For this weeks blog post we were asked to take note of our personal screen time audit. For the most part I felt like I didn’t get to fully take account of how long my screen time is. The past weekend I actually happened to have training for a new job. Which we were required to sit through around 3 or 4 hours of training videos. It honestly felt like a lifetime, but I know I’ve spent countless amount of hours on youtube. In fact, according to my time watched statistics on my youtube account the past week I’ve spent 32 hours and 28 minutes on it. My daily average is 4 hours and 12 mins. This makes me think about how our perception of screen time seems like it changes when we watch certain things. As far as my phone goes I wasn’t really on it again due to training purposes, however since I don’t engage in social media I would say I’m not really on my phone as much as the average person.
Three Stories Assignmnet Reflection, Clary Capellan
After completing each of the three stories assignments, I now have a better understanding about the significance of how stories are told orally, written and through technology. With the oral story, I told it how i had remembered it being heard by my mother. Not necessarily caring so much if the little details were correct. However, in the written part I caught myself asking my mom to tell me the story again. To make sure all the details I was writing was correct. In a sense I feel like writing a story is different from telling a story orally because i feel like when its written down it should be more concrete and more focused on the truth as opposed if it were just told. As far as the technological aspect of story telling i feel like although there are various ways of doing it, for me using voyant tools signifies how a computer is programmed to display the significance of a text.
Computer Story, Clary Capellan
To me voyant tools displays the essence of what story telling through a computer is about. It epitomizes how technology chooses to tell a story. By copying and pasting my story onto voyant tools, it creates a word cloud by analyzing the text. Which pinpoints what it believes is significant in the text from how frequent specific words are used. I noticed that with my story the word “spoon” stuck out the most. It’s interesting because the spoon is what the story is all about.
Clary Capellan, Week # 7, 10/6
For this week’s blog post I’d like to talk about the “Microcomputer” reading by Brian Winston. One quote that I believe illustrates the evolution of the print culture to computer technology is when Winston states”The home computer became the personal computer, which , while it could exist in the home, also had a function as a tool in the workplace. It was only with the coming of accessible word-processing, which turned the home PC into a very effective typewriter, and the arrival of the modem which permitted email and Internet access that meaningful domestics were found.” In other words, the introduction of the home computer substituted the typewriter as a result of the new found word-processor, which would make typing printed documents efficient and convenient. This signifies how the invention of the home computer met societies need which in fact lead to it’s ever so present revolution.
Reference:
Winston, Brian. “The Coming of the Microcomputer.”
Clary, Week #6 Blog Post, 10/1
This weeks blog post I chose to to write it on Lisa Nakamura’s peice,“Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet”. Throughout this reading, Nakamura touches on several aspects of role playing sites on the internet such as LambdaMOO and focuses on the problematic issue of race and stereotyping on these sites. However the quote that stood out to me the most is when she states “The technology of the Internet offers its participants unprecedented possibilities for communicating with each other in real time, and for controlling the conditions of their own self-representations in ways impossible in face to face interaction”(Nakamura 1). With that being said, the internet allows for various ways of communicating with one another. Sending an receiving messages only takes a few seconds, it’s instantaneous. The internet also allows for one to alter and present themselves as they please. This made me think of social media and how people depict themselves and “controlling the conditions” in which to display.
Refrences:
Nakaruma, Lisa,“Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet” in Works and Days, Volume 13, 181-193, 1995
Clary Capellan, 9/21, Week #5
This week Homi K. Bhabha’s “Signs Taken for Wonders” stood out to me the most. This reading made it apparent how communication ties into colonization, as communication is used as a tool for colonization. One of the quotes that stood out to me was “The discovery of the book installs the sign of appropriate representation: the word of God, truth, art creates the conditions for a beginning, a practice of history and narrative. But the institution of the Word in the wilds is also an Entstellung, a process of displacement, distortion, dislocation, repetition4-the dazzling light of literature sheds only areas of darkness. Still the idea of the English book is presented as universally adequate: like the “metaphoric writing of the West,” it communicates “the immediate vision of the thing, freed from the discourse that accompanied it, or even encumbered it” (Bhabha 147). It is apparent that “The book” that is being referred to was the Bible. Although it has such a righteous significance in the western culture. It also represents a sort of darkness and oppression when enforced in the “wilds”. Correct me if I’m wrong but to my understanding the wilds refers to the “uncivilized” or nonconforming countries to the western ideals. In the guise of this civilizing mission so to speak, the Europeans stripped the colonized nations of everything, taking away their culture, beliefs, religion, lifestyle, etc and imposing their own. However, even though the bible was used for this atrocious purpose it is still “universally adequate: like the metaphoric writing of the West”.
Refrences:
Bhabha, Homi, Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of Ambivalence and Authority under a Tree outside Delhi, 1817
Clary Capellan, Blog Post #4, 9/17
For this week’s blog post I chose to reflect on Marshall McLuhan’s piece, “Understanding Media”. Throughout this reading Mcluhan writes about his idea of the “medium is the message”. One quote that stood out to me was when he states “This fact merely underlines the point that the “medium is the message” because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale of human association and action” (McLuhan 24) In order to convey this idea he uses an example of the electric light, and how it works as the medium for other functions to be able to exist. Therefore, there would be no message if the medium did not exist. This emphasizes Mcluhan’s idea of how the medium is the message. This quote also explains how the medium effects society. McLuhan also uses the examples of how railroads and airplanes and how although they did not establish movement, transportation, wheels or the road to the human society. These mediums have shaped and improved our lives. As he states the “message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs” (McLuhan 24).
References:
McLuhan Marshall, “Understanding Media”, Seminal work about media, 1964
Clary Capellan NYPL Oral History 9/16
For the NYPL Oral History assignment I chose Esther Zhang’s interview by Iris Grattan. In this interview Esther, a Chinese graduate at Columbia University, speaks on living in Harlem and how although Columbia is in Harlem, the University and many people choose to disassociate it from Harlem. She also speaks on her observations of the racial issues and oppression that are evident in the community in which she resides. One of the challenges that i faced while editing this transcript was the fact that the audio would not play as I tried to edit it. Therefore, I had to constantly switch tabs when there would be confusion in what was said, which I later resulted in just opening two separate windows with the audio and the transcript to reduce the hassle. To me the editing process was quite time consuming and involved a lot of paying attention and focus in order to transmit what was being spoken into writing, that was probably the hardest part. The easiest part of this assignment was listening to the story, I actually found it very interesting, as it has never been brought up to my attention. This assignment captures the distinction between storytelling by speaking and writing.
Clary Capellan, Blog Post #1, 9/4/18
For this week’s reading I decided on writing about “Cybernetics and Ghosts” by Italo Calvino. In this piece one part that stood out to me was when Italo states “Just as we already have machines that can read, machines that perform a linguistic analysis of literary texts, machines that make translations and summaries, will we also have machines capable of conceiving and composing poems and novels?” This made me think about how in this time and age with technology being as advanced as it is. It allows things such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to rise. However, going back to the question Italo made about machines replacing authors and poets I don’t believe a machine could truly replace the originality and empathy of a human. Italo then states that such a machine would only be able to “produce traditional works, poems with closed metrical forms, novels that follow the rules.” To which I agree, because as he mentioned throughout this article as humans storytelling is in our nature. We have the ability to create and express through stories. In order for a machine to construct a poem or a piece of literature it would have to already have it in it’s system in order for it to regenerate a “new” story.
