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
BTS Design d'Espace Toulon: Junk Playground
"Lors des bombardements allemand de la seconde guerre mondiale, Londres à été une des villes les plus détruite. On y trouvait fréquemment des espaces vide crée entre deux immeubles démolis et bourrés de gravats. Ces espaces vides, terrains vagues, en friche, "poubelles" en attente d'être reconstruit furent pendant une période des espaces de terrains de jeux consacré exclusivement aux enfants. L'idée était de donner un lieu spécifique pour que les enfants à la fois s'exprime librement, évite l'ennuie et l'inactivité qui peuvent conduire à la délinquance et participe à leurs façon à la période de reconstruction.
Ces terrains d'aventures, appelés Junk playground (terrains vague) ont été des espaces de libertés encadré ou les enfants construisirent à partir des gravats des "sculptures installation et autres inventions".
La fabrication par lui même (de l'enfant) de ses propres jeux par la maîtrise des outils (marteau, scie...) furent une expérience inédite et fondamentale dans l'approche citoyenne et pédagogique du rôle du jeu comme source d'épanouissement et d'éveil des consciences. La liberté quasi anarchique de ces terrains, laissant à l'enfant la responsabilité de ses actes, en étant acteur de sa propre aventures comme facteur de régénération pour une société pacifié, sans violence ou chacun peut s'exprimer et trouver sa place de citoyen. Cette expérience éphémère n'a pas survécu aux règles de sécurité, aux normes. Mais aussi aux formatages d'équipements modulaires produits en masse ou l'enfant n'est plus l'acteur (car exclu du processus de conception) mais simple utilisateur, spectateur, consommateur et non plus comme citoyen."
(Éric Malaterre, 03/01/2011, BTS Design d'Espace Toulon)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Visit to Picasso: painting on glass
"‘Visite à Picasso’ is a classic documentary by dir. Paul Haesaerts which features the frequently used footage of Picasso painting on glass while a camera films him from the other side. The trick of filming thru (sic) glass allows the viewer to witness Picasso's true genius as he paints his famous Torros with just a few well-placed brushstrokes. Shot in beautiful black and white in Picasso's home in Vallauris, the film is a poetic treatment of the master-painter."
(DocsOnline)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
What Does It Mean To Become A Master?
"In the 1960's and 70's, the advent of computers not only reinforced this notion of man as a rational animal, it also led many people to predict that we would soon have machines that could think and act just like human beings. In 1972, however, Hubert Dreyfus's seminal and controversial book What Computers Can't Do anticipated the failure of what came to be known as 'artificial intelligence'.
In the book, Dreyfus explains that human beings are not at all like computers. We do not apply abstract, context-free rules to compute how to act when we engage in skilled behavior. Instead, Dreyfus argued, the fundamental thing about humans is that we are embodied beings living in a shared world of social practices and equipment. In the end, it is our skillful mastery and our shared practices that not only distinguish us from machines but allow us to assume meaningful identities."
(Tao Ruspoli, 2010)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Internet of the 90's was bright, rich, personal, slow and under construction
"To be blunt [the Internet of the 90's] was bright, rich, personal, slow and under construction. It was a web of sudden connections and personal links. Pages were built on the edge of tomorrow, full of hope for a faster connection and a more powerful computer. One could say it was the web of the indigenous...or the barbarians. In any case, it was a web of amateurs soon to be washed away by dot.com ambitions, professional authoring tools and guidelines designed by usability experts.
I wrote that change was coming 'soon' instead of putting an end date at 1998, for example, because there was no sickness, death or burial. The amateur web didn't die and it has not disappeared but it is hidden. Search engine rating mechanisms rank the old amateur pages so low they're almost invisible and institutions don't collect or promote them with the same passion as they pursue net art or web design.
Also new amateur pages don't appear at such amounts as ten years ago because the WWW of today is a developed and highly regulated space. You wouldn't get on the web just to tell the world, 'Welcome to my home page.' The web has diversified, the conditions have changed and there's no need for this sort of old fashioned behaviour. Your CV is posted on the company website or on a job search portal. Your diary will be organised on a blog and your vacation photos are published on iPhoto. There's a community for every hobby and question.
This is why I refer to the amateur web as a thing of the past; aesthetically a very powerful past. Even people who weren't online in the last century, people who look no further than the first 10 search engine results can see the signs and symbols of the early web thanks to the numerous parodies and collections organised by usability experts who use the early elements and styles as negative examples."
(Olia Lialina, February 2005)
Fig.1 Cyndi Howells. 'Cyndi's Genealogy Home Page Construction Kit'
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
