For this week’s blog post I’ve decided to reflect on Johanna Drucker’s “From A to a screen”. Drucker highlights how we have advanced drastically from print to typing on a screen. We as a society never questioned the functions of typing, we found a system more efficient and faster than manually writing something out. On page 72, Drucker states “However, the unique reaction triggered when a keystroke communicates with an application in my system tells me nothing about the identity of letters in an ontological sense.” We can type in any sort of font we choose just by changing the settings, not truly understanding the meaning and history behind these written fonts. Ultimately, we have been taking our resources for granted because of how much it benefits us without any repercussions.
Blog Post #8- Abby Potashnik
For this week’s blog post, I am choosing to respond to Lev Manovitch’s “What is Visualization”. I thought this reading was very interesting to because it really put into perspective how far as a society we have come in regards to our communication, but even more so, the subcategory of visualized communicatinon. Visualized communication can be dated pretty far back, pretty ancient, and each visual presentation, demonstrated or presented a story. Stories are what they had, myths, legends, family history was the history of the time. That is what was documented. Slowly but surely, we build up to some sort of textual documentation, and eventually, after constant editing and progression, we end up to today, and how out visual communication is transcribed in this day and age. I think it is so cool and fascinating to see how far the world has come. With our paintings, and art, and texts, and stories, it’s amazing what could be accomplished with the power of effort, science, and imagination.
Michael Farias Blog post for week 9 for October 23
For this blog post I decided to write about Johanna Drucker’s “From A to Screen”. I like the way she begins by asking how things appear on a screen when we want them to appear. She compares typing to alphabet soup by asking if that is that’s how letters form together when it comes to typing. This is something that really sticks out to me because nobody really questions exactly how computers work. We give them commands by typing letters and they understand these letters and give us results almost instantly. Nobody questions or tries to find out exactly how computers work and most likely nobody will and technology will keep advancing. Who knows what will be next.
Milagros’ Post for 10/23
This week I decided to reflect on Johanna Drucker’s “From A to Screen”. One sentence that really stuck out to me was “We take the virtual letters as things, mistaking their appearance for substance, and we also overlook the agency of alphanumeric code, taking it for granted.” (Drucker,71) I really just think we take everything for granted when it comes to technology and we kind of sometimes don’t really know how to take care of certain things. I know when it comes to my phone, I have cracked my screen more than twice but I never really thought about the people who actually make the screens for us. I agree with Drucker when she says this because it is very true in the way that we just type and read things on a screen. “The production of a “letter” in a digital environment is an effect of multiple, distributed processes, each of which participates in it..” (Drucker, 73) To think that its not just one single letter that we are pressing but there are different multiple processes that are allowing this to happen is crazy. When people just type and see letters on a screen, we don’t think about the coding that takes place or the processes that do help this to happen so just reading about this and learning about this is very interesting and eye opening.
Works Cited
-Drucker, Johanna. “From A to Screen.” Comparative Textual Media, University of Minnesota Press, 2013, pp. 71–96,
Jessica Colasacco Week 7 Blog Post
This week, “The Emergence of fate Digital Humanities (as the Network is Everting)”, by Steven E Jones really stuck out to me. The one line Professor Jojo had us examine in class, which stated, “Cyberspace is everting, as author William Gibson has repeatedly said, turning inside out and leaking out into the physical world,” had me thinking about all the ways that cyberspace consumes ones life. There is the physical aspect of it, in which people imitate things that were meant for the internet in real life, such as Mario Kart races in Tokyo. But mentally, cyberspace effects people as well.
Each and every time someone posts something onto their social media accounts, they are allowing an aspect of them to be shown to others in a way that they have chosen. People allow other people’s social media accounts to influence their own lives in specific ways. If someone whom they consider influential is always posting a new designer bag they are obsessed with, this person may find it necessary to buy one of these bags in order to keep up with their life. They might also censor their own social media account to output the same type of message that their “idol” puts out. This whole process can be seen as going full circle and can be very dangerous for a person to live through.
Jessica Colasacco Wikipedia Reflection
For my Wikipedia assignment, I decided to add an image to the page for Aruba. This pass summer, I visited with my family and all the attractions are beautiful. One of the days we were there, we went on a ATV ride across the country and we were able to see all the amazing locations Aruba has to offer. The last stop on the tour was a natural pool that was created in the ocean. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Waves would be crashing over these huge rocks, but there in the middle was a small section of water that resembled a pool. It was 3 inches deep on the outside and the middle was 20 feet deep. Fish swam all around your feet. It was an amazing site to see. Since the page for Aruba did not have a picture of the natural pool, I decided to upload one that I had taken while on my trip there. I thought that other people should be able to know about this amazing location.
Michael Farias Wikipedia Assignment Reflection
For my project, I decided to edit the wikipedia page of the Colombian soccer player Juan Fernando Quintero. I am a huge soccer fan and this player is very special to me. The world cup was this summer and Quintero had a very good tournament with Colombia and I edited the world cup section of his wikipedia by adding more information. The information that was originally there was very broad so I added more to make it more complete. I very much enjoyed doing this but I realized that you have to write from a neutral point of view and state the facts. I had to research each game and find out at what minute in the game did he score or assist to a goal and at what minute was he substituted out of the game. It was a decent amount of work but it was a lot of fun and I would like to write more for wikipedia.
Isaac Espinoza 10/15 blog post
”The electronic letter functions less as a material artifact than as a medium. The handwritten letter carries an elaborate signature of presence, concluding with an author’s signature.” (Nunes, 97)
This statement can be applied across most forms of technology. If we take an email for example and compare the effect that has on a person than the effect a handwritten letter has on a person. An email cannot be done without the use of a computer and will always be less personal than a letter. It lacks the character that can be transmitted through a letter through functions like handwriting. Anyone can take my computer and send an email pretending to me and it would be believable. But the same could not be said with letters. Now I can argue that photography has passed through a similar process as it has shifted from film to digital. Photography in its earlier days involved more input from the photographer. He or she was required to not only take the picture but measure the light, focus the lens, and then snap the picture. Then that picture would have to be developed and printed in the darkroom. It took much longer but in the end, the final product had “presence”. Its something that we can hold in our hands and in its imperfections lied its beauty. This is what leads us to value something like a handwritten letter or printed photograph more than an email or picture I posted on Facebook a couple weeks ago.
Works Cited
-Nunes, Mark. “The Email, The Letter, and The Post.” from Cyberspaces of Everyday Life. University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
Carolyn Pena Wikipedia Reflection
I decided to upload a picture that I took of the Pulitzer fountain which is located in Manhattan. I had a couple of different pictures of this fountain because I used to work right across from it. On my breaks, I would go sit here and relax for 30 minutes. Since I would go here almost every day, I noticed that during the time I was there at least 5-10 people would take a picture of the fountain or with it. It’s a beautiful fountain but I always wondered if the people who would take a picture of it knew any history of it or the name of it. One of the main reasons I knew the name to this fountain was since I have my location enabled, my iPhone automatically put the name of the location on top of the picture in my camera roll. I was amazed that my iPhone was able to recognize the image and pinpoint the name of the fountain. When you search up Pulitzer fountain on Wikipedia, there is only one picture there of the actual fountain which was taken in 2014. The other pictures were the layout of where the fountain is located and a few on the sculpture that is on top of the fountain. As I mentioned before, I would always go here for lunch breaks which made me feel credible enough to post one of my pictures of the Pulitzer fountain. I believed that my picture was good enough to illustrate what the Pulitzer fountain looked like from my point of view. On Wikipedia, the article itself had the most information on the restoration of the Pulitzer fountain but I just chose the gallery aspect of this article because that’s where I believed my picture belonged best. The picture I uploaded of the Pulitzer fountain was taken this year 2018 and I believe Wikipedia needed an update on how the Pulitzer Fountain looked now.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pulitzer_Fountain.jpg
Alassane Diop 10/15 Week 8
As technology evolves over the course of years we are able to communicate through different ways besides the primitive use of our mouths. We have been using our mouths since the dawn of time, then we developed writing many centuries ago which allowed us to put our thoughts on paper. This was a game changer because we can keep a history of what we speak on a physical form which can not be changed and be held around for years. Books and written documents allowed us to keep records and show proof. Unlike a game of telephone where the premise is whatever you said to one person may be changed as infomation spreads. This causes misinformation and false facts.
We then later devolped a form of spreading infomation to other parts of the world which is letters and the postal system. Before the invention of phones to help us talk long distances in the 20th century we had letters which were in written forms. It started off by having people travel on foot or vehicles in long distances to reach the destination. This may take days or even weeks for a full transaction.
In recent times we have created an virtual form of mail, which is e-mail. It is the quickets way to post messeges from deiffent parts of the world. The great benefit of it is that its almost instant. As long as both parties have a internet connection they can both recieve e-mails. Unlike regualer mail which takes much longer.
