Interactive online media seems to be a pretty big topic (almost like creative technologies itself) and I always find that a bit scary. How can I really understand something so vast and vague? Still, I find it engaging and interesting, so I want to be more confident when talking about interactive online media. Our reading for this lecture was Henry Jenkin's "Quentin Tarantino’s StarWars: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture." In it, he argues that re-appropriation of pop culture (in this case, Star Wars) is an integral part of consuming media and that doing so allows viewers to produce related media, which makes the role of "viewer" an active rather than passive one. In his introduction, he writes...
"Too often, fan appropriation and transformation of media content gets marginalized or exoticised, treated as something that people do when they have too much time on their hands. The assumption seems to be made that anyone who would invest so much creative and emotional energy into the products of mass culture must surely have something wrong with them."
Full disclosure: I've looked at fan fiction, fandoms, and otherwise engaged, excited participation in media with the skeptical gaze of smug disinterest in the past. (And while Jenkin's says media convergence and participation isn't just about fan culture, a lot of it is, and I think that's often what's most evident). That's in part because I'm the type of person to overlook even things I'm really interested in, and also because I never really got it until recently. There is definitely a sense of superiority that people who think they don't participate in interactive online media have other those who actively and excitedly engage in these practices, but it is actually the latter who consume media more critically. Interactive online media isn't limited to niche areas like The Sims or World of Warcraft, it includes online platforms like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram along with games and other apps. It would be near impossible to avoid any sort of interactive online media, and the truth is, why would you want to? Rather than taking away from "real life," online media creates worlds of augmented realities, where information online and off can be layered on top of one another to make for a more engaging, fulfilling experience.
When we were discussing participatory culture and media convergence, the first thing that came to mind was of nail polish brands that will do limited edition collections related to a movie. I've never been interested in fan fiction or other aspects of geek culture, but I do have quite the affinity for nail polish. Although I've seen them for a few different movie, including an OPI line for Shrek, the one that came to mind was the Hunger Games line from China Glazes.
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| image via chinaglaze.com |
Despite not working with film or video very much, with the exception of an intermedia assignment last year, I was really excited that Ian Campbell would be giving a VJing demonstration. I've really enjoyed both of his pieces in the current exhibition at the Mackenzie Art Gallery, and saw him VJ for the first time at Neutral Ground's Arts Birthday in January. I had never seen VJing before and was really impressed with the way different projectors were hitting specific parts of the walls and how the images being projected interacted with and related to the music/noise/sound art. Being able to hear him speak and have a (small) insight into the process and the software used was really interesting.
I enjoyed the wide array of examples Ian showed in addition to a bit of his own VJing. While probrably one of the most lo-fi, the video I liked the most was Friedrich van Schoor's Spider Projection. It was playful and simple enough to be understood, as well as being delightfully creepy and really engaging.
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| image via designboom.com |
