jharris

Harris, Jack Major: International Affairs / Computer Science Experience with Computer Software: Experience with Art: No formal education or experience Artistic interests:
 * Some experience with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
 * Some experience with Java, HTML, CSS, and jQuery
 * I am interested in the way art can intersect with new media. One particular artist that I think embodies this intersection is "Yung Jake", a self-proclaimed video-prankster and meta-rapper.
 * "E.m-bed.de/d" - Yung Jake: http://e.m-bed.de/d/

Presence Absence Project

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In-Class Masking Exercise

Masking Project

1. Cosmos

2. Cityscape

3. Fire

4. Drought

5. Sand

Network Ident Inspirations:

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http://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/imgrund-4.jpg

http://vimeo.com/39622354

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http://player.vimeo.com/video/46701789

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http://player.vimeo.com/video/44020832

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Response to “The Poetics of Augmented Space” by Lev Manovich

In his article “The Poetics of Augmented Space”, Lev Manovich explores the existing and future consequences of augmented reality technologies on our individual interactions with art and culture and on society as a whole. Specifically, Manovich delves into the human experience with //augmented spaces//, or “physical space overlaid with dynamically changing information” (Manovich 2), and how these experiences represent a dramatic difference in the ways that people have interacted with media throughout modern history. Augmented spaces can range from obvious examples, like shopping malls in Seoul and Hong Kong where people are confronted with floor to ceiling dynamic multimedia, to more subtle examples, like anywhere that a smartphone can interact with the surrounding environment.

Most striking to me in Manovich’s article was the potential consequences of augmented space as surveillance technology. As our internet enabled devices are constantly interacting and receiving data in augmented environments, a concept Manovich refers to as “ubiquitous computing” (Manovich 4), so too are those environments gaining access to some of our personal data. Manovich equates this relationship to Michel Foucault’s notion of a “Panopticon” as metaphor for constant government surveillance in his book //Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.// As a fan Foulcault’s work, Manovich’s observation struck me deeply.

The idea of the Panopticon was originally developed by British philosopher Jeremy Bentham as the ideal architectural design of a prison, which Foucault analyzes as the zenith of the unfair power-knowledge relationship between government and citizen. The unique architecture of the prison renders its inmates unable to gauge whether or not they are being observed by the guards, and as a result they are forced to behave as if they are always under surveillance. Physical repression is mildly and efficiently automated as the prisoners are forced to regulate their own behavior and develop self-discipline. Though the Panopticon was never constructed exactly to Bentham’s specifications, Foucault asserts the apparent usefulness of the panoptic principles of self-discipline gradually became emulated in virtually every institution of modern Western society. Citizens self-regulate their behavior because of the constant threat of potential punishment, figuratively locked in a cell in society’s “panoptic machine” (Foulcault 217).

Foucault wrote //Discipline and Punish// in 1975, yet his observations ring truer today than ever. With the growing acceptance of new augmented reality tools like wearable technology (Google Glass, Nike FuelBand, Apple’s rumored iWatch) and further integration of smartphones into our culture, we are approaching a state beyond simply “ubiquitous computing”: ubiquitous augmentation. As augmented spaces become omnipresent, any environment we enter may be interacting with our personal data in deeply unsettling ways. Manovich notes that “the Panopticon was organized around the straight lines of human sight, i.e. the geometry of the visible, this is no longer the case for our society” (Manovich 6). As nations develop digital surveillance technologies at the same pace that augmented spaces flourish, the frontiers between technology and other institutions of social life may become blurred and our society may become the epitome of the Foucault’s panoptic machine. How would we act if we knew we might be constantly surveilled?