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-herman hesse |
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THE BEGINNING
COMMUNICATIONS LAB
ASSIGNMENTS
INTRO TO COMPUTATIONAL MEDIA
ASSIGNMENTS
PHYSICAL COMPUTING
PERSONAL LINKS
LIVE JOURNAL
photos are used with permission and trademarked to christopher choyce
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END OF SEMESTER ALREADY?! 12.13.05 Wow! I really thought I'd do a lot more updating, but I guess things just ran away from me! I do have another journal for keeping docs and such on projects at Livejournal, but I want to do some more updating (I might just embed the journal here over the holiday break) as I really love the layout of my site here. Some of the assignment links don't have content just yet-- my Comm Lab partner has the files on his Mac, and since I'm running a PC, some of them won't even be recognized by my comp. I promise they'll be up in the next day. THOUGHTS ON MCLUHAN, PART 1 09.25.05 I titled this part one, as I'm sure there will be a lot more I have to say on this book as I progress through reading it. First of all, the introduction said this would not be the easiest book to understand, despite it being called Understanding Media. I can absolutely see where he is coming from, and I thank my lucky stars for my English degree, and the vast amount of reading I did in undergrad in post-colonial studies, because its actually really helping with my understanding of the book. Coming from a background where there is so much theoretical emphasis has never seemed so worthwhile. Who would have thought that wading through deconstructionist theory of literature would help prepare me for ITP? I guess it just goes to show you that you never really can predict what knowledge will influence your understanding and comprehension of what subject. Secondly, while discussing this with Mike the other day, I realized that McLuhan's "the medium is the message" could better be said as "the method is the message," at least in this present day and age. An LED is nothing, for example, but it is only when put into context that it means something other than a little chunk of plastic and some metal threads. But an LED or series of them, needn't be gigantic screens in Times Square, pumping out advertisements in order to be seen as important, interesting, or enlightening (pun only barely intended): I agree whole heartedly with McLuhan that content is NOT important. However, if one compares his thoughts to those of T.S. Eliot writing about the unimportance of writing from one's perspective, one realizes that it is not the medium which is the message, but the method that is put upon the medium which is the message. As Eliot said, one needn't experience any particular event to write about it, that the writing of it was all-- it doesn't have to mean anything, per se, it just has to do something. Perhaps McLuhan expects more of technology than Eliot did specifically of the written word, but both ideas require a lot from the audience, rather than just the creator. Which I think is incredible! Not sure what else I have to say on this subject, but I just wanted to make sure and get this down, especially the parallels I was pulling from Eliot's work on criticism and McLuhan's book. REDESIGNING MY WEBSITE 09.24.05 Well, obviously I redesigned my website so it doesn't look like crap anymore and is actually navigable. The photos at the top were taken by my boyfriend back home last night. The guy in the picture is my best friend, Russ. The setting is our apartment in Atlanta, better known to us as W13, or "Feel Good, INC. (after the Gorillaz song), Joy Division (after the band)." Choyce (the boyfriend), is working on a panorama photo project of our apartment, so I won't miss it so much. You can find the beginnings of it here. Here, I will be logging information on a (HOPEFULLY!) daily basis as to what I'm working on for my classes, and my experiences at ITP. As more and more days pass, I am planning to put up a link to past entries, but as this is the first day I'm doing this, for now its just what you see.
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