Digital Museums

One addition to the digital world is the creation of digital museums. Museums across the world are adding online exhibits with either 3D models, videos, or photos with some sort of description. This makes a museum more accessible and interactive to the public.

The Smithsonian has gone as far as to create an entire 3D tour of their main building. It provided a point and click style tour similar to that of Google maps. Each exhibit area of the museum had an interactive image with a zoom feature to look at each exhibit. This allowed me to remotely access each part of the Smithsonian, as I took time to look at the rocks and minerals exhibit and the African exhibit during class lab time.

The experience was enjoyable, as I was able to basically visit a museum, however it was somewhat limiting. Not every exhibit was easily visible and some text descriptions on exhibits were too hard to read. For me, the virtual tour seemed too much like a slide show. Although it was nice not dealing with crowds, I prefer to visit museums in person as the level of detail and ease of viewing is better in person in my opinion.

 

Digital Art

With the creation of the digital, we have been able to abstract forms of art with the way digital media functions and acts. This art can come from state-of-the-art (no pun intended) virtual reality exhibits, or older forms of digital visual art, like Cory Archangel’s Clouds. Digital art is not only two, or even three dimensional. Traditional art can be viewed or touched, but digital art can be interactive. One specific piece of interactive digital art that attracted my attention is Screening Circle by Andy Deck.

This art exhibit, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s website, is an interactive, community based, art project. The premise of the exhibit is similar to that of a quilting circle where each segment is a different, customized piece. When you enter the exhibit, you are confronted by a circle of moving squares, each square is changing and different. When you click a square, you can pick up to four different squares to customize with 9 basic colors of your choosing. The design of each block is completely  up to any user of the exhibit.

This work represents collaboration. The artists creates the means, but the viewers create the content. Digital art allows us to do this because digital media can be changed and presented in ways traditional methods don’t allow. Collaborative art leaves an impression of community on the user. It is subjective to any user and can be interpreted in a plethora of ways depending on the viewer and creator.

Game Criticism

This week in lab, we played around with retro game emulators. The game I ended up playing the most was Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo. Super Mario is an extremely popular game even to this day. When I was young, Mario was my favorite game on the Nintendo DS and I would play it everywhere I went. My grandparents house also had a Super Nintendo console, where I used to play (and beat) the exact game I tested in lab, over and over again.

What does the Super Mario game and franchise mean and why is it so popular? Taking an in-depth look at the game mechanics, it is pretty simple. There are a few basic moves you can do and some strategy used in solving puzzles to get onto the next level, but that does not make the game special from others. The graphics are good for the time, even for a non 3D game. I believe the meaning behind this game is what gives it the popularity it has. The meaning can be found in the story and the world of Mario. It is an adventure story within the world of Mario. This fantasy world has different biomes, caves and locations and you are on a noble mission to save a princess. Even your enemies appear to be friendly, with no scary or gory aspects in the game. The game provides a since of innocence and a guilt free adventure as you put problem solving to the test in order to win.

 

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Virtual reality is one of those cool sci-fi topics that is becoming more and more tangible with the times. Now we have headsets like Google Cardboard, giving virtual reality capabilities to our smart phones. Augmented reality also plays into our mobile phone life, giving pictures the ability to play videos and provide more information.  In class this week, we got to experiment with different apps for Google Cardboard. Although most, like the horror game, were fun and entertaining, one VR app stuck out to me as a potential game changer.

This application is the New York Times VR app. During class I explored some of the stories on the app. One that caught my attention was the Battle for Fallujah. It provided a 360 degree perspective to different scenes, while the narrator reported the event. It fascinated me because I got a first person perspective of the news story. It is amazing to see news agencies like the New York Times provide this form of journalism. Not only is it more entertaining, it provides credibility to the event in an age of “fake news”. I would like to see this application used for live viewing one day, allowing someone to step into another’s shoes as soon as  they put on the VR headset. In an age of live streaming, it can add a new media dynamic, as you can literally see in the eyes of someone else.

Word Cloud

Word clouds are a form of digital media in which a creative display of words interpret pieces of writing. The web based software Wordle creates an interesting collage of words based on a users imputed writing. The more frequent the word, the bigger the word appears in the collage. That way, it provides a different perspective on a piece of writing, as word frequency can lead to conclusions on what the writing was mostly about.

For my Wordle, I took an assortment of writing assignments from my senior year of high school. These writing assignments were from my English, Engineering, Psychology, Business Law, and AP Government classes. The word cloud presented provides very interesting conclusions based on my writing from last year. The most obvious conclusion is in the largest words. The most used words for me were government, federal, vote, states, and computer (along with transition words like also and like). This does not surprise me as the class that involved the most writing was my AP Government class. Government and politics is also something I enjoy to write about. Even for English class I focused on government and politics for research papers and argumentative essays. Another less obvious conclusion can is seen in my lack of creative writing words. Most the words are involved in government or technology. There really isn’t many creative words as creative writing is something I struggle with.

Mapping

One of the major changes the digital provides us with is the ability to map. Mapping is nothing new, but digital mapping allows for more interaction and presentable data. Digital mapping allows us to take data, normally presented on a data sheet with no interaction, and present it to us in a more intuitive way. Instead of a sheet stating ’50 million people died of the Black Plague over the 14th century’ an interactive map can show the amount, location, and density of deaths over the course of the 14th century. It allows for a visualization, and sometimes a more personal connection, when mapped digitally.

In my experience in exploring digital mapping, I have realized that mapping digitally can make data much more clear. However, sometimes it can obscure. A really clear example of good digital mapping is the “Atlas of Historical Geography of the United States”. It allows the viewer to deepen their thoughts on political changes throughout the maturing United States. The timeline presentation is especially helpful by allowing more time for thought, rather than spending time to read off percentages of political party influence each election year.

However, one obscuring element of digital mapping can be the data behind the mapping. Like Johanna Drucker stated about Google Ngram, the data behind digital mapping can be misleading. Lack of data, poor data, and a misleading display may not give you the correct information. Using Drucker’s Ngram example, the words displayed are not from every book, only the ones indexed and able to be recognized by the software’s algorithm. It also created a disconnect, as many do not understand the data behind the visual. However the benefits of digital mapping outweigh the costs and I look forward to create my own digital map. (https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2492337,00.asp)

 

Digital Design

Digital design is the layout, format, and function of a digital piece of media. As the digital continuously grows and becomes more accessible in every day life, digital design has changed to reflect the media and make it more user friendly. An example of two different forms of digital design is the setup of Craigslist and Letgo. Craigslist is an older version of the digital, as it uses much more text and less images. It is not as user friendly, offering only a search bar and multiple categorized links to navigate by. Letgo on the other hand is almost exclusively images and incredibly user friendly. It its a catalog of local listings with the ability to post in less than 10 minutes. However it lacks some functionality, like good filtering results and micro-transactions.

My idea of good digital design is a mix between the two. That way, what ever digital media you are interacting with includes both simplicity and functionality. One object I believe that provides the best digital design would be the the game app Steam. It provides the user basic functions like a search bar, while it provides a user friendly design and attractive look. It acts as a visual catalog for games you own and buy. It is also all-in-one, meaning that it provides the user with many functions like modification (Steam Workshop) and social interaction (Steam Friends) built into it. Digital design like Steam’s provides simplicity and engagement, while still allowing for the ability to deepen within the media by contributing and interacting with it.                                                                                           

What Does Digital Mean?

When you think of the word “digital”, what pops into your head? For me, I see the digital alarm clock I grew up with on my dresser. It’s retro 8-bit chime and a bright green display reminds one of the dial-up PC and Nintendo 64 days. The days of the early digital. We have come a long way with the advances in computation, giving digital a new definition. This new definition of digital is not just the physical sense of 1 or 0. It is complete interactivity. In a sense we are turned into a 1 or 0, ether connected or not. Take RIT for an example. As our education evolves into a digital form, services like MyCourses allows for classes to be connected to the student. MyCourses has turned the analog paper syllabus and hand-in folder into a connected library of paperless interaction. Turning the student, from the moment they log into MyCourses, into a 1 instead of a 0.

     We can thank the personal computer for linking us to this sense of interactivity we call the digital. What I mean by personal computer is any bright screen that connects us to the essential internet. Although it was the internet that made us digital, it is the personal computer that acts as a portal into the internet. It is the interactive device that can be as big as a desktop or as small as smart phone. The key feature the digital is the interconnection these devices give us. Interconnection is the link the internet has created between our social, professional, cultural, and educational life. For social life we now have media like Facebook, allowing us to share our current life and stay in constant connection with others. For professional life we can send colleagues emails with links or documents related to whatever professional matter. For cultural we can consume and share media, join online groups, or create digital art via the personal computer. For education, practically any question is searchable in a matter of clicks, with the amazing google search.

Personal computing is nothing new. The Apple II was a personal computer from 1977. Even the internet, the essential connecting device between us and the digital, is nothing relatively new.  What’s new is the scale of personal computers. They can fit in our bags, in our pocket, and on our wrist. This is what is crucial to today’s new digital environment. It is the accessibility and easy access we have to the digital, making it ever more pertinent. One example of easy access to personal computing is the smart phone. Pretty much everyone has one. The phone keeps us having a conversation all day with someone far away. For example, I am in a group chat with all my close friends from back home that I am able to text frequently. Because of it, a few of my friends are coming up to visit me next weekend. Planning via group text message made coordination over phone or mail obsolete, as texting was as simple as having a face to face conversation.

This is one of the major affects of the digital. It extends our social lives. In this case, the digital has definitely helped me and my friends (as shown above) remain in touch. It has also allowed me to make more friends, as communication and social groups extend because of the social interconnection provided by the digital. Extensions of social behavior is not always a good thing. There is constantly cases of cyber bulling, “cat fishing”, and scams because of the anonymity of the digital. It has created a level of social behavior that makes us more distrustful when we go online.

Digital may be an old thing with a new definition because of new devices. As the digital grows with us, our inter-connectivity will continue to increase. It may increase, but weather it is positive or negative is entirely up to the future.