Future Cinema

W11 Reading Questions from Mizusa

Q1. To involve participants in the game, SEED, are they required to pass ethics review? What point of the game is concerned as it may exert a harmful influence on participants?

Q2. What point needs to be careful when LARPs takes place in a social area? Is there any manner to be required?

Q3. Through narrative and gameplay, the social critical topic can be infused with urgency. How effectively do participants’ experiences in LARPs motivate them to have an action to confront the urgent social issues?

Q4. In the chapter of Guiding Principles of Alternate Reality, there is no critic concerning SEED’s poor side of storytelling. What opinion may be raised if a participant did not fully enjoy the gameplay?

Questions for Nov. 13- Deepa

- What I found really interesting about Network Aesthetics was Jagoda’s comparative interpretations of networks- it is so rich, yet he doesn’t seem to put one media form over another and rather sees its productivity in terms of how each medium enables different kinds of network imaginings. Can this be contested, especially when certain media formats are more preferred/ in higher demand and certain others are going obsolete rather quickly? I’m thinking about internet as against the more traditional formats here….
- Is multiplicity of interconnectedness on a network and the ability to grasp the data or go beyond it, human? Where does the connection, that is usually reliant on binaries and bots become us?
- What kind of stories or impact can transmedia storytelling be used to bring about? I’m also thinking about whether it can be used for collaboration with communities, that usually is a space of hearing multiple perspectives, voices…
- Can transmedia stories, especially those layered within different media over a period of time contribute to making the greater story more rich, or does it add to confusion where you’re unable to verify what is true/not? Is information then immortal?

November 13 Qs – Alex

I’m going to yoink questions from the Dark Knight reading because I think they’re pertinent to our discussion of ARGs. “Do these storytelling experiences stand on their own as art, or are they just shiny pieces of branded content? A bold new narrative genre, or a flashy trend? Do they challenge curious internet-dwellers, or cater to entitled fans?”

The article also mentions that there must be some kind of reward for participants at the conclusion of the ARG—players won’t continue to chase the carrot on the end of the stick forever. What are some other must do’s/ mustn’t do’s when it comes to planning an ARG? Examples of unsuccessful ARGs?

I’m not hugely familiar with ARGs, and it seems like they are used overwhelmingly as an extension of the marketing budgets for upcoming releases. Ultimately, are ARGs just an alternative to slapping a poster on the side of a bus or erecting a billboard? How can the creation of an ARG be distinct from a marketing campaign?

Jenkins suggests the possibility for a singular Black Box containing all possible media content may not be an eventuality, and we seem to be trending in the opposite direction as numerous Black Boxes containing some media content (video game consoles become Netflix machines, Echos/Assistants/Alexas etc) has become the norm. Is it possible to conceptualize a “one Box to rule them all” situation, or has the all but complete collapse of monoculture thwarted this possibility?

Also, this morning I saw a video about a researcher who has developed an algorithm to remove the water from underwater photography. Seemed neat and relevant to what we’ve been talking about for the past couple months! Here’s a link to the video and her research paper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExOOElyZ2Hk

http://openaccess.thecvf.com/content_CVPR_2019/papers/Akkaynak_Sea-Thru_A_Method_for_Removing_Water_From_Underwater_Images_CVPR_2019_paper.pdf

Week 10, Nov 13 Questions/ Reflections by Shabnam

Our key reading today is Network Aesthetics. Is it a coincidence that we’re connecting with Caitlin via Skype?!
Q – Representation of connectedness/ relationships in new media storytelling interests me. How does connectedness relate to connectivity?
Q – Is a network-less society conceivable today? How would it impact those who haven’t known to live without it? (Millennials)

Q – The graphic depiction of networks, raises a question in my mind about the complex layers of network. Do networks serve the purpose of simplifying connection and ease of connectivity, or do they actually complicate communication, raise confusion and distortions?

Q – I’m trying to understand the development of network aesthetics in Art – are these aesthetics more universal, and if so, then are they only contributing to popular culture, quantitatively growing. (formulaic)
In the global context, is the development of network aesthetics a centralized system (controlled by the first world), or is it democratically evolving today?
I think, these may be two different questions, and I’m wondering why I chose to put them together! Does anyone want to jump in?

The rate at which we are moving towards a network literate society, I’m wondering if it will replace ‘education’ at some point, not too far in the future.
Q – Can the sophistication of Networks replace structures/ institutions of formal education?

While reading Network Aesthetics I was obliquely reminded of films of Kieslowski (Decalogue) Atman’s Shortcuts, and other ensemble films such as Babel and Crash. It is almost as if Networks produce a kind of contagion effect and therefore the speed at which we are developing technology cannot determine the direction of its impact.
Q – How do we control and regulate the intent and use of Networked technologies – and further to this, should we be controlling it, since Aesthetics are relative!

Week 10 Questions_Sisi Wei

1. The relationships between human and networks, and human and AI are similar, and yet, what are the differences? Does the fact that networks involve other humans interacting with each other make it different than the relationship between humans and AI as we discussed earlier?

2. We talked about how people have a second identity over social media, you put on what you want people to see, you shape your personality. Then do social media, in this way, separate people apart since we may not be the real selves?

3. In the giant powerful network, I am always thinking, who is the master on controlling all the content, what can be discussed and whatnot, what information can be released and whatnot, are these in control of the government?

4. Patrick talks about how communication networks better the function of linear narratives. Stories being told maybe dramatized. How can we distinguish the events being told in networks are real or not?

Michaela Questions 13 Nov

1. What could be the reasons that some transmedia projects (concretely ARGs) stayed in the subculture and couldn’t proliferate into the mainstream? Reading Jagoda’s descriptions of his The Project and the platforms it worked with, I got exhausted just by reading them: real life event, radio announcements, website, video, paper, Twitter… Could one of the reasons be the media overload we as users started to feel shortly after the excitement around the multitude of media decreased and we have realized that we are overloaded by communications, technology and networks?

2. The interesting factor is also ‘the worlds’ these projects are building: they seem to be too close to reality and thus conflicting with the ‘fantasy imaginaries’ that we might have when we decide to play a game, read a novel, watch a film. Could we be subconsciously struggling with real life decisions and consequences while engaging in transmedia projects? The real time effect and the ephemeral might be strong factors here.

3. Applying the ‘network imaginary’ in order to understand the complex processes of current society might be seen as one of many ideologies. If we were to disrupt the network imaginary and the Foucauldian or Deleuzian and other post-structuralist traditions, how could we make sense of the current world?

4. What kind of media, what kind of genre would actually help us have a healthy relationship to social media, our online life and avoid medial and communicational overload and technical failure in the network imaginary?

Week 10 Q’s

1. Knowing what we know about AR, how, and to what extent, might we think of ARG’s as “virtual”?

2. Jagoda runs down how networks and network imaginaries have come to function as a hermeneutic for thinking through/describing all aspects of contemporary life (social, cultural, political, economic), gesturing to the dominant “view of networks as the universal, originary, or necessary form that promises to explain everything” (221). Can the network, as a technology for thinking our world, enable one to think the world outside of it’s morphology? Do any of the technologies or strategies we’ve discussed so far this year point to or suggest a possibility for what comes after?

3. How much is the varied experience of networked togetherness shaped (or hampered) by profit-driven, informatic individualizations, rather than inherent qualities of the networks and users themselves? What is the nature of the relation?

4. How is the network, in both its physical and imaginary instantiations, a colonial/imperial form? Can we apply this to a parsing of human/non-human networks?

Week 10 Discussion Questions – Matt

1. A personal gripe I’ve had with transmedia properties is how suddenly a self-contained story to one piece of media (let’s say video games) suddenly can require you to interact with all the other interlinked properties in order to understand the story. What do you guys think? Does transmedia storytelling help expand on things or does it maybe just overcomplicate them?
2. It feels to me like music is a form of storytelling that often gets neglected when it comes to the modern idea of transmedia properties. Music videos were often used as storytelling in and of themselves, but do we maybe think that modern creators are worried about their work being pigeonholed into being called that?
3. Augmented reality games like ILoveBees or the Joker one detailed in the readings are pretty fascinating, but a decade later when the internet is so much more ubiquitous than even in 2009 and information travels so much quicker, is it even possible to create a widespread experience like this anymore without it being cracked within minutes?
4. Is there any other form of media you folks think should be incorporated more into transmedia storytelling than they already are?

Week 10 Discussion Questions-Julia

Q1) Reflecting on Patrick Jagoda’s book, he explained that “Technical inventions, especially as they became more accessible and popular, connected the abstract concept of a network with ‘new types of exchanges b/w people’” (p.10). This got me thinking about the rise in communication and connections being made through online networks and the Internet. Why do you think online network connections between people are dominating the interactive experience today?

Q2) Jagoda states that “Networks have been central objects of study through research in areas such as virtual worlds and social media” (p. 16). What are some negative ways in which social networking is impacting and/or can impact user behaviour?

Q3: What do you think constitutes a successful transmedia project?  For instance, is it the storytelling? User experience? Fan enthusiasm? Game Design? How do we know what works and what doesn’t?

Q4: Can you think of any limitations and challenges with transmedia storytelling?

Questions for Week 10 from Mizusa

1.Through the construction of personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow, how should people react to the various presentations of knowledge from each other’s point of view? Have our responses to different perspectives improved in some ways?

2.The black box that is capable of containing all media content into our living rooms may be a desirable device; yet, the types of devices seem to be increasing. Jenkins states that different devices are designed to suit one’s needs for accessing content depending on where he is; what situation can motivate technologists to create the all-in-one device so that people do not get surrounded by many devices? How can our daily lives change because of the invention?

3.Jenkins states that participating in a knowledge community is empowering. Have you engaged in a knowledge community? How did it enable you? What type of people gets included/ excluded in such a community?

4.Jenkin’s statement defines the knowledge culture in which our discussions concern as much on how we know and how we evaluate what we know as on the information itself. In such a context, what type of media do we rely on the most?