GIS

Now that I have done some researching on my own on the topic of GIS Technology, I wish I would have been able to attend the lecture on the subject, because it is quite challenging to understand. As I understand it, GIS is a system that combines data such as road centerlines, property and district boundaries, addresses, building heights and footprints, and more, with geographic reference points, satelite, and ariel photos in order to create "reference maps" for people such as city planners and utility workers. This database is used to create maps that can also be sold to the public. For an artist, this information could be very useful, for the right reasons. The fact that different boundries would be clearly marked out could be incorparated into a site specific work. I've learned that there are still people who practice Cartography, the art of mapmaking, and GIS is a key tool that they use to create acurate fine maps.

Site-Specific Art

Traditionally, Site-specific art is created with the final site in mind and that site or location is incorparated into the design and creation of the artwork. The artwork is created to be displayed in a certain location and might not be as effective in a different location. With Sculptures, the surrounding landscape is often taken into account and plays a roll with the sculpture. There are many artists who build site-specific work and three that come to mind with certain projects include:

Christo-Surrounded Islands :
All of Christo's wrappings are done in a specific area or a specific building and each piece relies on what is wrapped, therefore it is extremely site-specific.

Robert Smithson- Spiral Jetty:

I imediatley thought of this piece when I searched for site-specific work. It was planned for this site and that is exactly where it went.

Andy Goldsworthy- The Neuberger Cairn:

The surrounding landscape was obviously taken into account in the design of the artwork and it goes well with the piece at this site, where it is permanently installed.


As far as a Computer screen or Browser window being the location for a Site-Specific artwork there are two possibilities. 1. take a play on words and the specific website that the artwork is located on is that site that it was specifically built for or 2. A computer screen could be installed in a location or gallery and the artwork displayed on it can only be displayed through that screen. There are several works on RHizome.org that play with these ideas.

http://universalacid.net/ is an artwork located only on that specific-site.

Creative Commons

The Creative Commons Licensing idea seems much more suited for today's world, versus the traditional Copyright. In today's world of file sharing, online videos, and online photo albums, sharing and callaboration goes along with it all and the Creative Commons Website and program gives a way for people to share their works and allow others to use it, but they also have some control over how others can legally use their works. There are six different licenses available for commoners to be able to regulate how their works are used by others as long as they give credit to the original creator. The uses for Creative Commons Licenses are endless, from the arts, to science, to music, and many other fields.

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7711
StrayForm utilizes Creative Commons for digital artists and since so much is free over the web, StrayForm helps fund the Creation of works and distribution happens naturally. They are planning to expand into scientific and academic fields in the future.

http://creativecommons.org/text/librivox
Librivox is a project that is creating a free domain library of audio books that are read by volunteers. Librivox's mission is the “acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.”

Process Report: Image Map Project

For my project located at http://students.uwf.edu/ctr3/imap/index.html
I used image mapping to create a cyclical website of interlinked images, where you could click on a certain part of each image and a new image would open up. In this project, Image Mapping uses the pixel coordinates to insert links on a specific photo on a certain part of that photo, that will link to another image on another page.
To do an Image Map, a photo must be opened in Photoshop and one of the first things you should do is go under the photoshop tab and in preferences, select units and rulers and be sure that the measurements are set to Pixels. The next step is to make sure that the info window is open because that is where your x,y, coordinates are given. Once you have this set up, you are ready to take coordinates and start image mapping. Image maps can be shaped as circles, rectangles, and polygons and there are different coordinates that need to be recorded for each shape. For further information and ideas on image mapping visit:

http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/tech/imagemapexample/imagemap.htm
or
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_map.asp

The image maps are made in a TextEdit document and saved as a html file that can then be uploaded to the web, along with the images that are mapped. Once all the files are uploaded, the interlinked website will hopefully work.

The medium is the massage

Marshall McLuhan's works and writings on communication and media brought about a new way of thinking about such subjects. It is said that "During his lifetime McLuhan did more than any other individual to interest the general public in communication study". Sparking interest in how people thought about the media and communication techniques made McLuhan a popular Media Theorist and writer. The fact that he thought electronic media would bring the world together as a "global village", prior to the World Wide Web even being invented, is quite astounding.
Reading the "medium is the massage" and listening to the recording were two completley different experiances and the differences back up what McLuhan was talking about. When I was reading it it was hard to stay focused, but when I listened to the recording, I found myself turning up the volume so that I wouldn't miss anything. In today's world, Communication is at a point that is quite new and exiting. With the internet, information and text is globally accessiable and boundries are collapsing. Digital media of today can be delivered in so many new and unique ways and regular printed text can almost be completley overridden by the digital age.

Analog and Digital Media differ greatly, but in the end both produce a wave that plays as a sound, however, Digital is much more complicated than Analog. Analog recordings take an analog wave from a microphone and put an analog wave directly on a tape and when that wave is read and amplified, a sound is produced. In digital media, the analog wave is sampled at an interval and those samples are turned into numbers that are stored digitally. TO produce a sound from digital media, the samples or numbers are turned into a voltage wave that approximates the original analog wave. Cassette tapes are analog and Cd's are digital.

Google and Doubleclick merger

If Google.com and Doubleclick.com are allowed to merge together, they will hold 80% of the advertising on the internet as their own. Companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo are extremely opposed to this possible merger, but I think that is mostly due to the fact that they missed out on getting doubleclick.com for themselves. Those companies that oppose the merger are making it a point to bring doubleclick.com's "technique" into the eyes of the public and the lawmakers in order to prevent the two companies from being able to merge together. Doubleclick.com uses IP addresses to build user profiles that use cookies to show where on the web and what sites users cisit, so that they can narrow down their advertising to be user specific and this is where much of the controversy is. Using cookies to track users is treading a thin line between spyware and good business. I've noticed while browsing the web, that some sites allready tend to do some "tracking" in order to display advertisements that are more prone to be clicked by a specific user. On Myspace.com, there is a section of "sponsered links" that for me, are always related to Volkswagens. While I've never actually clicked any of those links, which means their selective advertising isn't totally effective, I know understand what they are trying to do. Having personal information tracked and stored, without my knowledge, does seem like it should be a bit illegal, so it might be a good idea for lawmakers to put a stop to the google and doubleclick merge, before it becomes the largest internet advertising firm and before they have more personal information stored on computer users than anyone else.