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Peer Blog Review: the-mt-space

The blog posts all seem to have an underlying theme regarding the future of technology and its relationship to society. Often, the author mentions the speed at which technology is changing. Much of their questions and commentaries on the readings connect to their interest in Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Within the Dark Net readings there seems to be an additional focus on the good things the Dark Net offers. The author often uses the phrase “down the rabbit hole” to suggest the deep and immersive experiences of both the Dark Net and the future of VR, AR, and AI.

In the reading “If You’re Not Paranoid, You’re Crazy” the author notes advances in technology creating the Internet of Things (IOT). They state that the reading made them think more about “AI in terms of internet bots” and how AI is nearing “what is deemed the ‘singularity,’ a theory that at some point in the future communicating with AI will be near imperceptible to communicating with another human” (the-mt-space). One part of the response that particularly resonated with me was the end of their response when they said, “The issue is the rate of progress will either be too slow for us to notice the change - like a frog in a slowly heated pot, or we will be powerless to stop the more sinister aspects and theories of AI if they should occur, because of the willingness to sacrifice privacy for convenience” (the-mt-space). Speed or rate of change seems to be a common theme in this piece when analyzing technology. Although, here I would ask if it seems slow to us but is actually fast in terms of technological change and innovation. The aspect of this quotation that specifically stood out to me was the phrase “the willingness to sacrifice privacy for convenience”. I think this is relevant for so many of the technologies we use and connects to our class concepts of studying privacy and the discussions we have had about the lack of clarity of our rights within the context of privacy, the government, big business, and society.

The question of privacy is also related to the Dark Net. In the author’s two questions for the Dark Net reading one of the questions focuses on the relationship between the Dark Net and VR/AR. The author asks, “The dark net is a prominent phenomenon in the current internet/web landscape (web 2.0); will a evolved, scarier version of the dark net exist the next iteration of the web, which some have speculated will potentially integrate new technologies of VR/AR?” (the-mt-space). I think this question clearly relates to their interests of VR/AR and the speed of technological innovation. Their second question was really interesting to me and connected to their interest in the “good” of the Dark Net. The author states, “The Dark Net is in many aspects, a crevasse of the “worst” aspects of humans. However, it is only a small portion of the vaster deep net, and also a place where good things can happen (ie. political refugees, whistleblowers, revolutionists etc can openly share information for which they may be persecuted for; people with personal issues and problems can anonymously discuss in forums). Is it possible to promote the good aspects of the deep web without also promoting the bad aspects of the dark net?” (the-mt-space). I think this question gives a great synopsis of the “good” of dark net that I feel we did not go over as much. I think this question is an incredibly important one that challenges our own conceptions and fears of the Dark Net. This type of analysis of the Dark Net as “good” continues in the author’s paragraph response to the Dark Net reading.

The author notes the importance of the Dark Net’s focus on privacy and innovations that have been used to ensure this. Specifically, they mention Bitcoin as part of the “good” Dark Net, stating, “Bitcoin was created due to a distrust of govenmentally regulated banking systems, which operate behind the closed doors of banks and its institutions” (the-mt-space). The concept of Bitcoin being of human control, and therefore controlled by an algorithm similar to virtual worlds is present in their statement, “the algorithm does the job of creating new coins until the limit is reached, preventing inflation and human hands from de-valuing the currency. It is an interesting foray into the efficacy of using algorithms to try to make our physical realm fairer in the future, and a very interesting thought experiment into the power of the virtual world” (the-mt-space). I am really interested in the idea of the author’s proposition that algorithms may make our physical realm fairer in the future. I would like to hear more about this within their responses, especially in terms of bias and creation and how this “efficacy” can be abused or altered.

In the reading responses about Brenna Murphy and Jeremy Bailey the author connects their work to his/her ideas about space, physical and virtual, and the connection between the two. The-mt-space author notes that Murphy’s interest in the, “inter-dimensional-entity-radar… echoes [their] own thoughts on virtual/physical interactivity, only she also uses the physical space to define the virtual while still thinking primarily in the physical realm”. I would like to know more about this connection that the author sees between their views and that of Brenna Murphy. From the Jeremy Bailey interview the author states, “It makes me wonder what the future holds for AR/VR; especially as the resolution of the image in these emerging technologies continues to improve. How immersive can we make this experience, and do we even want to even create an experience that is completely immersive - to the point that it is near imperceptible to the physical world we live in now?”. The question of if we want to create an experience that is completely immersive is an important one and shows the author’s deep thoughts about the progress and goals of AR, VR, and AI that includes the complexities and possible dangers. This danger is also mentioned in the Level5 reading response.

Within the Level5 reading response, the author talks about the immersive experience of other-world simulations. They state that “Level5 plays out as almost a physical, ‘real world’ manifestation of some virtual simulation, simultaneously blending the dichotomies while pointing to their differences,” which they compare to “phenomenons such as the Sims and Second Life, in the ways that they similarly allowed individuals to interact using an avatar in an entirely constructed community” (the-mt-space). I think this is a strong comparison that the author makes to systems the reader may be more familiar with. They then ask, “I wonder whether this fusion of virtual and physical, and its continued development, especially as AR/VR technologies improve and become more immersive, if there is even a need to distinguish between them - the only barrier right now from full immersion is the resolution of the images, and the primitive hardware/software out today” (the-mt-space). The need to distinguish between worlds is a very unique concept that shows how far the author thinks this technology can go, to the point in which we can no longer distinguish between the real and the virtual. Another series of questions they ask that I think connects to and really engages this topic is, “And at what point does the fiction cease to be fiction, and become reality? And what are the consequences of redefining the concept of self by escaping the physical reality of it in lieu of a fabricated one?” (the-mt-space).  

In the author’s response to the And/Or Gallery reading they harken back to the idea of time and change or advances in technology. The author states, “All in all, the reading and the images in the text provided some context for the early-mid 2000′s, a time that most of us in the class lived through, yet most of us were not yet technically proficient enough with computing to appreciate these early internet works, a lot of which seem to be at least some of the foundation for the memes, websites, and internet culture we see today” (the-mt-space). The idea of creating this foundation that happened not so long ago is very relevant to their conversation surrounding VR, AR, and AI, in which we are currently seeing the foundational work of this technology.

Overall, I think the-mt-space has a clear set of themes and interests they are working with. They seem to have thought deeply and thoughtfully about these topics of interest in relationship to the readings. They are missing posts about readings as well as posts about their final project.

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Black Vernacular: Reading New Media

In Martine Syms, “Black Vernacular: Reading New Media,” he notes an experience in which his race changed a person’s perspective of his art. He notes that he is greatly influenced by literature, such as the French avant-garde literary movement Oulipo (Syms 369). He also quotes the work of W.E.B. Du Bois. This seems to be the first Net artist we studied that is greatly influenced by a literary movement. I find this very interesting, especially since literature influences so much art. Is there a reason this influence is not as prominent, or explicitly prominent, within net artists’ inspiration.  He also talks a lot about the influence of words and dialect and states, “I believe in amphiboly—in the form of code-switching, the practice of alternating between dialect and ‘standard’ English as ‘a metaphysical space beyond the black public everyday toward power and wild imagination that black people ourselves know we possess but need to be reminded of’” (Syms 373). Syms states, “the Internet is racial and economic. Though talk of ‘colorblindness’ once dominated conversations about digital spaces, artists and scholars have done great work debunking the idea” (Syms 382). He notes this also in conversation with the work Hip Hop Word Count, which he describes as, “the first exhaustive, public project that considers the hybridization of speech and writing in hip-hop” (Syms 390).

Pierre Bourdieu, in his study Distinction cited by Syms, “argued that cultures have a ‘social logic’” (Syms 369). According to the study, “groups like Power Moms, Sneakerheads, Skaters, or Fashionistas share remarkably similar socioeconomic backgrounds” (Syms 369-371). Syms applies this thinking to race stating, “Black is not monolithic, but race is a shared social condition. Blackness is a set of common experiences that inform an aesthetic” (Syms 371). Syms mentions Du Bois’ phenomenon of a double-consciousness. He states that a “field of discourse called postmodernism” accepts this fragmentation” or “twoness” (Syms 371). He argues that the divide is also present in digital form (Syms 373). I find this very interesting in relation to earlier readings about early Net Art. There still seems to be a divide amongst concepts and use of the web in which it is meant for everyone but meant for the very elite. Syms cites Lisa Nakamura’s book, Digitizing Race, which states, “the rhetoric surrounding the so-called divide dismisses black creativity and incorrectly frames people of color as ‘unsophisticated, uneducated, and stuck in a pre-technological past’” (Syms 373). The web was founded on exclusivity but then democratized but how? We all have access but there are systems that control what we see both real and in our consciousness.

The reading all situates some of the net artists we have studied in the context of race. The reading discusses Hennessy Youngman’s work as well as Musson and Obadike—who I studied for my net artist report and was inspired by for my final project (Syms 378-79). I especially liked Syms analysis of Youngman and Musson when he states, “As Youngman, Musson creates a diegesis through exegesis. Musson builds a fictional universe by explaining the art world to a congregation of viewers” (Syms 378-379). The term “exegesis” is often used in my major of religious studies. Exegesis is used in contrast with eisegesis in which exegesis is a critical way of reading to understand meaning or purpose of author, whereas eisegesis is reading into a text for one’s own understanding. This connects to Syms’s interest in literature informing his art and interpretation of art. In relation to Musson he states that people understand/digest, “diegesis,” through this analysis in which art is explained to a “congregation of viewers”. Just as the terms high and low art are applied to art, eisegesis and exegesis or exegesis and “digesis,” digestability, can be a form of analyzing art as proposed by Syms. I find this especially interesting within the larger context of art and art analysis.

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Hans Ulrich Obrist In Conversation with Julian Assange

I found the idea of inviting different artists to ask questions for the interview very interesting. So much of art, net art, and the web in general is about the sharing of information and collaboration. The Internet, as Assange describes, gave him the opportunity to broaden the context of information given to him and go outside his surroundings. He describes, “Australia was a very provincial place before the internet, and it was a great delight to be able to get out, intellectually, into the wider world, to tunnel through it and understand it. For someone who was young and relatively removed from the rest of the world, to be able to enter the depths of the Pentagon’s Eighth Command at the age of seventeen was a liberating experience” (Obrist). Assange had a “underground magazine” that was raided by the Federal police, but he states, “I thought that I needed to share this wealth that I had discovered about the world with people, to give knowledge to people, and so following that I set up the first part of the internet industry in Australia. I spent a number of years bringing the internet to the people through my free speech ISP and then began to look for something with a new intellectual challenge” (Obrist). The need to share information is critical to the mission and culture surrounding the web and now society in general. It is interesting to think about how this need shapes our actions even more distinctively today as we feel a need to share information not only about things but also about ourselves. Assange seems similar to Aaron Schwartz and Edward Snowden who had information they felt they needed to share. For all three, this information was patrolled by the government who had issues over it being public. Assange defines this information as “type-three information” which is, “suppressed before publication or after publication. If type-three information is spread around, there are active attempts to take it out of circulation” (Obrist). This information is not a new kind of information according to Assange, but has occurred throughout history. One of the groups Assange was part of early in his hacking career was the he Cypherpunks, which “were a combination of people from California, Europe, and Australia. We saw that we could change the nature of the relationship between the individual and the state using cryptography” (Obrist). The group was a discussion group.  Very similar to Snowden, Assange worked with journalists to release the WikiLeaks information. WikiLeaks worked with newspapers as Assange notes, “We’ve partnered with twenty or so newspapers across the world, to increase the total impact, including by encouraging each one of these news organizations to be braver” (Obrist). With the media and government being intertwined in many countries, even as seen in the United States, there is a large fear of releasing such information.

I especially liked Assange’s notes on privacy. He states, “We all now suffer from the privatization of words, a privatization of those fundamental abstractions human beings use to communicate. The way we refer to our common intellectual record is becoming privatized, with different parts of it being soaked up into domain names controlled by private companies, institutions or states” (Obrist). This quotation seems incredibly relevant to our class discussions on privatization and how it effects our own thought-process. I am curious about how Snowden viewed Assange and if he was inspired by him?  

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Final Project Critique Response

I found the critique super helpful. While I tried to show gentrification from my point of view, it was clear to me afterwards that the project seemed to vague and detached. From an ideological viewpoint, I took a lot of time to think about Professor Robison’s suggestion of portraying something personal to me, such as my building. The idea, while interesting, did not excite me as much as I would have hoped. On Thursday, after the critique, I went to the Arts District and passed wall art that had been covered in graffiti (I attached a photo below). I found myself really drawn to this wall and the idea of art covering and being covered and the battle of the artists surrounding it. I was especially interested in the concept of graffiti artists being imprisoned or getting in trouble compared to wall art being commissioned and artists being paid and praised. As I continued walking I noticed art on spray painted on the street also covered in graffiti. In addition, I have seen graffiti covering part of the decorated Michaeltorena steps in Silverlake. This covering, re- covering, and recovering concept really interests me and I think is very relevant and representative of larger issues and concepts regarding gentrification.  While this is not a personal experience, since I do not participate in creating graffiti or wall art, I am really passionate about the topic. I was thinking of trying to portray this concept through my experience as a viewer of wall art.

From a technical perspective, I really appreciated Alejandra’s suggestion to use Adobe Illustrator to make the vector images. The clean lines of the vector images remind me of the modernist style present in a lot of gentrified area stores and certain styles within the “hipster” culture. One of my next steps with the project will be attempting to learn Adobe Illustrator and appreciated the suggestion of using Linda.com as a way of learning this software. In addition, I really liked the GIFs in Ian’s project and I think they could work well for my project. The fast moving images can symbolize the speed at which gentrification, and on a more micro level the speed street/wall art, changes.

 I was thinking of creating a domain that had a few different Gifs laid out in a grid style, similar to Tumblr. The webpage would have clean lines with boxed grids, 3 or 4 per row. You would click to start the Gif. I want to display different areas being covered: walls, sidewalks, electrical panels, and stairs. The images will show original art being covered with white and painted over. I am still working on how I want to portray these. In addition, I want to focus on the difference in outcomes of the artists. While I am still brainstorming, one idea I had was to create an image with spray paint cans, half covered in money and half covered in handcuffs to symbolize how artists are being commissioned, and in some cases paid to do this art, while others are arrested. The ideas are very preliminary and my first step will be to outline the images and check them with Professor Robison to see if how they resonate with the viewer and possible messages they portray.

Lastly, Professor Robison suggested that I listen to the Malcolm Gladwell podcast Revisionist History. I plan on downloading this and listening to it on my commute to and from school at some point this week.

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Trevor Paglen and Lauren Cornell Reading Response

           I found Paglen’s focus on depicting the physical aspects of the Internet especially striking. Paglen describes the Internet a “liminal space, a king of abstract nowhere that is everywhere, seemingly, a space of pure culture” (258).  While we understand the concept of the Internet ideologically, most of us forget that are physical infrastructures that are necessary to help the Internet run. Also connecting to our conversations on the Internet as a space, Paglen addresses the idea of the Internet as a seemingly free space. Paglen states, that rather, the Internet is “a tool for a literally incredible consolidation of state power, the likes of which have never been seen on earth” (260). The Internet also has effects on the economy, as Paglen notes, “the corporate aspects of ‘Internet’ surveillance provide for ever more minute specializations of capital, whether that’s increasing productivity by micromanaging workers, or whether its extracting maximum profits on the consumer side by reaching into ever more intimate parts of our lives and monetizing them” (260). As we have discussed throughout the course and is reaffirmed by Paglen, it is concerning how much data is being collected on us. This data and its connection to state powers calls into question our individual autonomy, whether or not we are aware of it. My favorite work of Paglen, and possibly of all the Net Art we have been presented, is the “Autonomy Cubes”. The concept and ideologies behind it are particularly powerful while the art itself is relatively simple.

           Cornell asks Paglen in the interview about how his audience has grown in light of people’s greater awareness and concern about government and institutional surveillance (264). Paglen states, “Working with this material for so long has really made it apparent how history (at least recently) seems to move in onion-like circles, with each new layer adopting the previous one’s contours” (264). I found this play on words purposeful as well as symbolic of the onion router itself. As his role as an artist Paglen states that he tries to, “create images and artworks that bring something into a visual field and then hopefully complicate that reality” (255). I think his distinction between documentary photography and his own work is an interesting distinction. Paglen describes, “I tend to make images that don’t ‘speak themselves,’ whose contents of referents don’t seem self-evident. So, in that sense, I’m interested in the exact opposite of the documentary tradition in photography and image-making that would be most associated with the politics of exposure” (255). One aspect of Paglen’s role as an artist I felt was not touched upon enough was people’s reactions to his works. Has Paglen received any push back from major institutions, such as government or large businesses? Also, what was people’s reaction to the “Autonomy Cube” piece?

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Mid-Point Presentation

I have mapped out the way I want my website for my Net Art project to work and have begun creating the artwork. In response to the critique during my last presentation, I have decided to present the information without stating that the topic is gentrification until the end of the piece. After mapping by hand how I wanted the website to work, I decided to create an art gallery on SketchUp. The depiction of the art gallery as a constant image throughout the piece is particularly important to me. The gallery represents the start of gentrification in which artists move into an area and then the process begins, this is sometimes referred to as “artwashing”. I am still completing the gallery but have a proto-type. While the building is complete, I want to find a way to make it clear it is a gallery. To identify the building as a gallery I am debating either writing the word “Gallery” at the top as a stand-in for a gallery sign or putting artwork in the inside of the building that could be viewed from the outside, or doing both. I then created scenes, that the gallery will eventually be pasted into, using Photoshop.

           All of my images are mapped out and I now have to complete the images and the webpage itself. On the home screen of the webpage I want to have icons that lead to the series of images connecting to that topic. The icons would be symbolic of the ideas, or themes, of: art, a street, city, home and a dotted-line will be placed at the bottom. In addition to the icons leading to images, the dotted-line will as well. The dotted line is meant to look similar to a street but also address “the bottom line” which leads to the reveal of the topic: gentrification. For the icons, I have found vector image prototypes, but want to find a way to streamline the images to all look similar in style. I will probably have to create these images and am currently brainstorming the best way and application to do this. Lastly, I need to purchase a domain and program my webpage.

           Before this course, I had no experience with HTML/CSS and Photoshop. For the Net Art first project I read basic instructions on how to put a pink opaque layer over my image for the rose-colored glasses. I really enjoyed my experience using Photoshop and decided to create the “Gentrification” image with the California map for the “ca” in Photoshop for my last presentation on the final project. While trying to follow online instructions for this final project I found that it was hard to articulate what I was trying to accomplish in order to search the web for instructions. I decided to meet with a tutor to go over the basic tools of Photoshop, as I want to become better at using the application not only for my final project but also for my own knowledge and uses outside of school and possibly in the workforce. While I feel somewhat comfortable with basic programming after our lesson in class, I feel that writing this code maybe more challenging. My boyfriend has experience coding and is willing to watch me do the coding myself and then show me instructions I may need to add in to get the links and images to play.

           My goal for the project is to have an interesting lead-in to my topic and engage the viewer in a way that makes them question their own role in the process of gentrification. I also hope that the project will make the reviewer reflect on the larger issue of America and manifest destiny, as symbolized through the map of east Los Angeles with the overlay of John Gast’s painting “American Progress”.  Even after completing a large portion of this project I still struggle to see where my position on and within gentrification is within this process. Although, as I stated in my project proposal, my goal may not be to answer that question for myself or for my viewers to be able to answer it for themselves; but rather, for them and I to reflect on our actions and our role and its implications. As I stated before, “I hope to not provide an answer to these questions [regarding whether gentrification is good or bad] but to complicate gentrification as something that can be appealing to consumers but also harmful to culture and the people who have lived in an area that is now being taken over”.

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“If You’re Not Paranoid, You’re Crazy” Reading Response

Walter Kirk’s article, “If You’re Not Paranoid, You’re Crazy,” proposes the ways in which we are being watched through our technology use. Kirk gives the example of him linking his phone and fitness wristband and then seeing targeted ads which he describes as, “The devices spoke to each other behind my back—I’d known they would when I ‘paired’ them—but suddenly I was wary of their relationship” (Kirk). He also gives examples of past paranoias or crazy concerns people had, which later came true. Tor was created as a way for people to experience the internet without their privacy being compromised. Maybe the early users of Tor predicted just what Kirk fears.

I found this read very interesting, especially after completing the book The Dark Net. It seems as though in a web world where everything is being watched and analyzed systems such as Tor may become more appealing for all types of internet usage. This reading led me to ask a lot of questions. How do we understand this tracking if we ourselves are not doing anything compromising on the Internet? Should we be worried? Do the pros of tracking for our safety outweigh the cons? Where do we draw the line with our privacy?

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The Dark Net: Reading Response 2

The second reading of The Dark Net focused on child pornography, the Silk Road and drug trading on the dark net and cam-modeling. In the child pornography chapter, “Three Clicks,” I found the statistic especially disturbing that, “According to research conducted by the Lucy Faithful Foundation, nine out of ten internet sex offenders did not intentionally seek out child images, but found them via pop-ups or progressive links while browsing adult pornography” (Bartlett 118).  Barlett notes that even in his own search he after 2 mouse clicks on Tor was brought to a page “advertising the link” and states “If I had clicked again, I would have committed an extremely serious crime” to which he adds “I can’t think of another instance where doing something bad is so easy” (111). Even with Bartlett not seeking it out, he was quickly exposed to child pornography while on Tor. This is especially disturbing because while the viewer is not seeking out the image these pop-ups are a gateway into a different type of porn that has very implications. In addition, it was scary to learn that child pornography is the most trafficked type o site on Tor, “According to a 2014 study by academics at the University of Portsmouth, in the UK, child pornography sites accounted for nearly 83 percent of the traffic on Tor Hidden Services” (Bartlett 114). Barlett also talks about the dissociative effect of the internet when looking at child porn telling the viewer that this is somehow ok. I think this is true for a lot of activities done through Tor in which people do things they might not do in person because it does not feel real or the implications are unseen (120). While groups such as the IWF are working to take down such images, it seems like an impossible task. The Silk Road is another unregulated market that uses Tor.          

I found the set-up and risk involved in using the Silk Road very surprising. I did not realize how advanced the websites were with their branding and design. As Bartlett states, the websites’ design provides “trust cues” for buyers (Bartlett 144). While there are user and buyer reviews, there is no guarantees that the purchase will arrive or the quality (Bartlett 152). I find this interesting from both the aspect of design as well as psychologically. From a design perspective, it is shocking how much of an impact the way the website looks effects someone’s comfort level with purchasing items. From a psychological perspective there is the ideas of trust and believing its fine as well as desperation to get these items and thus the attitude that the “risk is worth the reward”. Bartlett also brings up that Bitcoin may not be as private as people think, which is a huge factor in the use of the Silk Road.

Bartlett mentions that Bitcoin is not fully secure. The theme of wanting a unregulated internet and the freedom it provides is not fully possible. Bartlett points out, “if I sent my Bitcoin directly from my wallet to my Silk Road wallet, the blockchain would keep a record of it. My privacy is intact, because no one knows that my Bitcoin wallet belongs to me. However, researchers have found that with careful statistical analysis, some transactions can be de-anonymized. And if you transfer money in and out of your Bitcoin wallet using a real-world bank account, which most people do—including me—your Bitcoin transactions aren’t anonymous at all. They lead to you as directly as paying with a credit card” (159). Therefore, it is surprising to me that people still use Bitcoin in this way on Tor and that it is not easier for people to get caught. When people do get in trouble with authorities for the things they do on the Dark Net, what percentage are discovered through this way of analyzing Bitcoin purchases? It seems surprising to me that more people do not use escrow payment systems such as CoinJoin in order to protect their privacy when they have already gone so far to protect it. The concept of privacy seems less important to those who participate in cam-modeling.

The cam-modeling movement, as Bartlett states, began with JenniCam. I remember us talking about this project in class and I found it surprising that the whole movement can be pointed to starting from this initial project. This movement has grown and also taken a large portion of the porn industry revenues away, “The Free Speech Coalition estimated global (and American) porn revenues have shrunk by 50 percent between 2007 and 2011, due to the amount of free pornography available online. The story of Vex and other cam-models made me think about how they could be at risk of someone who is an online fan finding them in real life. The interview in which Bartlett talks about the difference between the cam-model and a girlfriend seemed to be concerning, as the man had to convince himself that these girls did not want to be his girlfriend. Bartlett mentions Sherry Turkle and her book Alone Together. I read an excerpt of this book for my Communication, Technology and Culture course. Turkley talks about our need for human connection as well as her fears of relationships between robots and people. I think it is interesting to compare these cam-models to robots in which they are not really present in the relationship but the other person, in cam-modeling the viewer, has feelings and attachments to them.

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Dark Net Reading Response Questions

Looking at lines such as “Sorry you’re here” and testimonies of people harming themselves less when being part of a self-harm community, how can self-harm websites be used as a tool for outside people to help those suffering? 

How can the Dark Net as a way of experiencing privacy, or having privacy, be helpful to society? 

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Project Proposal #2

           For my project, I want to focus on the topic of gentrification. While I want to place my project in East Los Angeles, many of the patterns I plan to address are also true for other gentrified areas across America. I want to address the themes of class, class in relation to consumerism, art and artists both being part of gentrification and opposing it, as well as change and the comparison to manifest destiny. While I originally planned to focus my project on the theme of real estate, I became inspired by art for or in opposition to gentrification.

           Through my research regarding gentrification in Los Angeles I found lots of street art, art and creative social media posts that inspired me. Pati Rodgriquez, a resident of Bushwick, New York which is in the process of becoming gentrified, and other long-time residents of newly gentrified areas placed lit signs out for the holidays in 2015. Rather than use Christmas lights, residents hung signs with the art collective the NYC Light Brigade who hosted a community workshop to create the signs out of Christmas lights (Voon). The signs posted outside homes and businesses had phrases such as “Gentrification is the New Colonialism,” “Not for Sale,” “No me mudo” (“I’m not moving”), and “3 Generation Household” (Voon). The signs “Gentrification is the New Colonialism” and “Not for sale” I feel especially relate to my project and made me think further about the idea of developers and home buyers buying homes from people who do not want to sell but may be forced or driven out. In addition, the idea of gentrification as a type of colonialism connects to theme of manifest destiny I want to present in my piece. The reading of “Character Development: Brody Condon’s “Level5” and the Avant-LARP of Becoming Self,” reminded me of Buddhist ideal of everything being connected. I want to connect recent gentrification to similar historical systems, such as colonialism, to outline how this is not a new idea but a continual process. Another anti-gentrification artist whose work has and will inspire my piece is John Criscitello.

           Criscitello, a Seattle-based artist, uses the medium of graffiti to spread messages opposing gentrification in areas experiencing gentrification in Seattle. He challenges ideas of gentrification by speaking to or getting the attention of people who are flocking to newly gentrified areas in his art. For example, one sign on a building reads, “This studio apartment available 10 sq. FT. $1850 MO. Park view! Air conditioned Legendary Capitol Hill” (Kelly O). This sign catches the sign of people looking to move into an area and satirizes it by saying the place is only “10 square feet”. This connects to my interest in real estate, as well as the larger theme of consumerism, within my piece. Another work of his states “We came here to get away from you” which I believe speaks to the issues of race and class and can also be related to manifest destiny as people feel that their area is being taken over and they thus have nowhere to go (Kelly O).

Other works of street art have also inspired me. The phrases “Gentrification in progress” and “Not for sale,” or “Not4Sale”, seem to have been adopted by many street artists to signify this change in upcoming areas. One piece I especially connected with was construction tape around a building that said “Gentrification in progress”. Similar to the Criscitello’s piece about the apartment for rent, I like the construction tape because it uses objects connected to change and rebuilding as a means of challenging notions of gentrification. In addition, I was inspired by the artists Mendi and Keith Obadike, who I researched for my Net Art Anthology project. In the same series as the piece I did, there is a piece called “Blackness for Sale”. The piece was a four- day eBay auction selling “blackness” in order to display issues of race, class, and identity (Obadike). The documentary, The Century of Self, we watched in class also addresses the idea of consumerism in America as part of the American psyche. Americans always want more and desires become needs. No longer are the main shops in these areas based on purchasing necessities but wants such as baked goods, clothing, and candles.  Buying and selling as a means of control, change, and oppression are topics I want to work into my piece. This concept has inspired me to use items such as for sale signs, real estate rental sites (Zillow, MLS, Craigslist), and store locations that signify that process of gentrification within my piece.

My personal connection to gentrification is complex and I think it adds a unique perspective to this dialogue. I live Downtown and my family is in real estate.  When I moved Downtown I began exploring the Arts District, Silverlake, Echo Park, and parts of Boyle Heights. I enjoyed trying the new restaurants and going to the shops and connected with young people moving to these areas. Like most people now living there, I blindly enjoyed the “fruits of gentrification”.

I really enjoy taking long walks and sometimes would walk from the Financial District Downtown to either the Arts District or the park in Echo Park. Walking in both directions it was, and continues to be, astounding to me the wealth gap that occurs within a few blocks. From the Financial District to the Arts District I would have to pass Skid Row. Constantly walking through Skid Row, I became engrossed in this concept of Skid Row being in the middle. Skid Row sits in between the Financial and Arts districts and it seems as though it is only a matter of time before that area too becomes developed. I began to wonder, if Skid Row was gentrified where would these people go? Similarly, on my walks from the Financial District to Echo Park I would pass tents alongside the freeway entrances and wore-down buildings that had recently been plastered with For Sale, Sold or Leased signs. Again, I began to wonder where will these people go? Within the park or walking along the streets of Echo Park and Silverlake there are small storefronts that are still owned by the people who were there pre-gentrification. Although, the Latino culture and population is quickly being pushed out. Boyle Heights, on the other hand, is trying to resist this “whitewashing” and the process of “artwashing”.

The process of pushing out is another thing I began to reflect on, as millennials can no longer afford real estate in areas such as the Westside of Los Angeles they continue to move further East and as the Eastside becomes more expensive they move further out. As these, predominantly young white people move the areas begin to change to appeal to them. Then the people living there are forced to move and are pushed out of their homes where they have been forever and are losing their culture. At the same time, the homeless are too being pushed out. This connected for me with the idea of Manifest Destiny and the idea that white Americans have continued to push out people native to an area, such as Native Americans (or American Indians). Not only can the change in population and prices be seen within the area, but it is also quantified in the changes of the market, “It was inevitable that art galleries would ford the Los Angeles River into Boyle Heights. The Arts District, a formerly decrepit section of downtown, has been growing more expensive; Annenberg Media found that rents rose 140 percent in parts of the neighborhood in the first 14 years of the new millennium. Between 2000 and 2012, rents in all of Los Angeles County also rose, but at the much slower rate of 25 percent” (Nazaryan). As one area becomes unaffordable it pushes out to the next.

I still struggle to see where my position is within this process. I go to the shops and restaurants because they are what is convenient to me and therefore what I have access to. Although, I also am aware of the negative impact gentrification has on the local communities. I still am struggling with the questions of, What is my role? and What can I do to help?. In this piece, I hope to not provide an answer to these questions but to complicate gentrification as something that can be appealing to consumers but also harmful to culture and the people who have lived in an area that is now being taken over.

This concept of questioning what is my role or the viewer’s role in gentrification is central to my piece. I want to create a webpage where I have a home screen that adds images through the viewers’ engagement in clicking. My rough plan is for the home screen to be a historical image of the Eastside of Los Angeles. Then it switches to an image from around ten to fifteen years ago, pre-gentrification. As the viewer clicks again, “For Sale,” “Sold” and “Leased” signs pop-up. Then when they click again the screen becomes white, as a symbol for the area being white-washed. With each click images pop up on the screen: stores and brands, real estate ads, charts of real estate prices going up, moving boxes, and press and social media about the area. All these images on the white background will create a collage of gentrification. Then the screen will go white again. I then want to turn to the larger issue of America and manifest destiny. I will depict this through putting a historical image of America, the viewer will click and the image will be covered by an opaque overlay of John Gast’s painting “American Progress” to symbolize manifest destiny. Then I want to move back to the present by having the viewer click on for it to be covered in white. Then the white is covered by gentrification resistance art. The viewer than clicks and a coffee cup appears, symbolizing the consumer aspect of gentrification. If I can find a way I would like to have the coffee cup image move to look like the viewer is taking a sip. My intention is that by then end of the piece the viewer will be left questioning their role in this process.

For technical skills, I will need to use Photoshop, possibly photography in which I would use my iPhone to take photos of gentrified places or examples of gentrification, as well as HTML and CSS. My project will be hosted on a website in which I will purchase a domain. I am still debating if clicking to add, subtract and change the page. This idea in part came to me from the net art piece of things multiplying on the homescreen of a computer. While I think clicking may be annoying or frustrating for the viewer, I like the concept of the viewer feeling a connection with the implications of gentrification.

  Works Cited

Krasinski , Jennifer. “Character Development: Brody Condon's ‘Level5’ and the Avant-LARP of Becoming Self.” East of Borneo, 9 Dec. 2010.  

Nazaryan, Alexander. “Activists Are Fighting Back against the ‘Artwashing’ Gentrification of Los Angeles' Boyle Heights Neighborhood.” Newsweek, 26 May 2017.

Obadike , Mendi, and Keith Obadike . “Obadike.com.” Obadike.com, obadike.com/.

O, Kelly. “The ‘Woo Girls’ Street Artist Is Not Hiding from Anyone.” The Stranger. 27 Feb.2015.

Voon, Claire. “Activists and Residents Light Up Bushwick with Anti-Gentrification Signs.” Hyperallergic, 31 Dec. 2015.  

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Dark Net

           I found this reading incredibly relevant to both our class and our understanding of emerging technologies. I especially found the later section on cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, really interesting. While Bitcoin has been adopted as part of the American vocabulary, the majority of Americans do not understand what it is or how it works. Bartlett’s description of Bitcoin was especially helpful in understanding how it works (Bartlett 74). The theme of the dark web as a form of resistance to censorship and privacy impingements was prevalent throughout all of the technologies and movements Bartlett cites. Our society’s need for freedom from Big Brother was apparent. What I found most shocking was how terrible people were when the guise of Big Brother was lifted from the Internet. The example of Sarah on the cite /b/ was very disturbing. I began to think of the dark net philosophically, especially in terms of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes believed that humans needed the government to maintain order and security to keep them safe from themselves. I think in some respects this could be argued about the dark net. I believe that there is a fine line between personal privacy and the right to do or say whatever you want on the internet. The example of Sarah exemplifies how mean people can be on the internet when they have the freedom to say what they want. In addition, the “trolls” often do not see the effects of their actions. This was also disturbing in terms of trolls who troll people in mourning. It is as though these people see no effect to their actions and are do not think about how they would feel if this was happening to them. It made me question, how can we analyze the dark net in terms of morality?

           I was also interested in the idea of the purpose behind the black net users or trolls as a resistance movement. Bartlett mentions the comparison a troll makes to his trolling being similar to performance art. I think this is especially relevant in the discussion of where is the line of making a statement and going too far. I think that a lot of the forms of trolling or the almost “addictive” nature of it cause people to go too far. Similarly, I think that performance art is meant to push the limits but can sometimes step too far. For me personally, I think this is true with the performance artist Aliza Shvarts who at Yale University proposed a piece in which she induced miscarriages as part of a performance piece for her senior project. Do we draw the line between this and trolling as one being an art form and the other not? How can we then connect this to acts of terrorism in which a terrorist does an act in order to fight for a cause or make a statement about society?

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Brenna Murphy

The interview with Brenna Murphy echoed a lot of the readings and other artists we have read comments and experiences with net or digital media art. Like many net artists we have encountered thus far, Murphy uses a variety of mediums that are both digital and physical. Additionally, she is influenced by performance art. The connection between performance art and net art seems very striking to me. While I believe there is a connection, the action that occurs seems drastically different. A performance artist presents or takes part in the piece, thus calling for interaction, whereas in net or digital art the creator rarely sees the viewer’s reaction. Additionally, as Murphy mentions, the process of creation is vastly different. Murphy notes, that when making a piece in physical reality, “your body is a totally present and anything that you make” in a “direct relationship” (Glover). Murphy states that she does try to bring in a sense of physicality to her digital work through her inspiration of the outside world, such as, “the textures of the sidewalks and plants and the arrangements and sequences of all the sensory elements that [she] encounter[s]” (Glover). Murphy also noted that she does not like to just use one program, but rather keeps multiple programs open when working on a piece.

 Murphy notes that she first started digital art when she made collages on Photoshop. I really liked the idea of a collage when thinking about net art. Just as the internet houses so many things and is a collage in itself, so is Net Art. Net art, similar to a collage, compiles things on a screen to interact with the viewer. The idea of compilation and taking things from other places and applications to make a piece can be defined by a collage. How can we view net art in terms of a collage? Is there a way that a piece of net art would not be considered a collage or that artists would push back on that idea?

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Jeremy Bailey Reading Response

Smith describes Bailey’s work with the body and technology as a critique of “the uneasy relationship between technology and the body while playfully engaging the protocols of digital media” (Smith). I found Bailey’s responses in the interview very interesting. I found there to be a sort of philosophical note to his views and ideas about technology and his work. He describes his relationship with technology as a sort of creation. I found this connected to the idea of creating art, but also as Bailey states, the concept of playing God. Through his games and internet creations there is a sense of control and making something a reality. I think this concept is also prevalent within the quickly advancing technologies of AR and Virtual Reality, the former of which Bailey addresses in the interview. He talks about creating games with his brother as a child and the games being, “little places where we were god, where we set the rules and where whatever we imagined was possible (though what we often imagined was just a pathetic simulation of the real world)” (Smith). The idea of playing God or having control over the way things go is deeply philosophical, as is the lens through which human society and individuals view life. He states, “I look at most of the world through my laptop and my phone. I think of these devices as I think of the glasses I wear to correct my nearsightedness, only they are not transparent, they are reflective” (Smith). I want to further break-apart this idea of the technology being “reflective” rather than “transparent”. Lastly, he sees humans’ relationship with new technologies as the “next stage in human evolution” which I felt connected to philosophical ideas regarding evolution and humans’ relationships with technology. I really liked his comment, “when I sit down to use my laptop I still feel that sense of limitless possibility at my fingertips” (Smith). It is amazing how much we have access to through the Internet and our computer. I feel that this connects to the reading “Character Development” in which Erhard adopts the Zen Buddhist approach of seeing the self as part of a larger Self and then no longer seeing the individual self. Similarly the Internet is connected to so much not just the concept of the Internet itself.

I found the idea of the connection between humans and the body especially relevant to this class as well as a communications class I am taking called Communication, Technology, and Culture. For this class, I think back to the field trip and our experience with the Virtual Reality piece. I have also had the opportunity to play games on the Oculus virtual reality device. The interaction between the body and the game is completely different from staring at a computer screen. The immersive experience creates a new “reality” that is more experiential than informational. In addition, in my communications class we recently completed a unit on the body and technology in which we looked at the effects of health systems, such as FitBits and other health monitors, on a person’s mental health and overall image of themselves. The relationship between the body and technology seems to be complicated by overall issues in body image and compulsion in self-tracking. This made me think about how as we connect further with technology do we move further away from knowing the self, and in turn, the Self?

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Project Proposal

I am especially interested in focusing my final project on a dichotomy or contradiction within society. I see art as a means to challenge ideas and I want to focus on a contradiction to make a statement with my final project.  For my One Image/One Page project, I looked at the dichotomy of how Downtown Los Angeles is viewed. In one way, Downtown is seen as a city with fine hotels, high-rise offices and entertainment centers. Conversely, Downtown has a large issue with poverty as seen on Skid Row. I plan on going into residential real estate when I graduate from USC. One tension that I see that is relevant to my career course and interests is the gentrification of East Los Angeles. The changes occurring in these areas has greatly impacted the people who were previously living there. For my final project, I would like to do something focused on Downtown or East Los Angeles with a focus on gentrification and/or real estate. Some of the subcategories related to this topic that I would like to focus on are issues of class, race, identity, consumerism and capitalism.

I was inspired by the artists Mendi and Keith Obadike, who I researched for my Net Art Anthology project. In the same series as the piece I did, there is a piece called “Blackness for Sale”. The piece was a four- day eBay auction selling “blackness” in order to display issues of race, class, and identity (Obadike). Within that spirit, I was thinking of doing a website in which I create fake ads about things in East Los Angeles. I would take websites such as Yelp, Zillow and Craiglist but change the material to show the issues with gentrification and the divide between the cultures in such areas.  I want to also look at Adrian Piper’s work “Calling Card” that we looked at in class. While I am not sure how I this will inspire my piece, I feel that there is an idea there that my project connects to.

I would like to find a way to display the ads so that the viewer can click on something to open them up and then go back to the home screen and choose another. After doing the reading “Character Development: Brody Condon’s “Level5” and the Avant-LARP of Becoming Self,” I was reminded about the Buddhist ideal of everything being connected. I want to connect recent gentrification to other types of gentrification to outline how this is a continual process. I may bring in Newspaper ads as a way of connecting gentrification to ideas of the past. This way the viewer could see types of gentrification throughout time and other spaces, as Condon focuses on, with topics such as manifest destiny.

For technical skills, I will need to use Photoshop, possibly photography in which I would use my iPhone, as well as HTML and CSS. My project will be hosted on a website in which I will purchase a domain.

Works Cited

Krasinski , Jennifer. “Character Development: Brody Condon's ‘Level5’ and the Avant-LARP of Becoming Self.” East of Borneo, 9 Dec. 2010.  

Obadike , Mendi, and Keith Obadike . “Obadike.com.” Obadike.com, obadike.com/.

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Character Development Reading Response

This reading brings into question what stories we tell ourselves and who is the Self. The question of identity, as noted by Werner Erhard, is multifaceted. Erhard appealed to the generation he studied, “the grand narratives of Self, plotted along the fine lines between empowerment and entitlement, actualization and aggrandizement, kinked by genres such as reality television, and distended by the transfusion of social networking into what has emerged as the Scripted Self” (Krasinski). He later also describes the This Very Moment of the Self (Krasinski). As a religion major, I was particularly interested in Erhard’s philosophy and the influence of Zen Buddhism. In Buddhism, there is this concept of the annihilation of the self in order to gain enlightenment through reaching a state of nirvana. The annihilation of the self is described in Erhard’s “transformation” when he states, “I was no longer the one who had all those experiences I had as a child. I was not identified by my ‘false identity’ any more than by my ‘true identity.’ All identities were false… I found enlightenment, truth, and true self all at once”. By annihilating oneself to the bigger Self, according to Buddhism, one can see that they are connected to all other things. This experience, or description, can be relevant to performance art in which people see that they are working for something bigger than themselves. Through Brody Condon’s piece Level5 at the Hammer people saw the larger purpose of the project and thus put themselves in a vulnerable state. Through this vulnerability bonds were formed amongst the participants. People were able to look outside themselves and see the macro, or bigger, purpose of the project. Erhard states the purpose of his trainings is to, “go down through layer after layer after layer after layer until you got to the last layer and peeled it off where the recognition was that it’s really all meaningless and empty” (Krasinski). Within Buddhism there is also a belief that all life is suffering. This is also relevant to Condon’s piece in which people go layer by layer into their childhood, as influenced by Freudian psychology, to address moments of suffering that affect them today.

The Internet is also a form of connecting. Like the Self, as described by Erhard, the Internet encompasses many ideas and connects all things. The Internet is something much bigger than an individual, it is a compilation of voices. The bringing together of voices is one way to help build empathy. I think Net Art has a way of creating a sense of empathy as well. By taking someone out of the consciousness of their environment or their normal experiences, an element of surprise or unknown is built. Similarly, the element of the unknown is present in both Self Help retreats and performance art. If successful, the event or piece will give the participant a new perspective or outlook.

Condon notes that he turned to video games and eventually LARP in order to escape his issues in his family life. The descriptions of LARP that Condon provides seems like an exercise in helping people build empathy. At one point Condon states, “It’s a great set of tools to allow you to go through a lot of life situations that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise” (Krasinski). I think the ideas of visualization and picking or piecing apart memories or moments of the past are very interesting. These exercises help one better understand themselves but also empathize with other people. Connectivity seems to be a common theme between Erhard and Condon. Connecting people through performance. Condon mentions the importance of time and space in his description of LARP as a “theater in which the player and the audience are one—where action and reflection can occur simultaneously, and where the products of reflection rather than strategy—understanding and insight rather than ‘winning’—are the ultimate goals” (Krasinski). The idea of oneness connects back to the Erhard and Buddhism’s concept of the Self and the annihilation of the self. Condon’s description of LARP and his own performance piece made me wonder what his position on Net Art is? Would he see the Internet as a meeting ground or space for people to come together or does he envision this space to be only physical?

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Paul Slocum Reading Response

The chapter “A Brief History of AND/OR Gallery,” in the book Mass Effect, created an interesting perspective on Net Art as presented in a gallery. The gallery owner Slocum portrays his entrance into the Net Art world as somewhat accidental when he states, “My background was originally in computer programming and music, but in 2003, curators started putting some of my technology projects in art shows” (123). He then seemingly fell into opening a gallery through Lauren (123). I think the inspiration of the galleries him and Lauren worked in seems present in their mission and gallery practices. As one of the pioneers of New Media art it seems as though they had to problem-solve and trouble-shoot how a gallery of this type would run. Slocum seems very passionate about the project. It is admirable that he gave artists, that are now famous in the realm of Net Art, an opportunity to exhibit their work even with the chance there would not be a buyer. The description of the ways the artwork was sent to him and the process by which AND/OR Gallery was formed reminded me of a technology start-up, or start-up mentality. This mentality, I see as, creating things as one goes along, often by simple means at first, and finding solutions to issues while consuming oneself in the project.

           In previous readings, we have looked at the idea of Net Art being an alternative or protest to the gallery or “fine art” world. I wondered if Slocum received any backlash from viewers, collectors and even artists themselves about this way of displaying the art. In addition, I wanted to know how he got the name AND/OR and what galleries he is inspired by? What is the “type of buyer” who buys Net Art and what is their use or motive for owning it? How do people display the Net Art in their own private collections? Where does he see the New Media Art gallery or exhibition movement going?

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Kukielski-- Cory Arcangel

Alexandra Rowe

Professor Robinson

ART361

30 August 2017

I think Kukielski in her chapter entitled “Doing Assembly: The Art of Cory Arcangel” in Mass Effect, makes a significant connection in her introductory paragraphs of describing the dot-com crash and its effects on new media and net art. She states, “The dust was starting to settle after the deflation of the dot-com bubble, and speculators in the arts were pulling back support for new media art, and net.art as the new frontier—victims of a newfound cynicism” (29). After large financial losses occurred during the dotcom crash, people became cynical about the web. Kukielski cites digitally- focused exhibits at major museums in 1998 and 2001. Although, she states, “This crescendo of institutional enthusiasm led to a quick fall as the mainstream art world ended its love affair with new media” (29). This point seemed incredibly significant to me because it states that there was a time when such media was accepted and supported by the art world. Is it possibly the timing and financial context, rather than an issue with the “art” itself, that leads to issues of accepting net art and new media as art?

The struggle of net art acceptance from the art world was too, as Kukielski notes, experienced by Arcangel. While Arcangel was accepted and revered amongst the “increasingly dominant and widespread public interested in art, culture, music and tech;” he struggled with acceptance from galleries (31). When Arcangel’s work is featured I museums and galleries net art pieces such as his work Punk Rock 101are rarely included. Kukielski notes that Arcangel used games as a form of art, “An outmoded notion of interactivity, developed in the ‘60s and ‘70s is often applied to Arcangel’s works, where he in fact responds astutely to the complexities of today’s democratized and also corporatized participatory culture” (33). She continues by stating that “Arcangel continued to pursue works that evoked a more nuanced reality of engagement. The concept of games and engagement made me think about the connection of Virtual Reality and net art.

Virtual reality seems to me to be the “nuanced reality of engagement” that is connected to Arcangel’s games. I began to wonder, why do we categorize Arcangel’s game as art but not games such as Guitar Hero? In addition, there is a lot of art and interactive art that is created using and within Virtual Reality. Is Virtual Reality a form of net art? I have a friend who worked for a Virtual Reality firm that is creating galleries and wondered if that was considered art and at what level. If Virtual Reality is net art, would each individual work, the gallery, or the game in which the Virtual Reality connects you to the gallery be considered the work of art?

Kukielski quotes Arcangel, in her essay, asking “where is art left when everyone is a producer?” (33). I found this to be a very important question for the realm of net art in our present society. Since we all post to the web and share different things, what then counts as net art and by what properties or attributes do we distinguish it? Lastly, I found the story about Arcangel’s first large commission with Greenwich Street Capital especially interesting. In some ways the selling of the art and crash of the company models the issues of net art in which pieces are posted and then can disappear or no longer work. The impermanence of the art form and lack of physicality is especially interesting to me. It reminds me in some ways of the fact that fewer people have printed photos or physical letters since our photos are saved in libraries on our phones and social media outlets and letters now come in the form of texts and other forms of instant messaging.