Poor, stubborn Nelson.
After reading the articles on Nelson and Berners-Lee one could definatly see the differences in their habbits. Although Berners-Lee is acknollged for inventing the internet, it seems more like he did the right thing at the right time and it caught on. Although he did create what we now use as the internet, he didn't seem to have the grand scheme in mind of what it could become. Nelson however did. His ideas on how a network should be are broad and intrepid. He is acknolleged for coining the term hypertext.
The problem with Nelson is that he doesnt understand the nature of his own work. Berners-Lee worked on and invented the internet not because he had an amazing idea and goal and stuck with it until it was complete, he invented it because he needed a world wide netwrk to do his work. Nelson refuses Berner Lee's work because it isnt as ambitious as his own. however the nature of a network is not to be perfect. when a network begins it is small and poor. An more people join it it grows, and it becomes better, and over time it becomes the very thing Nelson imagined it could be. The great thing about the world wide web is that it is world wide. It's constantly being improved on because EVERYONE in the world is using it and adapting it and growing it. the information just keeps growing at a more and more rapid pace, at a pace to where Nelson is so far behind he could never catch up.
Many of the ideas Nelson had hoped to accomplish are already being invented and improved upon. Wikipedia for instance is an onlie source site that can be improved on by anyone and everyone with information to share. the very information for this essay came from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Text. The site is created, grows and is edited and changed by the consumer, the very people who are reading and needing the information. Because of this it wil always be what is understood to be correct. What is known is only what people have decided to be true. If the general consencous is that the world is round, than the people will write "the world is round" and nobody will edit or chalange it. Therefore this site is the peak of human knollege and will still continue to grow.
Nelson is too ambitious in his goals. He wants to create something in his head that is perfect, when perfection is never just created, it is shaped from imperfection. His stubborn behavior is his flaw. The ADD probubly doesnt help much either. The glory that is the internet is because it is collaborative, it is the collective knollege of all mankind, not one man. Thats why I say: poor stubborn Nelson.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Net Art
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Net Art seems to be controversially defined. There are a few different definitions in use today and no one is specifically the correct one. From it's accidental origin to what it has now become, nobody really knows how to define this new form of art that is now the most accecible art form on the planet. The definition I have chosen to stick with is: any art made for the purpose of being shared and modified through a network.
The reason we call it Net Art is one argument's strongest point. That is because it is it's origin. Net art comes from "net.art" which was a small part the text of an email virus. The term began to be used to explain the sharing of email, video, photos and sounds online, or on a network.
The truth is, all forms of art that we have known throughout history are now being expressed and shared through the network we call the internet. There is now art form man and not invented that has not been expressed in the medium of the network. We share music, paintings, photography, novels, film, poetry, and even a mix of many of these things. If this is the case we can hardly say that when we share Mozart online, Mozart has now become a net artist. Nor can we say that the person who transfered his work from paper to sound to digital sound to a network is an artist, for he has done nothing involving original creation. Therefore not all art shared on a network is net art. It must be defined as something else.
The internet, and world wide web are just one form a network. When thinking of net art it is the most common idea of what that should be shared on. The world wide web is just what it's name suggests, world wide. When a net artist is choosing a network to display his or her work he would obviously choose the network that can be viewed and contributed internationally. However this is not the only network out there. Networks can be any size, and they don't even have to involve people.
The "growth rendering device" as found on rhizome.org is an art project that works with a network between a machine and a plant. The machine feed the plant nutrients and in response to the machine the plant begins to grow. as the plant grows the machine then responds to the plant by drawing the shadow of the plant on a piece of paper every 24 hours. the point of the art is the communication between two separate objects. In this case it is not two people over the internet it is a plant and machine. A small unusual network but a network none the less. ( http://www.dwbowen.com/growth.html )
Probably the most common form of net art is the video blog. One could find many online at youtube.com. The video blog connects one person with many, through visual and audio means. After one video is posted a response can be posted and before long the original post has grown into 5 10 or thousands of posts.
These projects are made with the purpose of networking. They cannot exist without the hope that one original source will connect with the next. Though net art is not precisely defined in many peoples minds, it should be. It is the newest most accessible form of art in the world today.
as we may think
Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" predicts some of the great advances that the personal computer has allowed in the recent past. It's truely interesting that what he predicted, and dreamed of happening we now take for granted. Bush asks:
"Will there be dry photography? It is already here in two forms. When Brady made his Civil War pictures, the plate had to be wet at the time of exposure. Now it has to be wet during development instead. In the future perhaps it need not be wetted at all. There have long been films impregnated with diazo dyes which form a picture without development, so that it is already there as soon as the camera has been operated. An exposure to ammonia gas destroys the unexposed dye, and the picture can then be taken out into the light and examined. The process is now slow, but someone may speed it up, and it has no grain difficulties such as now keep photographic researchers busy. Often it would be advantageous to be able to snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately."
What he is talking about is obviously what we now call a digital camera. the proccess of "developing" is now instant. the bility to "snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately" now comes standard on all digital cameras.
Another prediction he makes is how we "make the record"
"To make the record, we now push a pencil or tap a typewriter. Then comes the process of digestion and correction, followed by an intricate process of typesetting, printing, and distribution. To consider the first stage of the procedure, will the author of the future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the record? He does so indirectly, by talking to a stenographer or a wax cylinder; but the elements are all present if he wishes to have his talk directly produce a typed record. All he needs to do is to take advantage of existing mechanisms and to alter his language."
He speaks of the word processors we now use almost daily. We "correct" "print" and even "distribute" instantly with the technology we have now. After I am finished writing this for instance I will instantly distribubte it to anyone in the world who wants to read it.
He also predicts the form of which we hold information:
"This process, however, is simple selection: it proceeds by examining in turn every one of a large set of items, and by picking out those which have certain specified characteristics. There is another form of selection best illustrated by the automatic telephone exchange. You dial a number and the machine selects and connects just one of a million possible stations. It does not run over them all. It pays attention only to a class given by a first digit, then only to a subclass of this given by the second digit, and so on; and thus proceeds rapidly and almost unerringly to the selected station. It requires a few seconds to make the selection, although the process could be speeded up if increased speed were economically warranted. If necessary, it could be made extremely fast by substituting thermionic-tube switching for mechanical switching, so that the full selection could be made in one one-hundredth of a second. No one would wish to spend the money necessary to make this change in the telephone system, but the general idea is applicable elsewhere."
The process we now use, the internet, and such engines as wikipedia, actually surpass what he imagined. The process of finding information and using it is instant.
The technology we now use is necesary to our progress and current living status. One could say we take what we have for granted, but really we are just evolving to be more profecciant. Our comminication is no longer just to our family, or close freinds, or community, or country, we now communicate with the entire world directly, and listen to it directly. the ability to exchange ideas and news and notes and thoughts is as easy as it has ever been, and somehow it will continue to get easier. If anything we should embrace this new techology. After all Bush writes, that what are we doing but interperating the world with electrical signals anyways.
"In the outside world, all forms of intelligence whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness."
all quotes taken from Vannevar Bush "As We May Think"
"Will there be dry photography? It is already here in two forms. When Brady made his Civil War pictures, the plate had to be wet at the time of exposure. Now it has to be wet during development instead. In the future perhaps it need not be wetted at all. There have long been films impregnated with diazo dyes which form a picture without development, so that it is already there as soon as the camera has been operated. An exposure to ammonia gas destroys the unexposed dye, and the picture can then be taken out into the light and examined. The process is now slow, but someone may speed it up, and it has no grain difficulties such as now keep photographic researchers busy. Often it would be advantageous to be able to snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately."
What he is talking about is obviously what we now call a digital camera. the proccess of "developing" is now instant. the bility to "snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately" now comes standard on all digital cameras.
Another prediction he makes is how we "make the record"
"To make the record, we now push a pencil or tap a typewriter. Then comes the process of digestion and correction, followed by an intricate process of typesetting, printing, and distribution. To consider the first stage of the procedure, will the author of the future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the record? He does so indirectly, by talking to a stenographer or a wax cylinder; but the elements are all present if he wishes to have his talk directly produce a typed record. All he needs to do is to take advantage of existing mechanisms and to alter his language."
He speaks of the word processors we now use almost daily. We "correct" "print" and even "distribute" instantly with the technology we have now. After I am finished writing this for instance I will instantly distribubte it to anyone in the world who wants to read it.
He also predicts the form of which we hold information:
"This process, however, is simple selection: it proceeds by examining in turn every one of a large set of items, and by picking out those which have certain specified characteristics. There is another form of selection best illustrated by the automatic telephone exchange. You dial a number and the machine selects and connects just one of a million possible stations. It does not run over them all. It pays attention only to a class given by a first digit, then only to a subclass of this given by the second digit, and so on; and thus proceeds rapidly and almost unerringly to the selected station. It requires a few seconds to make the selection, although the process could be speeded up if increased speed were economically warranted. If necessary, it could be made extremely fast by substituting thermionic-tube switching for mechanical switching, so that the full selection could be made in one one-hundredth of a second. No one would wish to spend the money necessary to make this change in the telephone system, but the general idea is applicable elsewhere."
The process we now use, the internet, and such engines as wikipedia, actually surpass what he imagined. The process of finding information and using it is instant.
The technology we now use is necesary to our progress and current living status. One could say we take what we have for granted, but really we are just evolving to be more profecciant. Our comminication is no longer just to our family, or close freinds, or community, or country, we now communicate with the entire world directly, and listen to it directly. the ability to exchange ideas and news and notes and thoughts is as easy as it has ever been, and somehow it will continue to get easier. If anything we should embrace this new techology. After all Bush writes, that what are we doing but interperating the world with electrical signals anyways.
"In the outside world, all forms of intelligence whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness."
all quotes taken from Vannevar Bush "As We May Think"
Thursday, February 8, 2007
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