Web 2[point]oh!

Web 2[point]oh! I believe is challenging us to rethink ourselves by making us do things that makes us not ourselves. Web 2[point]oh! basically turns people into manipulators. Manipulators of data and information. Since anyone is able to change data and manipulate it, a person can change how he or she does his work. Change profile, change identity, change lifestyle through data.

Now since anyone has the ability to change one self though technology, we change how we look into ourselves with technology. Its like peer pressure in my opinion, just without the peers.

Are Wii the Children of the Revolution?

Nintendo company introduced Wii to the public in late 2006 and it started big, positive opinions about the new system to join the competition. Many people thought that the Wii was the most "coolest" gaming console ever made, especially coming from Nintendo. This has brought the company higher and is now currently competing big with other major gaming console out in the market such as the Sony PlayStation 3 and XboX 360.

What people really liked about the system is the motion sensor device that is equipped in the controller. It is similar to a mouse that is equipped with a Bluetooth device (something that Konrad would have) which is a wireless mouse that sends it signal to any Bluetooth receiving device such as the MacBook.

Now in my opinion, I think the Wii is a technological revolution because it has caught many people's attention, even myself on this intelligent gaming console. How it gets people attention is again its motion sensor device, and also the games that are playable in the system which makes it more interactive. Playing baseball indoor is now possible by swinging the nunchuck (the controller) like a baseball bat, and pitching a ball by somehow throwing the nunchuck without actually breaking it (never ever do that... throwing nunchuck will cost you money. Just do a throwing action without releasing the nunchuck away from your hands!). I myself am a PlayStation user. I never really liked playing with the Nintendo consoles, but how it evolved from the simple GameBoy, to Nintendo DS and its touch screen, and now the Wii, Nintendo is now in the ball! I am just impressed!

The console just gives the consumer the ability play more interactive games and actually doing something than slitting your wrist, but most of all, playing the Wii is just hell of fun!!!

Remember, if you're playing a Wii, its like playing DDR, just not with your feet.

PIXAR vs. Sailor Moon?

This topic has been debated so many times in the animation industry. We all know that hand-drawn animations were done with so many sheets of paper to make a story out of it. In today's world of animation, computers makes the job done easier for animators. They can even make life-like characters with computer rendering and many more!

PIXAR'S Toy Story is one of the computer rendered animation. Its characters, setting and the environment is very life like that you're almost actually watching toys going on rampage. Computer animation has very limited amount of hand drawing involve, unlike the old way of making animation, making a 1 minute video would probably take at least 3 days to draw. An example of a hand drawn animation is a Japanese animation Sailor Moon. Its original story was done through manga (Japanese technical way of saying comics), but when it wen't on television sets, its animation was originally done with hand drawings.

Animators that produce their film with hand-drawn animations, the production time is much more lengthy than computer graphic rendered animations. So at the end, the animators that get paid the most are the animators that work with computer rendered animations.

In my personal opinon, both are an excellent way to tell a story and to make art. But its even better if both type of animations are combined together.

WARNING! A Cat who eats people is on rampage!

I watched the trailer for the film "The Cat With Hands". I most likely expected something way different that I can't make any words out of it. The trailer was very gloomy and dark, and it also makes me want to see the whole film. In contrary, there is a very bright and interesting part that the cat has in the movie. The can has the ability to "consume" people and eventually become the person that the cat consumed, which is something I have certainly seen before, but I never thought that it would be excellent like that.

Animation was also used on the cat to at least in my opinion, give me an understanding that the cat is unreal and what it does is totally out of this world. It at least make me not too fearful of the movie, but it still keeps its suspense within it. Obviously, no single cat can do just that, but it is amazing how people uses their imagination to make people feel suspense and thrill by using a cat.

I personally do not understand the purpose of the man speaking, other than telling the audience what the cat does in the film. Eventually, the man gets consumed by the cat.

What I think of this film after watching its trailer will be 8.5/10. The film is very interesting to watch, but I don't think that it'll grab people's attention. Probably other than the people that are interested in suspense and fearful films, but I do applaud the creator of this film as he or she used a lot of techniques to emphasize the story and I really like that.

Shmedia Shmashup!

Hybrid Cars is an example of hybridity since it can use both gasoline and water to run its engine. Hybridity has been around us since we were born. Televisions that uses VCR boxes to view movies is a hybrid. Pens that has a highlighter at the other end of the tip is a hybrid. Objects that has a combination of multiple things or uses is part of the hybrid community. Hybrids helps us to do more with only one tool!

Hybrid in Art is similar, because there are many "characters" (objects in a way) included in the portrait. All of them are made into one with the use of photo editing, or just pure imagination. Many of these hybrid arts are now in the internet, but most of these are done with a photo editing program such as Photoshop. However, hybrid art doesn't usually mean that the art is made with just a digital photo manipulation software, but it could be combining two things into one. There are also many artists that can do Hybrid Arts, one of them being Stelarc who is an Australian performance artist. He uses robots to be part of his body to be part of his performance art.

How we experience Hybrid in our lives is that there is something for everything. Not just for us humans. Hybrid helps the environment clean with the use of hybrid cars, however in art it is visually more interesting to look at and even know about Hybrid art. Making hybrid art will make you use more of your imagination to make a hybrid art, but at the end everything is worth well done.

Technology+Art=Wha??

During the introductory seminar, I personally have never heard of the term, "Victimless Meat", or turning living things into art. I believe turning meat into art can be controversial, but from how I saw it by critically thinking about this issue that if you are for this idea of turning meat into art, then you must be a kind of person that doesn't care for cows being manually slaughtered to art or a kind of person that do care about cows because they are living creatures and God gave them life for a purpose, could mean that you're a religious person too.

Using any kind of living things in my personal view calls for either an alert to the government of Canada or US or any country in the world that actually knows about this to give them a poke against this issue. I am 50% against and 50% for using living creatures as art. I am against it because its like killing a human being, I know that any creatures in this planet have a purpose like cows produces milk for everyone that needs it, and I am for it for scientific reasons. Zurr and Catts' Biology Art stated that they use any kind of cells and reproduce it for something similar, like taking out a cell from a cow and eventually making a patty out of that one lonely cell or similar to cloning. I would be totally 100% for it if that were what they actually would do with these cells in real life.

Now, I personally think about BioArt is that it visually looks good, but actually its not because we’re using real parts from real living creatures to use as art. There are other things that could be used as art, but using real meat and blood is something that’ll no doubt be a controversy.

Kumai Collective Weblog

Welcome to Kumai's Collective Weblog!

This blog is for Mary Ward Media Course TGJ4M1 with Ms. Largo, and will be filled with journal entries along with my opinions on the specific topics that Ms. Largo will be posting here.

The theme of this blog is inspired from the song by KOTOKO, a Japanese Pop singer, along with a production team named, I'VE Sound. If you would like to hear the song, enter here to listen! Its currently the first song on the playlist, so don't wonder which song I'm talking about.

Thank you for coming and take it easy!

-Jonathan