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Audacity

Audacity

A first attempt at sound editing and using Audacity. The initial recording of Hugh speaking was altered through applying a phaser and an echo, changing the tempo, speed and pitch and reversing the sound wave. The image depicts a noise I believe resembles the mumbling of incoherent squeals of aliens.

Hyperculture

Hypertext isn’t linear; it enables us to link to a new location with the freedom and choice to do other things.

Vannevar Bush established his concept of hypertext in 1945 in his article ‘As We May Think’. The concept of the article was for a machine called the Memex; however, the title itself refers to the idea that hyperlinking is already in our conscious minds. Our minds link to different places, memories and thoughts as we read, think and speak. Therefore, it isn’t just text which is hyperlinked, it is also different aspects of media. For example, TV shows may reference other shows, movies and events happening in everyday life to which our minds link to.

The control to which we have over hyperculture, however, is significantly limited to the average human (possibly myself even more-so, before I my mind became open to the non-advertising aspects of networked culture). Every step online has been previously mapped out by someone else. An example of this are the common decision flow charts; they’re designed in a manner which assumes we’re thinking in the same way the options on the charts are. Whilst there are lots of other ways to navigate online, we are not always aware of them.

How much of a choice do we actually have in using other ways to navigate online? I assume we have a significantly limited choice. We average humans only use seven per cent of the internet through the Google search engine. The remaining ninety-three per cent of paths (which is referred to as the Deep Web) don’t seem open to us. We can choose these paths, but we’re not openly encouraged to.

Fuel for your Thoughts

Something that has remained with me since last weeks computer lab session was the thought that we no longer feel responsible. Networked culture has made us, as individuals, feel that in a crowded room of people it isn’t our job to help the lady who dropped her bags because someone else surely will. This relates directly to the incredible tool we have invested in our culture – the internet – which we use in limited ways. We can’t imagine how else to use it, in actual fact. We’re not having the global conversation we’re able to through this medium. News sites inform us directly of tragedies occurring overseas, deliberately providing us with a perception that the trauma is too far away to help with. Instead, the internet should be telling us how to help instead of assuming that it is their government’s responsibility, even our government’s responsibility but not ours as someone else will do something.

Seconds – A Lecture and Computer Lab

Week two’s lecture consisted of the materiality of networked culture and the cultural implications of it, whilst the computer lab session sought to introduce us to network alternatives.

Hugh spoke to us about how within a network you don’t really exist until you’re connected – connections are a crucial part of networked culture. For example, when we sign up to Facebook we are a node (the initial knot); we have no connections and are virtually non existent on the social media site. However, once you begin to add friends (or connections) a network hub is created. I found this concept really quite intriguing as I had never thought of the technical concept behind the social media sites I have joined or less specifically the concept of the networks I am apart of. Interconnecting is fundamental in networking.

Networked culture poses significant implications upon our society. The lecture identified the shaping of our bodies’ and minds networks impose against us. Our bodies being bent around our mobile devices are leading causes in back problems today, only comparable to the Monks copying out Bibles 600 or so years ago. It is networks as a whole, however, which are continuing to shape our bodies; for example, the cramped spaces provided for long commute trips on airplanes and buses. On the other hand, networked culture is shaping our minds to be less original as we “reorganise” rather than create. Hugh described that we forget we are creative beings who can make everything from minerals mined from the ground.

The computer lab session introduced us to thinking about alternatives to networked culture. Hugh asked the question of how it could be different; however, the class determined that is is difficult to imagine alternatives. A note I remembered taking from the lab session referred to this dilemma: “…network culture has become a main para-dime to which the problem is that no one has been able to imagine an alternative.” If our network is the best we’ve got, surely there’s room to imagine improvements? It is important to think though, that technology may always have easily perceived flaws as we take on board the good and bad sides of the system, wherein the bad are the anomalies.

Introductions and First Thoughts

“How much control do I have over this?” ‘This’ being the turbulent changes to and affects of networking I was intrigued to ponder after the first lecture for MSS1MNC this week. As a community we’re all very embracing of technology; specifically when it is a mobile companion like the internet. As a consumer I had never felt the need to think of anything but the positivity displayed in the promotional ventures of marketing teams; however, like anything debatable, the internet has rather concerning environmental, social and privacy impacts. 

Networks of technology and the internet are maintained by companies like Foxconn – to which unbearable working conditions and employee suicides in China where just as extreme as the environmental impacts of creating products for large scaled brands. In Tuesday’s lecture I found it quite interesting that as each product nears the end of its life it finds itself in a waste dump only for the cycle to begin again with more consumer items built and awful repercussions to the environment.

The reading I was required to do for Making Networked Cultured enlightened me to the social and privacy concerns imbedded in internet use. The article for Eurozine by Kazys Varnelis explains that “… we are less individuals and more the product of multiple networks.” Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are how we affirm our identities. Being social in a face-to-face context is no longer important as we can hide behind the screens of our tablets and smart phones and keep in contact with our nearest and dearest via internet links. Furthermore, Varnelis offers the insight that privacy is no longer an issue. A trail of information is left behind each time you connect to the internet. Governments, corporations and anyone able to pay can track your use of internet. What becomes more terrifying is the fight of media outlets to extend their power in legislation.

While it is undeniable that technology and the internet alike are dominant factors of life in today’s culture, the lack of control we as consumers have beginning with the environmental, social and privacy impacts is frightening.