The Art made and the Experience in Cyberspace - Essay Example

The art made and the experience in cyberspace Digital technology provides a stage for us and the art. Digital technology products as an art medium, are partially build with art, and spread all kinds of art designs making them an intergral a part of our life. Digital technology products are not only the simple functioning programs we could use, but the products of art made and creating great experience to us. The examples of great experience of the art created are chatting programs, theme parks, movie theatres, body art, virtual created space, carton figure, and online gaming. The given paper will prove that digital technology provides a stage for us and the art. Today with easy access to the Internet, we can do much while surfing. Business merchandise has led the market onto a new way—online shopping. Online chat now becomes a part of social media, which includes image posting, shares links and creates personal online space. I think that digital technology and our use of it has become interdependent: the development of software gives us the chance to experience and practice, at the same time, the greediness from the use of people pushes further of the software to have better products. For example, Google Company not only has Gmail, they also have chat program such as Google Hangouts, and online space which is similar to Facebook. The programs and their functions may not be limited by only these features. My first time to have a MSN was also my first time to have an email with Hotmail. I remember I have a chat friend, Mark, from Australia. I chat with him to practice English, but soon after we started chatting, I realize how different a person from another country could be. MSN not only helped me learn and practice English, but also learn about people in Australia. We became friends; we talked about music and we sent each other music through MSN, we also talked about our emotions as friends. Digital technology is a medium of the art use. Learning about a new culture, music, and another language is the way to practice art, and with digital technology products, we can practice art easily. And even more, making friends is a deeper level outcome of us practicing art via digital technology. According to the book “the Digital Divide”, the author of “Love Online”, Henry Jenkins points out that “though they met online, this is not the story of a virtual relationship; their feelings were no less real to them than the first love of any other teenager, past or present” (160). Making friends or having a relationship, digital technology extends our ability to achieve it physically, with a much more convenient way. Therefore, digital technology is not only providing chance to practice art, but also develops opportunities in the sense of socialization. Digital technology and the art are not only extending our social circle virtually, but also physically. Theme park is one of the best entertaining public spaces. It contains world famous movie characters, cartoon figures, and fairground instruments that go along with themes. The world known parks like Universal Studio and Disneyland are the most representative to the combination of moving images and the art made. Sometimes it is a short clip from the actual movie, for example Transformer, where bad guys are damaging the city and good guys are fighting with them. Artists took that clip and bring this theme into Universal studio. With technology, they would be able to build a 4-D effect park. With the movement of machines and 3-D glass visual, audience could experience with smoke, water, high falling, speeding and excitement just like the movie. Disneyland is also similar, but they have fireworks and all color of lights to light up that place—not only cartoon theme, but also with the design of their architectures and design of lights, then Disneyland becomes more dreamlike and fairy tale living. Riding roller coaster in theme park is a really entertaining thing. I remember when I go to theme park, roller coaster is on the top of my list. I enjoy the speed and excitement, the unique view of the surroundings, and most importantly, roller coaster exceed our body limitation, and the crazy curve or straight railway is trying to break me free. Height and speed are no long belong to movie images. Furthermore, technology and art creation is not only limited to theme parks, but also aims to nature. I have been to Cambodia once, and I spent time on the beach a lot. I got sun burn easily, and I did not want to go too deep to the sea, because I don’t swim well. After watching the documentary film about an indoor beach, I wanted to go Japan and experience it. Human could not control the nature, but we could control it if it’s made by us. We control the climate, the wave, the amount of people, and etc… It makes me feel so safe, and relax with music, most importantly it taught me that theme parks are not only something we created, but also something we imitated. Media lives in our daily life and becomes ‘new’ based on the following principles: discrete representation on different scales, such as “media elements--images, sounds and shape (pixels, polygons, voxels, and characters) with hundreds of images, players, buttons, and text elements which are stored separately and are located at run time. “Storing data is not the only thing a machine can do, whereas the new media can have multi-functions. Both media machines and computing machines have the same “ability to disseminate the same texts, images, and sounds to millions of citizens, thus assuring that they have the same ideological beliefs was as essential as the ability to keep track of their records” (Manovich). Media machines and computing machines have very similar functional bases, which are to keep track of databases and memory spaces; After all the excitement in theme parks and entertainment, there are spaces like movie theatre that people can go to connect our life with art. According to to the article by Manovich, “film images would sooth movie audiences, who were too eager to escape the reality outside; the reality which no longer could be adequately handled by their own sampling and data processing systems (i.e., brains)”(Manovich). People accepting new media and our brain starts learning to process the functions of new media. Watching movie especially in a movie theatre in a dark room with large screen and high quality of audio has become a kind of recreation. It is the type of entertaining recreation used to relax, dating, learning, tough, and excitement. “Periodic trips into the dark relaxation chambers of movie theatre became a routine survival technique for the subjects of modern society.” In the modern society it has become our culture to go to movie theatre Designing and building theme parks and our surroundings is not the only combination with art we have; in our life, ourselves can be the product of the art made as well. For example, lots of people have tattoo on their skin. I got a tattoo as well on my back; I think tattoo is attractive attribute. The tattoo itself tells a lot about myself: my taste, my habit, my style, and my choice. Although people tell me to think before getting it, askingn to change my mind, I think I am not having the same trouble. I like it, and when I wear bikini and go to the pool, sometimes I have people come and talk to me about tattoo. I think making the art on my skin is a way to express myself, and also it is a way to satisfy the needs. Some people like doing other things to their body, such as plastic surgery. The made by surgery the French performance artist Orlan was shocking although, the ‘new’ look was “modeled after Mona Lisa, Diana, Europa, Venus, and Psyche” (Lisahutton.net). She redefined the beauty of female, by changing herself into an art product. I have a friend that also made her body art site. She is transgender. Besides some personal reasons, she told me that she enjoys the new look, being someone new and start a new life. She is recovering and she says that she will have plastic surgery to her face, so that she could design and decide who she can become and start fresh completely. From in-class screening, the documentary about virtual wedding opens my eyes of seeing a new developing art and technology market. As Chinese, we love fireworks, especially in weddings. I remember the most special wedding I have seen is after the oath, the big screen behind them is playing digital fireworks with sound. I think it’s too much to play fireworks on site with smoke and loud noise. This way, we don’t have to go outdoor; the whole wedding image is beautiful with this background. The idea of wearing digital glasses is even better—not only fireworks, but anything is created virtually. If we have the right programs, not only the graphic designer, but also anyone could design how their wedding would look like, from the location/country of the wedding to the color of flowers. That is how people picture our future wedding from this documentary. Today, we are practicing similar things such as sending emotion images while chatting to express our feeling. In Henry Jenkins’ “Love Online”, he says that “they sent each other virtual candy, flowers, and cards downloaded off various website” (161), which is similar to the virtual wedding, and also, this is just like the emotion gallery on our cellphones. Digital technology can not only help us express emotions, but also can use art to build up an ideal space virtually. Microsoft office tells us their vision in 2019 with technology, it tells how our live would be: with all electronic devices, the art made. The virtual art and technology are being transformed into a small portion of accessible device. In this cyberspace, art could be a medium for technology to develop, and at the same time, technology is the medium of art expression. “Art and technology have a consistent historical relationship. The use of tools for new purposes is one of the primary functions of the artist. Again--finding way to express what cannot be expressed another way. Artistic practice has always engaged technology. By using pigments, writing, ceramics, metallurgy, film, and photography artists have had to be inventors and engineers”(Hutton, 2014). Sometimes we make the real virtual, and sometimes we make the virtual real. From UCSD Filmatic Festival, a short video called “Mikumentaries”, a cartoon figure Miku was created as a real Japanese girl. Miku, she is a cartoon figure, very young and has a young voice. This public image—Miku in this documentary, is injecting the idea of being ideal. “Miku is forever that age”, said the director. Even though the director has tried a baby Miku or a senior Miku, with voices from all ages, whatever she built up, that is the public image of Miku. Media and the art created are building their own ‘standard’ of a public image/figure, and that influence the audience in many kinds of ways. Some females like to dress the way Miku does, some Japanese girls make blue and wear Miku’s skirt. Art today is not only about the art itself, what’s so important about art is also the value of it—the value where people can build from it as well. The Japanese girl is taking the idea from Miku, remixing it, participating as a part of art and creating based on Miku. In a much bigger picture, we are all potential Miku—from different ages, contain very characteristics, and changing original Miku in many ways. Therefore Miku is not just collective images of Miku, but also represents a build-in audience image. Finding similarities between us in real life and Miku, or remixing her into our life is not the only reaction. Media and its images impose a great impact on the way we are and the way we live. Many people in this case believe that Miku is an extension of our physical body. Miku is creating and leading out physical body art into a new path. People like to dress like her, talk like her, and live like her. The upcoming concert of Lady Gaga is using Miku for her opening. Not only these two—Lady Gaga is already the one, and Miku is going to become, public figures is going to influence their audience just like the Japanese girl in the documentary, but also the intersection of culture is blowing up through media. People not only seeing the culture differences, but also they learn and have the opportunity to remix the two cultures. In our real life there are a lot of of things that are created with art, such as photo images, graphics, forms of objects, and most commonly, logos. There is a way that I experience interacting with art a lot, which is online gaming. The game I play, League of Legend, is a game with selective champions. Each champion has different abilities: support, jungle, attack damage carry, and ability power. Riot company is very popular for graphic design artists. All abilities of a champion have different virtual and sound effect, with the design of the champion outfit, the effects could be varied. Therefore, online gaming is creating job opportunities for virtual artists, and more importantly, this game is shared by thousands and thousands of players. Riot company sponsor is world champion games to League of Legend players. The world champion for League of Legend this year took place in France. I know there is a team from China mainland went to France and lots of people from China and even international students here were watching the live gaming. I as an art student, and may have a unique way of watching this game. Even though it’s the same game as I play, but for professional players, their team work and movements have created a very different and special effects, both virtually and acoustically. I believe for other artists, not only Riot games, but also all other kinds of virtual gaming could be a great way to share the art designs. In the U.S.A., the game League of Legend is a legal way to get a working visa, which means, gaming is going to a professional employment field and making the virtual games valuable as a part of our life. Also, the art event took place in UCSD is called “Ad Infinitum—live faming”. It is created by a graduate student and some undergraduate artists from UCSD. The game characters are very special; they were drawn by a chemistry student. They are figures of monads, bugs, and cells. And I think sometimes we don’t have to have special designs, whereas in this case, to present the very original and basic of livings has made this game special. The characters of each play are given, and there are options to ‘eat’, ‘connect’, and ‘ring’. For each option, there will be a different color and sound effect to go along with it. Today software inventions becomes bigger and play an important role in our life, because game is not just computer game. The new games are being created providing ability to connect virtual gaming with our new technical products such as iPod and tablets. Digital technology provides a stage for us and the art. It is not only extending our social circle virtually, but also physically. Digital technology products are not treated as proframs we can use, but the products of art which provides us with great experience. Works Cited Bauerlein, Mark. The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking. original ed. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 4c. Print. Hutton, Lisa. Conclusion: Why Artists Care About Technology. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2014. . Hutton, Lisa. Post-Human Privacy (you and your data). N.p., 2014. Web. 16 May 2014. . Knight, Tara, “Mikumentaries”. Filmatic Festival UCSD, April 25th 2014. Lev, Manovich. New Media: a Users Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2014. . “Microsoft Office Labs Vision 2019”. Microsoft Office. Youtube. 2009. Video. 2014. 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