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Milagros’ Post for 10/9

I reflected on Brian Winston’s “Media Technology  & Society” and while reading this I was amazed at how technology and how the computer came to be. The process of inventing better quality to add to computers and technology is crazy. Somebody had an idea to make something and they worked to get the product to work but then its also about improving their product. There is also the question that Winston brings up “The question is largely begged as to what is the real impact of the machine on society.” (Winston,239) I think that this question comes from looking at the wealth that certain people have acquired from making these inventions. But I also think that older generations would be the ones to ask this question because they were used to just reading out of books or not having these complex technologies around them so they ask what is the point of this and why are people making this much money for inventing these new technologies. I think that these machines have advanced our societies in ways that are unimaginable but again this has effected us in bad ways because we become so reliant on these technologies and machines that we forget about the real world and real knowledge.

 

Works cited

Winston, Brian. “The Coming of the Microcomputer.” Media Technology and Society: A History: From the Telegraph to the Internet. Routledge, 1998.

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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.”

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Michael Farias Blog Post 6 for October 9

For this blog post I chose to write about “Media Technology And Society A History: From The Telegraph To The Internet” by Brian Winston. This article talks about the first computers that were invented in the 1950s. Winston tells us that computers evolved from the telegraph. Winston says that when computers were first invented for military use, they were very expensive and only certain people could afford them due to their price. This really stood out to me because in today’s world everyone has a computer in his or her house. A lot of people have more than one. Today, people must have a computer due to the digital world we live in. It’s hard for me to imagine that computers were once very hard to obtain and that today everyone has at least one. I suppose this comes with computers evolving overtime and getting easier to make with technological advances.

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Abby Potashnik- Blog Post #6

For this week’s post,  I chose to respond to Ted Nelson’s Literary Machines. I left the reading with a load of spiraling thoughts, and focused to write about the progessiveness of Ted Nelson’s Project Xanadu. Project Xanadu was Nelson’s way of  eventually improving the World Wide Web and created the first hypertext project. It’s purpose of creation was similar to the purpose of creation of the Printing Press. To benefit mankind in many, many ways, to better science, to better education, etc. I enjoyed reading Nelson’s work because I I chose to look and how astonishing and formidable, the progression of putting text on to a computing technological level is. It’s facsinating when you read up on the work of a trailblazer. You see how much time and effort they put in, what their goals are, what they hope their creation will achieve for mankind and society. It inspires you, or me, to go out there and contribute to society in a productive way. To benefit mankind, to make us greater, and better, and live lives we are proud and happy living.

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Chris Hobbs Week #6

Vannevar Bush’s article in The Atlantic, titled As We May Think, brings up serious questions about how has technology affected not only the human body and mind but the society in which these parts operate in. Bush begins by describing how technology has effected human interaction, in terms of war. Bush further describes how technology has helped scientist with recording their findings. Focusing on how technology has actually affected the recording and process of research. Such that the microscope, a human creation that can surpass human abilities, has made the collection of info quicker and more reliable in the scientist’s lab. Bush also brings up an important point that with the creation of important instruments of science and research, that humans will firstly always look for profit rather than social benefit. Overall, I think that Bush is trying to make the point that with technological improvement there absolutely needs to be an equal amount of an understanding of the social affect it will have on the population.

 

Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 13 Mar. 2018, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/.

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Jailene Mangome, blog post #5

This week I chose to read “How We Become Posthuman” by N. Katherine Hayles.  While reading this is felt a bit confused the entire time because of the wording in it. I kept finding myself having to stop reading and looking up a word to get the meaning of it so the text could make a little more sense. No matter how many times I read this, nothing was clicking for me and I kept thinking to myself, “Maybe I should just read a different article,” but i couldn’t bring myself to. Every time I would reread the text, I’d think I was understanding it, but then i would get t the next page and be completely confused and angry again.  In the first page of the article, Hayles explains Turning’s test and says our responsibility is to form questions that we can decipher the difference between the “he/she/it” , the “intelligent machine” and the “intelligent human” or the male and female. “By including gender, Turning implied that renegotiating the boundary between human and machine would involve more than transforming the question of “who can think” into “what can think.””What I was getting from this is that Turning felt that there was a connection between identifying the machines from the humans and trying to test people on which was human( male or female) and which was the machine. It was to test someone’s intelligence on this matter. Reading this test was completely challenging and i wanted to go against it, but the text won.

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Anesiya Rivera Week 7

As we read further about how technology has advanced and became part of society’s everyday living, the reading looks at how technology should be organized or how the information on technology is organized, the way I look at this is the iPhone for example, an ever advancing device. That stores our everyday information. We have hundreds of apps that allow us to organize our time, scheduled our events , travel, communicate with others, shop online and now i store with Apple Pay. We literally have our whole lives stored in one device. Our bank accounts doctor appointments, even our work. As I think more into it, we HAVE to even pay for more storage ! For our music pictures, documents the more we need to store the more we have to pay !

 

Giphy.com

chapter two proposal for universal electronic publishing

 

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Anesiya Rivera Week 6

This reading made me think about how people’s ideas are formed and turned into a technological reality and how science is envloded in technology. The best example I can use to articlate my thought: A rocket Ship. A human with  the “idea or concept” to fly through the air into outer space to another planet. Throughout time and history they used science to create technology  that will help build a rocket that can go to the moon. Even allow humans to walk on the moon without exploding, to me that’s bring’s their idea too life to life.

 

 

Media and Technology

Giphy.com

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Jessica Colasacco (Week 5)

This week, I decided to focus on “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin. As someone who appreciates art, this article really caused me to think about authenticity of art. One of my favorite things is going to the Brooklyn Museum or MOMA and looking at a real Moet painting. But I also am a huge Andy Warhol fan, which made me question if I could truly appreciate the authenticity of art if I supported an artist who replicated art for a living. In this article, Benjamin states, “Replicas were made by pupils in practice of their craft, by masters for diffusing their works, and, finally, by third parties in the pursuit of gain”. If this was applied to Warhol, would that mean he was just using his art work in pursuit of gain instead of as a mean of expressing himself? Personally, I believe that his artwork was a way of expressing himself in a specific culture that allowed his work to be successful, but that is my own opinion and other people can think differently than I.

Sources:

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” 1936.

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Walter Benjamin // Miranda Pacheco (Week 5)

Walter Benjamin in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” introduces the concept of authenticity. He speaks about an individuals desire to see the authentic nature of a piece of work then explains how reproduction has its own part in recreating this nature. Benjamin states, “the authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced” (Benjamin 4). When done correctly art that is reproduced is still able to tell the story of its beginning, its formation, and its place in history. I find this concept fascinating because I unintentionally look for the authentic nature in things all the time. I find art more credible when it’s attached to its origin story, even when its not exact to its original I appreciate the uniqueness of a replicated piece.

Explained in the reading authenticity of art is based on “ritual” (Benjamin 6), as Benjamin circles back to mechanical reproduction he points out that works of art are no longer dependent on rituals just mass production. This is important to note because now authenticity is viewed differently. In this day in age many people desire quantity and numbers, opposed to the process a piece went through in reproduction. One is not greater then the other,  it’s a matter of preference and culture. In present day I, along with many others benefit from mechanical production with everything that’s being mass produced. This doesn’t change my enjoyment of art before mechanical reproduction. I’ve always found value in the one and even when reproduced the uniqueness is still present. One of my favorite examples is the architecture in Europe. So many buildings, with such rich history and even when buildings were recreated they still had a consistency  with its origin.

CITE:

Benjamin, Walter.  “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” from Illuminations. New York, Schocken Books, 1968.