PressPausePlay: does democratised culture mean better art, film, music and literature?
"The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, unleashing unlimited creative opportunities.
But does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature or is true talent instead flooded and drowned in the vast digital ocean of mass culture? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity?
This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world's most influential creators of the digital era."
(House of Radon)
Fig.1 "PressPausePlay" (2011) [http://www.houseofradon.com/]
CONTRIBUTOR
Chris ThorbySHARE
A personal profile of American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler
"This episode features Alvin Toffler. He is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communications revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity. A former associate editor of Fortune magazine, his early work focused on technology and its impact (through effects like information overload). Then he moved to examining the reaction of and changes in society. His later focus has been on the increasing power of 21st century military hardware, weapons and technology proliferation, and capitalism"
(Sciencedump, submitted by Jur on 30 October 2010)
Halperin, J. (2002). "Alvin Toffler - Futurist". Big Thinkers. USA, TechTV: 22 minutes [The Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250841/fullcredits#cast].
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Oramics to Electronica: Revealing Histories of Electronic Music
"The story of Electronic Music, from the sound experiments of the 1950s through the digital revolution to today, is one of invention and innovation. Developed with a team of electronic musicians, our exhibition charts this history with examples of music making technology spanning more than 50 years. ...
The story begins with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Electronic Music Studios (EMS), two organisations that broke musical boundaries in the postwar years. Objects from this era include the EMS VCS3, the first portable synthesiser.
Also on display is the Oramics Machine, a revolutionary music synthesiser that was created in the 1960s by Daphne Oram, founder of the Radiophonic Workshop. Daphne created this visionary machine that could transform drawings into sound, and it was recently acquired by the Science Museum in co-operation with Goldsmiths, University of London."
(The Science Museum, 2011)
Fig.1 "Oramics to Electronica", Directed, Produced, Filmed and Edited by Jen Fearnley & Nick Street, Commissioned by The Science Museum, London.
Fig.2 "Daphne Oram", Mick Grierson, Director of Creative Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Director of the Daphne Oram collection.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Electronic Hybridity: The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web
"While mass-mediated communication technologies have empowered the institutional, participatory media offer powerful new channels through which the vernacular can express its alterity. However, alternate voices do not emerge from these technologies untouched by their means of production. Instead, these communications are amalgamations of institutional and vernacular expression. In this situation, any human expressive behavior that deploys communication technologies suggests a necessary complicity. Insofar as individuals hope to participate in today's electronically mediated communities, they must deploy the communication technologies that have made those communities possible. In so doing, they participate in creating a telectronic world where mass culture may dominate, but an increasing prevalence of participatory media extends into growing webs of network-based folk culture. "
(Robert Glenn Howard, 2008)
1). Robert Glenn Howard (2008). "Electronic Hybridity: The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web" Journal of American Folklore, Volume 121, Number 480, Spring 2008, pp. 192-218. DOI: 10.1353/jaf.0.0012
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Digital Revolution: digital type was born in 1968
"In 1965, Dr. Ing. Rudolf Hell introduced the Digiset typesetting system. It was the first device to produce characters on a CRT entirely from digital masters. By the 1970's phototypesetting was replaced by stored information which was set as a series of small dots or closely spaced vertical lines that appeared solid in the finished product. The output speed was 1,000 to 10,000 characters per second.
DigiGrotesk was the first digital type font and was designed in 1968 by the Hell Design Studio and was available in seven weights from light to bold. Hermann Zapf, Gudrun von Hesse and Gerard Unger were early type designers for this new technology."
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
