Watch  A Shared Culture

To continue on with Shaun’s lecture I’d just like to clarify what exactly Creative Commons is…

Our immersion and direction towards digital culture has ultimately altered copyright given it is now easier to reproduce and access material freely online. Overall copyright has become cheaper, easier and more accessible so why not make works free? Creative Commons strive to create a free and unified culture that seems more than fitting with the trends occurring in contemporary society. Shaun mentioned Creative Commons as an alternative way of perceiving copyright given it believes that works should be free of charge and immediately enter the public domain providing that this is confirmed by the author who creates the work. The organisation aims to offer an alternative root for creators to publish their work according to their own desires and without being pressured by traditional content distributors who are restrictive and reproduce work solely for profit. In a society that is already seeing changes to copyright through the Internet the Creative Commons organisation offers alternative choices for artists to distribute their work whilst simultaneously saving the world from failed sharing.

I’m afraid the content for this week’s lecture will not make for a very entertaining blog post but more so an interesting one.

“Copyright is attained automatically by the maker” providing they meet two criteria.

1. the work must be original

2. the work must be a material form

Shaun Miller outlined that an author owns copyright in a work for 70 years after the death of the author whilst an author of subject matter other than work owns copyright for 70 years after the work was created. It’s unfortunate that I will not be alive when Harry Potter goes out of copyright, unless JK Rowling dies today but even then I’ll be struggling. I have many ideas for an alternative film adaptation that will undoubtably involve zombies given they seem to be the craze at the moment. Since moving out of copyright Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has been appropriated into both film and literary texts such as Bride and Prejudice, Pride and Predator or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I’m sure the list goes on… Thank goodness Austen had a few good years to really secure her novel within the literary sector. If copyright didn’t exist her novel may have been lost amongst parody adaptations and mediocre novels based upon her original text thus weakening its own content. Moreover, Shaun also mentioned the Fair Dealing Exceptions that are applicable as they reveal our rights to copyright. Overall, we do not need permission from the author to copy if the work is for 1. study purposes 2. purposes of review or criticism 3. reporting news 4. parody. With this in mind perhaps my own Harry Potter parody will be reaching book shelves, jokes, Youtube sometime very soon.

This week’s online lecture meant that I could pause, rewind and fast forward Adrian Miles. In other news, I was able to take thoroughly thorough notes on the use of patterns in the network.

I often enjoy when this subject is related back to cinema and Adrian drew alot of comparisons between the links online and how they resemble edits used in film, forming as a post-cinematic form of writing. Similarly to edits in cinema, links have the ability to bring together things that are equally far apart. Furthermore, links construct meaning between things much like how a shot juxtaposed against another shot in cinema enables the audience to infer meaning between the two shots.

Patterns in the network also form meaning on the links in hypertext. Much like how visual rhythms occur in a film, patterns in links on the web create structures that influence a person’s online experience. Adrian exemplified this point through the television series The Eagle. This particular episode he spoke of paid tribute to Hitchcock’s Rear Window by setting up a pattern that resembled the court yard shots within the film. As a result of this, the audience was able to gage what would happen next given they were familiar with Htichcock’s original work. My own interpretation of this experience online reminds me of a menu bar. Given I have used numerous menu bars before and although each bar is uniquely different, it still constructs the same pattern that enables me to easily maneuver myself throughout a particular website. I am always aware that the Home link will take me to the home page no matter what shape or form it takes.

I’m sure all of you by now have had to endure the new advertisement in cinemas promoting the Mercedes Benz SLK. Drive and Seek is an interactive film that both promotes the new C-Class Coupe whilst positioning the brand as innovative and advanced car makers.

The narrative these guys are going for is an ultimate cliche but I give them snaps on their courageous efforts to appeal to customers. It delivers action, fast cars and most importantly, beautiful people. Additionally, the interactive elements aren’t hardly as intelligent as those used by Robert Altman but to see this kind of advertisement on mainstream cinema screens is definitely a real (groundbreaking) shock.

The film encompasses a list of ideas that have been covered this semester in Networked Media. It is an interactive film that can only be viewed online, emphasising an alternative form of writing in the network through the medium of cinema and also hypertext. Moreover, and most importantly it embodies Lev Manovich’s concept of spatial montage as a new interactive form of cinema that can also exist on the Internet. Although the film is primarily shot using a single frame, links also appear on screen and form as the interactive component of the film. For example, you can press “yes” or “no” to decide what path you want to take throughout this film. By clicking on the hyperlinks within the film, the viewer (or interactive user) is able to change the content or more specifically the images presented. As a result, the viewer begins to actively construct their own narrative. Moreover, forms of writing such as hyperlinks and HTML codes essentially become edit points within this piece. Whilst this reiterates Manovich’s point, outlining how spatial montage on the web can be reproduced in the cinema it also emphasises how a viewer can become more actively engaged with a film given they’re offered the opportunity to piece together the narrative presented.

We recently submitted three research log book entries for the subject Communications Histories and Technologies. In one of my entries I applied Lev Manovich’s spatial montage concept to the idea of remediation. This entry demonstrates how I am engaging with outside material and applying it to this particular subject. Here it is…

“In their article, Bolter and Grusin claim, “new digital media emerge within cultural context and refashion other media that are embedded in the same or similar context” (1999). If new digital media refashion other media in a similar context then this can be applied to Williams and Williams’s notion of technological determinism that draws on cause and effect in catalysing social and cultural change (2003). To draw on both claims it is necessary to acknowledge how developments in older media technologies such as multiple graphic user interfaces, video games and television news reports have refashioned traditional modes of cinema.

The argument addressed by Bolter and Grusin reinforces that the introduction of “new media technology does not mean simply inventing new hardware and software, but rather fashioning (or refashioning) such a network” (1999). In order for existing technology to be refashioned it is necessary to adopt Williams and Williams’s claim that conveys that cause and effect as well as social relations shape the development, adoption and popularity of new technologies (2003). There are a number of cause and effect scenarios that can be drawn upon in relation to technological developments in society. Williams and Williams use the example of television, stating that television was “invented as a result of scientific and technical research. However, its power as a medium was so great that it altered all preceding media of new and entertainment” (2003). Moreover, as discussed in the lecture and tutorial from week three, often the focus on the invention of a new technology is overlooked. Technologies do not emerge from a single invention, but rather many. For example, the establishment of television relied not only on one invention but rather inventions existing prior to its discovery such as the telegraph, photography, radio and motion pictures. This resonates with Bolter and Grusin’s claim as it exemplifies how other forms of media such as photography can be refashioned to create a new digital media such as television within society.

The alteration of older forms of media to create new digital media is demonstrated through the concept of spatial montage, or the split screen technique that is continuously developing within cinema. Old forms of media can be utilised to remediate film narrative by viewing multiple screens within a single frame. This is becoming more prevalent within contemporary society and whilst no full feature length film is yet to be made using the concept, it has appeared frequently as a convention in comic book adaption films. Moreover, the new media artwork, My boyfriend came back from the war by Olia Lialina (1996) exemplifies how this non-linear form of narrative is applicable to film given it constructs a visual narrative on multiple screens, fostering audience active participation in cinema.

Spatial montage is a termed coined by Lev Manovich who outlines that “spatial montage could involve a number of images, potentially of different sizes and proportions, appearing on the screen at the same time to construct a non-linear narrative” (2001). This concept stems from contemporary societies subjection to dense information surfaces. Furthermore, our ability to “switch our attention rapidly from one program to another, from one set of windows and commands to another illustrates that we find multiple streams of audio-visual information presented simultaneously more satisfying than the single narrative stream of traditional cinema” (Manovich 2001). Ultimately, the multiple screens presented through older forms of media such as the multiple graphic user interfaces on computers, video games and television news report have been refashioned and implemented within cinema to create a new viewing experience.”