution

23. Technical Issues putting software on board artistic creations adaptivity to context personalization to individuals or groups ability to make the art dynamic and interactive electronic distribution artistic creations can be distributed world wide accessed via the web recommender system technology eg. movie recommender system MovieLens eg. art recommender system, CHIP peer to peer file sharing eg. Napster, Kazaa

24. Technical Issues obsolescence how long will digital media last? issues of digital storage decay over time vulnerability to magnetic interference issues of hardware and software compatibility bandwidth how much and how fast can we download/upload content? with Moore’s law, there may be no real impediment to almost any digital art being interacted with in real time implication: all media may be like recorded music now

25. Social Issues uploading of content everybody a producer and consumer participatory media devaluing of special expertise democratization or the triumph of mediocrity? direct contact of artist to audience elimination of publishers, middleman (Radiohead) ability to reach specialized audiences the long tail phenomenon (Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine) moving from an age of broadcasting to one of narrow casting

26. The Long Tail level of interest in artistic work artistic works

27. Social Issues intellectual property issues who owns on-line intellectual property? open source vs. traditional notions of ownership is it the copy that is protected or the original art? economic issues how can money be made? micro-payments: Ted Nelson spin-offs from art: live performance who makes the money? art criticism blogs and wikis everybody a critic

28. The Future altering the nature of the artistic creation ubiquitous technology: art everywhere, integrated with life altering the nature of the artistic creator more tools drawing from various areas of computer science: HCI, graphics, agents, AI continued devaluation of the need for expertise altering the nature of the consumer of artistic creation wearable computers original idea of Steve Mann also see: Casren Mehring augmented cognition

29. What Happens to Old Media? There will still be traditional artistic creation traditional newspapers, movies, television But, even these will be affected by the new media revolution marketing through the internet and web on-line reviews, eg. metacritic learning through on-line educational tools inspiration through a world of ideas on the web apprenticeship through on-line social networking projection of traditional media into cyberspace new cost-benefit trade-offs (see Lucas quote)

30. From the October 5, 2006 issue of Variety: "George Lucas has a message for studios that are cutting their slates and shifting toward big-budget tentpoles and franchises: You've got it all wrong. The creator of "Star Wars," which stamped the template for the franchise-tentpole film, says many small films and Web distribution are the future. And in case anyone doubts he means it, Lucasfilm is getting out of the [theatrical-release] movie biz."We don't want to make movies. We're about to get into television. As far as Lucasfilm is concerned, we've moved away from the feature film thing because it's too expensive and it's too risky. Spending $100 million on production costs and another $100 million on P&A makes no sense, he said. "For that same $200 million, I can make 50-60 two-hour movies. That's 120 hours as opposed to two hours. In the future market, that's where it's going to land, because it's going to be all pay-per-view and downloadable.”

31. References The Economist: A Survey of New Media, April 22, 2006 Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, Hyperion Press, July 2006 Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, April 2005 Philip Meyer, The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age, University of Missouri Press, 2005