New Media Art - Generative

A new concept of art has developed from new technologies – new media art. The Australian Council for Art defines this new art form as new technologies to create works of art that explore new modes of artist expression. These new ways of portraying artist expression include interactive digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, internet art and computer robotics. These new art forms are gaining in popularity and on a local front; The University of New South Wales COFA Campus offers a Bachelor of Digital Media and can major in 3D Animation or Digital Imaging or Interactive Motion. Someone can also do a Bachelor of Design majoring in Graphics Media.


This is a recent development and for me personally, is an interesting medium I wanted to know about. Here are some examples of what it means to be classified as a new media art:


You Were in My Dreams (2010) takes a live video feed of your face and combines it into a stop motion dream world.

Watch the art in action here!


Ping Body by Stelarc is a new media art through a series of muscle stimulating electrodes place on Stelarc’s body that responded to remote users login on to the performance’s web interface and therefore stimulating various body parts. Users could then see the results of their effects on a live webcast.

Jackpot by Maciej Wisniewski is an Internet 'slotmachine' that downloads three randomly selected web sites and displays them in the browser's window along with their top level domain names.

5000 Calls is a large-scale multi-channel sound installation installed throughout the Urban Forest, an extensive 4.5 hectare loose grid of eucalyptus trees surrounding the Stadium Australia in Sydney. The point of the new media artwork is for participants to move through this urban forest people hear voices captured while performing numerous tasks including aboriginal children chanting, footballers and weightlifters. A customised computer program allows these calls to interact with each other.

Play Dirty by Australian Theatre Company Arena is more than just a standard narrative through featuring live motor cross action, rapid image feedback and a live band mixed with electronic music. This art work is interactive and further incorporates new media though enabling audiences to view the script at its one year development stage with the participants encouraged to offer their feedback and suggestions.

My Yard Our Message is a user-created yard sign project that was launched in conjunction with the United States Presidential Election. The project invited designers to submit political yard signs that explore ideas about what it means to actively participate in democracy. Votes were cast on favourite and the Walker Art Centre printed the yard signs and places them in neighbourhoods throughout the local area.  


These Australian based and other worldwide examples of new media show the importance of new technologies in art and how it has created new genres. What an important element of these new media artworks is not only the new technologies that are incorporated but also interactivity by participants.

The future of the media...

There is a common theme within the ARTS3091 course, and previous blog posts on this site – the changing media landscape and the implications of this change.  It is clear that the media industry has had to adapt to the ‘internet of things’.  Some have adapted well, others haven’t.

Some significant changes that have become apparent; there is no longer a strict focus on traditional (print) media.  There has been a significant rise in the blogosphere with sites such as Huffington Post and Mashable (both American) being sites that have become well-know in breaking news and stories before traditional media.  Within this blogosphere, bloggers such as mummy bloggers, fashion bloggers and beauty bloggers are becoming increasingly popular and increasingly credible as the word of mouth function displayed in these blogs is seen as more trustworthy. 

Through these changes other media based industries have had to adapt as well and implement strategies to this transmedia landscape.  An industry that I have interest in is Public Relations.  PR companies obviously have seen the shifts that have occurred since the introduction of the internet and therefore have had to adjust strategies in campaigns in order to be a viable business and receive success for their clients.  One such strategy is recognising that hybrid media channels such as blogs and social media can propel stories in traditional media.  Still to this day, traditional media, more often than not, is still the desired outlet for companies to receive media coverage in over the internet.  However, strategies have shifted to initially gaining media coverage through social media and hybrid media channels, which then gains the attention of traditional media forms and therefore then receives media coverage.  This shift has occurred due to the 24/7, 365 structure of the internet and social media with a lot of buzz occurring on these sites.  If PR companies can get cut through on hybrid media channels and trend on twitter or have numerous everyday people mentioning the campaign, this in turn jumps out to traditional media forms.

The future of media and communications and the future of media relation companies therefore lies in their ability to pick up on a shift in the media landscape and adjust and strategise.  The media industry will still be the media industry in the future; however, the usual terms such as ‘traditional media’ are changing.  Hybrid media forms such as blogs and social media are slowly being seen as traditional media, with the definition shifting from simply being print media.

Open Science

It is well known that with the development of new media and ubiquity of the internet, media companies and journalists have had to adapt to these changes.  Some of these changes have been outlined in previous posts, including the idea of a multi platform journalist who can publish stories not just in print form, but internet as well.  The media industry, which often receives the most focus on this issue, is not the only industry that has had to adapt.  Science is slowly recognising that publishing articles solely in print journals is outdated and expensive with scientists calling ‘open’ sites to conduct and publish research and develop an online community.

The internet has transformed the science industry with a gap created in science publishing.  This gap is slowly being filled with the development of online archives and journals such as Public Library of Science, which has promoted many to publish journals in a more streamlined process.  This gap has also created an online community to help scientists collaborate and publish.  This online community is a mix between other popular social networking sites facebook, twitter and LinkedIn and is just as popular amongst the science community with over 1.5 million members.

This community is called ResearchGate and it was developed by two researchers who realised the gap in the industry and how difficult it was to collaborate with colleagues on the other side of the world.  On the ResearchGate website it states that “the rapid evolution of technology has opened the door to change; by providing you with the right tools, we strive to facilitate scientific collaboration on a global scale”.  ResearchGate as an online community has numerous functions including; a place to store research, contacts and resume of expertise, to link people together to solve problems, a database of publications and a job site.

It is clear that new media has significantly shifted and changed many industries.  In previous posts, and my focus personally, has only ever looked at how this affected the media industry, without thinking how new media has impacted other industries.  The music industry is another example with issues around sharing and downloading music online.  The Science industry is seemingly adapting hoping to step away from the solely print publishing journals and creating spaces for scientists to share work online.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has changed a lot of things.  As mentioned in the previous blog post, the media and journalism as a profession has had to adapt and shift in order to meet the demands of the internet and its 24 hour nature.  Social media is at the heart of web 2.0 and has cause significant changes particularly in the political sphere.  There are many debates surrounding social media, the internet, censoring and transparency with many differing views presented.  I will discuss some of these views in this blog post and how the web 2.0 has helped and hindered the political sphere.

Transparency has been a key issue on the internet in the political sphere.  Lawrence Lessig in “Against Transparency” , as the name suggests, questions transparency on the web especially regarding monetary contributions and results and that the wide availability of political documents.  Importantly Lessig believes that this transparency will not spur reform, but disgust amongst the public.  This concept of transparency is beginning to show in Australian Politics with websites such as My School and My Hospital .  These sites are not depicting the transparency of the government directly, but the importance of the public knowing how their local schools and hospitals rate and compare to others, helping the public to make informed decisions.

Social media is another core factor in web 2.0 and has had numerous effects in the political sphere.  In Egypt, the blogosphere, as well as other forms of social media, caused a political uprising.  The Kifaya movement was one of the most successful Egyptian movements overcoming institutional barriers and coordinating movements between 2004-2007; its succes was in its ability to organise a large group.  This movement was successful due to the way it exploited the potential of the internet, now with thousands of political activism blogs.  Read more here.

Technology has expanded the power of the individual especially those individuals who exploit the power of the internet.  The question then remains will the state consider pulling the plug on technology, shut off mobile connection and censor the web?  This is a worry for Paul Mason in his article ’20 Reasons Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere’.  In many Asian countries there is censorship of the web, for example in China, where monitoring for political activists against the current government occurs.  On the Australian front, there is debate around the introduction of an internet filter which has been discussed by the Australian Labor Party since 2008.  This debate has seen anti websites pop up including ’No Clean Feed’.

It is clear that web 2.0 has caused many issues for debate in the political sphere, with individuals exploiting the internet and calling for transparency.  This call to arms as shown above in the Egyptian example is causing uprisings and significant political shifts.  The worry is whether or not the state will pull the plug on the internet to stop these situations from occurring.

The digital journalism paradigm (transversely)

The ubiquity of the internet has meant that the digital realm is thriving providing various channels of opportunity for users.  In this digital age we have seen the rise of the blogger, the rise of the citizen journalist, the rise of social media and the rise of sharing information.  The digital realm has also meant that that certain industries have had to adapt and change in order to compete, including journalism.

Newspapers have had to adapt and provide content in the online space, including the UK newspaper the Guardian.  The Guardian has developed an ‘open journalism’ platform so that readers can be involved and get the most up to date content.  Editor, Alan Rusbridger has developed 10 principles of open journalism and how journalism has had to adapt to continue to exist and be profitable.  Some key principles include; encouraging participation, initiating debate and publishing as the beginning of a debate not the end (see here for further information).  Journalism and the internet has also meant that young journalists have to become ‘multiplatform journalists’, able to produce content, video and images which are included in most stories online.  This content has meant that stories can be taken to a new level being interactive - not possible in print form.  Some amazing Australian examples of this include the Sydney Morning Herald’s ‘Bikie Wars’ story which combines video, images, sound and design to create a layered viewing experience for the reader.  The Walkley Award winning Maroondah Leader’s ‘Feeling the Strain’ is another example which took an in-paper series of stories and expanded on them with compelling multimedia galleries and relevant background information and links.

This open journalism platform is intended to create debate and discussion by readers and is turning readers into citizen journalists.  This debate by readers can in some cases create new stories; a relevant and recent example of this is the Samantha Brick media storm.  After writing an article for the Daily Mail about being attractive, reader comments and social media went through the roof discussing their opinion on this article.  This is what media companies want through their open journalism platform, however, the comments and social media storm caused after this article turned ugly and nasty with readers commenting on how ugly Samantha Brick was some evening saying she deserved to die.  In this circumstance it is worth questioning where the line should be drawn in the sand with the open platform.

The current journalism paradigm has meant media companies have had to adapt and they may not be 100% there yet.  The adapting, as mentioned in this blog, has resulted in in-depth multimedia journalistic pieces not possible in print but also, on the other hand, the potential for debate and discussion to turn ugly and severely negative. 

How do we know what is real? Augmented reality

When people think of augmented reality they think of the future – possibilities that are beyond our current technological abilities.  When I first watched the Star Wars movies long ago, talking to each other via hologram seemed only possible in the Empire.  This, in a technical sense, allowed two people to communicate in different spatio-temporal areas; allowing people to communicate and exist in both space and time.  The idea of communicating through a hologram always seemed a distant idea only possible in the cinema; however this all changed in 2008 when American news program CNN did the first TV interview via hologram during Obama’s Presidential election with celebrity Will I Am.  See the video here.  Watching the video, I still find it amazing that this type of interview process is becoming a possible option in the media.

The concept of augmented reality is also coming to the fore, as Chris Grayson describes, for economic purposes in the retail industry.  Ray-ban has a virtual mirror on its website that allows you to try on virtual glasses and similarly Holiten with jewellery and glasses.  There are other augmented reality technologies designed for the retail sector that will soon be a possibility in Australia; one example is the Intellefit Body Scanner.  The Intellefit body scanner allows customers to step inside a chamber where radio waves scan the person’s fully clothes body in 10 seconds with the scanner collecting more than 200,000 body measurements.  A video of this can be seen here.

Since the emerging possibility of augmented reality we are now seeing a convergence with mobile and mobile with eye wear.  There are apps on an iPhone such as the digital compass which makes itself aware of its longitude and latitude coordinates.  At the end of this year we will also see another futuristic device, similar to that only previously possible in The Terminator movies.  Google is set to release augmented reality glasses that will run on the Android platform.  These glasses will contain a low resolution camera that will look at what the wearer is seeing and overlay it with information about surrounding buildings and friends.  Other features include; 3G or 4G data connection, sensors and GPS. An article on this can be read here.

Augmented reality technologies have developed at a fast pace and are slowly becoming integrated into everyday life.  Mychilo S. Cline worries about this stating; the more time in virtual space, there will be a gradual migration to virtual space, resulting in important changes in economics, world view and culture.

Sources used for this blog post:

Anon. (n.d.) ‘Virtual Reality’, Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality> (one of the better entries)

Grayson, Chris (2009) ‘Augmented Reality Overview’, GigantiCo <http://gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009/6/23/augmented-reality-overview.html>

Ionescu, Daniel (2012), PC World, http://www.pcworld.com/article/250453/google_augmented_reality_glasses_expected_by_years_end.html

A Current Affair (2010), http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7947796

Extended mind

Members of generation Y have grown up in a technology paradigm; the development of technologies such as the internet has impacted greatly upon our lives.  This has resulted in reliance upon convergent forms of media such as smart phones, tablets and laptops holding crucial parts of our lives that we would feel “lost” without.  When the concept of “active externalism” was presented in this week’s readings, it resonated deeply with me and the current paradigm I am in; where objects in environment function as a part of the mind. 

This theory, as presented in an essay by Andy Clark and David Chalmers, states that the mind and the environment act as a “coupled system” whereby the mind can extend into the external world.  This means that certain elements of the external environment, such as technologies, contain cognitive memory and therefore a part of our knowledge. 

The concept of active externalism relates on a personal level and after discovering this concept, I have realised that certain technologies have become a part of my cognitive processes.  The smart phone has become ubiquitous in society and entered my life four years ago with the iPhone 3.  At a basic level a phone contains phone numbers and messages; with my smart phone now it contains my photos, emails, calendar, reminders, alarms, social media, maps and my number one go-to guide, Google.  My smart phone is only one example but is a convergent media form, environmental aid and mnemonic technology.  If I lost my phone, in effect, I would be losing a part of my knowledge and my mind.  I have delegated techniques my mind performs and subconsciously extended them into the external world and into technologies; I have coupled my convergent technologies and my mind, my smart phone has part of my cognitive processes embodied in it.

As Bernard Stiegler puts it, the better the vehicle, the less we know how to drive – I am now slightly worried that the smarter the technologies become and develop, the more obsolete human skill and the performance of my mind will become.

Sources used in this blog post:

Stiegler, Bernard (n.d.) ‘Anamnesis and Hypomnesis: Plato as the first thinker of the proletarianisation’ <http://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Mind>

Chalmers, David (2009) ‘The Extended Mind Revisited [1/5], at Hong Kong, 2009’, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S149IVHhmc>